Low-Dollar Renewals: The Real Cost of Losing

Businesses often overlook low-dollar renewals due to their sheer volume and involved efforts, however, the often underestimated low-dollar renewals play a more substantial role than meets the eye. This blog talks about the broader impact of missing out on low-dollar (or any) renewals. It’s not just about losing money now – find out how it could mean losing that account forever and all future business opportunities.

Low-dollar, high-volume renewals (also known as longtail renewals) encompass maintenance contracts or subscriptions that, individually, may seem modest in value but collectively contribute significantly because of their volume. Though smaller in value, they are pivotal for sustaining seamless operations, and ensuring that businesses retain access to essential tools and support.

Sometimes, businesses tend to overlook smaller renewal deals because they seem less valuable on their own, and handling a large number of them manually can be challenging and uneconomical. A typical renewal quote requires 15-30 mins of work, and having hundreds of such renewals plus subsequent interactions can quickly add up to several weeks of work. This becomes even more complex in multi-tiered channels involving vendors, distributors, and resellers, increasing the chance of missing out on these deals. Organizations and sales teams often prioritize high-value renewals, which makes sense, but the downside is that they lose out on low-dollar, high-volume deals, which cumulatively contribute to lower revenue and customer retention metrics.

Research indicates that longtail renewal rates are only 15-20% of the total ATR (Available To Renew) pipelines across vendors, underscoring the missed opportunities in the overall revenue stream.

• Immediate Revenue Impact: While each renewal may seem small, the collective loss can have a noticeable effect on revenue.
• Competition Winning Your Accounts: When renewals are overlooked, it opens the door for competitors to step in and win over your customers. This not only means losing out on immediate revenue but can lead to a permanent loss of the account. It’s like leaving the gate open for rivals to snatch away valuable customers, impacting the long-term relationship, future up-sell business, and revenue streams.
• Missed Upsell Opportunities: Renewing low-dollar renewals isn’t just about maintaining the status quo; it opens the door to exciting possibilities. Successfully renewing low-dollar contracts serves as a springboard for exploring upselling opportunities. Think of it as the chance to introduce additional features, services, or upgraded plans to your existing customers – a win-win situation where clients get more value, and your business expands its offerings, contributing to overall growth.
• Negative Customer Experience: When renewals for software and devices are neglected, it creates a gap in support that can result in unsatisfactory customer experiences, especially when issues crop up. Picture this scenario: a customer encounters a problem with a device covered by an expired renewal, and there’s no support in place – frustration and dissatisfaction are inevitable – leading to lower Net Promoter Scores and loss of loyalty.
• Missed Vendor/OEM Rebates: Ignoring low-dollar renewals deprives businesses of potential savings through missed rebate opportunities. Vendors frequently offer additional rebates for meeting the renewals targets, making it crucial to actively pursue and capitalize on these incentives.

Organizations ignore low-dollar, high-volume deals because of the high amount of manual work resulting in very small margins. The way forward for these long-tail renewals lies in Zero-touch renewal automation for these long-tail renewal opportunities. Imagine having a helpful digital assistant who takes care of all those renewals – from notifications to quotes, reminders, order closure, and payments – even tech-refresh opportunities. Zero-touch automation streamlines the renewal management by:

• Automating outcome-driven renewal workflows by sending notifications, quotes, and reminders to the end customers – with visibility to the action taken on them.
• Automating payments: Ensuring timely and hassle-free payments for low-dollar transactions.
• Supporting Multi-vendor renewals for Distis and Resellers: Enable automation for renewals across multiple vendors, ensuring that the advantages are widespread and not limited to just one or two suppliers.
• Integrating upsell/cross-sell: Tech refresh process based on LDoS (Last Date of Support) and white space along with the renewals.
• Identifying Contact-ability information such as email addresses and phone numbers of the end customers.
• Order Closure Automation: Simplifying the closure process after successful renewal processing.

It is crucial for organizations to realize just how important those seemingly small, low-dollar renewals are. Ignoring them leads to significant problems, from revenue hits to unhappy customers and reduced market share with lost customers forever. By embracing this zero-touch renewal automation, businesses not only protect their revenue but also keep customers happy and set the stage for exciting growth.

Yagna iQ is a Gartner and Forrester-recognized Zero touch renewal automation and solution serving 10000+ vendors, distributors, and resellers.

Contact us at sales@yagnaiq.com or book a demo to know more about Low Dollar, high volume renewal automation.