$2.1M ARR retained across three at-risk accounts that surfaced as red edges on the relationship network graph roughly 61 days before renewal.
Cobalt Cloud, a 260-person managed-cloud-services provider in Toronto, tracks the tone of its conversations with external customer contacts, not just internal staff. SentiTrack detected sentiment on three key accounts falling about 2.8 points into the mid-4s, to a trough of 4.5, while healthy accounts held near 7.0 to 7.3. On the relationship network graph those accounts showed up as red, cold edges to their account teams roughly 61 days before renewal. Customer Success assigned executive sponsors and ran save plans; sentiment recovered from about 4.5 to 7.0, all three accounts renewed, and roughly $2.1M of ARR was retained.
Renewal risk that arrives without a ticket
Churn rarely announces itself. A key account stops escalating, replies get shorter and cooler, and the relationship drifts for weeks before anyone calls it at risk. By the time the renewal conversation starts, the gap is hard to close.
Cobalt Cloud runs managed cloud for B2B customers, where a handful of named accounts carry most of the ARR. Customer Success had renewal dates and usage data, but no early read on the tone of the relationship itself.
The signal that mattered most lived in the day-to-day email between Cobalt account teams and external customer contacts, and no one was measuring it.
What SentiTrack saw
SentiTrack scores the tone of every conversation with external customer contacts and rolls it up per account. Sentiment on three accounts slid into the mid-4s, bottoming at 4.5, about 2.8 points below the 7.0 to 7.3 band the healthy accounts held. The drop landed roughly 61 days before those accounts' renewal dates.
The relationship network graph made the pattern unambiguous. Northwind, Vela Foods, and Orbit Health appeared as slate account nodes joined to their Cobalt account teams by red, cold edges scoring about 4.1 to 4.6. The other three accounts, Pylon Mfg, Aster Bank, and Lumen Retail, stayed connected by warm edges around 7.0 to 7.2. Three at-risk accounts read as red against an otherwise warm map.
SentiTrack surfaced the leading indicator; it did not interpret it. The portfolio average only dipped from 7.0 to 6.2, which would have masked the problem. The per-relationship view on the graph is what isolated three specific accounts while the rest looked fine.
Account sentiment over 14 months. The at-risk accounts (primary line) fall to a trough of 4.5 around the March risk flag, while healthy accounts hold near 7.0 to 7.3 and the portfolio average dips only to 6.2. Markers track detection (Mar), executive sponsors assigned (May), save plans executed (Jun), and all three renewals (Sep), as the line recovers to 7.0.
Before/after relationship network graph. Sky-blue Cobalt team nodes connect to six slate account nodes. Before (renewal risk flagged): Northwind, Vela Foods, and Orbit Health show red cold edges (~4.1 to 4.6) to their account teams, while Pylon Mfg, Aster Bank, and Lumen Retail hold warm edges (~7.0 to 7.2). After (save plans executed): the three red edges recover to warm (~6.7 to 7.0); the healthy accounts stay warm.
Sponsors and save plans, run off the data
Cobalt treated the red edges as a watchlist, not a verdict. In May, leadership assigned executive sponsors to Northwind, Vela Foods, and Orbit Health. In June, the account teams executed targeted save plans built around the topic drivers behind each dip.
Each engagement was scoped using the per-account Quarterly Account Health Review PDF, which pairs the account sentiment map with the at-risk renewal watchlist, a renewal forecast and ARR-at-risk figure, and the topics driving the decline. The report gave sponsors a shared, metadata-only briefing without exposing any message content.
SentiTrack mapped where the relationship was cold and how it moved week to week. The recovery was the work of people: sponsors, CSMs, and the save plans they ran.
Three saves, $2.1M retained
Sentiment on the three accounts climbed off the 4.5 trough back to about 7.0 over the following months, moving through 5.3, 6.0, and 6.6 before holding near 7.0. By September all three accounts had renewed, retaining roughly $2.1M of ARR. On the after view of the network graph, the three formerly red edges had returned to warm, around 6.7 to 7.0, and the healthy accounts stayed warm throughout.
Customer Success now runs every QBR off the SentiTrack Quarterly Account Health Review PDF, so the sentiment map, watchlist, and ARR-at-risk forecast are reviewed on a schedule rather than discovered late.
The result was an earlier conversation, not an automated fix. SentiTrack gave Cobalt about 61 days of lead time; the team used it.
Shared as a scheduled PDF report
Recipients: CS leadership, account teams, customer execs at QBRs
- Account sentiment map
- At-risk renewal watchlist
- Renewal forecast & ARR at risk
- Topic drivers behind the dip
Customer Success ran each QBR off this SentiTrack PDF — the account-health map plus the at-risk watchlist — turning renewal conversations into data-backed save plans.
We had the renewal dates. What we didn't have was the tone of the relationship. Seeing three accounts turn red on the graph two months out is what let us put sponsors on them while there was still time to act.
- Sentiment on external customer relationships is a leading churn indicator: three at-risk accounts fell into the mid-4s, about 2.8 points below the healthy 7.0 to 7.3 band, roughly 61 days before renewal, while the portfolio average barely moved.
- The relationship network graph isolated the problem to three named accounts, Northwind, Vela Foods, and Orbit Health, shown as red edges, instead of burying it in a healthy-looking average.
- SentiTrack surfaced the signal and the lead time; the executive sponsors and save plans did the saving, recovering sentiment from about 4.5 to 7.0 and retaining roughly $2.1M ARR.
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