Over the last year or so, companies are beginning to adapt more to the world around them.
This is shown in the increase in revenue-related job titles, such as Director of Revenue Operations and Chief Revenue Officer.
As businesses look to improve their operations and drive revenue, marketing automation is key.
However, it must be done correctly in order for a company to truly see success. After all, customers expect so much out of companies, a lot of which they aren’t ready to deal with.
This is where a Revenue Operations strategy comes into play.
According to recent research, three-fourths of high-growing companies will implement a Revenue Operations model.
This type of strategy will allow your business to evolve as the buying processes of consumers change and meet the expectations of your customers.
Keep reading to know more about it.
What is a RevOps Model?
RevOps, or Revenue Operations, is a specific end-to-end function that strives to maximize the overall revenue potential of an organization.
It brings together different departments, such as marketing, sales, and service, to get a clearer picture of the administrative and management operations so they can work together more efficiently.
The RevOps model is designed to start when a potential customer considers making a purchase (which is marketing) to when the deal is closed (which is sales) all the way to the upsell and renewal (which is customer service).
By implementing the RevOps model in your company, you can experience increased revenue and quicker growth overall.
What Problem Does RevOps Solve?
As businesses begin to scale, it can be far more difficult to maintain efficiency with their operations.
The more you grow, the more data that is moving from one place to another. There is so much data that must be tracked and analyzed.
Because of the increase in literally everything, there is a significantly higher risk for something to go wrong.
Here are a few specific problems that RevOps has the capability of solving for your company.
Affect Customer Retention
When the customer life cycle is healthy, there is an increase in customer retention rates.
This means that the entire company must be familiar with the process that a potential customer goes through when becoming familiar with the brand and ultimately becoming a customer.
Ideally, you want to keep your customer turnover rate below 5 percent. Quality customer service is an essential component in this, as 33 percent of Americans report they will consider leaving a brand after a single instance of subpar customer service.
The implementation of RevOps helps to mitigate risks that are associated with customers leaving. It takes all the departments to keep a customer, as a decent contract isn’t always enough.
Customer retention rates increase when companies are able to address customer questions and concerns at any stage of the customer journey.
Further, with a RevOps model, brands find that it is easier to create effective goals and strategies that will help generate more prospects and returning customers.
Impact Customer Acquisition Costs
Over the last several years, B2B companies have seen a steady increase in customer acquisition costs by roughly 50 percent.
Companies find it difficult to acquire new customers due to the simple fact that they’re uncertain as to how much money they should invest in their overall marketing efforts for this particular cause.
One of the main issues companies have with acquiring new customers is they don’t understand them well enough.
The great thing about RevOps is that it will allow you to gain some insight from data acquired from all departments.
With a Revenue Operations strategy implemented, the customer acquisition cost can be pinpointed, allowing you to build a solid strategy that will bring in customers.
Ultimately, by focusing on the customer acquisition segment, your bottom line revenue will increase while also adding value to the customer journey.
It has been shown that a one percent increase in customer acquisition can more than triple bottom-line revenue while also keeping turnover rates low.
Rewrite Internal Operations
RevOps provide you with the opportunity to rewrite your internal operations so that all of your departments communicate more effectively with each other as well as their customers.
Since internal communication is critical for ensuring customers smoothly transition from one department to another and have a more positive user experience, a RevOps strategy is almost a necessity.
RevOps can help you improve your overall internal processes with the use of automation, software, and tools.
Don’t overlook the importance of personalization, as customers want that human touch.
Empower Client Delight
It is important that you do everything in your power to exceed the expectations of your customers.
In the event that a customer has a poor experience, everyone will know it. You always want your customers to leave your brand on a good note, as this increases the chance of them returning.
A good RevOps strategy will implement a program for referrals, loyalty rewards, and proactive customer service.
Customer feedback surveys can prove to be beneficial as well, as this will help improve both internal and external operations in the future.
Establish a Company Culture Focused on Driving Revenue
A healthy company culture has been shown to improve revenue growth of more than 15 percent over a few years.
A good culture will result in less customer and employee turnover, which saves you money in the end. It can also increase revenue by 33 percent.
Your company culture should be created by the entire organization, as opposed to just the CEO or founder.
Once your core values are developed, they have the potential to transform your entire company culture, including turning your employees into brand advocates.
How Do You Start Implementing Revenue Operations in Your Business?
Basically, RevOps is developed around three main “P” pillars: Process, Platform, and People.
Each of these pillars serves as a building block, which means each pillar is built upon the one before it and essentially the one after it.
Process
This is the time that you should develop a well-defined, goal-focused strategy that is to be sent to all members/departments of the organization.
This is to ensure you know where you want your business to be headed.
Now, due to the fact that RevOps is designed to rewrite and improve your internal operation processes, your first primary step in developing and implementing your own Revenue Operations strategy in your business is to thoroughly document your current processes and look for ways in which they can be improved upon.
You won’t want to do this alone.
The best people to assist you with this are those who are familiar with your systems, know the ins and outs of the business, already have an idea where your internal processes could be smoother.
More often than not, this means you should reach out to someone in operations. They know how your operations run now, and they know what can be done to improve them moving forward.
Ultimately, your processes need to be converting potential customers and creating a valuable user experience. If your processes aren’t doing this, then look for ways they can be improved to offer this.
Keep in mind that all of this is no easy feat, as it will take time and effort to thoroughly document your processes and potential improvements. In other words, don’t expect to get it done in one sitting.
However, it will be worth it in the end when you begin to reap the benefits.
RevOps will help create more uniform processes throughout your organization, instilling trust and accountability. Further, you should begin to see improved customer retention, shorter sales cycles, and more upsells.
Platform
Now it is time to examine the platforms that you will need to reach your goals.
Assessing your platforms doesn’t mean you must add new technology for your internal processes to improve. Instead, it may mean that your need to reduce, streamline, or just better integrate your current systems (think ERP, CRM, marketing automation).
There are platforms out there that have been specifically designed to improve your operational efficiency, so these might be something to check into (although definitely not mandatory).
Your ultimate goal here is to ensure your data source is centralized so that everything flows freely and easily between all company systems.
This will make it easier for all departments within the organization to access, track, and log the proper data.
It will also increase collaboration between departments, offer a quality analysis, and help your teams service customers and leads more effectively.
In the end, having access to accurate data is key to your overall success. It will help you identify how your teams directly and indirectly impact the customer journey, business goals, and bottom line.
People
As soon as you have been able to identify your processes and platforms, you probably have a decent idea of what steps you need to take to make your business more efficient in terms of operations.
This type of work may be able to be performed by your current operations team, if you have them.
However, you may need to redistribute responsibilities among team members in order to begin to implement a RevOps model. Alternatively, you may need to expand your current operations team or build one from the ground up.
Whatever steps you must take to get the people together for the implementation and success of your RevOps strategy, you will eventually benefit from enhanced internal processes and better managed platforms.
A Few Tips to Starting Your RevOps Framework
It is imperative that all departments agree on metrics.
Each separate department will utilize metrics so they can get a clearer picture of the customer journey and how your processes are performing.
Further, your departments must trust the data that comes from these metrics, as this data is what will help the company overall make sound decisions.
With the implementation of RevOps, each department will be equipped with the same technology and tools to better align with the company’s goals and bottom line.
Wrap Up: Is It Time to Implement RevOps?
If you have a business goal of identifying and improving your weaknesses, or if you are looking to adjust your existing business strategy in an effort to increase revenue, then you can benefit from using the RevOps model.
Revenue Operations can help you locate problems and their solutions that you didn’t even realize you had in your organization. It will also enhance your company’s current strengths so you can realize that much more success.
RevOps can help automate tasks while still focusing on personalization, which is great if you are finding it more difficult to manage your business and/or your current processes don’t appear to be up to par.
To learn more about how you can increase revenue, check out this recorded Jam Session with Mark Kilens, the VP of Content and Community at Drift!
