By: Chris Coello
As a former SaaS Account Manager, renewals were a big part of my job. I used to live in the“Renewal Contract bottleneck” because we had a broken CLM (Contract Lifecycle Management) system in place. Each contract was manually put together in Word and I spent a lot of time there (not to mention renewals were tracked in Excel!). Legacy customers had different terms, but nobody had the right legal language to include in the contracts as policies updated. So, then, off it would go to legal or to the WAY too busy CEO to approve the right language to send to the client. Then anytime redlines came back, it would go to my manager, then her manager, then legal again, and would often just sit there in someone’s inbox while the renewal date came and went.
Contracts died. Clients were lost. Revenue increases didn’t happen. Then, in walked Conga Contracts like some kind of magician superhero.
Easy access to preconfigured contract templates with a library of legal language? Check!
Easy access to a library of pre-approved legal terms? Check!
Automated approval processes? Check!
Auto-Renewals with reminders and notices? Check!
No more disparate systems? Check!
It was like a magic wand had been waved. I could click a button and poof! A renewal contract with revised legacy terms would appear.
Need approval for high value contracts? Abracadabra! Done!
Automated emails to me AND the client about upcoming renewals? Alakazaam! Right on schedule! Move that Excel file to the trash!
I was able to increase my renewal percentage by 30% in the first year! And I was no longer left wondering if or when my Contract would ever get approved. This changed everything.
Time goes on, my career evolved, and now, I get to play the magician’s assistant at Appluent. Implementing Conga Contracts for our clients has been a true joy because I can fully empathize with the pain points, introduce the superhero CLM magician to save the day, and hear happy clients provide positive feedback. It’s just so rewarding!
It’s a game changer. From the kickoff, I know the importance of how much time and effort we will save the client by implementing Conga Contracts. Through it all we get to build some pretty sweet tools together—especially communication and accountability tools—and each week that we review progress on our status calls, the excitement grows. By the end of the project it feels like someone has handed you a power drill after you had been using a screwdriver for everything. That feeling of power makes user adoption a no-brainer!
After completing each custom Conga Contracts configuration, I particularly love the before and after comparison. Sometimes you get so used to a broken system that it’s hard to imagine there is another way. It is really cool to watch our clients change the way they think about contract management. As the CLM tools we build together come into focus, the light bulbs begin to go off, so to speak. Finally, I know my job is done when I hear that familiar comment: If only we had had this sooner!
