Setting up a renewal pipeline in HubSpot
This guide will walk you through creating a dedicated "Renewals Pipeline" in HubSpot, detailing the setup of each stage, and integrating workflows to automate the renewal process.
Renewal management belongs in your CRM and in your CRM only. Why?
Enable collaboration on renewal deals between CSM/AM/AE
Enable full view on customer revenue and new business revenue in one dashboard
Make CS impact tangible by adding impact drivers that lead to renewals.
1. Creating a Dedicated "Renewals Pipeline" in HubSpot
Setup the Pipeline: Create a new pipeline named “Renewal Pipeline.”
Define Stages: We recommend using a mix of descriptive stages and time to renewal based stages. These stages will off course depend on your ICP, ACV & contract duration.
Based on how complex and extensive your onboarding process is you should consider creating a separate onboarding pipeline.
Example
Onboarding | Adoption | Value | >6 months | >3 months | Proposal sent | Closed Won | Churn
2. Create relevant deal properties for CS
Add relevant propoerties for CS
Commercial/Contractual Details: Include contract end date/renewal date, auto-renewal status, automatic indexation in the contract, the number of users, and upsell potential.
Customer Goals: Instead of open-ended fields, use a dropdown menu with common goals that customers can verify. You don’t want to make this an open field! You need to feed your customers achievable goals; not ‘ask’ what their goals are.
CS Score/Health Score: Implement a score based on definitions filled by the CSM to display the health of the account.
Churn Risk: Mark whether an account with a high health score is still at risk of churn due to financial issues, new management, etc
3. Automations for Efficient Pipeline Management
1. Creating the First Renewal Deal
Trigger: When the initial deal is closed.
Action: Automatically create a new deal in the renewal pipeline in the appropriate stage based on the contract end date.
2. Deal Stage Movement Based on Close Date
Set up automations to move deals to the next stage based on the close date:
Less than 9 to Less than 6 Months: When the close date is less than 6 months away.
Less than 6 to Less than 3 Months: When the close date is less than 3 months away.
3. Closing the Renewal Deal
Closed Won: When a deal is marked as Closed Won, create a new deal with the contract end date set 365 days away, place it in the correct timeline stage, and copy all relevant information.
Closed Lost: Update the company property lifecycle stage to ‘Old Customer.’
Identify At-Risk Accounts: Use account health scores to proactively engage with customers at risk of churn.
Celebrate Renewals: Send gifts or messages to celebrate account renewals.
4. Reporting & dashboards
you can now create HubSpot dashboards based on your renewal pipeline data. We recommend setting up the following dashboards
Number of deals to be renewd this Q/per CSM/AM
Deals segmented per health score
Number of deals at risk
ARR at risk
ARR previously at risk and saved.
5. how to leverage this renewal pipeline structure with ImpactPilot
Renewal and churn analysis: Review the number of impact points and type of impact drivers that have been won
Segment your customers based on dealstage, contract end date or healthscore.
Create account plans for certain segments. eg
Customers who need to renew
Customers with upsell potential
Customers that are at risk
