Owning renewals gives your CS team a seat at the table, but are your CSMs ready?
Is the solution to fix the process or the infrastructure supporting it?
A recent conversation with a former colleague turned to the challenges his CS team is having managing customer renewals. He’d all but resigned himself to a status quo of clunky, complicated and time-consuming renewals. And he’s not alone.
of SaaS companies say they have a formal renewal process
say their renewal process is effective
BetterCloud's 2025 State of SaaS Report
At the same time, the SaaS industry is moving toward more CS teams owning renewals. According to Churn Zero’s 2025 Revenue Leadership Study, the number of CS teams that own renewals crept up to 54% in 2025 (from 51% in 2024). Is the wide dissatisfaction with existing renewal processes a harbinger of doom for CS teams? Perhaps a better question is, are we too focused on the process itself over the infrastructure needed to support that process?
Here are a few things I’ve learned that may help those making the leap into owning renewals or those struggling with their existing process.
The renewal is a calendar event, retention is a mindset
Successful renewals aren’t the result of an effective renewal process or diligently following renewal steps so much as your team’s ability to execute an effective, evergreen retention program. Retention programs help CSMs identify value gaps before they become chasms. As we all know, when a customer is achieving sustained value it makes almost everything easier, and that includes the tactical steps of a renewal process.
Don’t underestimate the value of CSM empowerment
Establishing clear (and documented) negotiation levers that specify the terms, thresholds, or concessions CSMs can make on their own vs what needs to be run up an approvals chain significantly increases efficiency and the probability of an on-time renewal. Waiting for an approval risks the customer being occupied with other priorities when you come back to the table.
Side benefit: empowerment is a motivational accelerant for your team.
Train your team to be critical thinking diplomats, not bludgeoning revenue warriors
Our goal is to find the terms that are mutually beneficial for both the customer and the company. We benefit from more contracted annual recurring revenue. What benefit is important to your customer?
If a customer has concerns about a price increase, a concession on the percentage increase in exchange for an additional year or two on their extension could be a win-win for everyone. Alternately, if the customer is in a growth phase, would they be willing to commit to adding a number of new licenses by a specific date in exchange for a concession on the increase? Being able to think critically to find the win/win also helps the CSM protect their relationship as a trusted partner who is there to help the customer achieve continued success.
Legacy contracts can be a silent killer
Although very few people like to review contracts, not knowing what’s hiding in your legacy contracts can block revenue, throw an ill-timed detour into your renewal timeline, or worse, hide critical risk to your team, company, or customers.
If you haven’t already, partner with the relevant people across your business to review all existing contracts and flag terms that need to be revisited ahead of the next renewal, who the CSM needs to include in those discussions, and how many months ahead of the renewal date those discussions need to start. Then establish a regular cadence of contract reviews to protect yourself and your customers.
De-centralized data is the fastest way to make your CSMs hate you
That may sound too extreme but, as the saying goes, hell hath no fury as a CSM forced to traverse multiple spreadsheets, Confluence pages, and data sources to find contract and renewal information. At best, de-centralized data is an efficiency drain that robs time CSMs should be spending on higher level work. At worst, it can cost you actual renewals.
Centralizing 100% of all contract, customer, and renewal data probably isn’t possible, but 90% should be the target. Plus, what’s the point of reviewing your various contracts if you don’t have a central place to flag contract terms and next steps for your CSMs?
Be mindful of renewal task trigger overload
It can be tempting to automate task or reminder triggers for all of your key renewal activities and milestones, but this is an area where less is definitely more. Think of the various automated signals, reminders, or notifications a typical CSM receives for a single account on any given day. Then multiply that by their entire book of business.
Don’t keep your CSMs in the dark
Every individual on your team should have a clear line of sight into how their book of business rolls up to quarterly and annual GRR/NRR commitments and the tools to track their performance in real-time. If they don’t have visibility, they can’t prioritize. And if you don’t have the tools to measure individual performance in real-time, you may miss the chance to prevent a budget shortfall through timely coaching.
Make sure your team understands the financial impact of late renewals
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking, “It’s only a few weeks late,” but a significant percentage of SaaS revenue comes from renewals (up to 90% according to LedgerUp). Missed or late renewals can create weeks or months of delayed cash collection and makes the billing team’s job much more difficult, not to mention the impacts on ARR reporting.
This friction is compounded if the customer was due a price increase but billed at the old price rate. We need our billing and finance friends as partners and making their lives harder erodes that partnership.
Renewals aren’t rocket science, but a lack of infrastructure and an over-reliance on process over customer value can make your CSMs feel like each renewal is the equivalent of a trip to Neptune and force your customers to tag along for a very bumpy ride.