For fast scaling without any growing pains, psychometric assessment business Revelian removed roadblocks from its quoting process.
Just a few years ago Revelian was a small business operating out of Brisbane, but our goals were grand. We had a strong desire to take our products and services to the global market, but in a consistent and scalable way.
We had little appetite for the opening of new offices and the operational, legal and tax considerations that comes with that. But we also didn’t want the inevitable customer churn that comes when a business focuses too strongly on growth. Selling products online with a pay-as-you-go or subscription-type offering meant we faced the same challenges as just about every other online business.
So how did we get to where we are now – with multinational clients such as IBM, KPMG, Johnson & Johnson and more, and with low client churn? How did we scale comfortably and quickly to a point that made us so attractive to the market that we were recently acquired by a US-based employment analytics company?
Actually, our success, then and now, had a lot to do with the fact that we adopted Salesforce CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) as our baseline for best-of-breed account management and retention.
Here’s what happened on that journey.
We simplified the sales process
Early in our Revelian growth journey, we realised we were too focused on selling solutions to our clients in a very bespoke way. We wanted to instead move to a subscription model and make the sales process less complex.
Because of the long, complex set-up process, if a client required less services from us it was difficult for them to downscale and sometimes easier to simply end the relationship.
A Salesforce CPQ system changed all of that.
It reduced workload, sped up processes, removed user error, improved cashflow and offered full transparency and powerful analytics. Most impressively, it exceeded customer expectations and meant staff could get on with doing high-value tasks rather than getting bogged down in the drudgery of administration. Something we didn’t have when we relied on clunky, manual quote-to-cash processes
We went for growth
With CPQ we had visibility across the organisation – it was our single source of data truth. The powerful analytic processes enable us to enter a new level of agility. There’s no denying that the power of vision a CPQ system provides is incredibly valuable.
We identified new prospects and leads and were able to act on them immediately. We didn’t just sell recruitment assessments but also developed talent management assessments, as our data showed us exactly what the market desired. We could toggle new products and services on and off within existing agreements, thanks to the flexibility a CPQ system offered us.
We reduced churn
As Software as a Service (SaaS) models become increasingly popular, we quickly saw the benefits of introducing a subscription model.
We retained customers for longer, which is better for the business overall and lowers the cost of delivery. And for the customer it’s also beneficial as they’re working within a known budget and without nasty surprises.
Of course, when an offering is even mildly multifaceted, complexity increases. This complexity can lead to longer sales processes and inconsistencies and errors in the sales process. This reduces customer confidence in the business.
In such an administration-heavy environment it is easy to lose track of individual customer journeys, particularly as subscription comes up for renewal. In terms of churn, that is a very dangerous place to be, but with CPQ and having a single source of data truth, we have been able to reduced our client churn.
We became a trusted advisor
During the months that Australia was heavily impacted by the COVID-19 business interruption, we continued to experience consistent revenues. How? Because our subscription model we were working within gave us and our clients flexibility. At the same time, our clients experienced price surety. And so we became a trusted advisor to them, rather than a subscription provider that could be switched off when the going got tough.
Salesforce absolutely has been the anchor point for our reporting, our growth, for various processes during the sale of the business, for increasing recurring revenue and for reducing churn. And CPQ has played and continues to play a large part in our success.
Hear more of Revelian’s growth story and how SaaS companies can retain customers and beat the churn in our on-demand webinar.
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