How to Handle Customer Objections During Renewals

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In this episode of the Customer Success Pro Podcast, Anika Zubair discusses the critical role of handling objections during the renewal process. She emphasizes that objections should be viewed as opportunities for engagement rather than roadblocks. Anika shares common mistakes made by customer success professionals when faced with objections and provides effective strategies for addressing them. The episode concludes with a call to action for listeners to practice their objection-handling skills to enhance their confidence and effectiveness in renewal conversations.

Chapters

00:00 Transforming Objections into Opportunities
03:31 Understanding the Renewal Process
10:24 Common Mistakes in Handling Objections
16:04 Effective Strategies for Objection Handling
19:10 Weekly Challenge and Conclusion

Connect with Anika Zubair:
Website: https://thecustomersuccesspro.com/
LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/anikazubair/
CSM RevUP Academy: https://thecustomersuccesspro.com/revup

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Chapters

• 0:00 Transforming Objections into Opportunities
• 3:30 Understanding the Renewal Process
• 10:24 Common Mistakes in Handling Objections
• 16:04 Effective Strategies for Objection Handling
• 19:10 Weekly Challenge

Transcript

Anika Zubair (00:00.162)
Have you ever been in a renewal conversation that felt like smooth sailing until suddenly your customer hit you with a big objection? Maybe it was your product is just too expensive, or maybe they said, we're not sure we're getting enough value, or maybe they gave you the dreaded, we're evaluating other tools. Your stomach just drops and your palms start to get sweaty.

and in a matter of seconds, you are scrambling to keep the renewal alive. Does all of this sound familiar? Well, let me tell you, you're not alone. But the secret is that objections aren't the enemy. They're actually a sign of engagement. And what if I told you they were actually a really good thing? Today, I'll show you how to transform objections from roadblocks into stepping stones

for stronger renewals and even expansions. Hey, I'm Anika Zuber and I'm the host of the Customer Success Pro podcast. And in this episode, we are diving into how to handle objections during the renewal process. We are going to cover why objections happen and why they're actually a good sign. There are some common mistakes that I see happen too often and we're also gonna go into those. And then I'm gonna be giving you a step-by-step

process on how to handle objections with confidence. And of course, I love sharing on this podcast a little bit about my own story. So I'm going to give you a personal story on how I turned a scary objection into a successful renewal. And of course, in every weekly solo episode, I'm going to leave you with a weekly challenge so that you can put today's tactics and practical advice into practice immediately.

Now, before we get started, don't forget to hit subscribe to the podcast and leave a rating. And if you really enjoy it, maybe you can share it with your CS bestie or peers. Your support helps more customer success pros actually find the podcast and grow their careers. So sharing is caring and I really appreciate it. Hello, everyone. I'm your host, Anika Zuber, and welcome to the Customer Success Pro Podcast, your go-to space for real talk.

Anika Zubair (02:26.262)
expert advice and actual insights in the world of customer success. I'm a CS executive leader, award-winning strategist, CS coach and customer success fanatic. I help CSMs and CS leaders build the skills and the confidence to become revenue driving pros and scale world-class CS teams. So whether you're brand new to CS or a seasoned leader, this podcast is here to support your growth because customer success isn't a destination.

It's a journey and I'm here to be your guide and navigate every step of your journey. So join me every Wednesday where you'll get fresh CS tips, tricks and strategies you can actually use. Some weeks I'll share my own insights and best practices from working in CS over the last 13 years. And once a month, I'll bring on expert guests to dive into the most relevant and pressing topics in customer success today.

So if you're ready to level up, hit subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you tune in. And let's make your CS journey a little bit easier together.

Anika Zubair (03:40.046)
All right, renewals are the moment of truth. You've spent months building trust with your customer. You've showcased value, and you've ended up supporting your customer's goals. But all of that work comes down to one or a few conversations, which is the renewal process. And here's the challenge. Customers often wait until renewal time to actually surface all of their concerns.

Now you're probably thinking, my gosh, that's me. Well, I've been there too. I have had plenty of renewal conversations where everything seems like smooth sailing, but suddenly when you do get into talking about the renewal and what the next year looks like, suddenly your customer is giving you a laundry list of problems. And if you're not prepared, those objections can really derail the entire conversation. And the problem isn't that customers raise objections.

It's that most CS teams or CS professionals aren't trained on how to actually handle them. Now sales gets tons of objection handling training. I would know because I was in sales prior to CS. And I remember I would get weekly trainings when I was in SDR. I was told by my leaders exactly how to deal with customers that don't want to book meetings or customers that aren't interested in our product or customers that might

not actually be interested at this very moment. So I was told how to handle objections through prospecting, but objection handling training, it's just not something that we actually do in customer success that often. We're often expected to just figure it out. And listen, I've been there too. I have been told by my leaders and by everyone else on my team, we'll just figure it out, Anika.

That can only get you so far. Let me be real and really honest with you. Just winging it when it comes to objection handling might help you here and there and might actually help you land a renewal or maybe a handful of renewals. But more times than not, you are going to be stuck looking a little bit stupid if you don't figure out how to deal with the hard objections that your customer is bringing into a renewal conversation. So what happens? What actually happens?

Anika Zubair (06:02.732)
when all of these objections come up? Well, more times than not, I have seen CS professionals freeze. They get nervous, they feel out of their depth, and they get very defensive. They almost over-promise, or worse, they actually avoid the conversation altogether, and instead of actually strengthening the relationship, they end up damaging trust. So let's call out some of the mistakes that I end up seeing when people are handling objections, especially in the

post-sales world of customer success. So the first mistake that I see, and I've kind of mentioned this already, is that CS professionals end up getting very defensive. And when you end up arguing or justifying to your customers, like, it's just not gonna help, and your customers feel very unheard. And that immediately shuts down the productive dialogue that you're hoping to have with your customer. When you end up being on the defense, it becomes...

argumentative and you don't want that to be the case. Of course, objections are a bit of back and forth, but you don't want to end up arguing with your customer. And that's just, again, kind of erode trust and break it all down. And you don't want to be in that position. And another mistake that I personally have done a lot in my career, and I know probably some of you that are listening to this podcast probably have done it as well, is when customers bring up certain objections, we end up pitching features.

We end up thinking showing more and more features or how to use our product in different ways is suddenly going to ease their objections. And I'm sorry to tell you that pitching features is not gonna work, okay? That's not value. Customers don't object because they need to hear about a new dashboard or a new integration. They object because they aren't seeing business impact or value. Now, another pitfall I see happen too often

is I see too many CS professionals run away from the conversation. I get it, it's hard. No one likes hard conversations. If only being in customer success was as easy as grabbing a coffee with your customer and just chatting about the weather. I wish that was the case. But more times than not in customer success, we do have to have harder conversation. And I've seen CSMs hear an objection and then they just try to gloss over it. They almost...

Anika Zubair (08:24.28)
try to move forward and run into the next conversation because they don't want to deal with it. But let me tell you right now that silence doesn't make an objection go away. Just ignoring the objection or waiting for another day to talk about it, it just makes the objection that much bigger of a problem for you to deal down the road. And another thing that I see happen too often is that customer success professionals end up going into renewal conversations.

not prepared. And what I mean by not prepared is they end up thinking that because of product usage, because of adoption, and because a champion said that it was going to go well, they almost expect the conversation to go well. But if you don't know your risks and you don't come in almost expecting your customer to churn and you don't understand the usage data and the stakeholder sentiment before the renewal and that conversation, you are going to get blindsided. And

I'm saying this with as much love as possible, but the one big difference I've seen between customer success and sales is in CS, we tend to trust our customers too often. We tend to take their word as the truth. And salespeople are trained to basically be a little bit more, what's the word I'm looking for? They're basically trained to be a bit more hesitant to trust or a bit more probing.

to really get to the trust with their prospects. And in CS, because we work with our customers so often, we automatically default thinking that our customer is always telling us the truth and always being honest with us when they are working with us. But more times than not, our customer is not always being 100 % truthful with us. And then suddenly they bring up all these objections that they have to our product and service. And that's no fault of them, it's no fault of us, but...

we go into a conversation thinking that they're totally fine when more times than not they are not. And that's when you get blindsided and that's when you end up really in a tough conversation that you don't want to have with your customer. Now, are all of these things starting to sound a little bit familiar? Don't worry. These mistakes are super common. They're also fixable and

Anika Zubair (10:38.444)
I just like to remind you that I have been there too. We are all human. We are all in customer success trying to figure this out together. And these are mistakes that are common and happening day in and day out. But there are steps on how you can actually be proactive and make sure that you're prepared for objections in a renewal conversation. So here are my tips on how to handle objections the right way. First of all, I want you to listen fully. I know I've said this before in previous podcasts, but

We tend to almost answer questions for our customers. And I don't want you doing that. Don't interrupt them. Don't rush to fill in the silence. Let your customer talk. Let them really air out all the objections, all the problems that they're having. Let them actually say everything and stop trying to find a solution before they are done sharing all the objections. Because what I've done personally, and what you might do as well, is

they list one objection and you jump in and you almost try to fix that objection right away. But in doing so, you might actually contradict yourself when it comes to other things that you're trying to prove or show value in. So hear the full story, understand the full problem and let your customer speak to the full objections that they're having, and then come up with a concise response back. When you just jump in and try to fix the problems as they come up,

That also makes you reactive and not strategic. Being strategic is listening to the full customer conversation, the full objection, and then really critically thinking how can you take this the next step forward and be able to give them the guidance they need and the outcomes that they need. Okay, before we get into this episode further, let's stop right here because if you're listening and you're thinking, wow, my team really struggles with objections during renewals,

then this part is for you. Right now, your CSMs are probably walking into renewal calls super nervous. Customers are pushing back on price, challenging the value or mentioning competitors, and suddenly your team is on the back foot. That hesitation, it's costing you your renewal and potential upsells. But imagine this instead, your team feels calm and confident. They know exactly how to respond.

Anika Zubair (13:03.95)
to reframe the pushback into outcomes and how to position themselves as strategic partners in every renewal. No panic, no scrambling, just control and impact. That's exactly what my objection handling workshop is built to do. It's one of my most requested talks because it's not just theory. It's not the why it's important. It's the how, it's the practice. I'll teach your team to think like a CFO

spot expansion triggers before renewals happen, and lead with business impact using my value anchor framework. And of course, they will handle objections without that awkwardness. So if you're ready for your team to stop firefighting renewals and start owning them, then head to thecustomersuccesspro.com forward slash team hyphen event or DM me on LinkedIn and let's book your workshop.

All right, let's get back into the episode and talk to you about how you can start putting this into practice in your very next renewal conversation. Okay, the next thing that I need you to do when it comes to objection handling is I need you to acknowledge and validate. I simply need you to tell your customer, hey, I hear you, or that's a super valid concern. And I need you to say these things because saying these exact words is going to diffuse so

much tension with your customer. The next thing I need you to do is I need you to start to reframe everything using value. Instead of defending features or the roadmap or anything that they've integrated with, I need the conversation to come back to revenue impact, cost savings, risk mitigation, or strategic goals. Pick one, doesn't matter which one, but pick one and really decide how you're gonna tie this conversation back into those conversations. Forget the features.

Let's forget them. There's no feature that matters anymore. But I need you to really think about revenue, the impact of revenue, cost savings, risk mitigation, strategic goals. Any of those topics is where you need to start to reframe the conversation to. And then I need you to collaborate. So I need you to position the objection as a shared challenge. Use phrases like, hey customer, let's figure out how to solve this together. Again, that's

Anika Zubair (15:26.818)
builds on that muscle of being a strategic partner to your customer. And then I need you to follow up, okay? Objections rarely get solved in one call. Please do not feel that you need to solve the objection in that one call. Once you've discussed it, once you've agreed on value, and once you've actually started to work together on what the next steps are, I need you to go away, summarize everything that you've discussed, document the next steps, and circle

back with solutions, either with your internal teams or of course going back to your customers. You need to make sure that all of this is solved, but on that one call, you're not going to address all the objections and come up with the perfect answer. It is good to have some answer, but a lot of this is going to circle back to another conversation you're going to have with your customers. So when you practice all of this, objections stop being scary. They become opportunities, by the way, to show your ability to be a leader.

I remember a renewal where a customer flat out told me, we just don't see the value anymore. And my instinct, by the way, was to panic. I was freaking out. I wanted to jump in with every feature release that we've done in the last year since they've been a customer and that we shipped specifically for them. But instead I paused and I pulled up the outcomes that we had on a success plan and that we'd achieved together.

And I basically outlined everything that we had reduced for them when it came to their onboarding time. And I also outlined everything that we saved for them in and by showing them all the headcount that they ended up saving money on because we automated so many workflows. And they then just saw that everything we were working on actually ended up growing revenue, by the way.

Once I reframed this conversation to business impact rather than the features, the energy in that renewal conversation completely shifted, okay? The COO and the CFO who were on that call and they were super skeptical, they leaned in and they were saying, I didn't realize the impact was that significant on our business. Not only did we close the renewal, the next year,

Anika Zubair (17:43.404)
We secured an expansion because they started to see the business impact of our product and service within their business. I started to speak the language of business impact instead of the language of features and functionalities. And that experience really cemented a lesson for me, right? That lesson is that objections aren't stop signs. A lot of times in customer success, we almost see them as big red flags or big red signals that say, no, churn.

no, problem, okay? But when I started to reframe towards value with my customers, I realized that objections were actually invitations to prove more value to your customers. And that is exactly what I want you to do this week, okay? In your weekly challenge, I want you to write down the top three objections that you've heard during a renewal conversation with previous customers.

And for each objection that you write down, I want you to create a value-based response that ties back to outcomes. Remember, risk mitigation, time saving, revenue generation, those are the outcomes that matters. Forget features, take them out of the equation. Okay? And then the last step of your challenge is to practice, practice, practice. We in Customer Success think we are pros and experts just by going into a call and having a general idea of what we're going to say.

I need you to practice out loud. I need you to say those responses out loud, maybe even role play with your colleagues or your manager or whatever, because when the real moment comes and you don't want to improvise, you need to sound confident, calm, and outcome driven. And the only way that that's going to happen is if you practice. So make sure you take this weekly challenge and really practice it.

So handling objections is one of the most powerful skills you can probably master as a CSM. And it's not something that's easily taught or learned. It not only saves renewals, by the way, it earns a lot of executive trust and visibility. And it totally sets you apart as a strategic partner. And if you want to give your entire team that edge, I'd love to bring my objection handling workshop to you.

Anika Zubair (20:01.546)
I've delivered this session to teams at Microsoft, Atlassian, Workiva, Flywire, GSMA. These are just some of the organizations that are investing in their CS teams. And are you doing the same for your team? Reach out today and let's equip your team to handle objections with confidence and turn renewals into growth.

All right, that wraps up our episode for this week. I hope you really enjoyed it and I hope you take the time to actually go and challenge yourself and do the weekly challenge. I absolutely appreciate that you've decided to spend time listening and learning with me today. And if you did enjoy the podcast, please make sure to leave us with a positive rating and of course, make sure you subscribe on any of the podcast channels. I'll catch you next week for our next episode.

Thanks for tuning in to the Customer Success Pro Podcast. I hope you picked up something valuable to take back to your team. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean the world to me if you took just 10 seconds to leave a review on Apple or Spotify. It helps more CS pros like yourself discover the show. And creating new episodes takes a lot of work, so leaving a nice review keeps me motivated to keep creating. And don't forget to hit subscribe on Apple, Spotify,

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