8 Customer Success Strategies from our CS Community in Dublin
In customer success, it’s essential to delve deeper and tap into a more intuitive approach. A study by Gainsight found that 78% of Customer Success professionals believe that deep, intuitive understanding of customer needs and behaviors is crucial for driving long-term success and reducing churn.
During our CS Snack breakfast event in Dublin, over 40 Customer Success (CS) executives gathered to share insights on challenges encountered and actionable tips.
Dublin, A dynamic epicenter for Customer Success innovation, our event at Dublin provided us with invaluable insights into Customer Success. With industry leaders from prominent companies such as Asana, HubSpot, and Udemy, we deepened our understanding of the current market and discovered numerous ideas that other participants can use as benchmarks. We also had great help from our moderators – Sally Stoewe, Nicki Hunt, and Gabriel Box.
We launched the morning with a series of enriching learning opportunities for the attendees. They chose from six interactive breakout sessions, each focusing on a distinct area. The variety of topics we had, gave participants the flexibility to customize their learning experience according to their interests and objectives. Below are the topics featured in these sessions.
- Scaling CS through digitalization
- Retaining revenue in more challenging times
- Building a customer-centric business (Leadership only)
- Building ROI for your customer as CSM
- Strategic/enterprise account management (100k+ ARR)
- Influencing organizational change as a CSM
Here’s a summary of what we’ve learned:
1. Quantify the Impact of Issues
An overlooked strategy that was highlighted in the “Retaining Revenue in Tougher Times” session, was the importance of quantifying the impact of issues. Identifying and quantifying help us prioritize which problems need immediate attention and resources. Putting numbers to issues, helps us make better decisions on where to focus our efforts.
Like Vodafone for instance. Vodafone, invested in advanced analytics to monitor and quantify numerous customer issues that are certainly impacting churn. Some issues that were alleviated through quantification were network outages, service disruptions, and billing discrepancies.
Here are strategies to implement:
✔️ Conduct an Issue Tracking and Logging. Different ticketing systems are available, such as Jira and Zendesk, which you can use to log customer issues. Always complete the issue details such as customer information, use case, presence of workarounds, and the potential churn value in each ticket.
✔️ Calculate Churn Value. Estimate the revenue loss when a customer decides to leave, and use both historical data and a Customer’s Life Value (CLV) to estimate the churn value.
✔️ Track Impact Metrics. There are numerous ways to track metrics, hence there are also several metrics that need to be observed. This includes affected customers, the severity of the issue, and the financial impact.
2. Create Reports and Initiate Visibility
Reports allow transparency for both the internal stakeholders and customers. Reports power data-driven decision-making. With those, you can spot valuable trends and patterns for strategic planning and resource allocation.
Being more visible with the team strengthens your bond with everyone else. This way, you can easily address concerns and problems, and brainstorm on essential ideas.
✔️ Create Reports and Dashboards. Utilize different business intelligence platforms such as Tableau, and Power BI to create dashboards, and ensure accessibility of these reports to both the CS and Product Teams.
✔️ Ensure regular updates. Meetings and updates should be scheduled regularly, to assess and discuss certain situations, their impacts, and the progress on the fixes being made.
3. Prioritize Value Driven Conversations
Value-driven conversations, focus on meaningful interactions, that spark ideas and focus on delivering significant value to both parties. These conversations are guided by a commitment to understanding and addressing core needs, fostering trust, and building lasting relationships.
Often, it’s not about the depth of the topic but rather factors such as truly understanding the client’s needs, challenges, and goals through active and empathetic listening. Conducting follow-throughs is also another aspect of creating value-driven conversations.
Photo by: https://digitalleadership.com/blog/value-creation/
In a survey by Gartner, it is said that companies that prioritize value-driven conversations in their Customer Success Management strategies see a 30% increase in customer retention rates
✔️ Conduct Workshops and Training: You need to update your team on learnings and offer training sessions that are focused on value-based selling techniques, so everyone can get fully onboard with this strategy. This includes teaching CS professionals how to identify and articulate the unique benefits and outcomes that your product or service provides, rather than just discussing features or pricing.
✔️ Provide Resource Toolkits: One seminar or workshop adds value to raising awareness on why creating value-driven conversations is a must. However, it’s also necessary to equip your team with resources, such as case studies, success stories, and value maps, that highlight how the product has positively impacted other customers. This helps them effectively demonstrate value in conversations and tailor discussions to individual customer needs.
4. Provide Calls To Action for Effective Management
Calls to Action serve as clear, and actionable steps that guide both customers and team members towards desired outcomes. For customers, a well-crafted CTA can turn interest into action, fostering loyalty and boosting sales. Meanwhile, effective CTAs promote positive traits such as productivity and accountability for team members.
Through CTAs, businesses can easily streamline their operations and ensure that both customers and employees are aligned with the values and goals set by the company.
One notable example of a company that exemplifies the power of effective CTAs, is SAP. A leading software company based in Germany, its CTA for customer success initiatives includes model of clarity and actionability. They invite customers to “Engage with SAP for tailored solutions and unmatched support,” encouraging clients to take proactive steps in optimizing their use of SAP products.
✔️ Document and Distribute Playbooks: Create comprehensive playbooks detailing best practices, response strategies, and escalation procedures for various scenarios Scale CSMs may encounter. Always ensure that the playbooks are created with inputs from experienced CSMs to cover the common challenges and effective solutions that your team can consider.
✔️Establish Clear Call-to-Action Protocols: Define and communicate specific calls to action (CTAs) for different customer touchpoints, such as follow-up actions, renewal reminders, or upsell opportunities. Integrate CTAs into your CRM and customer interaction platforms. Ensure CTAs are actionable and align with the customer journey. Regularly review and refine CTAs based on feedback and performance metrics.
5. Challenge Health Score Effectiveness
Another crucial metric to gauge customer satisfaction and predict churn is Customer Success (CS) Health Scores. Many factors and data points contribute to the score, such as product usage, support interactions, and customer feedback. These can design a preview of the customer’s overall health and engagement rating with the company’s product and services.
However, one dilemma we’re facing at present is how health scores and their effectiveness are being challenged. For some critics, it’s not enough to solely rely on quantitative metrics as this is somehow incomplete, and can be misleading when understanding customer needs and sentiments. Now that personalized and proactive customer strategies are more crucial, it’s essential to re-evaluate a company’s reliance on health scores.
Photo by: https://blog.hubspot.com/service/customer-health-score
✔️Establish Collaboration with Data Analysts: Create a dedicated team consisting of data analysts and Scale CSMs to continually assess the effectiveness of health scores. Regular meetings should be scheduled to review health score metrics and discuss potential improvements.
This collaboration should focus on identifying key indicators that accurately reflect customer health, incorporating feedback from CSMs who interact with customers directly. This partnership ensures that the health scores remain relevant and actionable.
✔️Pilot New Scoring Models: When considering changes to health scores, pilot new scoring models with a small segment of customers before full implementation. Analyze the performance of these pilot models to determine their effectiveness in predicting customer health and guiding Scale team activities. Use insights from the pilot phase to make data-driven decisions about broader adoption of new scoring methodologies.
6. Implement Effective Partnerships for Content and Education
Establishing effective partnerships for content and education can significantly enhance the value you provide to customers and team members. These partnerships can lead to improved customer success, deeper engagement, and a more knowledgeable and skilled team.
Here are two tips to guide you in implementing effective partnerships for content and education.
✔️Create a Joint Content Development Team: Form a cross-functional team including CSMs, Customer Marketing, and subject matter experts to collaboratively develop content. Ensure that all roles are assigned within the team and that responsibilities are clear, such as who creates content, and who approves and accounts for projects. Collaborations like this ensure that the content created is appropriate both for customer needs and is aligned with the different marketing strategies.
✔️Conduct Customer Needs Assessments: While it may look generic, surveys, interviews, and feedbacks from CSMs to assess customer needs and preferences are still effective. These insights should be shared with the customer marketing team, to have a proper guide on the process of creating content and addressing specific customer interests and challenges. This ensures that the educational materials and webinars are tailored to provide maximum value and relevance to customers.
7. Align ROI with customer KPIs
You must understand that your idea of ROI, and your customers may be different, so it’s best to ensure alignment with Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to better showcase the value of your products and services. Through alignments like this, you can get on the same page as your customers, and create a strategy for reaching desired outcomes for long-term success.
✔️ Develop a Value Communication Plan: Structure plans help you communicate the value of your product to numerous stakeholders within the organization. This plan should always include customized reports, dashboards, and presentations that will reflect the ROI metrics and identified leading indicators.
✔️Recommend Relevant Metrics: Based on your product’s benefits, recommend specific metrics for customers to track that aligns with their business objectives. For example, if your product improves operational efficiency, suggest measuring time saved or process improvements. Tailor these recommendations to fit their industry and specific use cases.
8. Record Non-Urgent Enhancement Requests
While non-urgent enhancement requests may sound less of a priority, it is important to make a good list of what your community asks of you. It’s a way to understand customer needs and build trust among your customer base. Non-urgent requests often involve small but meaningful improvements that can significantly enhance the user experience over time.
Take Monzo as an example. This UK-based digital bank is a prime example of a company that has successfully leveraged non-urgent enhancement requests to drive customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Monzo has established a robust system for collecting and prioritizing non-urgent enhancement requests from its user community. The company has various channels to reach customers, including in-app feedback where customers usually share insights. This strategy has helped Monzo gain a comprehensive understanding of its customers’ needs and desires making it more capable of aligning product development with user expectations.
✔️ Utilize community platforms. Not everyone will care to find your email or site, but surely your customers would want to know to reach you. Community platforms like UserVoice, and Canny can be a good way for users to submit and recommend enhanced requests.
Photo by: https://www.convosight.com/blogs/ultimate-guide-to-community-marketing/
✔️ Regularly monitor and analyze community platforms. Utilize the platforms as a way to gain popular requests and platform trends, which can be shared with the Product Team for roadmap and development opportunities.
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