Entrepreneurs are resourceful by nature. When we want something done, our first instinct is to build it ourselves. That’s the origin story of many companies: The founders built something they couldn’t find elsewhere.

At some point, though, we all come to a critical crossroads: Do we buy or build? Sometimes it makes sense to build the tools you need in-house. If the tool is a vital part of your core product, then it makes sense to develop it yourself. For everything else, the best answer is usually to buy.

Here at Bellwethr, we get the “buy or build” question a lot, especially when it comes to our cancellation workflow tool, RetentionEngine. Being the brilliant and resourceful people they are, many of our customers ask, “Why shouldn’t we just build something like RetentionEngine ourselves?” And some have even tried!

There’s no right answer to this question for every business. But for most companies—where customer cancellations are a fact of life, but not a core part of their product—it makes more sense to use a turnkey solution like Bellwethr’s RetentionEngine.

In this short guide, we’ll help you answer the Buy or Build question for yourself.

When to “Buy” RetentionEngine vs. Build Your Own

RetentionEngine is a subscription-based tool that plugs right into your existing payment platform. If you already understand the need for a better cancellation workflow, then here are a few reasons why you should go with RetentionEngine over building your own:

Time, Money, and Resources

The most obvious benefit of using RetentionEngine is the time, money, and resources saved. Building your own cancellation workflow could take weeks, even months. During that time, you’re spending money and using up precious development resources. It could be years before you see any meaningful ROI.

With Bellwethr RetentionEngine, your new cancellation workflow can be up and running in under an hour. Get started in the morning and you could save your first customer by lunch.

Plus, RetentionEngine starts at just $99 per month. That’s less than the cost of a good full-stack developer for an hour of work. How’s that for ROI?

Customer Retention Expertise

If you’re like most busy entrepreneurs, you’re not thinking about customer retention until there’s a problem. At best, retention rises to the level of “strategic priority.” But even then, you have a thousand other “priorities” on your plate.

You may not think about customer retention constantly, but we do. Bellwethr’s customer success team members are experts in retention. We have the privilege to help companies all over the world reduce churn and build customer loyalty. That means we’ve seen what works and what doesn’t.

If you’re having a sticky retention problem, rest assured we’ve seen it before and can help you figure it out.

Updates and Improvements

People often forget about the long-tail costs of custom software. The biggest expense is keeping the software up-to-date. That’s why products like Recharge, Shopify, and Amazon AWS are so popular: They just work, and they are always improving and updated.

Bellwethr RetentionEngine is the same way. You never have to worry about an outdated UI or installing the latest security patch. RetentionEngine is always updating and improving thanks to our dedicated team of developers and engineers.

Go Beyond Cancellation

RetentionEngine is just the one product in the Bellwethr platform. With Bellwethr you have an entire suite of retention tools to help you reduce churn and increase revenue at every customer touchpoint.

For example, Win-Back Engine helps you intelligently reach out to former customers when the time is right. Combined, Retention and Win-Back Engines give you a powerful one-two punch to maximize customer value.

And that’s just the beginning. Retention is not just a one-time activity, but an on-going process of engaging and deepening your relationship with customers. Bellwethr products will help you optimize every part of the customer journey. You can’t get that with a custom-built cancellation workflow.  

Focus on Your Customers, Not the Technology

RetentionEngine is just a tool to help you administer a successful cancellation workflow. The real magic comes from you. With our technology in place, you can focus on dreaming up offers and incentives that will entice customers to stay. Simply plug those ideas into RetentionEngine and our machine learning algorithm will optimize for the best performing offers.

Have no fear; there’s no way to get fleeced by a rogue AI offering 90% off everything in the store. RetentionEngine will prioritize the offers you want customers to see first. By weighting offers based on their cost to your business, RetentionEngine prevents customers from being able to game the system by collecting the same offer over and over.

Machine Learning Chops

Last but not least, we have to brag about the technology itself. RetentionEngine may look simple on the surface, but underneath is machine learning technology that’s been under development for years.

Bellwethr uses a lesser-used form of machine learning called Reinforcement Learning. The advantage is that RetentionEngine learns a lot like humans do: through trial-and-error. You don’t need thousands of cancellation events to “train” our algorithm; RetentionEngine starts optimizing itself from the very first customer.

There’s simply no way to develop a self-learning cancellation workflow like RetentionEngine without investing in a team of machine learning experts. We’ve done the heavy lifting so you can reap all the benefits.

Before you Build, Try Bellwethr RetentionEngine For Free

There are certainly cases where it makes sense to build your own cancellation workflow. You could probably do it if you’re a large enterprise with resources to spare. But even then, why start from scratch when you can leverage existing technology?

Along with our off-the-shelf tools, Bellwethr works with enterprises to build customized custom intervention engines for everything from smart upselling to predictive customer support.

Don’t worry; small and mid-sized businesses get personalized solutions, too. Our RetentionEngine is customizable to match the font and colors of your website, so your cancellation workflow will look like a seamless extension of your brand.

Best of all, you can try Retention Engine for free. Before you build your own cancellation workflow, sign up for a free trial of Bellwethr RetentionEngine today.

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