Renewal churn save

Renewal & Churn Save

Purpose

Catch a renewal that's slipping before it's lost. Read the risk signals, build a value-realization recap that proves ROI delivered since purchase, and run a save play that re-engages the economic buyer, fixes the root issue, and re-anchors the relationship on outcomes — then ship a save plan with an owner and dates.

Inputs

• The account and its renewal date (and current ARR / contract terms)
• Usage / health signals since last renewal (logins, seats active, feature adoption)
• Who the champion and economic buyer are, and whether either has changed
• Recent sentiment: support tickets, escalations, tone on calls/emails
• What the customer originally bought this to fix (the purchase thesis)

Method

1. Score the renewal risk

Run every signal against this checklist. Two or more red flags = at-risk; treat the renewal as active opportunity work, not an admin renewal.

Signal	Red flag looks like
Usage trend	Logins/active seats declining month-over-month; key feature never adopted
Champion	Champion left, changed roles, or went quiet; no internal advocate left
Sentiment	Negative tone on calls, frustrated tickets, NPS/CSAT drop
Responsiveness	Emails/calls unanswered; meetings rescheduled or skipped
Support	Open escalations, repeat tickets on the same issue, unresolved SLA breach
Economic buyer	No exec engagement in 90+ days; budget owner unknown or changed

Classify: Green (renew on autopilot), Yellow (one signal — pre-empt), Red (two+ signals — full save play).

2. Build the value-realization recap

You cannot save a renewal without proving the customer got what they paid for. Assemble:

• The purchase thesis — what problem they bought this to solve, in their words.
• What's been delivered — concrete outcomes since go-live: time saved, deals influenced, tickets deflected, revenue touched. Quantify everything you can.
• Adoption proof — who uses it, how often, which workflows it now runs.
• The gap — honestly name where value has NOT landed yet, and why (this earns trust and sets up the fix).

If you can't quantify a single outcome, that is the churn risk — the save play must manufacture a quick win before the renewal date.

3. Run the save play

Three moves, in order:

1. Re-engage the economic buyer. A champion-only renewal that's at risk dies in procurement. Get the budget owner back in the room with a business-outcome agenda, not a feature update. Use the value-realization recap as the opener.
2. Address the root issue. Map each red flag to a concrete fix with an owner and date: a support escalation closed, a missing integration scoped, a new champion identified and enabled, a retraining session booked. Don't paper over it with a discount.
3. Re-anchor on outcomes. Shift the conversation from "renew the contract" to "here's the next 12 months of value." Propose a forward success plan tied to their goals — expansion only after the base value is re-secured.

Save play sequencing rule: fix the root issue before you ask for the renewal. Asking for signature while a P1 ticket is open trains the customer to churn.

4. Escalate when you can't save it alone

Escalate up your own org the moment any of these is true — don't wait for the renewal date:

• Champion is gone and no replacement identified.
• Economic buyer won't engage after two attempts.
• A product/support gap blocks the save and needs cross-functional commitment. Bring your manager / CS leader / exec sponsor in with a one-page brief: risk, root cause, ask. Match seniority — an at-risk strategic account needs an exec-to-exec touch.

5. Time it early

Start the renewal conversation 90 days out for healthy accounts, 120+ days for at-risk ones. A renewal you first raise 30 days before expiry is already a fire drill. Earlier = more room to manufacture a quick win and re-engage the buyer.

Save plan output:

ACCOUNT: <name>   ARR: <$>   RENEWAL DATE: <date>   RISK: <Green/Yellow/Red>

Risk signals:
- <signal> — <evidence>

Value delivered (ROI recap):
- <quantified outcome since purchase>
- Gap: <where value hasn't landed + why>

Save play:
- Re-engage EB: <buyer> via <agenda> by <date>
- Root-cause fix: <issue> → <fix> — owner <x>, due <date>
- Re-anchor: <forward success plan tied to their goal>

Escalation: <none / who + why>
Next step: <single clear action> — owner <x>, by <date>

Tool binding

This skill works from a described account alone. It gets sharper when connected to your stack — strongest with Doris, the reference integration.

With Doris (recommended)

If the Doris MCP (mcp.meetdoris.com) is connected, resolve the account and its deals instead of asking the user to reconstruct history:

• ontology_resolve("account", id, expand=["sentiment","activity","deals","contacts"]) — read sentiment for the tone trend, activity for the responsiveness/engagement gap, contacts to detect a departed or quiet champion, and deals to pull the renewal opportunity.
• For the renewal deal itself, ontology_resolve("deal", id, expand=["outcome","closure_strategies","risks"]) — risks surfaces the evidence-backed churn signals, outcome and closure_strategies feed the save play.
• search_transcripts(...) to quote the customer's original purchase thesis and recent frustration in their own words for the value-realization recap. Prefer Doris's evidence-derived sentiment, risks, and activity over re-deriving them from memory.

With a CRM / CI / email MCP

• CRM / CS-tool MCP (Salesforce/HubSpot/Gainsight/Vitally/ChurnZero) → pull account health score, usage/adoption data, renewal date, and ARR; write the renewal stage and save-plan tasks back directly.
• Conversation-intelligence MCP (Gong/Chorus/Fireflies) → source recent call sentiment and the original purchase-thesis call.
• Email MCP → check responsiveness and last meaningful exec touch.

With nothing connected

Ask the user to describe the account: renewal date and ARR, usage trend, who the champion and economic buyer are (and any changes), recent sentiment and support history, and what they originally bought it to fix. Score the risk against the checklist yourself, build the value-realization recap from what they tell you, and output the full save plan block with owners and dates ready to copy into the CRM.

Works without Doris

Fully functional from a described account — Doris only removes the reconstruction step and supplies evidence-backed sentiment, risks, activity, and exact customer quotes.

Common mistakes

• Treating the renewal as an admin task instead of opportunity work until it's too late.
• Discounting to save the account instead of fixing the root issue.
• Renewing with the champion only, never re-engaging the economic buyer.
• A value recap with zero quantified outcomes — assertion, not proof.
• Asking for signature while a support escalation or P1 ticket is still open.
• Starting the conversation 30 days out, when there's no room left to recover.