Customer Success (CS) is one of the most important growth drivers for any company across the globe. From new SaaS companies to established industries like healthcare, the one thing every organization shares is a need to put the customer first.
….in everything from marketing to product design to net revenue retention rates.
The challenge to such a powerful growth engine is it can feel a bit overwhelming.
Our teams have heard similar concerns from others. But, with a little guidance and a few proven success strategies, each company we’ve partnered with has been able to implement effective customer success strategies quickly.
Ready to get started? Let’s go.
Companies with customer success at the center of their business see the best results. As such, each person needs to understand what it is and how their specific responsibilities contribute to it. The first step to building a CS operation is company-wide alignment.
Attracting new customers is approximately five times more expensive than growing revenue from existing customers. With an effective CS operation, your team can grow annual revenue more effectively than traditional marketing and sales techniques.
Beyond the bottom line, enthusiastic customers understand the value and practical applications of your products. Their advocacy can impact marketing, sales, as well as product design, and roadmapping.
Use our Budget Calculator to see where you are now and where you could be after investing in customer success.
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Once you have company-wide alignment, it’s time to clarify what you want your customer success organization to focus on immediately. Evaluate what your major objectives are for the current year, and the next few years. What are your most inefficient processes? What siloes impede your operations? How well does the future of your product align with the value your customers get from it?
List the top three goals for your customer success operation and outline the improvements you want to see based on those goals. Over time, your customer success strategies will mature in complexity, but a simplified strategy is the best way to get started.
Remember, world-class customer success operations are a direct result of a company-wide commitment. A single metric that everyone understands, and can have a meaningful impact on, helps cultivate commitment and reinforces why it matters.
(Ending ARR, plus all renewals, cross-sells, price increases) —
(down sells, churns, and other revenue contractions)
(Starting ARR)
during a consistent measurement period from ONLY your EXISTING customers.
When setting your goals, you want to aim for anything over 100%, but world-class NRR is 125%.
Use the Gross Renewal Rate Calculator to identify your goals (and map stretch goals) for the next year.
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Read NRR: 10 Years of Customer Success to learn how NRR measures the momentum of your company and why it is the most important metric for growing companies.
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When customer success began, many of the strategies were reactionary. A decade later, the best customer success managers are proactive and highly transparent, both with their teams and with customers.
To ensure that your customer success strategies are proactive and effective, you need to establish a clear view into your current customer base, their priorities, and their current customer health score.
Although the Customer Success Managers (CSMs) will access this information, most frequently, it’s critical that all team members have access to it. Up-to-date customer information will inform their strategies, communications, and plans for the future.
Enter the amazing, incredible, unicorn-spotting land of Gainsight! A place where we’re just maybe, kind of a little obsessed with customer success. It’s simple – schedule a demo today so you can see Gainsight in action!
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