For customer success managers · At-risk renewals
You have the ROI deck. Rehearse what happens when they say “we’re evaluating alternatives.”
The save playbook is in your Gainsight task. You still don’t know what you’ll say when procurement leads the call.
Your champion left six weeks ago. The new VP of Ops sat in on Tuesday’s QBR and said they’re “under a vendor reduction mandate” before renewal in 47 days. You have usage data, an ROI one-pager, and three talk-tracks from enablement. What you can’t picture is opening Thursday’s save call and sitting there while the economic buyer cites budget cuts, goes quiet when you mention outcomes, and watches whether you panic-discount or actually diagnose the gap. Kommi puts you in that room first — with a skeptical buyer who pushes back the way at-risk accounts do — so Thursday isn’t your first save attempt.
The playbook isn’t the hard part.
Every CS enablement deck has the same save framework: diagnose before you discount, anchor on value, escalate if champion is gone, follow up within 24 hours with a one-pager. You have the framework. What you don’t have is muscle memory for when the new VP says “your platform is fine — we’re just not sure it’s essential” and you have to decide in real time whether to probe or start negotiating price.
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What’s at stake
One lost $85k renewal blows your quarterly retention target and triggers a save-plan review with your manager. A premature 20% discount saves the logo but trains procurement to ask again next year.
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Why you procrastinate
You keep re-reading the usage dashboard but skip rehearsing the moment the VP cites “vendor consolidation” and you feel the urge to fill the silence with a discount offer.
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What talk-tracks can’t do
Save playbooks label scripts as “scaffolding, not a script” for a reason. Reading them aloud kills trust. They can’t simulate the buyer going cold when you pivot from ROI to renewal terms.
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What Gong can’t do
Conversation intelligence records calls after they happen. You need three reps before Thursday — Wednesday night, Thursday morning, the parking lot before the Zoom — not a post-mortem on Friday.
Sample roleplay · 3 minutes
“We’re under a 15% vendor reduction mandate.”
You’re Jordan. Your champion left. The new VP joined the QBR. Now it’s the save call.
You (Jordan)
“Thanks for making time before renewal. I pulled together what your team has achieved in the last two quarters — 340 hours saved on manual reconciliation, error rate down 22%. I want to make sure we’re aligned on what success looks like going into the renewal window.”
VP of Ops (new economic buyer)
“I appreciate the data. Look — finance gave us a 15% vendor reduction mandate across the board. Your platform works fine. We’re just not sure it’s essential compared to what we’re evaluating. What can you do on price?”
Your move
- → Acknowledge the mandate without leading with a discount — ask what changed since they signed
- → Probe “evaluating alternatives”: fit issue, budget issue, or champion gap?
- → Reframe essential vs. nice-to-have using their original business case, not your feature list
Each choice changes how the VP responds. Procurement may join mid-call. The room gets uncomfortable. You practice holding the diagnostic line without sounding defensive — or catching yourself when you’re about to offer 15% before you know why they’re actually leaving.
Then the coach reads you back to yourself.
Not a renewal scorecard. Not a list of save-play tactics from enablement. One observation about what you did, one adjustment for next time, one sentence you can carry into Thursday’s call.
Sample coach debrief
“You opened with strong ROI data — specific hours saved, not generic value language. When the VP asked about price, you jumped straight to ‘we could look at 10% if you commit to two years.’ That signaled you’d discount before diagnosing whether this is a fit issue or a budget issue.
Try next time: Pause after the mandate mention. Ask one diagnostic question: ‘Help me understand — when you say evaluating alternatives, is it because adoption dropped, priorities shifted, or pure cost?’ Let them answer before any number leaves your mouth.
Carry into Thursday: ‘Before we talk contract terms, I want to make sure we’re solving the right problem — because if it’s a fit gap, a discount won’t fix it and we’ll be back here in twelve months.’”
Questions before your save call
- Is this for enterprise accounts or SMB renewals?
- Both work. This page is tuned for mid-market B2B SaaS saves — the call where your champion left, procurement joined late, and the economic buyer cites budget mandates before you’ve diagnosed the real blocker. You can practice expansion and onboarding conversations inside Kommi too.
- I already have a save playbook from enablement. Why practice?
- Playbooks give you structure and talk-track scaffolding. They don’t prepare you for the VP going silent after you cite ROI, or procurement joining mid-call to ask for a written proposal by EOD. Kommi is where you hear yourself respond under pressure — and fix the panic-discount before it costs you margin.
- What if my champion is gone and I don’t know the new buyer?
- That’s one of the most common paths in the roleplay. You practice opening with a point of view anchored in quantified outcomes, asking discovery questions a new stakeholder would actually answer, and knowing when to escalate to your VP CS instead of grinding a doomed save.
- Is $11.99/mo worth it for one renewal save?
- One saved $85k account pays for 590 months of Kommi. A CS certification course runs $500–$2,000 and can’t simulate live pushback before Thursday. You also get unlimited sessions across every scenario we ship: executive escalations, QBR prep, hard talks outside work.
$11.99 a month.
A coach with a calendar runs two hundred dollars an hour. Kommi runs roughly forty cents a day — and is awake when you can't sleep, which is when most of these conversations are actually being rehearsed anyway.
We don't have a free tier, a team plan, or a premium upsell. One price, no pricing page riddle. If we add tiers later, we'll do it because users asked — not because a growth deck did.
About forty cents a day.
- Two free sessions before billing starts
- Then $11.99 a month — about forty cents a day
- Unlimited sessions — any conversation you can describe
- A coaching read after every session, and your progress over time
- Cancel in two taps; 7-day refund if you change your mind
One conversation you’d have talked yourself out of is worth years of this. Or just sleep better on Wednesday. Either way.
Run your first rehearsal — free →US only at launch. We'll get to the rest of the world.
The conversation is on Thursday. Begin tonight.
Three minutes. Two free. 7-day money back after that.