Increasing churn, decreasing average ticket? Check out our tips on how Customer Success can help your business.
Customer Success is a marketing strategy that was developed for SaaS (Software as a Service) companies to keep their customers longer and generate more income.
It is common to find people who still believe that this concept is just a more elaborate name for support or that this strategy is applicable only in business in the technology and SaaS market. But the truth is that customer success is a practice that generates results for all types of companies.
Delivering success throughout the entire sales journey and post-sale is not exclusive to the technology market. In addition, according to studies by one of the biggest names in marketing in the world, Philip Kotler, winning a new consumer can be 5 to 7 times more expensive than keeping someone who is already a customer of your business.
So, if you want to keep your customers close, ensure your satisfaction with solutions that help them achieve the goal that generated the need for that purchase. Check out our article to learn about Customer Success and how to apply it to your business.
What is Customer Success
Understanding what Customer Success is is not difficult. This is the area of a company that is completely dedicated to ensuring that consumers’ solutions bring the expected results.
In a more summarized way, it is a team prepared to make clients succeed in using a service or product sold by a business. It is a simple concept that helps to make the relationship between companies and their customers stronger.
Although a specific team manages this strategy, the entire company must cultivate the practice of Customer Success. Because the process is done after sales, it is started from your leads’ qualification and continues throughout the sales journey.
Main features of Customer Success
To structure a sector that offers success to its customers, it is necessary to know the main characteristics that compose it and the differences between traditional after-sales support. Check below the practices that should be part of this strategy category.
Customer follow-up
Unlike what some people might think, Customer Success doesn’t just start after the sale; it is applied during negotiations in a consumer’s first interactions with a company.
Because it is an efficient way to help customers define which products meet their needs, the quantity that must be purchased, which service modules must be contracted, and even assist in the most appropriate contractual clauses.
During this process, the company can learn more about its customers’ objectives, understand their needs and the context of that negotiation. This way, it will be possible to identify which solution can generate the best results and highest productivity.
Communication with the customer is essential to identify any difficulties that the product can offer and then prepare an action plan that provides the necessary support to overcome these difficulties.
Agile and proactive service
To successfully implement this strategy, you need a proactive team that can predict potential problems and offers solutions before consumers need to contact you.
By collecting data about your audience, you will identify your main needs and objectives, providing valuable information to help your Customer Success team develop strategies that prevent problems or are prepared to help customers with difficulties.
Offering explanatory materials, system updates, and training are practical and direct ways to help them succeed. This is an important way for your team to ensure that customers will not face future difficulties with the services or products purchased.
Therefore, invest in data collection and analysis. Research and define which metrics can help your business measure customer satisfaction and success rate. Thus, it will be possible to set goals and work to overcome them.
Some data that need to be analyzed are turnover rate, NPS (Net Promoter Score), and monthly recurring revenue.
Discover the advantages of adopting Customer Success
Customer Success is a strategy that can help your business continue to grow. Implementing it is a smart decision that can ensure your customers retain their income and increase it.
Implementing this process in your company also makes organic marketing even more powerful, as loyal customers can become agents that promote your brand. Besides, focusing on your customers’ success is a practice that can generate several other benefits for your business. Here are some of the most relevant advantages.
1. Reduction in customer turnover rate
The turnover rate, also known as the Churn Rate, is a metric that allows the identification between new trades and cancellations. Customer success works to help your business maintain a low Churn Rate, resulting in more sales than cancellations.
The level of satisfaction and the use of services or products that generate results directly influence a customer’s decision to cancel or renew a contract. In this way, your company generates a healthy need for the services or products offered.
Maintaining a Churn Rate is low for several companies, but its importance is even greater for businesses with subscription models.
2. Engagement after customers Onboarding
Customer Onboarding is the set of processes that presents the results that can be achieved through hiring your services or purchasing your products. Usage tips for achieving the results presented are also part of this process.
The metric TTFV (Time To First Value or Time until the first value is seen) can be applied from this concept. TTFV measures the time customers take from the sale to the real perception of that product’s value or service after the sale.
By reducing this metric, consumers will notice more quickly the advantages of the acquired solution. They will be able to act as promoters of your brand, indicating it in their interaction circles.
3. Feedback and strategic information
By following your customers’ journey from the beginning, your team will have access to valuable information about your audience’s profile and needs. Accumulating data from different services can allow your business to make more assertive decisions and offer more effective solutions to consumers.
With this information, your company has the opportunity to continue evolving its services and products, making them even more personalized. This is how Customer Success can be perceived in your company, transforming your customers’ interactions into efficiency and quality.
4. Authority
The authority of your business is very important and has a direct impact on your sales. As customers achieve success through your company’s solutions, their relationships will be better and more lasting.
Also, these customers will be more inclined to be loyal and will be able to act positively for your brand. It will then be possible to obtain indications, testimonials, and even use data on their solutions’ success cases.
Therefore, the more satisfied customers are with success obtained through negotiating with your business, the greater the chances of indicating your brand and continuing to buy from you.
5. Generation of new business opportunities
Customers satisfied with the results of a solution offered by a company end up becoming potential repeat customers. This is because the excellent quality of the products or services offered led them to success and were recognized.
Businesses capable of implementing a solid Costumer Success strategy can increase their earnings through upselling and cross-selling. Practices that, respectively, aim to sell a more expensive version of a solution and sell complementary options to a solution, offering a more complete consumer experience.
Challenges in implementing Customer Success
We already understand what Customer Success is all about, but understanding the challenges that can be encountered in its implementation can help your team prepare to face them.
Check out below 3 of the main challenges that companies looking to offer success to their customers may face.
1. Manage customer onboarding
First impressions and initial interactions with customers are essential for consumers to have a good experience and achieve success through their solutions.
Practicing customer onboarding efficiently is a way to guarantee how your company will relate from this point on. Offer as much information and attention as possible so that new consumers understand well what is being offered.
Your team also needs to be prepared and specialized in teaching about all the usage processes and tips on the service provided or product offered with patience and attention.
Therefore, invest your time analyzing your audience’s data and creating strategies that bring improvements to your business.
2. Reduce the number of cancellations
The turnover rate, or Churn Rate, is one of the most relevant metrics to track your customers’ success. It needs to be monitored very carefully for accurate analyzes to be made, providing insights that can help your team reverse future cancellations.
3. Deliver what was promised
Be very careful with promises during your sales, as they can generate very high expectations that cannot be met. This generates situations where a company’s solution does not come within what was promised to its customers. Something tough to reverse, however, is not impossible.
This type of situation needs to be managed very carefully. The responsible professional must have a proactive attitude to blame and apologize for what happened and ensure that this type of situation will not be repeated.
From this moment on, frustrated customers will need special assistance to get the best experience possible with their business.
So, to prevent this from happening and find the best solutions when it happens, remember to use empathy to put yourself in the customer’s shoes. This way, it will be possible to understand your problem better and create a closer relationship, which generates trust.
4 Tips for implementing Customer Success in your business
1. Follow the Churn Rate closely
We have already mentioned the importance of the Churn Rate metric. Therefore, accompanying it is essential to ensure the success of new consumers.
High rates of Churn Rate can indicate that some serious problem is happening in your processes and needs to be resolved as soon as possible. Therefore, try to use surveys and measure your customers’ satisfaction to understand the cause of the high number of cancellations.
2. Establish a specific department
If possible, create a specific Customer Success department in your company. In this way, it will be possible to manage the customer experience and their shopping journey in a more detailed way to ensure their success.
3. Invest in after-sales
Focusing on customer success is one of the main ways to win and retain customers, but other alternatives can complement this strategy.
Post-purchase benefits such as loyalty programs and after-sales follow-ups are great tactics to increase customer value over time and reduce the cancellation rate. By retaining more customers for longer, your business will generate more recurring revenue for a longer period, ensuring financial security.
4. Set goals
Setting objective and tangible goals is one way to ensure that the consumer success strategy’s implementation is advancing.
Choosing improbable goals, almost impossible to achieve, will not add to your team and may even have the opposite effect, discouraging your team.
So, have concrete goals, follow them frequently, and encourage your employees to reach them.
Ready to increase your sales with the Customer Success strategy?
Did you understand the importance of implementing Customer Success in your business? We hope that the tips and information that we brought in our article can help you and your team promote your customers’ success.
One of the ways to improve service in this context is through online chat. Discover the JivoChat resources and follow the consumers’ journey from the first contact with the possibility of serving them in real-time.
