Customer Success is a term that has been used in the business world for decades. However, it has only recently gained traction in the digital landscape.
If you’re new to the term, customer success is a customer-focused strategy that is designed to help companies retain and grow their customer base. It is a process of managing the customer experience and maximizing the lifetime value of a customer.
This may sound like customer service or support, and in some ways these disciplines overlap. However, the difference between these two is that customer service provides assistance to customers when they need it, while customer success helps them before they need it.
Ultimately, the customer success team is responsible for understanding the customer's needs, and providing the support, education and tools to help them achieve their goals.
There are many problems with traditional customer support. First, the problem of scale. The customer service team often has to deal with a large number of customers and complaints in a day. This leads to customer service reps being overwhelmed and unable to provide the best possible customer experience.
Second, the problem of cost. Traditional customer support is expensive because it requires a lot of staff members and resources that can be difficult to maintain for small businesses. The traditional way to scale customer service is by hiring more staff, but this means that the company has to pay for more office space and benefits. It also means that they have to deal with the overhead of managing an entire workforce.
A customer success strategy is your plan of action that is designed to retain and grow customers. It’s vital to have this strategy in place because it will help you understand what your customers want and what they need.
The following are just a few of the things you need to consider when developing an effective customer success strategy:
Define your customers: Who are they, what do they need, what do they care about? Knowing who your customers are will help you provide them with the best possible experience.
Define and prioritize key metrics: What do you want to achieve? Do you want to reduce churn rates? Do you want to increase customer satisfaction scores? Whatever it may be, make sure that your objectives are clear and specific.
Understand your competitors: What strategies do they use in terms of customer support? Are there any gaps in their strategy that you can fill by introducing chatbots or other features into your own strategy?
Once your plan has been in place for a while, it can be difficult to determine the best way to boost your customer success strategy. Primarily because there are several metrics to consider. However, it's important to note that some are more important than others depending on what stage your business is at.
For example, if you’re an early-stage startup then your conversion rate from trial to paid plan might be one of your most important metrics. In contrast, if you’ve been around for several years then perhaps churn rate might be more significant.
Here are some general tips for either scenario that will help:
Listen to your customers: One of the most important things you can do for customer success is to listen and understand what they want and need from you.
Build relationships: Building relationships with customers should be a priority for any company.
Be proactive in solving problems: Customers are more likely to reach out when they have a problem, so it’s important that you are proactive in solving their issues as soon as possible.
Don’t forget about churn: Churn rates are important because they indicate how well you are retaining your customers.
Focus on retention: Retention rates should also be an important part of any customer success strategy because it indicates how well you are keeping your customers satisfied and happy
Lead Nurturing: One of the most common ways that companies use customer success lead nurturing software is by providing personalized customer service.
How Guidde can help you improve customer success
Your success depends on the success of your customers. And the only way you can help them become successful is by helping them achieve their goals with minimal difficulty. That’s where Guidde comes in.
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