One of the most crucial roles in a subscription business is customer success. Communication of the value offer to the customer and ensuring that the value promised to the client is fulfilled are the responsibilities of customer success. Healthy renewal rates, increased Customer Lifetime Value (LTV), and more success with up-sell and cross-sell opportunities are all ensured by consistent value communication and measurement of value supplied to the customer.

Ed Arnold will be giving a talk at the Professional Pricing Society’s Spring Conference in Chicago on “The Art of Value Storytelling”. Ed has deep experience developing value models for B2B companies and using these models to inform pricing design. The model is what lies below the water, what most customers want to hear is the value story.

A lot of data is generated across the customer journey. Innovations platforms, product development applications, marketing automation, sales management (CRM), configure price quote (CPQ), project management, customer service platforms, customer success … Where is the data from all of these applications gathered and put in the context of value? This is the direction we are taking the Value Pricing Dashboard. It will be the integration point for all of the data about value to the customer (V2C).

Value based pricing requires a formal value model. If you do not have value models that quantify value drivers and connect them together you are just pretending to do value based pricing. Good value models are three dimensional they include economic, emotional and community value drivers. They become real when they are validated in conversations with customers.

Pricing and value communication is central to good price management. When and how price is introduced into the customer conversation has a big impact on price acceptance. The customer journey map provides a guide to how to plan these conversations. Layering pricing and value into the customer journey is a best practice.

In most companies value and pricing are disconnected. Even worse, value promises and value delivery are not well documented. The result is lower sales, more discounting and churn. The Ibbaka Value Pricing Dashboard connects pricing to value across the customer journey. It gathers the data you need to effectively evolve pricing.

When sales comes to you asking for discounts or demanding price cuts do not blame them. Ask yourself, have you helped them communicate value and then document the value delivered? Value-based pricing begins with value, not pricing. If you want your sales team to execute on a value based strategy you need to support them.

Too many companies negotiate a price during the sales process and then forget about it. This is a recipe for failure. Pricing and value are closely connected. The pricing-value conversation continues across the customer journey. Keeping this conversation current is how to drive renewal, cross sales and upselling.