How to Track Salesforce Expansion Revenue for Feature Requests

Prioritizing the right feature to build next is one of the biggest challenges in software.

The trick to doing it well is having the right data. If you set up a robust customer feedback system, you can slice and dice your feedback to build the features that will help you best achieve your business goals. For example, if your goal is to reduce churn among your highest paying customers, you can use Savio to filter for the features with high MRR. You’ll see what your highest-paying customers are asking for.

What if your goal is to expand revenue?

One strategy is to prioritize the features that have the highest expansion revenue tied to them. These are the features that new prospects want or that existing customers are asking for before they pull the trigger on new deals.

For example, imagine you have Account A with two open Opportunities for $9,800 and $10,000 respectively, and you want to see that total deal value of $19,800 beside all of Company A's Feature Requests. You can actually set up Savio so you can easily see the potential expansion revenue for each feature.

In this article, we’ll show you how. We’ll first show you how to create a field to calculate MRR from opportunities for each account in Salesforce, and then walk you through displaying that potential expansion revenue beside each feature request in Savio.

Read more: How Much Does a Salesforce Feedback Management License Cost?

Use Case: I use Salesforce CRM and I want to see the potential revenue tied to feature requests

Here are some common use cases for this setup:

1. You’re in Sales. You know that there is considerable potential revenue from open opportunities… but some of those opportunities depend on a given feature being built. You want to show Product how valuable each feature is in terms of the potential revenue it could generate. You’d love to be able to roll up the potential revenue from new opportunities for customers that are asking for that feature. And it would be great if you could make that number easily visible to your Product team in Savio.

2. You’re in Product. You know that there is a bunch of potential new revenue that could come from new deals if you build certain features. But you’re not sure what the exact value of that revenue is for each feature. You want to be able to easily see that potential MRR value for each feature and be able to compare it to other features as you choose what to build next. You’d love to be able to see that number right in Savio.

This article will explain how to set it up. By the end, you’ll be able to see an aggregate dollar value for all the opportunities held by customers that have asked for a given feature. It’ll look like this:

Let’s get it set up.

(Don’t use Salesforce? Here’s how to track potential expansion revenue in Savio using HubSpot.)

Pre-reqs: Make sure you have the necessary permissions

What you need in Savio: You can currently only use Savio’s integration with Salesforce on the scaling plan. (If you’re not already on the scaling plan, you can get started with a free trial.)

Once you’re on the scaling plan, take a moment to check that the Salesforce integration is set up—you’ll need it to complete the rest of the steps in this article.

What you need in Salesforce: To track potential expansion revenue in Savio from Salesforce, we’re going to need to create a new field for accounts. Currently, this function is available in the following editions of Salesforce:

• Contact Manager

• Essentials

• Group

• Professional

• Enterprise

• Performance

• Unlimited

• Developer

• Database.com Enterprise

You also need to have the “​​Customize Application” permission active in order to create a new field. Check out the Salesforce pricing and permissions pages for more information.

1. Create a roll-up property in Salesforce

First, we’re going to create a roll-up field at the account level. It’s going to add up all of the potential expansion revenue for each Opportunity that’s attached to an Account. From the earlier example, this field would roll up Account A’s two open Opportunities, for $9,800 and $10,000 respectively, and show Account A as having a deal MRR value of $19,800.

To do that:

1. Log into Salesforce and click “Settings”.  Then click “Setup”, then “Objects and Fields”, then “Object Manager”, then “Account”, then “Fields & Relationships”, and then “New”. (For more direction on creating new custom fields in Salesforce, check out their documentation.)

From the Management Settings page for Accounts in Salesforce, click “Fields & Relationships” and then “New” to create a new account property.

2. Select “Roll-Up Summary”.

3. Enter the details for the new field. Enter a label for the field as well as a field name.

4. Define the summary calculation.

• Summarized object: Choose “Opportunities”.

• Select Roll-Up Type: Choose “Sum”.

• Field to Aggregate: Choose the field that holds the value of the expansion revenue for each opportunity. In our instance of Salesforce, that field is called “Expansion MRR”.

5. Select the appropriate Salesforce permissions and click save. Now, you’ll have a new field that sums the revenue for each opportunity for a given account.

In this example, we can see that the total MRR for Acme Corp opportunities is $8,333.

2. Make the attribute visible in Savio

The Salesforce integration will automatically pull that new property directly into Savio. You’ll find it on the People and Company Attributes page.

Show the attribute in feature request filters and user information

If you want, you can edit the attribute to be able to use it to filter feature requests or show it with other user information. To do so:

1. Click on the attribute.

2. Modify the attribute settings and click “Save Attribute”.

• Check “Show in filters” to make it possible to filter feature requests by this attribute.

• Check “Show with User info” to display this attribute when the company is mentioned.

Read more: How to modify attribute settings in Savio

You’ll see that the attribute is now visible in user info.

You’ll also see that the attribute is now available in the filters menu.

Show the attribute for each feature request

If you want, You can also choose to display the attribute in the feature request list. To do that:

1. Navigate to the Manage Feature Request List Columns page.

2. Select your attribute from the list and click the “Display this Column” button.

Now, when you go to your feature request list, you’ll see the rolled-up sum of MRR for all the opportunities of all of the companies who have asked for that feature.

3. Filter for features with potential expansion revenue

You can now filter for the features that have significant expansion revenue. Just click the filter icon on the feature request page to bring up filters, find the potential expansion revenue attribute you created, and then apply the filter.

Here, we’re filtering for feature requests with $500 or more in potential expansion revenue. 

You’ll now see only the feature requests that meet your criteria.

We’ve filtered for feature requests with “Rollup Deal MRR” greater than $500, so we only see feature requests that meet that criteria.

Read more: How to Filter Feedback and Feature Requests in Savio

Easily find potential expansion revenue in your feature requests

This is a quick way to find the features that provide opportunities for expanding your revenue. Prioritize them and you’ll be in a better position to close new deals and expand sales.

Learn more about using Salesforce data to prioritize features or try Savio for free here.

Note: Savio helps B2B SaaS Customer Success, Product, and Sales teams organize and prioritize product feedback and feature requests. Learn more about Savio here.

Last Updated: 2022-12-15

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