by Robbie Kellman Baxter, author of “The Membership Economy: Find Your Super Users, Master the Forever Transaction, and Build Recurring Revenue“
Capturing a customer is hard enough. Keeping that customer is even tougher. For one thing, so many competitors crowd the marketplace that consumers can quickly and easily find a cheaper, faster, sexier version of what you offer. For another, customers simply expect more. They demand fast solutions to their problems, great experiences, and plenty of personalization and perks. Finally, it doesn’t take much to lose a customer. They don’t even have to have a bad experience; many customers leave because of perceived indifference on the part of salespeople.
The message is clear: companies must get very intentional about keeping customers engaged in using their product or service.
It used to be that if you offered a good product or service and just did a good job, that was enough to keep customers happy. But now, constant engagement is crucial for creating those forever transactions with customers.
Whether they realize it or not, customers crave more value from their relationship with brands, and brands must find ever more innovative ways to provide it. Once you get customers emotionally invested they will stick with your brand, buy more, and spread the word about you to other potential customers. (This provides much greater ROI than your efforts to acquire new customers.)
You have to work at making existing customers feel special. You absolutely cannot ever take them for granted. You can’t show up just when you want them to buy something. And you absolutely cannot make them feel you’re spending too much time and energy chasing prospects at the expense of servicing them.
One way companies are building this extreme level of customer engagement is through an emerging function called Customer Success.
The push for exceptional customer experiences is part of a shift toward what I call the Membership Economy, a model based on customer-centric strategy using topics like subscription price, inclusiveness, and digital platforms that draw people in and win their loyalty. People today expect to be engaged, and if they don’t experience engagement with your organization, they will find it somewhere else.
This is where the Customer Success function comes in. Not to be confused with Customer Service — which mostly handles complaints when the customer has a problem — Customer Success Managers (CSMs) and specialists foster engagement by being the consumer’s BFF insider to the brand.
Customer Success goes beyond the more traditional sales, marketing, and customer support functions. Teams are being created to manage the customer life cycle and drive adoption, renewals, upselling, and advocacy. Customer Success is one of the hottest B2B trends since the advent of the subscription business model.
Customer Success departments were first established by Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). But now, innovative companies of all kinds are adopting Customer Success services to help build deeper engagement with their products and services. Brands like Zipcar, Dun & Bradstreet, and Visa already have thriving Customer Success departments. This field is even generating the development of new side industries. Companies like Zuora, Gainsight, and Totango have invested in software optimized to support CSMs.
If you want to engage with your customers and build a deeper level of loyalty, Customer Success may be a smart solution. Keep reading to learn about what a Customer Success specialist could do for your brand’s engagement capabilities
1. Customer Success focuses on the customer’s experience (not just retention).
While retention is probably the most important metric these organizations track, good CSMs don’t focus on renewal alone.
Trying to win a subscriber back after they’ve canceled is very hard. It’s much easier to make sure that they make your offering a habit in the days, weeks, and months after they sign up. By the time you get to renewal season, especially in businesses with annual subscriptions, the customer has already decided whether they have made this product a habit and whether they’re going to cancel or not.
2. Customer Success treats the consumer like a friend.
As with Customer Service, Customer Success starts with a phone call, but it’s about more than fixing a problem. If your mom or a friend called you to ask for help, you’d go out of your way to do what you could for them. You’d use your smarts to find the answer to their problem, even if it wasn’t in your manual. You’d be honest about whether they should or shouldn’t upgrade. You’d share insider tips and tricks to get the most out of the services they’re paying for. This is what you should do in Customer Success. And you don’t just wait for the call to come in. Instead, you might make an outbound call to see how your customer is doing.
A CSM is ultimately judged on customer engagement, which is a leading indicator of retention, which leads to revenue and profitability. Additional metrics beyond engagement and retention might include net promoter score (a customer’s likelihood to make a referral), actual referrals made, and willingness to serve as a reference. All of these metrics tie to lifetime customer value (LCV).
3. Customer Success generates profits while building relationships (unlike Customer Service, which is a cost center).
Customer Success is proactive and a profit center. From the moment of the initial transaction, Customer Success Managers are reaching out to customers to ensure that they are getting value from the products and services they are already paying for. In contrast, Customer Service is about solving problems when customers complain. It is a cost center, and the goal of most Customer Service teams is to resolve complaints as quickly as possible. It’s reactive, as reps wait for calls and then respond. While both services are important, Customer Success focuses on connecting with customers and strengthening their attachment to the product.
Many brands now recognize that long-term engagement is the way to build deeper customer loyalty, and this is why you will see more and more Customer Success departments springing up in the future. Keeping in touch with your customers, helping them get the most from your product, and overall giving them the BFF treatment shows them that you really do care and makes them feel good about sticking cuswith you for good.
Robbie Kellman Baxter is the author of “The Membership Economy: Find Your Super Users, Master the Forever Transaction, and Build Recurring Revenue“. She is the founder of Peninsula Strategies LLC, a consulting firm based in Menlo Park, CA, that helps companies excel in the Membership Economy.
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