Tip 13: Communicating Pricing Changes

Welcome to 20 days of pricing tips—part 13. I’m Nika, a member of the pricing team and I’ve worked on 20 pricing projects. Today we're breaking down how to communicate price changes.

If you're not Microsoft, Spotify or Netflix, rolling out a pricing increase can be extremely daunting. After all, the last thing we want is to piss off customers. We have laid out a few tips to help ease the blow to your current customers.

First things first, decide how we are going to approach current customers. As we said earlier, guaranteeing legacy pricing will eventually hurt your brand and does not align with value-based pricing (shouldn't customers be paying more if more value is being delivered?). The best strategy here is to implement legacy discounting, giving your current customers some breathing room will improve the customer relationship while not diminishing the value of your product.

Now that we are offering our current customers a grace period, how are we going to communicate it? Firstly, be explicit. Customers are not stupid, sugarcoating and disguising pricing changes will cause suspicion and distrust amongst customers.

Next, establish a customer value-centric narrative. Focus on how this pricing change will ultimately lead to a better user experience, no one can be mad about that! Then, focus on some of your biggest/most sensitive clients first. Hold their hands, be open to feedback, and do not apologize.

Taking the time to make sure your whale accounts are on board will go a long way. And lastly, as always, internal alignment is key. Ensure sales isn't discounting a ton during a pricing change, ensure marketing is highlighting new features and the customer value narrative. Of course, your pricing committee is key in ensuring this all goes smoothly.

Thanks for checking out our pricing tips. If you want to connect with our pricing team email Patrick@profitwell.com and we’ll send over the intro.