The real way to make Customer Success work.
As more companies move to a SaaS model you must make it easy to set up, and use. In many cases this initial set up should require little to no cost to the customer.
Why this is important to you? If your customers purchase your solution and cannot get it work the way they want they will not stay your customer. Customer churn with SaaS companies is a significant challenge. The reasons vary, but one of the top reasons is they never figured out how to use the solution.
Making customer success work means you must be 100% all about the customer. When customer success is another word for account management, things can go wrong very quickly.
In most cases SaaS is a volume based business. You need to get as many customers on board as possible, and keep them on board. Making it extremely easy for them to completely adopt your solution is the key to achieving this.
You want to ensure they have access to live resources, or fully detailed help tools like videos, no cost webinars, and complete step by step instructions for self-service support. If you do not have all of this content in place you may find that you are losing as many customers as you are gaining.
One of the best ways to test out if the support tools you are building are useful is to find a group of people who know nothing about you, and see if they can work with the tools. If they can you have achieved the usability necessary for extreme success. If not, you need to put in a lot more work.
Sometimes it makes sense to include value-based implementation at a cost. If so, you have to make sure the pricing is clear, and that nothing is hidden. If the customer feels deceived in any way it will not be good for your business, or brand.
Setting up a customer success process that works may mean you need some outside help to get things up and running. Just renaming existing functions is just not going to make the cut. In fact, that strategy may do a great deal of harm to your business.
Customer success management has to be designed as a completely new role. You can’t take a sale rep, or a project manager, and say now you are a customer success manager. This is a very specific role that requires a new kind of mentality, and a multitude of skill sets.
Your customer success managers must be skilled at working with everyone within the company. When I say everyone, I mean EVERYONE! They are hands-on leaders who are the central hub for ensuring customer success. This role requires a new kind of thinking. Doing what the book says to do is just not going to work.
Sales and project management are skills customer success managers need. They also need to understand billing, training, and marketing. depending on the solution you are selling they may need other skills as well.
Ultimately the goal of customer success is happy, and delighted customers. If you truly understand why your customers want to work with you, and you genuinely connect with them, they will become raving fans, and your bottom line will thank you for it.
If you need help setting up your companies customer success process click here.