If you’ve worked in SaaS long enough, chances are, you know that not all churn management software is created equal. And that finding the right solution to achieve your goals can be a frustrating and time-consuming task.

While nobody wants to admit it, we’ve all fallen victim to that snake oil salesman who promises their solution is the best thing to hit the market. And we’ve all had to troubleshoot our way through after learning the tool is cumbersome to use and clunky to operate.

How can you avoid this fate when selecting churn management software?

We’ve put together this helpful checklist of questions to ask and requirements to vet to ensure any solution you select is going to work seamlessly to drive down your churn rate.

Your complete checklist for choosing a churn management solution

Setting Up and Getting Started

When you’re ready to pull the trigger on investing in software to drive down your churn, you need it to work, like, yesterday. With each passing day, you’re missing opportunities to understand why people aren’t renewing and serve up customized offers to win them back. When you consider it costs up to 7x more to acquire a new customer than to retain an old one, this can mean missing out on real revenue.

Making sure a solution is easy to integrate and set up is a breeze is critical to seeing quick results for your churn management program. Ask any provider the following questions to understand what it’ll take to get up and running.

• Does your solution integrate with systems already in place? The very first thing you need to understand is how the solution will embed into your existing billing platform and CRM. Having a churn management software that connects seamlessly to both of these systems will bring important efficiencies to your program. It will give you a 360 view of the customer with a single source of truth to make educated win-back recommendations while also allowing you to easily create pricing and promotion offers. If a pre-built integration doesn’t exist, consider asking if you could be a beta client to build a new integration at a discounted price.

• What is the UX for the point-of-cancellation form? When dealing with customers who are at point-of-cancellation, simple straightforward communications with a seamless UX is critical. These customers are already one foot out the door and are not going to spend a single second responding to an exit survey if it’s clunky to navigate. Conducting a thorough demo — or even asking for a free trial to play with — is worth the extra effort.

• Does it host data in one place for a comprehensive view of the customer? Starting a churn management program means you’re going to start collecting an abundance of data. But as anyone working in SaaS knows, data is only as useful as your ability to access, segment, and organize it. Learning how this data is compiled, hosted, and accessed could make or break your program.

• What templates come pre-built to get up and running quickly? You need to get up and running ASAP. And the good thing is, you’re not trying to do something that’s never been done before. Look for a tool that comes with pre-built reusable components that can be mixed and matched to create a powerful cancellation experience that customers won’t hate, that reinforces value and cuts churn. Having a pre-built foundation to start from means your program can be set up in a matter of days.

• How does the company determine and prioritize its product roadmap? The SaaS industry moves fast. You need a churn management partner who moves faster. A primary benefit of outsourcing your churn management tool versus building one in-house is that you have a team that is solely focused on keeping up with evolving customer preferences and industry trends. You should be confident that the solution you choose is set up to achieve results today and grow with you as your business grows.

Features & Functionality

Getting up and running fast is half the battle. You then need a solution that is nimble, customizable, and easy to operate. Considering consumers are willing to pay up to 16% more on products and services that provide a great customer experience, every touchpoint matters. The following questions will make sure you’re going in eyes wide open on the churn management software’s features and functionality so that you can determine the right resource allocation, team involvement, and overall strategies needed to make the program a success.

• Does the tool use automation / machine learning to get smarter over time? A tool that uses automation and machine learning to continually improve is essential in this fast-paced environment. You want a solution that uses smart automation to serve up the right win-back strategy based on historical data and each users’ specific instance.

• What kind of segmentation is possible? As you’re building your churn management program, you’ll want to segment customers based on a variety of factors. Understanding things such as how long they’ve been a subscriber, usage habits, and the reason they're canceling will ultimately help you determine the likelihood you can win them back and what strategy will be best received.

• Does it require dev time to make changes? Chances are your developers are heads down working on your product and don’t have extra time to invest in making updates to a new tool. Find a solution that can be easily managed by your marketing or customer success teams without requiring them to book dev time.

• Can you conduct A/B testing? Your marketing and customer success leaders likely have a hunch of why customers aren’t renewing and what might be a successful strategy to entice them to stay. But we can’t leave the fate of our business to a hunch. Conducting A/B tests allows you to test your hypothesis and learn what promotion is best for each audience segment to achieve the desired results.

• Can it keep up with the fast-paced nature of your business? Don’t just look for a tool that works with your business today. Spend time considering how you want your business to grow over the next few years — how your product offering might change, what new subscription models you may introduce, how your team will grow, etc. Make sure the solution you choose can support you through each phase of growth.

• What are the performance measurement capabilities? A churn management program is only as good as the results it generates. Ensuring the solution you select has reporting capabilities including customer win-back numbers, churn reduction rate, revenue generated, and MRR recovered will help you understand the program's overall ROI and get smarter about setting churn management goals for your business.

Ultimately, when searching for a churn management software, you need to complete extensive due diligence to ensure you understand both the tool as well as the company behind it. It should feel like a true partnership in which the solution provider is arming you with their knowledge and expertise to help you create a program that will successfully drive down your churn and grow your revenue.

With ProsperStack’s hosted cancellation flow, in a matter of hours, you can start retaining your customers, driving down your churn rate, and growing your revenue. Schedule a demo and start reducing your churn today.