It's a tough economic climate out there, but a 'land and expand' strategy is delivering customers for RightNow Technologies.
“Our sales teams delivered our highest total bookings in any quarter over the last two years with total contract value of over $46 million. In the current environment we believe this is a tremendous achievement,” says Greg Gianforte, CEO of RightNow Technologies. “While discretionary spending in IT department is very tight these days, many of our clients view RightNow as essential not discretionary.
“Talk to any high level executive and they are all say in the same thing. Find a way to cut cost but be sure to keep our existing customers. New customers are hard to find, so if companies do not protect their existing customers they are in trouble. Looking forward, executives have realised that they have to focus on improving the customers’ experience even in tough times.”
Gianforte picks out a number of customers who have been making just such investment in recent times. “We signed a large deal this quarter with Sam’s Club, who is a new customer,” he notes. “Our solutions have particular appeal to companies who deal with millions of customers in highly competitive markets. Sam’s Club fits this description very well. Even more critically they operate in the market where margins are extremely tight. So, any advantage that can be gained in terms of cost containment and customer satisfaction is paramount.
“We started with a three-week pilot at the end of September and we were able to immediately demonstrate tangible value with an 18% reduction in telephone call volume and a 50% reduction in customer emails. This measurable ROI helped our internal sponsor elevate RightNow high on their IT priorities and get the deal done in Q4. It is not unusual for us to convert pilots to full engagement this quickly. They started with rep sales service, the cornerstone of our 'land and expand' strategy.
“Another key element of this strategy is our ability to show value in one division or geography of a global organisation and then that expands into other divisions and territories. Symantec has been a RightNow customer for years. We have four deployments in three divisions with Symantec. This covers approximately 1800 desktops which is terrific penetration, but does not really even begin to scratch the surface of the whole opportunity. This past quarter we engaged with yet another division of Symantec that was undergoing a cost reduction effort, including a complete overhaul of poor infrastructure. The existing good points within other divisions of Symantec give us a leg-off in the evaluation and they chose our entire service product for hundreds of additional call industries, with global support and multiple languages, to replace a legacy system based on Clarity.”
Common refrains
Gianforte reckons that there are common refrains that can be heard from C-level executives across all industry sectors at the moment. “Over the past year I visited in person more than 200 individual clients around the world and I have been hearing some consistent themes,” he says. “Number one, times are tough. The projects are still getting done and forcing some tough decision. Often our discussion start with the economy, but just as quickly turns to key initiatives related the keeping existing customers or driving costs out of the business.
“There is a consensus that now is not the time to be complacent or satisfied with the status quo. Tough times are forcing companies to make some tough decisions they know need to make and better align resources with the priorities. This is good. The best companies are making these moves aggressively and this is creating projects for us.
“Number two, customer experience is a mainstream key competitive strategy. Most organisations I have met with had identified customer experience as the key strategy. There is more working to implement a programme of incremental improvement as opposed to bloated monolithic projects. This aligns very well with our land and expand strategy. Some customers are more focused on cost reduction, other son revenue enhancement, but there is a universal agreement that improving the customer experience is the best way to keep and expand the customer base.
“And number three, our clients look to us as ‘the experts’ and they want us to lead them. They hire us because of our expertise in the areas of service, customer experience and call centre transformation. We have completed a thousand of projects and 1,000 of lessons and they expect the benefit from those lessons.”