Double down on success
No matter what the industry, businesses are feeling the pinch. StartUps to blue chip giants, are each battening down the hatches, ready for the forecasted headwinds. As the era of ‘cheap money’ comes to an abrupt end, business leaders should act swiftly and decisively to prevent their business from turning into a leaky bucket. Given the difficulties and costs associated with winning new business. It’s imperative to maximise the lifetime value of those where a relationship already exists.
In a recent survey, 65.3% of businesses said that they have no playbook or strategy in place for a ‘rainy day’ scenario when it comes to ensuring their customers success. That’s to say that over 65% of businesses, no matter their industry, their size, or their market cap, they have no strategy in place should things take an unexpected turn for the worse.
This statistic comes as a huge surprise to me.
In light of the turmoil and upheaval of the last couple of years following COVID-19, you would expect one thing to be crystal clear, to expect the unexpected.
My advice, to companies of all sizes, would be to assess internally and externally about how to ensure that the client base that you have worked hard to gain, grow and retain (there’s a great CS community called the same) maximise their value from your products and services. There should be an imperative to focus on the retention of clients by maximising the value achieved through your offerings.
It’s also worth remembering that Customer Success doesn’t necessarily mean a function or specific role within the business, but should be viewed more as a philosophy which should be spread across the business to ensure that every touch point, no matter how seemingly unimportant or irrelevant should be considered as critical to the success of the relationship. IBM recognised that if they could increase a CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) by five points for an account, they would see a 20% increase in revenue (on average) for that account.
“The biggest barrier to customer success is that CEOs are not making it an important part of their culture”.
Nick Mehta (CEO of Gainsight)
This statement can be interpreted in many ways, Customer Success is something that is still in its relative infancy. With no black-and-white answer as to ‘What is Customer Success’, no manifesto and no true understanding, it’s often confused with Customer Support. And whilst it’s similar, the differences are vast and telling.
If there isn’t alignment from the executive level, two things happen:
- Your customers will leave. They will feeel like they aren’t being listened to, and they will stop feeding back their ideas and will start to look for another solution that helps them reach their desired outcome.
- Your customer success team will leave. When you are a customer advocate in your organisation and nothing is done with the feedback, it’s the most frustrating thing in the world. Leaders must ensure there is alignment between their teams. When customers leave and your team members leave, you’re in big trouble.
Whereas Customer Support is “Here’s the answer to your question” (reactive) Customer Success should be along the lines of “Here’s the answer to your question, but, this might work better for you based on your workflow and my understanding of your business” (proactive).
It’s time that businesses that offer ‘As A Service’ solutions further improve the service, as well as the core offering.
It’s time to double down on your customers success.