Customer success is the proactive effort to understand and meet customer needs by anticipating possible roadblocks and providing solutions to foster long-term customer loyalty and revenue growth.
As an ongoing process, customer success can help organizations identify and address common questions or roadblocks that could otherwise lead to customer churn. Every customer interaction involves an intended end goal with a product or service. By taking a proactive approach to challenges, organizations can boost customer satisfaction—and retention.
However, the customer success process goes beyond client-organization relationships to include internal teams. The idea is to align each team with overarching goals that benefit both the customer and the business. When customers achieve their goals, organizations succeed.
This mutual success is at the core of customer success practices. Retention and repeat business are more likely to occur when a business makes customer success one of its top priorities. An effective strategy will include outcome-based metrics and other relevant processes to achieve the main goal of supporting customer satisfaction.
While most businesses account for customer goals when first developing a product or service, the most successful ones understand that customer success is a continual process of facilitating a smooth customer journey from the first interaction to completed sales. By anticipating challenges and providing proactive solutions, customer success supports a seamless experience.
A central part of fostering satisfaction and loyalty is cultivating a strong client relationship. These relationships are built on a foundation of mutual benefit. As teams at every level of an organization adjust their efforts to account for customer success, they inherently contribute to the overall growth of the business.
However, prioritizing customer success is more than simply meeting expectations—it is about exceeding them and forging lasting partnerships that benefit both parties.
Gather a team of doers—proactive, innovative, and dedicated to customer success. Unlike account management or associated concepts, a customer success team provides the value and experience customers expect.
Keeping them engaged and constantly at the receiving end of a positive experience is an essential part of engaging customers, and a high-performing team is especially important to creating a successful customer experience.
Especially as businesses grow, they may find it hard to keep track of all the accounts they manage. Finding the right software to help customer success managers track customer interactions in one central location can help teams better address recurring problems.
An effective customer success management tool will include relevant data, including open accounts, renewals, and orders, as well as current issues raised with customer service. This helps businesses understand the full scope of customer accounts and track the performance of specific strategies based on company KPIs.
Organizations should select the right software that can connect with customer relationship management (CRM) solutions that are already in place. Proper software can monitor products and CRM from a single location, as well as report trends, stats, and predictive analytics. Customer success teams can even log and analyze connections with customers, including phone, email, chat, and in-person interactions.
The most effective strategies for customer success proactively provide assistance. The strategy should be able to guide customer success teams toward the most effective actions to serve customer success, which also supports the wider business strategy and bottom line. Companies that are flexible in adjusting their strategies when customers provide feedback often see an increase in customer retention.
Organizations can utilize KPIs to measure the effectiveness of their customer success strategy. Clearly defined metrics provide tangible data to track progress, which means businesses can more easily identify areas for improvement and allocate resources. KPIs serve as valuable tools for evaluating the return on investment in customer success efforts and driving continuous improvement in delivering exceptional customer experiences.
If metrics reveal themselves organically, consider implementing them into KPI measurements. Some measurements may prove less accurate or useful, at which point it is ideal to adjust KPIs. The most effective metrics to track for customer success include:
- Monthly recurring revenue
- Qualitative and quantitative customer feedback
- First contact resolution
- Retention cost
- Lifetime value
- Net promoter score
- Health score
- Customer satisfaction
- Customer effort score
- Churn
Businesses that focus on customer success tend to take more proactive approaches to customer needs. This includes anticipating future issues and possible customer questions, as well as delivering based on an understanding of current customer needs. The aim of customer success is to help clients build a roadmap for achieving their goals.
Customer support takes more of a reactive approach. It involves addressing customer requests or complaints via various channels like phone, email, or online forms. In this approach, a team of representatives responds to individual issues, providing solutions on a case-by-case basis.
Account management focuses on nurturing relationships with customers, especially those who may be dissatisfied or require additional attention. While some prescriptive approaches may be used, this method tends to also be more reactive, addressing specific customer concerns rather than focusing on broader success strategies.
Customer experience revolves around how customers perceive and interact with a product or service from their unique perspective. It emphasizes the qualitative aspects of customer interactions, capturing the entirety of their journey and interactions with the brand. Customer success utilizes insights from the customer experience to enhance satisfaction and drive continuous improvements within the product or service.
Unhappy or indifferent customers tend to churn at a higher rate. Effective customer success strategies directly address the factors contributing to customer churn. By actively engaging with customers and continuously improving the product or service based on their feedback, customer success teams can mitigate dissatisfaction and increase customer retention rates. This approach not only reduces churn but also fosters loyalty and long-term relationships with customers.
Revenue is based on the relationship with an end user. Customer success teams can increase revenue by focusing on nurturing relationships with existing customers. Through upselling or cross-selling opportunities, they can capitalize on the trust and goodwill established with customers, driving additional revenue without the high costs associated with acquiring new customers. By consistently delivering value and addressing customer needs, organizations can maximize revenue potential and achieve sustainable growth.
Customers hold the power in the modern tech age, and locking them in is less a matter of selling to the customer, and more about empowering the customer. They need incentives to continue their subscription or dedication to the product. This approach shifts the focus from sales tactics to customer satisfaction, empowering customers to make informed decisions about renewing their subscriptions or commitments.
Customers tend to talk, and favorable referrals are a great way to build a positive reputation through word of mouth. Customer success efforts that exceed customer expectations and deliver exceptional experiences create advocates who willingly promote the brand to their networks. Leveraging these positive referrals can also provide opportunities to create case studies and references. Overall, positive referrals resulting from effective customer success initiatives contribute to organic growth and enhance brand credibility in the market.
Utilize tools like the Value Creation Plan to assess where your company stands and identify areas for improvement. Understanding your maturity level will guide you in determining the next best steps to take. Mature companies are equipped with tools to monitor health scores for numerous customers, employing a combination of digital touchpoints and customer success manager interventions to guide customers toward achieving their desired outcomes.
Invest in customer success management technology that aligns with your organization's goals and fuels your customer success plans. This technology enables your team to gain insights into customer needs and deliver personalized experiences that resonate with customers. By leveraging effective customer success software, your organization can streamline processes and ultimately drive customer satisfaction and loyalty.
ServiceNow's Customer Success Center stands as a comprehensive resource hub, embodying the commitment to customer success. It is nothing less than a one-stop shop designed to provide you with everything you need to accelerate your digital transformation journey and align your focus squarely on your customers.
The ServiceNow Customer Success Center provides playbooks, answers, roadmaps, role-specific content, and essential resources, all easily accessible through an advanced, filter-enhanced search engine.