Red Hat automates renewal journeys with Cleverbridge

How the $3B+ company transformed its customer renewal strategy — streamlining operations and achieving a 23-point boost in NPS.

The challenge

Red Hat, a leading enterprise open-source software company, faced mounting pressure to improve how it managed renewals for its multi-billion-dollar subscription business.

Relying on manual, human-led communications across a vast customer base had become unsustainable. The absence of a centralized communication system led to inconsistent messaging and follow-ups, resulting in missed renewals, low customer satisfaction, and internal inefficiencies.

What the company needed wasn’t just a communications upgrade — it was a strategic overhaul: one that could scale globally, reduce friction for customers, and surface the right message at the right time.

The solution

The company partnered with Cleverbridge to modernize its renewal outreach using automated, personalized campaigns delivered through Cleverbridge’s robust ecommerce and subscription platform.

Cleverbridge mapped out key lifecycle touchpoints and deployed tailored communications to remind customers of upcoming renewals, guide them through plan options, and simplify decision-making. The team also worked to replace opaque processes with transparent data flows, enabling real-time campaign management and improved insight into customer behavior.

What once required extensive manual oversight was now fully automated, with renewal journeys that flexed by segment, region, and subscription length.

The results

With Cleverbridge’s help, Red Hat transitioned from fragmented outreach to a fully automated, data-driven renewal strategy, resulting in: 

• A 40% increase in customer engagement, as measured by open rates, click-throughs, and renewal activity

• An NPS (Net Promoter Score) jump from 50 to 73, reflecting improved customer satisfaction and clarity around the renewal process

• A scalable framework that now supports a $3B+ global renewal business with less overhead and greater continuity

With ongoing improvements to attribution tracking, the company continues working with Cleverbridge to improve visibility into campaign performance and expand its customer lifecycle strategy. What began as a tactical fix has evolved into a strategic foundation for long-term retention and growth.