How to Use Salesforce Data to Drive Customer Retention and Revenue

Driving customer retention and improving your GTM strategy starts with connecting your data in Salesforce.

Kathleen Booth is the SVP of Marketing and Growth at Pavilion, a private global community of go-to-market executives.

She recently joined the Revenue Optimists to share her insights on driving customer retention, reducing churn rates, and improving the customer experience.

Here’s a look at the biggest insights that she shared in her interview with Traction Complete’s David Nelson.

How can you use Salesforce as a Customer Data Platform (CDP)?

Pavilion successfully uses Salesforce as a CDP by uniting data from several different platforms. Pulling in data from Slack and their Learning Management System (LMS) into Salesforce allowed the business to build a unified view of the customer at an individual level.

Once Pavilion connected the data, its Ops team conducted a cohort-based regression analysis to identify the specific activities and behaviors of their members, as well as which ones correlate with customer retention and satisfaction.

This analysis revealed key insights into member health – for example, they found that members who take a course, are active in Slack, and attend specific events are more likely to renew.

Three ways to use customer data to drive customer retention and GTM strategy

Empowered with a joint view of their customer data in Salesforce, Kathleen and Pavilion found three different ways to use that data to drive customer retention and their go-to-market:

• Good Path Score (GPS): Pavilion and its Ops team developed a “good path score” (GPS). This composite health score, which they visualize through colours of green, gold, and red, reflect a member’s engagement based on their tracked behaviors within Salesforce. This score then serves as a real-time indicator of a member’s likelihood to renew.
• Intervention sequences: Based on a member’s GPS, the team can also trigger intervention sequences for members that may have a lower or declining score. This proactive approach allows Pavilion to reach out and re-engage members who may be at risk of not renewing, ultimately improving renewal rates and combatting churn.
• Improving GTM with customer data: The customer insights that came from connecting their Slack and LMS also helped improve their GTM strategy. For starters, Pavilion was able to set better expectations with prospective members by highlighting the specific activities and engagements that lead to value within their community.

Setting these expectations contributed to improved longevity of their customers and an increased lifetime value. This also created a broader positive impact by improving word of mouth, Net Promoter Score (NPS), and their value proposition.

Overall, by breaking down the silos within their customer data, Pavilion was able to gain actionable insights into driving retention and satisfaction, leading to revenue growth and stronger customer relationships.

Roll-up customer data to eliminate churn

Tools like Gainsight, ChurnZero, and Totango are often used to improve customer retention, drive growth, and enhance the customer experience – but those tools (and their data) live outside of Salesforce. 

Like Kathleen and Pavilion, not only can you leverage your account and customer data in Salesforce to improve your GTM strategy, you can also use it to reduce churn and improve net retention.

Customer usage metrics serve as early indicators of churn risk. Here are key metrics that businesses can leverage to identify at-risk customers before they leave:

• How many API calls?IS there a declining trend?
• Has the sentiment changed on these calls?
• How many logins are there? How active are these customers?
• How many cases?What’s the sentiment?

You can also roll-up customer usage metrics across an account or hierarchy with custom fields.

Firmographic data, combined with account hierarchies, can help you identify where churn is occurring:

• Is it a specific company size by employee or sales volume?
• A specific geographic area?
• Specific industry verticals?
• A company with a specific number of locations in the account hierarchy?

Looking for more insights from RevOps leaders or how to retain and grow customers?

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Need the proven strategies that can help you grow and retain your revenue? Download the CRO’s Account Hierarchy Guide, a free playbook on How to Improve Net Retention & Expansion.