Customer success software was once a nice-to-have bonus that made life easier for those directly involved in the customer experience.
You may have picked up on the operative phrase: “was once.”
Customer success technology is now a necessary piece of every SaaS company’s toolkit. And don’t let the name fool you. From the C-Suite to product development, customer success software can empower each team in your organization, helping you to:
With the right technology on your side, you can build personalized, scaleable customer experiences that result in stronger recurring revenue and long-term profitability.
Let’s backtrack a bit before we get into everything you can do with CS software. First, it’s important to understand the origins of customer success itself.
Although there's no singular consensus on when the idea of customer success really began to pick up speed, the first dedicated team made its appearance at an early software company dating back to 1996, according to the Customer Success Association.
Success came as the natural next step as SaaS businesses began to realize that superior customer service could be the competitive advantage they needed to pave the way to higher retention and lower churn. But, with the rise of cloud-based solutions, mobile apps and hyper personalization, traditional CRM software options like Salesforce or even Excel weren’t enough to keep up with consumer demand.
You simply can’t meet the needs of today’s customers with a spreadsheet.
Recognizing the demand for more relationship-based interactions, companies began investing in the technology we know today as some of the first pieces of CS software.
Since then, the market for customer-focused software has expanded into the Wild West we know today.
At its most basic, customer success technology is defined as any product used by a business to create desired outcomes driven by personalized interactions and meaningful support. This means it can be as standard as in-app notification and as complex as a fully automated health scoring system — more on that later, though.
Just some of the benefits of today’s software include:
A word of warning: The challenge today isn’t finding software that offers some or even all of these features. It’s figuring out what will work best for your team.
The CS software market can quickly become overwhelming for even the most experienced customer success manager. A report by MarketsandMarkets estimates the industry will reach $2.5 billion by 2025, with no signs of slowing down.
Don’t feel like you have to spend weeks or even months sorting through each and every option before you can begin to support your customers. By the time you do that, more will have already hit the market. We recommend checking out our software guide to help guide you in your quest for the best software.
No matter which specific features you’re looking for, your CS software should align with your strategy and fulfill the following characteristics:
Once you’ve found the right customer success solution for your team, your SaaS company will be well on its way to delivering an optimized customer experience.
Let's face it: For CSMs, the job only gets harder the better you do.
It's one thing to successfully onboard your first 10 customers using the very same processes you created yourself. But what about when your user base expands to 100? Or when your team seemingly multiplies overnight and are scattered across different locations
You don’t have the time to sort through an endless catalogue of customer data or provide each individual representative with real-time instructions on how to manage their accounts. What you do have is your own accounts to serve, product issues to deal with and renewal numbers to make.
As you establish your team as an up-and-coming profit center, CS software can make your load a little lighter.
For customer success specialists, your users' wins are your own wins. To sustainably maintain the level of personalization needed to drive desired customer outcomes, processes have to be repeatable and scalable. Software can help you achieve this with features including:
As your user base grows, your CS programs need to adapt alongside it to provide every new and existing customer the support they need. While software will help you achieve this, it will be up to your team to execute the strategies needed to drive customer success.
Although your customer success team may be logging the most time on your CS software, the benefits of the technology extend all the way to the top of your organization.
Ask yourself: Is my company driving long-term adoption or are we just pushing short-term wins through?
According to our research, 75% of SaaS executives are being inundated with adoption initiatives. However, few are actually seeing the long-term growth these programs aim to achieve. Although this challenge stems from a variety of factors, it comes down to two leading causes:
When the C-Suite is stuck waiting for a weekly leadership call or even a monthly check-in with the CS team, time that could be spent improving the customer experience goes to the wayside. During that waiting period, users may become frustrated and accounts can — and will — churn.
Customer success has become just as much a profit center as marketing and sales, making it essential that leaders have clear visibility across the customer journey.
CS software can help the C-suite.
The technology gives leaders a real-time snapshot of customer health as well as emerging patterns across accounts, leading to benefits such as:
For some companies, change can be overwhelming. However, it’s important to keep an open mind and remember that the customer experience directly correlates with the success of your business. When your users succeed, so do you and your bottom line.
Whether you're the one reporting — or the one being reported to — easy-to-understand data surrounding the customer experience will help leaders make confident decisions, quicker.
After months of some serious development work, you’ve just released a new feature.
It offers some cutting-edge functionality, a seamless user interface and aligns closely to what you think customers want. The big day has come, and it’s finally time to roll it out to your users.
A few weeks pass and … no one is using it.
What gives?
When it comes to product adoption, onboarding is often the first thing teams think of. However, there’s still one major component that comes before onboarding that can derail the entire user experience: the product itself.
Even the most sophisticated technology in the world is rendered obsolete if users aren’t able to get any value from it. That means your development team needs a clear understanding of exactly how customers are interacting with your product, including where the platform may need some extra work.
Your product can’t just do what you think customers want — it has to deliver what you know they need.
In comes your customer success software.
With the right technology on your side, your product development team can get insight into:
Your product is the foundation of everything you do. With customer success software guiding your product development team, they’ll be able to make accurate, data-driven decisions to deliver a best-in-class user experience — no guesswork required.
From top leadership to individual customer success representatives, CS software offers an array of unique features and benefits all designed with the user in mind.
While every SaaS company may use the technology a little bit differently across day-to-day operations, just some of the advantages you can enjoy include:
Hopefully, the word “automation” doesn’t conjure up any images of robot overlords.
If it does, rest assured that a machine is far from replacing anyone on your customer success team. Instead, the idea of automation is to free up resources from manual — but highly necessary — tasks so your CS reps can instead focus their time and energy on finding new ways to provide your customers with more value.
Goodbye, slow decision-making and manual reporting, hello, happy customers.
Take advantage of features such as:
By creating repeatable and sustainable processes, teams can stop wasting time trying to make the right decision and go forward with the confidence that they’re following the best plan possible.
For customers, this means they get the support they need when they need it. No more waiting on your team to notice a red flag before it’s too late.
What does this all mean for you?
Enjoy minimized customer churn, higher revenue and more expansion opportunities.
Think back to your last doctor’s visit.
When there, they likely measured your temperature and heart rate (among other things).
Although those factors alone don't reveal much about your immediate state of well-being, they give your doctor the knowledge they need to get a general understanding of where things stand. More importantly, this info will be used as data points, creating a more comprehensive picture of your health over time.
A customer health score is almost the same exact concept — minus the stethoscope and way-too-cold hands.
A customer health score is a metric used by customer success teams to determine whether customers are “healthy” or at-risk of churning. Deciding on a scoring system is a subjective process, and will vary from company to company, however the right CS platform will help to simplify it.
And, as leaders and managers work to collaborate with team members and conduct one-on-one check-ins, there’s no question as to which accounts are thriving, whether tasks are on time or if CS reps may need some additional support.
OK, we covered how software can help you manage at-risk accounts. What about those that are in good standing?
Let’s say renewal is fast approaching. What will your team do to re-up the contract? Is there the opportunity for expansion? Is the account healthy or is there any possible risk of churn?
Similar to how a health score can give you an objective measurement of at-risk accounts, it can also be applied to get a deeper understanding of drivers of satisfaction.
Maybe this user achieved a quick time to value, or perhaps they have maintained a high NPS ranking since they've been engaged with your customer. Either way, the path to renewal will be a smooth one with a health score system on your side.
The data visualization tool will help you sort through insights via a user-friendly format, allowing your team to quickly identify trends and behaviors without having to dive into each individual account’s history. By not having to spend time sorting through each individual interaction, your team can instead focus on executing the best plan for renewal.
And, when you have clear insight into which accounts are healthy as well as those at risk, your organization can easily forecast your book of business with accuracy.
How many times has this happened to you: A major account is up for renewal and there’s uncertainty regarding whether they’ll stay or churn.
When you go to view their history in your CRM, you only have a piece of the story.
You don’t have access to information from when the customer was first a prospect and you lack the data that shows how they’re using your product every day.
With only a fraction of their account history, how can your CS team create a compelling case for renewal?
When you leverage CS software, your teams receive a 360-degree view of the customer journey. This includes notes from every single user-facing interaction, data about product usage and customer feedback collected via your VOC program.
Being able to analyze customer data with a cross-functional perspective allows organizations to get to the heart of why customers behave the way they do. When you know how to spot drivers of satisfaction and — maybe, even more importantly — dissatisfaction, your CS team can always be in the right place at the right time.
From your C-Suite all the way through to your product and customer success teams, CS software is no longer an optional tool. The must-have technology will quickly prove to be an essential part of your day-to-day operations.
While the market for CS software can be a confusing one, it doesn’t have to be. With some strategy and a customer-driven focus, you’ll be well on your way to becoming a customer success leader. All you need are the right tools to drive long-term customer wins and stronger revenue.
No matter where you are in your journey for customer success software, UserIQ is here to help. Learn what our technology can do for you and your users.
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