Dear SaaStr: A big customer payed for a year but doesn’t use the product. Should I just mark them as churned?
No.
Instead, what you should try to do is renew them, especially in the enterprise.
I’ve had many customers, especially big old customers, get excited, plan and buy … and then for internal reasons, deployment got pushed out.
Many of them never used the product at all in Year 1. Yet, almost all (several brand names) renewed!
Why?
- First, they’d already budgeted for it. So the renewal was still realistic.
- Second, they still wanted to make the business process change and had picked their vendor of choice. So why change, even if deployment was delayed?
- Third, sometimes they just got ahead of internal resources. They didn’t end up having an internal team to deploy the app, but they still want to.
So yes, it’s a big bummer when a larger customer buys but doesn’t use.
But that may only mean, not yet.
Treat them as a much more realistic renewal than your gut tells you. Keep checking in and seeing how you can help get things rolling. Don’t hide from the lack of activation. That doesn’t help.
And just go out and ask them what you can do to help to speed up the deployment.
The post Dear SaaStr: A Big Customer Paid But Doesn’t Use Our Product. Should I Count Them as Churned? appeared first on SaaStr.
via https://www.aiupnow.com
Jason Lemkin, Khareem Sudlow
