- Tech issues tickets related to a customer's PMS API key / API Key Errors - These are the standard operating procedures for reaching out to active Safely clients that our tech team has identified as having issues with their API keys
- Overview:
-> API key errors tickets are related to a customer's PMS only. Sometimes you may discover a customer is a bad payee too).
-> If a customer's API key is throwing errors, we are not receiving data about their reservations and properties anymore, therefore their coverage is not seamless.
-> This process helps to clear out the system of Inactive customers or customers who are delinquent in paying their invoices.
-> It also involves reaching out to customers who may:
-> not know their API keys are throwing errors
-> have changed their PMS but did not inform us about it yet
-> have intentionally toggled Safely OFF in their PMS with the intention to cancel their account with Safely or to "pause" coverage
2. Starting the process:
a. Go to the SIT Board in Jira. You may find SIT tickets assigned to Giorgiana Andrei - these tickets are received once or twice a month https://safelystay.atlassian.net/jira/software/c/projects/SIT/boards/12
b. Review the tickets in the Business Intervention column:
c. Click on the API key issue ticket
3. Research process and next steps:
a. Research the client in Hubspot and various resources. After researching, If you confirm the client already canceled with Safely, tag Jorden in a note in the SIT ticket to "remove the client's JSON" and move the Jira ticket to "Business Intervention"
b. If you confirm the client did not actively cancel their policy already, follow the below steps.
c. Open a Hubspot ticket - NAME: Company Name: API KEY ERRORS. Relate the ticket to the Company record and the primary contact of the company to the best of your knowledge.
- **Tip: This may be the person listed on the Safely Agreement in Dropbox, or the latest person to be responsive in HubSpot.
d. Associate the SIT ticket to the HubSpot ticket from within the HubSpot ticket
!!! PAUSE FOR A MOMENT AND LOOK AT THE STEPS 4 BEFORE SENDING THE FIRST EMAIL !!!
e. Send an email to the client using the following email template (first make sure they are not a bad payee, otherwise we may need to let them know about that too):
f. Move the SIT ticket to the "CH In Progress" status and leave a little note - "I reached out to the client. Waiting on their feedback."
4. Materials to look into for a better understanding of the account:
-> Make notes in HS of the gathered information, it will help you with the termination ticket.
Portal:
- Is the organization still active? (sometimes it may not be active)
- What are their policies? Safely Coverage and/or only Guest Verification package? (this will indicate what type of template to use for feedback to our customers)
- How many properties do they have? (the more properties they have, the more risk churning them we take on). Therefore is essential a thorough follow up with the customers
- When was the last reservation received? Any in-home guests? Incoming reservations? (it will give us visibility over a customer’s activity)
- Claims tab check - did they file claims? When was the last one? Are there any pending claims?
- When did they pay their last invoice? Essential for customer feedback, and also for policy cancelation due to non-payment, if necessary. If a customer did not pay in a while, we need to attach this information to their cancelation email.
- Check if there is a termination ticket for this customer (sometimes it is)
- Check for the PMS details/exclusions / any technical issues or recent changes.
- Look-up tab - checking what their PMS is, and eventual exclusions
- Onboarding notes - See exclusions
- Hubspot email history or Tickets history
5. Customer follow-up cadence:
- Email follow-up / Calling - for over a month, follow up with the customer via email and calling - at least 2-3 emails, 1-2 calls.
- The email can be a follow-up for API Key Errors (API KEY ERROR template), Payment method updates, or non-existent payments.
- Week 1: Email
- Week 2: no response yet: Email again
- Week 3: no response yet: Give the customer a first call, if they do not answer leave a VM
- Week 4: no response yet: - send a “warm warning email” to the customer letting him know that we will cancel his coverage in terms of a week if we do not hear back.
- Week 5: still no answer? Terminate their account and let the customer know their account is in a process of termination
BONUS - Email templates to send before we terminate an account:
Example 1 - API Key Errors:
“Hi Davelle,
Hopefully, life is treating you well!
We tried several times to get in touch with you with respect to your API Keys, and we have not heard back.
If we do not hear from you by Tuesday (November 29th/2022) we will go ahead and cancel your Safely coverage.
Looking forward to hearing from you, please let us know if there is anything we can do for you!
Safely yours,
Giorgiana”
Example 2 - Non-payment:
“Hello Natasha,
Our finance team informed us that we have not been able to charge your credit card on file for several months. In an effort to prevent a lapse in your coverage, we have made several attempts to reach out to update your payment method.
Unfortunately, because we have not heard back from you, we are deactivating your Safely account and canceling coverage on future reservations and any reservations for which we have not received payment. If this was not intentional, please feel free to reach out to us and we would be more than happy to work with you to bring your account current and restart your service.
Please let me know if you have any questions.”
- For more complex terminations, please use this template: Terminations Template
6. Termination process:
- If we terminate the customer, please open a Client Offboarding Jira ticket and proceed with the steps related to account cancelations.
- Add details about Org. name / Org. ID, and all the gathered research, eg.: last reservation, last payment bill, the reason for cancelation, no. of properties, PMS, etc. - in the Jira ticket
- Add the email communication with the client in Jira
- Change the status to the SIT ticket to Business Intervention and assign it to Jorden - type in the message - "Remove Json".
- Change the Company in HS to churned, also the Life Cycle Stage to be changed to Churned, and the deal to be changed to PM dropped off.
- Add Churned month and churned status, churned reason to the Customer Matrix.
- Some customers that may have never started, or made a payment, we will need to make the following changes in HS: SafelyStay Customer tab - changed to Signed/Never started, Deal tab - changed to Signed/Never Reached Revenue, and the Lifecycle Stage tab - changed to Churned.
- Add the Jira ticket to the Termination HS ticket.
- Send a follow-up email to the customer with respect to their termination.
7. Conclusions:
- Not every SIT ticket is a termination ticket.
- Not every unpaid invoice is a termination ticket. Sometimes customers just need to update their payment method.
- Not every customer with low activity is a termination ticket.
- It’s important to keep our churn percentage low.