Martech vendors need to engage year-round, not just at renewal time

“We just cancelled a SaaS product we’ve used for three years. Each year, we get the same email from them, a month out from renewal. A new account manager that we haven’t met before, asking for money. It’s the only time we hear from them.”

That’s how Angie Judge, CEO of a New Zealand-based cultural analytics platform Dexibit, lit a fire on LinkedIn that — at time of writing — is still raging. It seems that many, many organizations are deeply unhappy that SaaS vendors, including martech vendors, are failing to engage year-round (especially as they’re able to collect data on usage of their services).

“No health check. No value add. No curiosity at where our company might be encountering new challenges or opportunities and leveling up with our product maturity,” said Judge, adding: “And, this is a five-figure product, not something we pay a few dollars a month for.”

Dig deeper: Real Story on MarTech: Is that vendor a zombie?

Why we care. It’s not news that some martech vendors seem more interested in getting a signature on the contract rather than genuinely partnering with their clients. And there are plenty of good partners in the space too. But this is something SaaS vendors should certainly care about. Judge again: “If this is how your team are doing SaaS success for mid market and you’re experiencing churn, look here first.”

It’s also a topic on which marketers need to make their voices heard to the vendors. And when they got their chance on LinkedIn, they certainly took it.

Not everyone agrees. Of course, there were some contrary views expressed. Software expert Fabian Peter said: “So you are basically turning away from a tool that obviously delivered value for 3 years just because that company did not regularly send you useless ‘customer success’ spam?”

Fintech AI specialist Mark McDaniel pointed out that although “some apps are built around a more full-service client success model; however, they typically come with a higher price tag. Human help is expensive after all.”

Tara Wrigley, an actual customer success representative, expressed some frustration. “To present another side to this, I’m the person who personally reaches out to each one of our customers most months to check how everything is going and to offer help, and most of the time I get no response at all. The persona/role of our customers means they’re often so busy fighting fires that the only time they want to engage is when they absolutely have to — when they need support, or indeed, at renewal time.”

Join the debate. Perhaps many of you have already posted on that LinkedIn thread. It’s active, to say the least. But we’d be interested in hearing from you too. Mail to: [email protected].