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Maximizing Returns with Customer Success (5 Best Practices)

Maximizing Returns with Customer Success (5 Best Practices)

 

Key Takeaways:

 

For your business to grow, it is vital that you have a good product and a good sales and marketing team. But to sustain this growth, one must be on top of the game in a rapidly transforming market space.

We are in a highly competitive era and with more ventures sprouting each day, the success of your SaaS business rests on the service part. Rather than acquiring more customers, the focus has shifted to creating connections and ensuring that your existing customers achieve the desired outcomes while using your product or service.

Consequently, building a customer success program has become more relevant than ever to boost conversions, raise customer happiness, and ultimately reduce churn. But before we dive into the details, it is important to understand what customer success is and why customer success is important.

 

What is Customer Success?

 

At its core, customer success is a set of methods and strategies that a company employs to enable customers to achieve long-term value with their products. Unlike customer support, which takes a reactive approach, customer success is proactive, where you solve customer pain points before customers have even realized them.

Customer success is based on a simple realisation that the success of your business venture is directly proportional to the success of those who buy your products or services- your customers.

Some of the biggest names in the industry have succeeded in not just creating great products and exemplary service standards but also by closely aligning their customer success strategy with the success of their customers. In fact, according to research, growing companies are 21% more likely to prioritize customer success compared to their stagnant counterparts.

 

Why Does Customer Success Matter?

 

When your customers have the necessary tools for success, you are increasing the chances of them getting the maximum value from your product or service. Essentially, a robust customer success platform directly affects your bottom line. 

While happy customers translate to loyal customers and recurring revenue, let’s show you how much building a customer success program can affect your business.

  1. For a company’s product development team, a robust feedback mechanism is a crucial step in refining the product performance and designing better functionalities. While nothing can be better than a direct evaluation from customers themselves, there are two roadblocks in the process:
    • Customers are usually not so invested in giving you constructive feedback
    • They also don’t possess the acumen or competency to give the right judgment
  2. A customer success platform can serve as a useful medium. Some of the best customer success strategies can identify the growing needs of the customer through regular interactions. These can be properly articulated for the product team.

 

According to research conducted by Bain & Company, when retention rates for an organisation increase by just 5%, its profit increases by 25% or more.

Greater customer satisfaction is a direct result of any SaaS business using customer success solutions. Companies can build a loyal customer base who will then act as customer advocates, discussing what your company has to offer with others. This leads to a higher Net Promoter Score (NPS) and a better brand positioning.

Companies with a high NPS have a better brand reputation. They have greater authority in their niche.

 

5 Customer Success Best Practices

 

#1. Create a Customer Success Journey Map

It is important to remember that every SaaS business is unique. In such a case, it is vital that your customer success platform is customised to cater to what your customers want.

Creating a customer journey roadmap can help you to plot out the various steps of your customer success process. Such a journey map will include information on the systems and tools you use, your feedback strategy, decisions that are made, and all other factors which you deem critical for your customer’s journey with your product.

Customer journey roadmaps are exhaustive documentation for a single reason–it spells out the journey you want your customer to have with you.

#2. Educate Your Customers

To best support your customers, businesses must anticipate the questions that are likely to come up as they begin using the products or services. This step is even more vital if you sell a complex product such as software.

Brainstorm all possible gaps that your customers may face and create an expansive knowledge base. This can range from product and feature descriptions to live chat which can help you to educate your customers.

Related Read5 Points to Consider When Outsourcing Customer Success

#3. Ensure a Smooth Onboarding 

There is always a learning curve when it comes to new customers. You can ease the process by supporting them through the initial stage as they get acquainted with your product or service.

An onboarding process where your customers have the necessary tools, training, and resource materials is a great way to strike the right connection.

By onboarding your customers, you set the tone for what they should expect from your business, paving the way for a long-lasting relationship.

#4. Keep Communicating with Different Teams

When customer success becomes the driving philosophy of your business, each team, directly or indirectly, plays a role in augmenting it. One of the crucial aspects of an efficient customer success platform is to keep the line of communication open between teams.

  • Communicate with sales to have a better understanding of customer pain points
  • Learn more about the problems that customer support handles

By doing so, you can ensure that your approach as well as your interactions with your customers are professional and consistent.

#5. Monitor Metrics for Further Improvement

As you implement various customer success practices, it is also important to evaluate how those practices are working. Metric monitoring can help you find answers to issues such as:

  • Is your onboarding process as smooth as possible?
  • How regularly are your customers using your product or service?
  • Is your customer success strategy affecting your churn rate, Customer Lifecycle Value (CLV), and Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)?

Metrics can not only help you with an in-depth evaluation but also enable you to have better insight into the product-client relationship.

 

The Bottom Line

 

It is the age of the customer.

The new-age customer not only has more control over the procurement process but they are also more knowledgeable. More than anything else, they are aware of how their purchasing decisions affect an organisation’s progress.

Winning in this landscape requires businesses, especially those in the SaaS landscape, to adopt a proactive approach to anticipate their needs. Building a customer success program can enable you to quickly deliver measurable outcomes to your customers.

Whether it is about gathering insights into customer sentiment and behaviour or integrating customer success platforms, your strategy has one goal – to retain customers and grow your ARR.

Customer success is all about making your customers feel that they belong. When you help them feel like they are part of your brand, they are more likely to stick with your product and even shout about it in their network.

 

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