[Hiring] Lead Renewal Specialist @Cengage Group

Role Description

The Renewal Specialist is responsible for managing and driving customer renewals through proactive engagement, strategic prioritization, and close collaboration with sales representatives and internal teams. This role ensures customer happiness, minimizes churn, and supports revenue growth by efficiently managing renewal opportunities and identifying expansion opportunities across the product portfolio.

Key Responsibilities

• Own and manage a renewal pipeline using CRM dashboards, ensuring accurate tracking of contacts, opportunities, quotes, and renewal stages.
• Maintain detailed and timely notes on all customer interactions, including calls, meetings, emails, and renewal activity.
• Complete renewal strategies by working opportunities through defined stages and prioritizing renewals by value and risk level.
• Manage a high-volume inbox and maintain a customer response-time goal of 24 hours or less.
• Proactively prioritize and work the highest-value renewals in descending order to improve retention and revenue.
• Conduct monthly sessions with sales representatives to assess renewal progress, address at-risk accounts, and coordinate on strategic plans to boost renewals.
• Collaborate closely with sales reps and internal teammates to stay current on systems, tools, and processes.
• Attend bi-weekly Southeast and Northeast meetings to provide renewal updates, field questions, and support managers and teams.
• Develop product knowledge to find opportunities for expansion and new product growth during the renewal cycle.
• Accurately log and track all customer activity in CRM to support reporting, forecasting, and leadership visibility.

Qualifications

• Strong organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple renewals simultaneously.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Experience managing CRM systems and maintaining clean, detailed data.
• Ability to prioritize work based on urgency, value, and customer risk.
• Strong collaboration skills and ease working across sales and internal groups.
• Customer-focused attitude with a proactive approach to problem-solving.
• Capacity to acquire and maintain comprehensive product understanding to assist with renewals and growth discussions.

Preferred Qualifications

• Previous experience in renewals, account management, or customer success.
• Experience working in an education, publishing, or SaaS environment.
• Familiarity with sales processes, forecasting, and pipeline management.

Compensation

At Cengage, we take great pride in our commitment to providing a comprehensive and rewarding Total Rewards package designed to support and empower our employees.

• Base pay range: $24.00 - $31.00 USD.
• Target Variable Compensation: $12,500.00 USD Annual: Individual Target.
• Actual incentive earnings are not guaranteed and may be more or less than the target amount based on achievement of performance goals and the terms of the applicable incentive compensation plan.