Groupon's $20K Question: 'Is This Fancy Dinner Worth It?'

At Dreamforce, the annual Salesforce conference, vendors often take their top customers out for fancy dinners to celebrate and reinforce their relationships. However, one dinner in particular stands out as a turning point for Adobe Sign (formerly EchoSign), a top vendor at the time.

The customer was Groupon, a Top 5 customer with over 2,000 sales reps using Adobe Sign inside Salesforce. The rep who attended the dinner turned to the vendor and said, 'This is a pretty fancy dinner. That probably means I'm overpaying.'

At first, it seemed like a joke, but the rep was being serious. He wasn't ungrateful; he was doing his job and auditing the value of the relationship. The expensive dinner sent a signal that the vendor had margin to spare, which was coming at Groupon's expense.

This encounter made the vendor realize that customers are constantly auditing their relationships with vendors, not just during renewal or expansion negotiations. They compare every interaction and experience against what they pay in absolute terms.

After that dinner, Adobe Sign changed its approach to focus on delivering value to its biggest customers through better support, more careful add-on charges, and prioritizing customer success over upselling.