The customer who called us last
A vendor announced end of support for an older product version well in advance. Your customers who bought it from you were a natural upgrade conversation. Nobody pulled the list. A year later, one of those customers calls in a hurry: their auditors have flagged unsupported software, they need to upgrade this quarter, and by the way they have already had a quote from another reseller who contacted them months ago.
Why the installed base goes unused
Your order history knows what customers bought, but in the language of the time: product codes, descriptions and versions that have changed since. Vendor lifecycle pages know when each version loses support. Joining the two means standardising years of product descriptions and knowing which versions customers are actually running, which is not always the version they bought.
Account managers are busy with renewals and new deals, and a lifecycle date years away does not feel urgent until it suddenly does.
| Information | Where it lives | Problem |
|---|---|---|
| What was bought | Invoices and distributor orders | Old codes and descriptions |
| Version in use | Customer's systems | Not known to you |
| End-of-support date | Vendor lifecycle pages | Not linked to customers |
| Upgrade path | Vendor documentation | Varies by product and licence type |
What the missed upgrades cost
Upgrade projects are often some of the more valuable work a reseller does, combining licences with services. When they are missed, they go to whoever called first. Customers who find themselves on unsupported software also tend to feel their reseller should have warned them, which weakens the relationship.
Rushed upgrades close to the deadline are harder to deliver well and leave less room to plan the services around them.
There is a planning cost on the customer side as well. Many organisations set IT budgets a year ahead. A customer who learns about an end-of-support date after their budget is fixed either finds money mid-year, which is painful, or runs unsupported software for longer than their own policies allow. Being the reseller who raised it in time for the budget round is worth a great deal to the relationship.
The installed base view we build
- Purchase history load: invoices and distributor orders are loaded and product descriptions are standardised into product, edition and version, with AI suggesting matches and a person confirming ambiguous ones.
- Lifecycle dates: end-of-support and end-of-life dates are recorded for the products and versions you sell, from vendor lifecycle pages, and updated when vendors announce changes.
- Version confirmation: where customers share it, the version actually in use is recorded, through a short survey, a support ticket or your remote monitoring tools if you provide managed services.
- Affected customer lists: for each upcoming lifecycle date, the customers affected are listed with what they own, estimated quantities and the account manager.
- Timed call lists: each account manager gets a list ordered by how soon the date is and how much the customer owns, with talking points drawn from the vendor's lifecycle notice.
- Campaign tracking: outreach and responses are logged in your CRM so progress can be seen by product and date.
Upgrade conversations that start on time
Well before a lifecycle date, account managers know which of their customers are affected and roughly what they own. Customers hear about it from you first, with enough time to plan, budget and book services. Your services team sees upgrade projects coming and can schedule engineers rather than scrambling.
The same view answers other questions too: which customers still run a product the vendor has replaced, which have never moved to subscription, and which own a mix of old and new versions that would be simpler on one.
Is your installed base working for you?
- You cannot quickly list customers running a product version nearing end of support.
- Old product descriptions in your records are inconsistent.
- Customers have come to you in a hurry about unsupported software.
- Competitors have contacted your customers about upgrades first.
- Upgrade campaigns are run from memory rather than data.