How Tech Data Built Thousands of Customer Relationships Through Complex Workflow Automation

Achieving this required a combination of inbound marketing strategy and technology to support timely, personalised communications with their resellers’ customers on an international scale.

HubSpot’s workflow automation software met these requirements, so Jeni approached us to help set up and implement workflows for a specific line of products. Her goal was to reduce churn across a one-year lifecycle while also adding value to their resellers in order to improve the strength of their partnerships.

'We wanted to be able to send out a mixture of external emails to our customers throughout their subscription, from the initial adoption phase right through to renewal’, said Jeni. ‘Mixed into this was a need for internal emails to be sent to a telemarketing agency who would also be calling at set points during the year as the reseller to check up on the health of the contract.’

As a marketer, you will recognise the crucial role data management played in the success of such a programme. The complexity of the project only reinforced this.

The growing number of subscriptions, as well as case-by-case changes like revised end dates for renewed customers, meant the database needed to be updated daily. Meanwhile, the highly specific wording of subscription communications (‘Your contract runs out tomorrow’, for example) meant that each email sent out needed to align correctly with a recipient’s stage in the subscription lifecycle.

The initial database also needed segmenting to ensure that only appropriate audiences were included in the programme, in this case customers with two or more contracts and larger, more complex business requirements, who would benefit from being approached by the resellers in a more personalised way.

Our experience working with large corporates on automation projects meant we quickly recognised the need to augment the format of the data with a piece of middleware in order for it to integrate with HubSpot’s workflow automation software effectively.

By working closely with Elixir Solutions, an integration specialist, we were able to map the HubSpot contact properties and troubleshoot the more complex needs. One of our Senior HubSpot Consultants, Gem Latimer worked closely with Jeni, the integration team and HubSpot to manage the end-to-end process. From the initial setup to monitoring ongoing engagement with the workflows, Gem's expertise with HubSpot (sitting alongside a handful of others globally with all certifications and daily experience) enabled BabelQuest to provide valuable insights into the performance of the external emails and the welcome webinar recording, in line with the objectives of the programme.

It was also important that we tracked the impact of the telemarketing company’s calls on the health of the contracts and the customer experience. Drawing from our expertise as one of the first agencies in the UK to proactively explore the market for sales enablement services, we set up custom contact properties that the telemarketing agency could update each time they made a call:

• Call Unsuccessful
• Call Unsuccessful — issue flagged (e.g. telephone number was invalid or the person had left the business)
• Call Successful — all good
• Call Successful — upsell opportunity
• Call Successful — issue flagged

The important element here was that we would be able to see emerging trends in the data regarding which call was most likely to improve the chance of an upsell or flag a problem. In fact, over time we would even be able to move calls around or add an extra piece of content to an external email, if it would help reduce the churn rate.

Within one month of going live with one reseller, email had a 30% open rate and a 2% CTR, leading to seven upsell opportunities and 11 issues that needed resolving to ensure retention. Without the programme those would have been overlooked. Furthermore, the telemarketing team was able to speak to the right person at the right time, ultimately improving the customer service experience with both the reseller and the product.

'Rebecca and her team have been patient and amazing in helping us create an automated marketing program involving over 50 complex workflows, lists, and hyper-personalisation', said Jeni. 'I would highly recommend and trust BabelQuest for any complex marketing automation. They understand our complexities and they have helped us build a 12-month campaign that we are rolling out across Europe to drive software subscription renewals for our partners.'

We are now working on improving the reporting to be able to provide deeper analysis of the results being generated in HubSpot so that we can start to create predictable and measurable growth on the level of renewals across the resellers offering this product.

While it can often be easy to mark a deal as closed once the sale is done, it is incredibly important to remember that the relationship you continue to have with them can leave a positive impression and encourage renewal and future purchases.

"Rebecca and her team have been patient and amazing in helping us create an automated marketing program involving over 50 complex workflows, lists and hyper-personalisation. I would highly recommend and trust BabelQuest for any complex marketing automation. They understand our complexities and they have helped us build a 12-month campaign that we are rolling out across Europe to drive software subscription renewals for our partners."

Jeni Taylor, Tech Data