Your 2025 planned customer expansion

Forecasting upsells and cross-sales for 2025❓

Growth opportunities are not magically created. They result from structured planning and ongoing grooming of customer engagements. 

CS organizations should have a plan to create more growth opportunities. This will help align with the CFO /CRO, who are crucial in financial planning and risk management while building a solid business plan for next year.

Here are a few steps to create a more accurate customer expansion plan

 📅 Check next year’s renewal dates.

1. Many customers will find it easy to budget for expansion as part of their upcoming renewal. 

2. It's crucial to align with the sales team regarding the steps and actions to follow to increase the scope as part of the next renewal. Your collaboration is key to our success. 

📝 Check your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system for existing opportunities 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒄𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒚𝒆𝒂𝒓. 

1. If they are still relevant, raise them with sales to re-qualify, re-assess, and evaluate potential closure dates.

2. Agree on the CS/Sales actions needed to win the deal.

🔍 Check your CRM for future 2025 𝒆𝒙𝒑𝒂𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒐𝒑𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒖𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒆𝒔

1. Evaluate their probability and timeline for closure to improve the sales/CS forecast and priorities as the year begins. 

2. Assess, based on the customer's needs and budget, whether you can bring the deal forward.

🔭 Forecast potential opportunities 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒄𝒖𝒓𝒓𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒍𝒚 𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒂𝒍𝒆𝒔 𝒓𝒂𝒅𝒂𝒓

1. These are based on your valuable insights and knowledge of customers' existing and future needs. This is your chance to promote additional opportunities in which you can lead and guide sales to win.

2. Perform your qualification and assess timelines to finalize the expansion.

3. Share your analysis with sales to get their buy-in and add to next year’s sales plan.

4. If agreed, the opportunities should be logged in the CRM and flagged as 'CS triggered ', indicating that the customer success team has initiated the opportunity.

5. If Sales do not consider them qualified, you can still include them in the CS plan to monitor and assess at a later stage. 

🔢 Summarize the upsell and cross-sales opportunities value, weighted value, per quarter, regions, and CSMs. This is your initial growth plan, ready for 2025.

Expanding customer engagement is a critical part of the CSM role. Grooming relationships, driving usage, and promoting value lead to new opportunities for growth. This requires CS knowledge, planning, and collaboration with sales to be focused and to drive new revenue from existing customers.