Overcome Pricing Friction to Improve the Closing & Renewal Process

Sellers have a lot on their plate; they’re running deals, updating their CRM, and negotiating pricing and payment terms. Don’t make their lives harder with too many friction points. Join Allex Murphy, Director of Customer Success, Enterprise at Capchase, and Kevin Cragun, Sr. Director of Sales Operations at Domo, to learn how RevOps can drive solutions that reduce common friction points in the closing and renewal process.

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“Nobody wants to be the reason a deal didn’t happen.” - Kevin Cragun

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We ask a lot of our sellers and customer success managers. On top of negotiating with their prospects and customers, we expect them to fight internally for contract concessions like flexible payment terms. Often, companies get in the way of closed business by creating roadblocks, like manual quoting processes, misaligned goals for sales and customer success, and rigid approval requirements.  

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Get ahead by improving internal processes  

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“Do you want the power to stop a deal? If the answer is no, then you don’t need to be in the approval process.” - Kevin Cragun

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When customers ask for monthly or quarterly pricing and terms, sellers are pitted against their internal teams, especially when there’s a lot of financial pressure to secure upfront payments.

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Conflicts like this can mean a deal doesn’t make it across the line. 

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Sellers aren’t the only ones who struggle in this dynamic. Customer success managers must reposition value to their customers at every renewal, often rehashing pricing and payment conversations. It’s important to get ahead of these conversations so AEs and CSMs can serve as champions for customers when flexible terms are truly needed. 

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To avoid delays, focus on streamlining your quoting process before you purchase CPQ tools. This way, you can automate quoting in a way that improves speed and ensures that pricing and payment term approvals aren’t slowing down or stalling your deals. 

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Enforce friction points the right way

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“There’s a distinct difference between pricing your products and determining how a customer wants to pay and on which terms.” - Allex Murphy

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Friction points aren’t all bad and can be useful for enforcing the right deals. For example, customer budgets can change at any time. Adding friction points helps protect your AEs and CSMs from being strong-armed by the customer for pricing and payment terms that won’t be a positive outcome for your company.

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Here are three ways to set up your GTM team for success today: 

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• Automate renewal opportunity creation and buyer/seller notifications in advance. The more transparency you have early on, the better your renewal results. 
• Don’t confuse price with payment terms. Make sure you’re focused on solving the right problem. If cash flow is the issue, a discount won’t solve the problem but flexible payment terms might. 
• Keep sellers focused on customers by removing operational burdens for them. Short-term manual stop gaps can be stressful for revenue operators but they’ll remove pain from your sellers. 

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Tools that can help close deals

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“When it comes to renewal, ensure that everyone is involved so you can build a good case for solving the customer pain.” - Allex Murphy

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Sellers need to focus on value throughout the deal process. When the customer truly understands the value of your solution, using flexible payment terms to address a cash flow problem is more realistic. Tools like Capchase and Domo can help streamline your quoting process and refocus the conversion on value rather than payment. 

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