centurylink webinar: transforming sales operations to increase customer retention
TRANSCRIPT
How CenturyLink Transformed Sales Effectiveness to Increase
Customer Retention
John Serdinsky, Director Sales Effectiveness, CenturyLink
Praful Saklani, CEO, PramataJune 9, 2015
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CenturyLink: Global IT Solutions Partner
2008 2011-2012 2013-20141930
FORTUNE 158
TOP 3 COMMUNICATIONS PROVIDER
20% WORLD’S INTERNET TRAFFIC
$18B REVENUE
48,000 EMPLOYEES
98% FORTUNE 500
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CenturyLink North American Network and Data Centers
• Connected to 45 North American data centers
• Plus another 200+ third party data centers
• Own and operate ~240,000 U.S. fiber route miles
DATA CENTERS
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DATA CENTERS
CenturyLink International Network and Data Centers
• Connected to 12 international data centers
• Plus another 200+ third party data centers
• Own or lease over 280,000 international fiber route miles
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CenturyLink Business
FLEXIBLE/AGILE
EXPERIENCED
+ +
EXPANSIVE PORTFOLIO
COLLABORATIVE
+
• Approximately 1,500 Frontline Sales Professionals• Over 6,000 Salesforce.com users• Plus another 2,000 Partner users
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Our Current Strategic Objectives
• Retain and grow enterprise customers to fuel profitable revenue growth
• Increase share of wallet within our enterprise customers
• Acquire new customers through targeted hunting
• Drive more solution selling of strategic products such as hosting and managed services
• Engage with customers based on 360° view of both legacy and acquired accounts
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Sales Effectiveness Overview
Contacts Locations
Accounts
Contracts
Orders
Disputes
RepairTickets
Social
Customers
• The CenturyLink Sales Effectiveness practice is focused on driving sales and revenue growth in the business segment by leveraging excellence & alignment in the following functional areas: Pro
gram
Mgt.
Syste
ms
&
Tools
Sales
Proce
ss
Trai
ning &
Onboard
ing
Compen
satio
n
Coachin
g
Report
ing
Planning
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Retention is the Foundation for Our Growth
MRR Sales
Retaining enterprise customers is critical to ensuring revenue growth in the mature marketplace for voice and data
Churn
MRR
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A “Hands On” Approach Retains More Revenue
Historical data shows that we retain 27% more revenue when sales professionals actively work expiring contracts…Opportunities Worked by Sales Professionals
Billing prior to expiration
Opportunities Not Workedby Sales Professionals
Billing after expiration
0% -27%
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“Hands On” Engagement – and Customer Retention – Suffer Due to Imbalance of Non-
Selling Time“The hardest part is to understand what’s going on at the customer. This gives a lot of information to “start” my research.”
Enterprise Sales Professional
“I can look holistically this way and treat my customers as one business.”
Global Sales Professional
“…This whole thing makes me a highly paid Admin. 4 days a week, I am cemented to my chair typing on the computer. Is this what you want?”
Global Sales Professional
“I spend more time internally focused on SFA, POM, Blue Sheets, retention/renewals, technical approvals, etc. than I do selling to the customer. In my mind, it should be the other way around.”
Enterprise Sales Professional
“It has the upcoming expiration and also other opportunities so I don’t need to contact the customer twice.”
GES Sales Professional25%
28%
47%
DIRECT INDIRECT
NON-SELLING“If I had the ability to pull up the contract myself it would be more efficient.”Global Sales Professional
“This has everything I need to call someone..”GES Sales Professional
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Empowering the Retention Process with Data from Contracts
• Less time hunting for data, more time selling
• Quickly identify expiring deals and renewal opportunities
• Contract and document hierarchy
• Integrated with billing and CRM data
• Accurate and up-to-date
• Presented within SFDC
• Identify -> create opportunity with one click
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Pramata in CenturyLink SFDC
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First Phase Implementation in Seven Months
Sales team efficiency: Elimination of cover sheets for all new contracts
Sales Ops Efficiency: Elimination of contract entry into iLink
Sales Team Efficiency: Reduced time searching for and requesting contracts
Estimated Time To Complete a Cover
Sheet
Hours Saved by Eliminating Cover
Sheets
Estimated Time To Enter Contract into iLink
Hours Saved by Eliminating iLink Contract
Entry
Estimated Documents Accessed per Year
Amount of Time Saved per Document
Total Hours Saved per Year
250,000
3 Minutes
12,500
30 minutes
14,000
10 minutes
4,667
$1.5 million revenue contribution in year one
4.5% improvement in retention of at risk revenue
15% increase in active selling time
325,000 contracts/ 49,000+ customer relationships loaded into Pramata
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High Impact + Positive ChangeExtensive Field Survey 2014
38%
33%
8%
7%
7%
4% 3%Other
Pramata
BSG/CTS SFDC Consolidation
CPQ
SDP Enhancements
SOV/SORRT Enhancement/Implementation
SalesLink Implementation (Acquisition Channel only)
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Most Impactful ChangeExtensive Field Survey 2014
Word CountTime 86
Contract 69
Pramata 63
Sale 60
Help 54
AC 51
Process 50
Order 46
Year 42
More 41
Here 39
New 38
CPQ 33
Easier 31
Last 30
Work 30
SFA 30
16
Key Questions That Drive Revenue Retention and Growth
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Are there any volume commitments associated with this customer?
Are there unique commitments that I need to know about?
When should I engage based on expiration dates?
What is the core documentation I already have in place? ?
Is there a clean master I can use for this deal?
What percentage of revenue from this customer is strategic?
Is this a good target for selling additional services?
What discounts are have already been approved?
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Iterative, Three Phase Approach to Using Data from Contracts to Help Improve
Retention
Rapidly organize contract documents and customer data in a central place
Provide a deeper understanding of the customer inside CRM by integrating billing data with contract data to
Drive sales team outcomes through guided selling by leveraging current customer data for context-based actions, predictive analytics, and Customer 360
1
2
3
2014 Current Next 12 months
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Building Momentum in the Second Phase Implementation
35% increase in the number of retention opportunities identified and created
25% increase in the number of users creating opportunities
29% increase in “won” opportunities
51% of sales team survey respondents saving time getting ‘the right’ customer information
✔ 10 – 15 minutes of sales reps’ time saved per opportunity
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A Single Version of the Truth Across the Company
Sales Operations
USER COMMUNITIES Operations
Legal Finance
Sales
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Tools & Technologies Help Sales Be More “Hands On”
Create a coherent, single view of our customers, regardless of legacy company or services, that can be used by anyone who engages with a customer.
Contacts Locations
Accounts
Contracts
Opptys
Orders
Disputes
RepairTickets
Social
Customers
Pramata
Salesforce.com
CP
Q
Docu
sig
n Salesforce.com creates the single pane of glass for our reps and support resources to understand all aspects of customer interaction
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Two Companies, One Team
Sales Operations Operations
Legal Finance
Sales
• Close collaboration and discovery• Partner mindset from
the start• In real time and against
project milestones• Iteration and refinement
based on real data and user feedback
