If you work in customer success or revenue, you know the drill: renewals and expansions are your bread and butter. But they’re also where deals slip through the cracks, especially if your “system” is a mess of spreadsheets, calendar reminders, and ad-hoc emails. If you’re using Vitally (or thinking about it), this guide cuts through the hype and tells you—step by step—how to make it actually help you keep customers and grow accounts. No magic. Just real talk.
1. Get Your Data House in Order
Before you can manage renewals or spot expansion dollars, you need decent data. If Vitally isn’t hooked up to your billing system, CRM, or product analytics, stop here and connect the basics. Garbage in, garbage out.
What you need: - Contract start/end dates (renewal dates, basically) - Account owner/CSM - ARR or MRR (how much money they pay you) - Product usage stats (logins, feature adoption, whatever matters for your product) - Customer health score (even if it’s basic)
Pro tip:
Don’t obsess about the perfect health score formula right away. Start simple: are they logging in, are support tickets spiking, are invoices unpaid? You can always get fancier later.
2. Map Out Your Renewal Process
Vitally is flexible—which is code for “it won’t do the work for you.” Figure out your own key steps for renewals:
- How far in advance do you start renewal outreach? (30, 60, 90 days?)
- Who does what? (CSM, AE, manager?)
- What’s the process if a customer is at risk?
- Where does negotiation happen—in Vitally, email, or somewhere else?
Write this down somewhere everyone can see. If you skip this, no tool will save you.
3. Set Up Renewal Workflows in Vitally
Now, let’s make Vitally do some heavy lifting.
a. Create Renewal Tasks and Playbooks - Use automated tasks to remind you and your team when renewals are coming up. - Set up playbooks: a standard series of steps and emails for every renewal, so nothing’s forgotten.
b. Build Renewal Views and Dashboards - Make a dashboard or saved view for “Renewals in Next 90 Days.” - Filter by health score, ARR, or CSM—whatever helps you prioritize.
c. Don’t Overcomplicate You don’t need a twelve-stage renewal journey in Vitally. Start with: - Task: “Reach out 60 days before renewal” - Task: “Renewal status check-in” - Task: “Finalize contract”
If you’re spending more time tinkering with automation than talking to customers, something’s off.
4. Find and Track Expansion Opportunities
Renewals are great. Expansions are better. Here’s how to spot and manage them in Vitally.
a. Define What Counts as Expansion - More seats/users? - New products/modules? - Usage-based overages?
Get your team on the same page. Otherwise, you’ll be “tracking expansion” but nobody agrees what that means.
b. Use Signals and Alerts - Set up alerts for usage spikes, new stakeholders added, or customers hitting plan limits. - Tie these alerts to your CRM or product data if possible.
c. Log Opportunities—Don’t Just Talk About Them - Use Vitally’s notes, tasks, or custom fields to log every whiff of expansion. - Assign owners. If it’s everyone’s job, it’s nobody’s job.
d. Prioritize - Focus on accounts that are healthy and actually using your product. - If someone’s struggling to renew, don’t pitch an add-on.
5. Stay on Top of Renewals (Without Losing Your Mind)
Here’s what actually works to keep renewals moving in Vitally:
a. Use Reminders, But Don’t Rely on Them Alone - Automated reminders are only as good as the data you feed them. - Double-check your key accounts manually every week.
b. Keep Notes Tight and Useful - Jot down key renewal risks, blockers, and next steps in Vitally. - Skip the essay—future you (or your teammates) just need the facts.
c. Weekly Renewal Standup - Use Vitally’s dashboard as the agenda. - Walk through upcoming renewals and expansions. - Call out stuck deals. Peer pressure helps.
d. Watch for “At Risk” Trends - If you notice a lot of customers are “at risk,” dig into why. - Is it a product issue, pricing, support bottleneck? Don’t just blame the customer.
6. Automate the Boring Stuff—But Keep the Human Touch
Automation can help, but it’s not a silver bullet.
What’s worth automating: - Routine renewal reminders - Standardized renewal emails - Alerts for usage or health changes
What to keep manual: - Actual negotiation and renewal calls - Expansion pitches—these are based on relationships, not triggers - Custom solutions for tricky clients
Watch out:
If your customers complain that renewal feels robotic, you’ve automated too much.
7. Measure What Matters (and Ignore Vanity Metrics)
It’s easy to drown in dashboards. Track what actually drives results:
Track: - Renewal rate (% of customers who stay) - Expansion rate (how many accounts grow) - Churn reasons (why do people leave?) - Time to close renewals (are you always last-minute?)
Skip: - “Emails sent” - “Tasks completed” - Any metric that looks good but doesn’t drive revenue or retention
Gut check:
If you can’t explain why a metric matters to your boss, it probably doesn’t.
8. Common Pitfalls (and How to Avoid Them)
Here’s what trips up most teams:
- Overengineering: Don’t build a Rube Goldberg machine in Vitally. More workflows = more confusion.
- Ignoring Account Health: If you chase every renewal with the same playbook, you’ll miss warning signs. Tailor your outreach.
- No Single Source of Truth: If your renewal data lives in three places, you’ll drop the ball. Use Vitally (or whatever you pick) as the source.
- Letting Expansion Slip: If you don’t log expansion opportunities, they disappear. Make it part of your weekly review.
9. Iterate and Keep It Simple
You don’t need to solve renewals and expansions forever—just for this quarter. Start with the basics in Vitally, see what works, and adjust. Don’t let “the perfect process” be the enemy of actually getting paid.
Keep your workflows lean, focus on the biggest risks and opportunities, and check in with your team often. If something’s too much hassle, cut it. The end goal is simple: happy customers, more revenue, less chaos. That’s as good as it gets.