Tips to Improve Net Revenue Retention

Imagine this. You're sitting in the next board meeting. Revenue looks flat. CAC is climbing. New logo sales are slower than forecast. Everyone turns to you, the CFO. “What’s our plan?” If you don’t have a Net Revenue Retention (NRR) story to tell... You don’t have a story at all. In SaaS, NRR isn’t just a metric. It’s a reflection of how resilient, or fragile, your business really is. → It tells you how much your customers love you. → It shows whether your revenue grows on its own, or if you're trapped on the acquisition treadmill. → It decides if you’re compounding value... or quietly bleeding out. Where does your NRR stand? → < 100% ➔ You’re losing ground. Churn is eating your future. → 100–120% ➔ You’re stable, but expansion isn't pulling its weight yet. → 120%+ ➔ You’re riding a compounding machine. The valuation premiums start here. If you want to move NRR, you need to think like a strategist, not just a scorekeeper. Here is how 👇🏻 1. Expansion-first mindset: ↳ Upsells and cross-sells should be built into the customer journey, not bolted on later. 2. Churn risk radar: ↳ Low usage, late payments, silent accounts, spot them early. Silent customers are halfway out the door. 3. Pricing and packaging that invite upgrades: ↳ Make it easier to buy more, without heavy-handed sales. 4. Customer success as a revenue engine: ↳ Not just a support function. The best Success teams drive expansions without needing a quota. 5. Cohort deep dives: ↳ Not all customers expand equally. Find your power users and clone them. Why this matters even more now? It’s 5x cheaper to expand an existing customer than to acquire a new one. Every 1% improvement in NRR can lift your valuation by 15–20% over five years. High NRR buys you resilience when markets turn, and leverage when opportunities come. We all know the era of “growth at all costs” is dead. NRR-led growth is how you build a durable SaaS business. PS: How aggressively are you planning to move your NRR this year? Because if it's not on your agenda, it's definitely on your competitor's. ♻️ Share this to a finance leader who has outgrown their spreadsheets 🔔 Follow Mariya Valeva for more SaaS finance insights ➡️ And check out Subscript if you’re done paying the hidden tax of manual finance #SubscriptCFOPartner

Hey Salespeople: How Hubspot fixed retention: - All: Obsess over usage and cohort retention. - Leadership: Added customer NPS & NRR to leadership bonus plan - Leadership: Ensure customer-centric topics (NPS, usage, etc.) dominate management team meeting agenda - Leadership: Add a customer panel in all management team meetings and at least one customer in every all-company meeting. - Marketing: Narrow your ICP/persona focus and ensure that flows through too all departments (esp. Product) - Sales: (1) commission clawback for customers that churn early (2) only eligible for accelerators if over a certain NRR. While "exceptionally unpopular, "this 'might' have been the most important one to move the needle." - Services: Added account managers responsible for customers post-implementation who were bonuses on NRR & usage. [JD: aka CSMs] - Product/M&A: Absorb adjacent, high-value customer workflows into your solution either by building or buying. [This extra functionality can be built into the core product or seed a multi-product platform.] - Finance: Maintain healthy investment in R&D even though that puts downward pressure on sales & marketing. Channels: Work with partners [but only if NRR for like-for-like partner sourced accounts is equal to or higher than direct accounts.] Engineering: Build for high performance, high uptime, security, and scalability. Pricing: In addition to a platform fee, add a '2nd axis' tied to usage/value. [This can be 'dynamic' consumption-based or 'static' not-to-exceed.] Source: Brian Halligan LI article (see 1st comment)

Here are 3 B2B email campaigns that I’ve found drive pipeline growth and expansion that you probably aren’t running… 1) Offer an unconverted trial/lead an introduction to a customer email -> Take a cohort of high interest leads, or unconverted trials and send an email with the subject line “Want to talk to a [brand] [their industry] customer?”. You get a small group of actual customers as ambassadors that take these calls and get them on a monthly retainer. The conversion on these calls is phenomenal and I’ve heard again and again this is helpful in understanding exactly how a similar business is using the platform. 2) Check-in email (just because) -> So often when brands reach out, there is an agenda. But an amazing thing is to email customers, offer up a call and just have the intent be to answer any questions, review any flows and overall just help support them. Here are some stats from this campaign: 6% of recipients booked calls AND +38% expansion rate (over next 12 months) for folks who took calls vs. baseline upgrade rate (for same account type cohort). Amazing way to build customer confidence and improve NRR (Net Revenue Retention). 3) Annual upgrade email -> Send an email to customers to upgrade to an annual account at month 2 and month 10 (as well as around renewal). Instead of generic headlines like “You could be saving 20% on an annual plan!”, the best performing emails give the exact amount they could be saving for THEIR account with a merge field, “Did you know you could be saving $4,560/year?”. Trigger that psychology of loss with them. It’s important to note that you want to send these upgrade emails to active accounts, with good customer health, and not to inactive or “at-risk” accounts. It’s also a great idea to send these emails after “advocacy” events, i.e. when a customer leaves a good review or gives you a positive shout on socials.

What if you could reduce headcount on the right side of the bowtie, while at the same time increasing expansion rates? TLDR; Two things: Do away with your one size serves all: focus on accounts with the most white space And Talk to your customers when it matters: more triggered and fewer scheduled touchpoints Using these strategies we have seen clients reduce headcount by 33% paired while increasing retention by 7% (absolute). How does this work? Many CSMs spent their time mostly on the customers who scream loudest, not on the customers that are most deserving of their time.. Instead segment customers by white space and likelihood to expand, then put the low white space clients on a self-service or 1:many path, giving your CSMs and AMs more time to spend with strategic accounts. Note that a strategic account is NOT necessarily the account who has already purchased the most from you or the largest company. Instead strategic accounts are those with the most future potential. Second, think about when your customers wants to hear from you. Move away from purely scheduled check ins to conversations that are triggered by an event, good or bad. Triggers could be something that’s in the news, a new stakeholder, a new product, or signals of concern such as low usage or high customer ticket volume. If you spend more time with your accounts which have most white space, you’ll see more expansion. If you talk to your strategic accounts when it matters most, you’ll see better retention and expansion. Have you deployed any of these strategies in your company? What were the results? #saas #customersuccess #expansion #retention #nrr #churn #revenuearchitecture #bowtie

Raise your hand if you’ve ever struggled to figure out marketing’s role in reaching retention goals. 🙋🏼♀️ That’s me with my hand raised high. As a previous demand marketer I had always been hyper-focused on growing revenue. Specifically growing at all costs in the late 2021, early 2022 days (who else can relate?) Protecting revenue was something I was less familiar with. Which is why I was excited to roll up my sleeves and revamp our 2024 retention playbook with our VP, Client Success this past quarter. Here are five (almost free) strategies that you can steel to start impacting retention: 1. 📊 Implement Client Health Scores: Understanding your client's level of satisfaction with your company is critical. - Categorize clients as healthy, at-risk, or on the verge of terminating. - Once scores are in place, develop targeted 1:1 strategies for clients who are at risk. Think of it as ABM for current clients. 2. 📄 Craft an Executive Summary to accompany your renewal contracts: An engaging executive summary sets the stage for why prices may have increased. - Spotlight key successes from the past year. - Illustrate the value clients can expect in the upcoming year. - Introduce new enhancements or offerings they will see in the renewal proposal. 3. 🖥️ Create a Dedicated Renewal Presentation for you Client Success team: Don’t underestimate the impact a dedicated renewal deck can have. Not only as an external tool, but an internal enablement tool as well. - Use data visuals to emphasize the wins and value derived from the ongoing partnership over the last year. - Highlight areas of growth and potential opportunities. - Make sure your retention teams have a captivating storyline, supplemented with effective visuals so they truly understand what they are delivering. 4. 🌟 Write professional bios to accompany outreach - especially if accounts are changing: Spotlighting the expertise and experience of your retention team members is an easy way to instill confidence in your ability to deliver the commitments in your renewal proposal. - Emphasize the team’s collective knowledge, specialized training, and significant achievements. - Add personal anecdotes for a human touch 5. 📸 Professional Headshots: Make the relationship more personal. - Help clients see and relate to the dedicated individuals behind the scenes. - Maintain a uniform, professional image for the entire team to strengthen brand identity. - Recognizable faces can establish deeper rapport and trust. Remember, while these strategies enhance the retention process, the fundamentals—like a solid product-market fit and genuine expertise—remain at the core of successful client relationships. To those in the retention field, are there any other tools or strategies in your toolkit? Let’s share and learn. Comment below! ⬇️

Something I never really thought of evaluating until we did over $100M... Tracking the retention rate of each salesperson.... This helps me understand what salespeople setup deals for long-term success vs. short term commission. Here are the 3 top retention KPIs I'm working on tracking per rep that you can use to your advantage: 1. Net Revenue Retention (NRR) This metric provides a comprehensive view of the revenue impact of an AE's deals, including expansions and churn. It shows whether their customers are growing with you or shrinking over time. Key Insights: - AEs closing high-NRR deals are selling to the right-fit customers with growth potential. - Highlights which AEs drive long-term account value through upsells and renewals. Customer Churn Rate Churn directly reflects the health of customer relationships and whether the AE set proper expectations during the sales process. It’s simple and highly actionable. Key Insights: - High churn rates signal that AEs may be closing poor-fit deals or overpromising. - Helps focus coaching efforts on improving deal qualification and expectation-setting. First-Year Retention Rate The first year is critical for customer success and retention, often reflecting how well the AE positioned the solution to meet customer needs during the sales process. Key Insights: - A low first-year retention rate suggests misalignment in the initial sales process or poor onboarding handoff. - Pinpoints which AEs are delivering deals that are most likely to stick around. Think about you can evaluate and track retention rates of new customers per rep. Any other data you'd want to track to scale your success? LMK below.