Back of the Leaf - A Frontleaf Bloghttps://www.frontleaf.com/blog.atom2015-03-24T00:00:00ZIdeas, Insights & Inspirations about Customer Successhttps://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/frontleaf.pnghttps://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/frontleaf.pngWerkzeugBuilding Success : Product Roadmap And Customer Successblog/building-success2015-03-24T00:00:00Z2015-03-24T00:00:00ZSarah E. BrownCreating products that customers love to use is crucial for retention and growth in the world of SaaS. Today’s fast-growing-software companies (FGSC’s) build products that reflect the voice of their customers. A recap of the Customer Success Chat on Building Success - Product Roadmap and Customer Success.<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/product_cs.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><style>
.question-section {
padding: 26px 0;
border-top: 1px solid #ababab;
}
.tweet-image {
display: block;
width: 100%;
margin-bottom: 26px !important;
padding: 20px 20px 30px 20px;
border: 1px solid #ececec;
border-top: 4px solid orange;
border-radius: 3px;
}
.tweet-question iframe {
width: 99% !important;
border-top: 4px solid orange !important;
}
.tweet-embed {
margin: 26px 0;
}
.line-spacer {
width: 100%;
height: 1px;
margin: 0 0 26px 0;
background: #f1f1f1;
}
</style>
<p>
Creating products that customers love to use is crucial for retention and growth in the world of SaaS. But like delivering stellar Customer Success, this is easier said than done. Today’s fast-growing-software companies (FGSC’s) build products that reflect the voice of their customers. Yet they also recognize when the best thing for customers is to say no to some of their enhancement requests. So how do you determine which of your customers’ product concerns should be prioritized? And what are the best tools and strategies for aligning your Product and Customer Success teams and keeping customer experience at the forefront of every new deployment?
</p>
<p>
Our March <a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/customer-success-twitter-chat/" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a>, the sixth in the series, explored these topics and more as we discussed Building Success: Product Roadmap and Customer Success. Our experts — <a href="https://twitter.com/MitMej" target="_blank">Mitchelle Mejia</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/TomKrackeler" target="_blank">Tom Krackeler</a>, and <a href="https://twitter.com/smaclaughlin" target="_blank">Steve MacLaughlin</a> — joined fellow Customer Success practitioners and enthusiasts from the field to discuss best practices and challenges in aligning Product and Customer Success. Here are the chat highlights.
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p> Q1. How can #SaaS companies ensure the voice of the customer is reflected in their product roadmap? #CustomerSuccessChat <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/577862565574770688" target="_blank">March 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
The Product Roadmap must center around addressing the needs and wants of your target market, but how do you decide <i>which customers</i> and <i>which needs</i> to prioritize when making product plans? Start by collecting feedback from a diverse array of customer inputs and account for variables like length of time as a user, active usage in the product, and more to ensure you’re not unintentionally building for a squeaky wheel rather than your entire customer base.
<p>
Steve suggested an “outside in” approach to incorporating customer voices in-product, including doing direct observation of users with a product or high-fidelity prototypes, as well as harnessing multiple feedback inputs like NPS, idea banks, forums, communities, and in-person discovery.
<p>
Different customers may provide different feedback depending on various factors including how long they’ve been a user. The solution? Control for time-as-user as a variable in your feedback processes. Mitchelle recommended soliciting feedback at regular intervals -- at one month, three months then again at six months--to see how engagement over time impacts feedback. Run your own controlled feedback experiments to see which factors may be impacting your results.
Tom echoed that it’s crucial capture a wide swath of customers in your feedback net--not just the “friendly” ones with which your team is most comfortable. This means paying attention to both prompted <i>and</i> unprompted feedback. The customers who aren’t normally on your radar may be most important ones to listen to!
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A1 - <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> A1: Great books like "Inspired" by @cagan and "Customers Included" by @markhurst on this topic #CustomerSuccessChat
</p>— Steve MacLaughlin (@SMacLaughlin) <a href="https://twitter.com/SMacLaughlin/status/577863703871254528" target="_blank">March 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A1 - <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> A1. Avoid factions among customer teams. VP #CustomerSuccess gets Support, Training, AM to agree on product priorities. #CustomerSuccessChat
</p>— Tom Krackeler (@TomKrackeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler/status/577863546903605248" target="_blank">March 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p> Q2. Big new feature is needed to land big new customer. But it requires deferring 25 fixes for SMB customers. Do it? #CustomerSuccessChat
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/577864233196474369" target="_blank">March 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
When should you add a big new feature to land a “whale” if doing so means postponing other fixes for your smaller customers? Experts debated scenarios in which deferring smaller updates for existing customers made sense in order to land a larger new one.
<p>
They suggested considering these important questions when weighing this decision:
<ul>
<li> What market tier is your “sweet spot”? Optimize for that, and don’t waver. <b>(Tom) </b> </li>
<li> How long will the deferral be, and how much will the feature be used going forward? <b>(Julie Martin)</b> </li>
<li> Will the huge new feature for the whale customer add friction/confusion to the 100 other customers? <b>(Tom)</b> </li>
<li> Is this customer really a good fit? Are they who you are looking to target? <b>(Mitchelle)</b> </li>
<li> How much impact will this one feature have on other customers? <b>(Mitchelle)</b> </li>
<li> Are you prepared to ensure your whole company is oriented around this big customer? This includes services, product development, etc. <b>(Tom)</b> </li>
</ul>
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q2 - <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">Q2: The alarm bells should be ringing. Chasing big customers with features is a path to lots of problems. #CustomerSuccessChat
</p>— Steve MacLaughlin (@SMacLaughlin) <a href="https://twitter.com/SMacLaughlin/status/577864999361777664" target="_blank">March 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p> Q3. What's the #1 thing a #SaaS co should do to build a product customers love? #CustomerSuccessChat
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/577866153243979776
" target="_blank">March 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
What should SaaS companies do to build software that customers love? We’ll let our experts speak for themselves:
<ul>
<li> The #1 way to build a product customers love is to focus on the problems of those customers. <b>(Steve)</b> </li>
<li> (1) Know those customers inside and out. (2) Solve narrow problem. (3) Obsess on UX. <b>(Tom) </b> </li>
<li> The key is alignment with CS teams-- they know your customers best and are connecting with them the most. <b>(Mitchelle)</b> </li>
<li> Be willing to Pivot when your solution to the problem isn't working, but avoid the premature pivot<b> (Steve and Tom)</b> </li>
<li> You have to love the problem you're solving more than your product. The problem usually contains the solution. <b> (Steve) </b> </li>
</ul>
</p>
<p><div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>
Q4. A major revamp of your #SaaS product UI is coming soon. How do you ensure it goes smoothly? #CustomerSuccessChat
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/577867950092210176
" target="_blank">March 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p></p>
<p>Ready to launch an entirely new UI for your product? Don’t leave your customer in the lurch! This is where alignment between your Customer Success and Product teams is perhaps most crucial. And to pull this off, the real work needs to happen far before launch day in the form of testing early and often with real users using their real data. As Steve said, “Always Be Testing”. Mitchelle and chat participant Brandon McLaughlin advocated for leveraging your “power users” and promoting them to become beta testers, giving them accolades and praise for their efforts along the way for their time and feedback. Tom suggested letting adventurous users opt in for early access, then releasing the changes in small waves. After testing, it’s crucial to get feedback and fix issues as you go. Steve said that with any major UI revamp, you should do lots of discovery, validation, and user testing well in advance. </p>
<p>The biggest challenges for Customer Success teams are articulating pain points crisply and with respect to priorities--if you can get this from your team, and they can communicate it well to product, you’ll be far more successful in launching new UI. By doing the work upfront and connecting user feedback to your product developments, once launch day arrives, you’ll (hopefully) be much more successful in the new UI rollout. </p>
<p><div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A4 - <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">A4: No UI/UX redesign survives first contact with real users. Test early. Test often. Always Be Testing. #CustomerSuccessChat
</p>— Steve MacLaughlin (@SMacLaughlin) <a href="https://twitter.com/SMacLaughlin/status/577869033631916032" target="_blank">March 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></p>
<p><p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A1 - <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> To paraphrase @smaclaughlin-- You better "Always Be Testing" your UX if you want to be "Always Be Closing" new business #CustomerSuccessChat
</p>— Tom Krackeler (@TomKrackeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler/status/577869927706533888" target="_blank">March 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>
Q5. Would you rather have… an A+ #SaaS product team and a B- #CustomerSuccess team or vice versa? #CustomerSuccessChat
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/577869491553460224
" target="_blank">March 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p></p>
<p>Judgment day is here, and you’ve got to choose: which matters more, having a stellar Customer Success or Product team? Of course both would be wonderful (which our experts pointed out with plenty of enthusiasm!), but we really wanted to know the answer if push came to shove. Tom argued that if your product is lousy, you’re basically sunk, while your Customer Success team can be more easily improved upon. </p>
<p>Julie Martin pointed out that your product team is <i>not</i> your product (very important distinction!) and that an A+ CSM team can help out a great deal while your product team grows and improves. But the overall expert consensus was that you really do need both Product and Customer Success to rock to retain and grow your customer lifetime value (CLTV).</p>
<p><p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A5 - <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> A5: I want a kick tush CS team and Product team - A+ for both please :) #customersuccesschat
</p>— Mitchelle Mejia (@MitMej) <a href="https://twitter.com/MitMej/status/577870592294047744" target="_blank">March 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
<p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A1 - <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> A5. It's easier to take a #CustomerSuccess team up from B- to A+. Mediocre products rarely become great. #CustomerSuccessChat
</p>— Tom Krackeler (@TomKrackeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler/status/577870159290900480" target="_blank">March 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
</p>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>
Q6. Should #SaaS co's invite customers to preview and/or beta test new features before go-live? Why, how? #CustomerSuccessChat
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/577871359117754368
" target="_blank">March 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p></p>
<p>What role should customers play in previewing or beta testing new features before they’re launched? The verdict from all the experts: yes, but with these caveats:
<ul>
<li> Be sure to get a wide mix of customers within your user base--not just “friendly” customers or the power users that PMs already know. <b>(Tom and Mitchelle) </b> </li>
<li> Ensure customers’ live data is in the mix, or else adoption will be poor. <b>(Tom)</b> </li>
<li> Ask your customers what they want from new features while beta testing, but be mindful of scope creep. <b>(Tom)</b> </li>
</ul>
</p></p>
<p><p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>- <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> A6: 100% Beta all the way! #customersuccesschat
</p>— Mitchelle Mejia (@MitMej) <a href="https://twitter.com/MitMej/status/577872548110557184" target="_blank">March 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p></p>
<p><div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p> - <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">A6: The most important word in Minimum Viable Product is "Viable" to getting results. #CustomerSuccessChat
</p>— Steve MacLaughlin (@SMacLaughlin) <a href="https://twitter.com/SMacLaughlin/status/577873080246099968" target="_blank">March 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></p>
<p><p>
</p>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>
Q7. #SaaS customers voice enhancement requests all the time. What’s the best tool/process to ensure they are heard? #CustomerSuccessChat
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/577873285326635010
" target="_blank">March 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
Experts recommended these processes:
<p></p>
<p><ul>
<li> Don't think that painstakingly tracking each request solves anything by itself- must triage/rationalize constantly. <b>Tom </b> </li>
<li> NPS for CS - So we get ALL the feedback and then take the time to sort it and action it <b>(Mitchelle)</b> </li>
<li> Build feedback mechanisms directly into the product. And build instrumentation from the start. <b>(Steve)</b> </li>
<li> Send NPS for Product and NPS for individual features. <b> (Mitchelle) </b> </li>
<li> Direct customer feedback is just one ingredient. Also must consider unspoken needs like scalability/performance. <b> (Steve) </b> </li>
<li> Take the leap and launch a customer-facing ideas forum. Promotes accountability, community transparency, trust. <b> (Tom) </b> </li>
<li> Product Teams need to get good at making decisions. Frequency of release and agile process keep things moving. <b> (Steve) </b> </li></p>
<p></ul>
</p></p>
<p>Experts recommended these tools:
<ul>
<li> Delighted for automated NPS <b> (Steve) </b> </li>
<li> Aha! for Product management <b> (Steve) </b> </li>
</ul></p>
<p><p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p> - <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">A7: Having a strategy and working process is more important than the tools. I've used lots over time. #CustomerSuccessChat
</p>— Steve MacLaughlin (@SMacLaughlin) <a href="https://twitter.com/SMacLaughlin/status/577874937714733056" target="_blank">March 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></p>
<p><p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>- <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> A7: NPS! Huge for us here at @unbounce #customersuccesschat
</p>— Mitchelle Mejia (@MitMej) <a href="https://twitter.com/MitMej/status/577874423945953281" target="_blank">March 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p></p>
<p><p>
</p>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>
Q8. When is it NOT a good idea to build a new feature customers are asking for? #CustomerSuccessChat
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/577875197446856704
" target="_blank">March 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p></p>
<p>No SaaS company could survive if they built every feature requested by every customer. Then again, some of the best features in products were a result of customers requesting them. So how do you know whether it’s a “build-it” or “forget-it” situation?</p>
<p>Before even considering adding a requested feature to your product roadmap, get very clear on why you’d build said feature as well as for whom you’re building it. Not sure about either? Then don’t do it! Will it only serve a few customers rather than your entire user base? Is the feature a commodity? Then Tom advised to integrate with a third-party solution. Brandon McLaughlin and Julie Martin both said, “don’t do it if it exceeds the scope of your product or your company mission statement.” Is the feature valuable, usable and truly needed? Then ship it, says Steve. Otherwise: toss it to the “forget-it” category (at least for now).
<p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>- <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> A8: Don't build a feature without knowing who you're building it for. If you don't know who its for don't build it #customersuccesschat
</p>— Mitchelle Mejia (@MitMej) <a href="https://twitter.com/MitMej/status/577876370195271680" target="_blank">March 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
<p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p> - <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">A8: You will say "No" 9 times for every one time you say "Yes" to a really good idea that can be executed. #CustomerSuccessChat
</p>— Steve MacLaughlin (@SMacLaughlin) <a href="https://twitter.com/SMacLaughlin/status/577875884046217216" target="_blank">March 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></p>
<p><p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A1 - <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> A8. Don’t build a new feature if it's a commodity. Integrate 3rd party instead. #CustomerSuccessChat
</p>— Tom Krackeler (@TomKrackeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler/status/577875703854686208" target="_blank">March 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
<i>And that’s a wrap! To read more blog recaps from past Customer Success Chats on Customer Success topics including growthhacking, upselling, high-touch at high-volume, onboarding and more, check out our <a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/customer-success-twitter-chat/" target="_blank">Customer Success Chat page. </a> </i></p>SuccessHacking : Customer Success as Growth Hackingblog/growth-hacking-customer-success-chat2015-03-11T00:00:00Z2015-03-11T00:00:00ZSarah E. BrownSuccessful SaaS companies are recognizing and leveraging the relationship between growthhacking and Customer Success. Our February CustomerSuccessChat, the fifth in the series, explored these topics and more as we discussed SuccessHacking -- Customer Success as GrowthHacking.<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/growing.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><style>
.question-section {
padding: 26px 0;
border-top: 1px solid #ababab;
}
.tweet-image {
display: block;
width: 100%;
margin-bottom: 26px !important;
padding: 20px 20px 30px 20px;
border: 1px solid #ececec;
border-top: 4px solid orange;
border-radius: 3px;
}
.tweet-question iframe {
width: 99% !important;
border-top: 4px solid orange !important;
}
.tweet-embed {
margin: 26px 0;
}
.line-spacer {
width: 100%;
height: 1px;
margin: 0 0 26px 0;
background: #f1f1f1;
}
</style>
<p>Successful SaaS companies are recognizing and leveraging the relationship between growthhacking and Customer Success. <a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/blog/why-customer-success-is-crucial-for-growth/" target="_blank">(Read our blog on the subject if you haven’t yet!)</a>. Hacking customer growth requires focusing on churn reduction and retention as much as acquisition. Increasing customer lifetime value (CLTV) through Customer Success has been shown to be the most reliable path to sustainable growth. But which tools and methods should fast-growing-software-companies (FGSC) employ for growthhacking Customer Success? </p>
<p>
Our February <a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/customer-success-twitter-chat/" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a>, the fifth in the series, explored these topics and more as we discussed #SuccessHacking: #Customer Success as #GrowthHacking. Our experts — <a href="https://twitter.com/NikkiElizDemere" target="_blank">Nichole DeMere</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/TomKrackeler" target="_blank">Tom Krackeler</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/MorganB" target="_blank">Morgan Brown</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/FrancoisMat" target="_blank">Francois Mathieu</a> — joined fellow Customer Success practitioners and enthusiasts from the field to discuss best practices in growthacking Customer Success. Here are the highlights.
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q1. What’s the #1 way that successful customers make a #SaaS company grow faster? #CustomerSuccessChat #CustomerSuccess #GrowthHacking <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/567730783100485632" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
Growth driven by customer success isn’t just about reducing churn--it’s also about increasing loyalty to drive additional upsell-cross-sell opportunities as well as leveraging Customer Advocacy. Successful customers consume more of your software and generate more revenue for your company across their lifecycle at a higher rate than acquisition-driven growth can account for alone (Note: if you missed it, explore upselling and cross-selling more in our <a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/blog/ins-outs-upselling/" target="_blank">recap of the Ins & Outs of Upselling #CustomerSuccessChat</a>).
<p>
This also leads to internal advocacy and adoption and, as defined by SaaS expert/SaaStr mastermind Jason Lemkin, what’s known as “Second Order Revenue”. Successful customers also contribute to word of mouth (WOM) growth, when leveraged correctly. Experts suggested requesting testimonials and feedback from successful customers to get the most from their advocacy.
</p>
<p><div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A1 - <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> A1: Not just external word of mouth, but internal advocacy, adoption. Leads to reduced/negative churn, upsells, etc.</p>— Morgan Brown (@MorganB) <a href="https://twitter.com/morganb/status/567731369497743361" target="_blank">February 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A1: A1: Advocates make your CAC spend more efficient; $2 to acquire a customer becomes $1 when they tell a friend #CustomerSuccessChat <a href="https://twitter.com/lincolnmurphy/status/567731657957203969" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Lincoln Murphy (@LincolnMurphy) <a href="https://twitter.com/lincolnmurphy/status/567731657957203969" target="_blank">February 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></p>
<p><div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q2. Congrats, you sold a 5-seat deal at a 1000-person company! What do you do next? #CustomerSuccessChat #CustomerSuccess #GrowthHacking <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/567732529440907264" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></p>
<p>After the initial seats are sold, what’s the shortest path to driving adoption within your customer’s company? Tom suggested picking one department and “becoming essential,” and then finding a champion to lead to adoption by another department. Morgan suggested onboarding and mapping your team to their team as top tactics. </p>
<p><p>
Other tips experts and participants mentioned for expanding your seats sold:
<ul>
<li>Determining how your software use case differs among different departments in terms of needs, goals and expectations.</li>
<li>Building internal allies/promoters within the customer to promote cross-departmental adoption. </li>
<li>Mapping your team to your customer’s team and nailing onboarding </li>
</ul>
</p></p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A1 - <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> A2. Pick one department. Become essential. Find a champ. leap to next dept. #CustomerSuccessChat #GrowthHacking
</p>— Tom Krackeler (@TomKrackeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler/status/567733070833270784" target="_blank">February 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p><div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A1 - <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> A2. Ask yourself: how can I make everyone involved in this deal look like a hero. Then go do that. #CustomerSuccessChat
</p>— Morgan Brown (@MorganB) <a href="https://twitter.com/morganb/status/567734157187354624" target="_blank">February 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></p>
<p><div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A1 - <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> A2. Land and expand. Make one team successful, then suggest a different use case for another team. #CustomerSuccessChat
</p>— Francois Mathieu (@francoismat) <a href="https://twitter.com/francoismat/status/567732972778827776" target="_blank">February 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></p>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q3. What’s your favorite #GrowthHacking technique explicitly aimed at customer retention? #CustomerSuccessChat #SaaS #CustomerSuccess
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/567734386729041923" target="_blank">February 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
We asked the experts to name their favorite retention-focused growth hacks. These included:
<p>
<ul>
<li>Nailing <b>onboarding</b> in product, via emails and in account management. <b>(Morgan)</b></li>
<li> Focusing on retention from day one of a contract (or even sooner) <b>(Francois and Tom)</b> </li>
<li> Noticing when <b>customers are achieving something cool</b> within your app and proactively engaging them about it. <b>(Tom)</b></li>
<li>Delivering amazing <b>account management. (Nichole and Morgan)</b> </li>
<li>Use an idea base to listen to and respond to customers <b>(Shannon Kluczny)</b> </li>
</ul>
</p>
Share your customer’s successes via social media (including badging), leveraging success calls to show clients value that they are missing, and create a culture of feedback early and often. Shannon Kluczny suggested a “Players Meeting” with all executives together to understand the vision. Francois said that “Retention starts on day one of a contract...There's no silver bullet, provide an awesome experience.” Tom added in another solid point, which is that retention may even start <i>before</i> day one during the sales process or free trial before close.
<p>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q4. How can a #B2B #SaaS app go viral beyond users at the same company? #CustomerSuccessChat #CustomerSuccess #GrowthHacking
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/567736024902557698" target="_blank">February 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
Can B2B SaaS apps really go viral? Yes, if you employ the right mindset and tactics. Depending on your company maturity/customer model, this could include Nichole’s suggestion of leveraging a freemium model and/or referral models. This is employed by companies like Dropbox who incentivize referrals through rewards to lower net CAC’s.
<p> </p>
If you're looking to go viral as a b2b SaaS app, a top strategy is maximizing platform/API integrations and ‘powered by’ relationships which leverage co-branding to visibly position your software within other platforms. Morgan mentioned Salesforce, Google and Microsoft as “big player” platforms to get in on the ground floor of, but it’s also smart to integrate with peer-size companies.
<b> <i> [Editor’s note: We proudly partner with <a href="https://www.pipedrive.com" target="_blank">Pipedrive</a>, <a href="https://www.mindtouch.com" target="_blank">MindTouch</a>, and <a href="https://www.newrelic.com" target="_blank">New Relic</a> (and more great companies soon!) at Frontleaf, and see great virality through these integrations! You should definitely check out their tools if you don’t already.] </i> </b> These are powerful ways to get in front of new target customers within your sweet spot.
<p> </p>
Another viral strategy recommended by experts: leverage the heck out of your customer’s advocacy. Foster stellar customer advocates: reviews, referrals, and references and use tools like Influitive to manage. Morgan recommended externalizing customers’ use cases so it’s clear why anyone outside of the organization would want to use your product. Shannon Kluczny suggested aligning with marketing to leverage these use cases even further for a ‘viral effect’. Also very important: Make it easy for users to swap between organizations (a la Slack), and they’ll bring you along!
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A4 - <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> A4. By fostering stellar Customer Advocates: reviews, referrals, references, etc. Check out @Influitive to manage. #CustomerSuccessChat
</p>— Tom Krackeler (@TomKrackeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler/status/567737085138702336" target="_blank">February 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A4 - <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> A4: Platform integrations are huge. Salesforce, Google, Microsoft. Huge platforms to tap into for distribution. #CustomerSuccessChat
</p>— Morgan Brown (@MorganB) <a href="https://twitter.com/morganb/status/567737479243890689" target="_blank">February 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A4 - <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> A4: What Dropbox did well was to let users gain access to premium features by lowering their acquisition costs.
</p>— Nichole DeMere (@NikkiElizDemere) <a href="https://twitter.com/NikkiElizDemere/status/567736276296933376" target="_blank">February 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q5. This cool new #GrowthHack takes acquisition up 20%! But it increases your churn rate by 20%, too. Worth it? #CustomerSuccessChat
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/567737754683838464" target="_blank">February 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
This sounded like a trick question, but we genuinely wanted to know: would a hack that created equal retention and churn percentages worth it? The verdict: <i>It depends.</i>
<p> </p>
Nichole said it depended on the economics and lifecycle of the business, as long as net new revenue acquisition was the main goal. The maturity of the business made a difference, and businesses will typically pivot to focus on retention. As a business matures, it quickly becomes a lot more difficult to "outgrow" churn with new revenue, Nichole pointed out. Tom said without anything that, it wasn’t worth it. Lincoln Murphy agreed. The consensus was that only growthhacking that directly supports acquisition and retention is smart, or else a leaky bucket will happen.
<p> </p>
If you’re taking shortcuts and netting “bad customers” or poor fit, you’ll end up wasting energy and resources that could have been spent growing the accounts of the right customers you already have. It’s essential to focus on internal marketing and upselling/cross-selling as much as any new acquisition customers. Morgan and others also pointed out in this hypothetical example that if the 20% of new customers are larger contracts, you may still be able to retain them and focus on them. Bottom line: If your external marketing/growthhacking turns off your current customer base, you’ll have a real churn problem on your hands.
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> A5: Recurring revenue is so powerful, rare are the cases where giving it up for growth will make sense. #CustomerSuccessChat
</p>— Francois Mathieu (@FrancoisMat) <a href="https://twitter.com/francoismat/status/567739251287023617" target="_blank">February 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> A5: NO! Sales RULE #1, it costs more to get a new customer then keep an old one. 20% not equal. #customersuccesschat
</p>— Cara Clanton (@caraclanton) <a href="https://twitter.com/caraclanton/status/567738389659942912" target="_blank">February 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q6. How can #CustomerSuccess teams leverage human nature to encourage users to get more value from your #SaaS app? #CustomerSuccessChat
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/567739603663077376" target="_blank">February 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
We asked participants to share how <i>human nature</i> could be leveraged to help users get more from your software as a service.
Experts’ suggestions:
<p>
<ul>
<li>Gamification of customer-customer cohort results, so customers could see what other customers are doing and want to rank higher in results.<b>(Tom)</b></li>
<li> Focusing on peer recognition. Creating a MVP program like Salesforce--and make it cool to be a MVP! <b>(Tom)</b> </li>
<li> Add CSM photos to all correspondence <b>(Brandon McLaughlin)</b></li>
<li>Use plain-text follow up emails to follow major marketing emails. <b>(Brandon McLaughlin)</b> </li>
<li>Segment your customers, by ARR (& ARR potential) so you know what level of "human" you can afford to provide) <b>(Lincoln Murphy)</b>
<li> Add “help” CTA’s and “have you call us” CTA’s (as well as amazing self-serve resources!) <b>(Nichole)</b> </li>
</ul>
</p>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q7. Your mission is to drastically increase #SaaS free trial conversion rates for a $50/user app. How? #CustomerSuccessChat #GrowthHacking
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/567741580098797569" target="_blank">February 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
Tom mentioned laser-focus on shortening time to First Value, and delivering clear results and value before customers even become paid. He also suggested listening to Samuel Hulick on User Onboarding to make steps ‘natural’ and ‘human’. <a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/podcast/#ep9" target="_blank">(Listen to our podcast with him if you haven’t yet!) </a>
<p> </p>
Nichole said to provide app walkthroughs, start the trial experience from a specific use case (ex/ “I want to grow email sales,” etc.). Morgan suggested reducing as much friction as possible, and putting the “aha” moments and value upfront as soon as possible. Everyone agreed that understanding the use case of your customer and framing the trial experience from the goal mindset of getting them to achieve value and ultimately convert is crucial. The trial isn’t just for them to poke around! Provide them with all of the tools they need to get value right away, including in-app help if needed, according to participant Aly Merritt.
<p> </p>
Morgan also said that we should use language in our trials that speaks to the customer in their journey, and to Always Be Testing (ABT) to optimize the process. Francois reiterated that you’re optimizing for <i> customers,</i> not just free trials, and Lincoln Murphy insisted we stop calling free trial users “trialists,” but rather call them what they should be: prospects. Lincoln Murphy also said that many companies have the wrong mindset when it comes to free trials. Free trials are not for your prospect to “poke around,” and magically get some spontaneous experience; they must be designed and engineered to convert. Bonus points if you can show the ROI for your customers achieved during the trial.
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> A7: Don't optimize for more free trials, optimize for more customers. A little friction in can be a good thing. #CustomerSuccessChat
</p>— Francois Mathieu (@FrancoisMat) <a href="https://twitter.com/francoismat/status/567742154588446721" target="_blank">February 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A7 - <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> A7 Flip the funnel, put the Aha moment upfront, registration comes second.
</p>— Morgan Brown (@MorganB) <a href=https://twitter.com/morganb/status/567742707720658944" target="_blank">February 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A7 - <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> @TomKrackeler @lincolnmurphy The Product will sell itself... "Ha! Laughable!" Says Jesus from Big Lebowski :-) #CustomerSuccessChat
</p>— Tom Krackeler (@TomKrackeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler/status/567743562427547648" target="_blank">February 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q8. Describe a #GrowthHack you can use at a #CustomerSuccess QBR meeting. #CustomerSuccessChat #SaaS
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/567743891709784065" target="_blank">February 17, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
Our experts shared some top growth hacks for customer success quarterly business review meetings:
<ul>
<li> Show customer how their results stack up vs. other companies like them (especially their competitors!). <b>(Tom)</b> </li>
<li> Annual NPS triggered 6 months from start date -- review with customers at the QBR. <b>(Tom)</b> </li>
<li> Help customer execs understand their users’ stats, how to improve, correlation between usage and results. <b>(Tom)</b> </li>
<li>NPS surveys that actually trigger responses (most people just look at aggregate data) <b>(Nichole)</b> </li>
<li>Do analysis of the things your best customers do and spend time figuring out how to get more customers to do them. <b>(Morgan)</b></li>
<li>Show customers comparative and benchmark data <b>(Morgan and Francois)</b> </li>
<li>Show customers new products or features they might be interested in. <b>(Shannon Kluczny)</b></li>
<li>Get their sign-off on new Desired Outcome and path they need to take to get there (including what they need to do). <b>(Lincoln Murphy)</b></li>
<p> </p>
Join us for the next <a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/customer-success-twitter-chat/" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> on Tuesday, 3/17/2015 at 9a PT / 12p ET. The topic will be: <b><i><a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/blog/ins-outs-upselling" target="_blank">Building Success: Product Roadmap & #CustomerSuccess</a></i></b>.
</p>
</div>6 Exciting Emerging Trends in Customer Successblog/emerging-trends-in-customer-success2015-03-04T09:00:00Z2015-03-04T09:00:00ZSarah E. BrownIf you're committed to achieving your Customer Success goals in 2015, there's never been a more opportune time to do so. We're truly in the Golden Age of Customer Success, with ever-improving tools and processes available for reducing churn and increasing customer engagement. We recently released an episode of our Customer Success Radio podcast in which we discussed new trends that are emerging and taking hold in Customer Success. Here are the practices we called out as up and coming or catching fire in 2015.<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/binoculars-man.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><p>If you're committed to achieving your Customer Success goals in 2015, there's never been a more opportune time to do so. We're truly in the Golden Age of Customer Success, with ever-improving tools and processes available for reducing churn and increasing customer engagement.</p>
<p>We recently released an episode of our <i>Customer Success Radio</i> podcast in which we discussed new trends that are emerging and taking hold in Customer Success.
(<a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/podcast/#ep8" target="_blank">Here's the link to listen if you haven't yet</a>.) In case you'd rather read, or just for easy future reference, here are the practices we called out as up and coming or catching fire in 2015.</p>
<p><hr> </hr></p>
<h2><b>TREND</b>: Companies are investing earlier in Customer Success, instead of waiting until churn becomes a problem.</h2>
<p><p></p>
Five years ago, Customer Success was usually adopted as a reactionary program, driven by the need to respond to a churn problem. This meant that companies selling annual contracts and finding churn above 15%, or companies selling monthly subscriptions and getting 3% or higher churn per month, would interpret these indicators as signs that it was time to implement a Customer Success program.</p>
<p>In 2015, this is no longer the norm. In earlier stages in their maturity, companies are thinking about Customer Success, including how to create a customer journey with key touchpoints and insights along the way. <b>High retention out of the gate is now a must-have priority for fast-growing SaaS companies.</b> Seriously thinking about Customer Success at the beginning of the company maturity (even if the company don't invest right away) is becoming the norm. That wasn't the case five or even two years ago.
There's no such thing as too early for starting to define a Customer Success model — in fact, it's smart thinking about it as soon as you do a customer acquisition model. Of course you have to acquire customers before you'll have any you need to worry about keeping. But the lightbulb is going off sooner, as companies are realizing there is significant ROI to being better from the start at driving Customer Success, retention, and growth.</p>
<p>Pre-customer, from day one, companies are beginning to talk about Customer Success best practices. This may start as: "How do we do great customer onboarding, promote adoption, and deliver value in first 30-60-90 days?", and then scale into a full-blown Customer Success program over time. A progression is certainly natural. But by around 100 customers or $1M ARR, you'd better be sure you've gotten serious about building out a solid Customer Success program that includes a rockstar team and the data and technology to support their work.</p>
<p><hr> </hr></p>
<h2><b>TREND</b>: Customer Success teams are getting involved earlier in the customer lifecycle — even pre-sale.</h2>
<p><p></p>
These days, Customer Success is a critical part of the customer interaction out of the gate. This includes during the trial experience or somewhere else along the line pre-sale. A lot of what a subscription software company is selling — what can serve to really differentiate them from their competitors — is actually the value offered by Customer Success. SaaS companies are offering expertise and a the promise of a trusted advisor. Bringing in a Customer Success team or spokesperson for that role as part of the sales process really helps prospects see that service as a key part of the value they'll be gaining from the engagement.</p>
<p>For companies with freemium models or trial offerings looking at conversion rate improvement, they're now taking best practices from the Customer Success world and applying those. They're determining how to measure healthy usage patterns, and other "good sign" behaviors trial or freemium users might display, and using that information to help prioritize focus on closing one deal vs. another.</p>
<p><b>In fact, trial and freemium models are tearing down the wall between what is sales and what is Customer Success.</b> Companies doing both well aren't too fixated on trying to differentiate one from the other. There might be Customer Success "coach" roles that are primarily about helping freemium or trial customers get strong value and ultimately convert to paying customers. These CSMs likely don't think of themselves as sales people. They simply want to make sure everyone who interacts with their company and product has a great experience. (Note: For more on this, check out our <a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/blog/ins-outs-upselling/" target="_blank">recap from the recent #CustomerSuccessChat on Customer Success and upselling</a>.)</p>
<p><hr> </hr></p>
<h2><b>TREND</b>: Customer Success teams are becoming more systematic about tracking their activities, and analyzing the impact those activities are having.</h2>
<p><p></p>
The importance of capturing and analyzing good customer data has become apparent. But collecting quality data around some kinds of customer interactions is trickier than for others. And it's harder still to use that data well to generate value for your customers and your company. But smart SaaS companies are getting savvy about: </p>
<ul>
<li>Creating defined processes and tools for easily tracking non-electronic touchpoints (ex. phone calls, meetings, QBRs) — when they happened, who was involved, how they went — and...</li>
<li>Monitoring trends around those touchpoints and their impact on customer health.</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://www.bizlibrary.com/" target="_blank">BizLibrary</a> is one company that has a very strong program around this. Their Customer Success team systematically records every customer interaction. (This may sound obvious, but most aren't even there yet, as it can be hard to find tools that make it easy and encourage internal adoption.) Then they watch how the patterns around those activities correlate with other signals (like application usage and the results their customers are achieving) as well as with outcomes (like renewals and upsells).</p>
<p>It's all part of the big picture, and an important aspect to track along with NPS responses, support tickets, etc. Customer Success teams must always be asking: How are all of these moving parts together impacting the health of our customers, and how can we constantly improve the program for better results and outcomes?</p>
<p><hr> </hr></p>
<h2><b>TREND</b>: Customer Success teams are starting to share results and insights directly with their customers to help them understand what's possible using their tools.</h2>
<p><p></p>
The data and insights Customer Success practitioners are gathering are not just for internal purposes any more. There's growing excitement about sharing that information, especially visual representations of it, directly back with customers. Seeing what other similar companies have achieved, and learning how they've done it, can be the impetus for a customer to strive improve their own adoption and results.</p>
<p>Like many things in the world of Customer Success, there's been some form of this going on for about a decade. Salesforce pioneered sending monthly emails telling customers: "Here's how you're using the Salesforce app, here's what areas you're touching, here's what we recommend exploring, and here's how many records you have." For an admin at a Salesforce customer company, it was very informative to get that monthly update.</p>
<p>And for several years now, companies like Zendesk have sent benchmark reports that took it to another level: offering groupings by industry, with analysis of ticket resolution times, response rates, and forum interactions. Such reports were valuable because they tied to the business goals of the customers, rather than just what features were being used.</p>
<p>Today, companies are starting to think about how they can provide personalized, real-time feedback to their customers about how well they're performing in the application, how much value they're getting compared to other relevant companies that seem like them, AND what they've been doing previously and in relation to their own goals.</p>
<p>Providing your customers insights into how they're achieving their goals, as well as their performance among their peers, is a strategic advantage and market differentiator for your company. Customers buy software for product features, but they also choose to engage with you to take advantage of your consulting and expertise within the problem areas your SaaS solves. <b>Showing your customers how they're performing and comparing to similar companies in key functional area (sales, CRM, marketing, finances, etc.) provides a "next-level" tier of value from the engagement.</b> We forecast that in six months, more companies will be engaging in this practice to parlay these data-rich insights back to customers.</p>
<p>One caveat to this trend is that it's harder to share reports with customers when things aren't going well for them against their own benchmarks and against their peers. After all, it's one thing to show a customer who has been achieving great things how they fit into the overall spectrum, but to show a customer who is declining or struggling, that direct insight may seal the deal on churn in the short-term. Still, this is important, and we'd argue is crucial for mitigating churn in the long run. Do the work upfront to assess the best way to message your customers and deliver their ranking — positive or negative — with an emphasis on helping them achieve the goals they originally sought to accomplish with your software.</p>
<p><hr> </hr></p>
<h2><b>TREND</b>: Companies are focusing on self-service customer resources and how engagement with them can be important signals of customer health or risk.</h2>
<p><p></p>
We love to discuss <a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/blog/serve-or-self-serve/" target="_blank">self-serve resources </a> here at Frontleaf, and for good reason; one of the top emerging trends in scaling Customer Success is delivering superior self-service customer resources, including self-service support, Knowledge Bases, how to's, and help communities. Self-serve resources are becoming essential elements of delivering better customer experiences, and will become even more important in 2015. </p>
<p>In the past, self-serve resources each lived in their own silo. How someone interacted with help docs, support systems, or community really did not tie into a company's understanding of customer engagement and health. This is no longer the case. Now, Customer Success departments are breaking down those silos, and are finding interesting linkages between self-serve resources and Customer Success. If a customer opens emails and participates in a community, companies can now validate that these behaviors signal their engagement every bit as much as logging in and using an application.</p>
<p>One company doing this well is <a href="http://www.mindtouch.com/" target="_blank">MindTouch</a>, which offers a great platform for knowledge management. MindTouch is excellent at measuring how customers are interacting with their resources as part of overall engagement and health. And they help their customers undertake the same kind of analysis.</p>
<p>Self-serve resources are absolutely critical to scaling your Customer Success program. <b>By connecting the dots between self-service interactions and Customer Success, it's possible for SaaS companies to better pinpoint exactly where and how value is being achieved by their customers.</b> Application usage tells only part of the story, and by monitoring and tracking self-serve success (how are customers behaving in your community forums, for instance), it's possible to get a more complete picture of your customers' health.</p>
<p><hr> </hr></p>
<h2><b>TREND</b>: Customer Success as a growth strategy is going mainstream.</h2>
<p><p></p>
In 2015, we are already seeing a lot of buzz about the overlap between Customer Success and growth hacking. Growth hacking is a term originally coined to describe marketing techniques, typically innovative practices, used to rapidly build awareness and adoption of technology products. But as the strategy evolves, the best growth hackers will be the first to admit that it's not just about acquiring customers — good growth hacking also focuses on retaining those customers and turning them into loyal advocates, who in turn help your product and company achieve optimal growth overall. Enter Customer Success. And no doubt we'll continue to see increasing interplay, as the two strategies are quickly becoming best friends.</p>
<p>If you're interested in learning more about the fascinating intersection between Customer Success and growth hacking, you might enjoy our soon-to-be-published <a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/customer-success-twitter-chat/" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> recap or <a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/podcast/#ep11" target="_blank">Customer Success Radio podcast episode</a> on the topic.</p>
<p><hr> </hr></p>
<p>So there you have it, six exciting trends we're seeing in the world of Customer Success:</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Companies are investing earlier in Customer Success, instead of waiting until churn becomes a problem.</li>
<li>Customer Success teams are getting involved earlier in the customer lifecycle — even pre-sale.</li>
<li>Customer Success teams are becoming more systematic about tracking their activities, and analyzing the impact those activities are having.</li>
<li>Customer Success teams are starting to share results and insights directly with their customers to help them understand what's possible using their tools.</li>
<li>Companies are focusing on self-service customer resources and how engagement with them can be important signals of customer health or risk.</li>
<li>Customer Success as a growth strategy is going mainstream. </b></li>
</ul>
<p>Are you the poster child for any of these? Have others you'd add? Think they're just a flash in the pan? We'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback!</p>Growing Successful Customers: The Ins & Outs of Upsellingblog/ins-outs-upselling2015-01-26T09:00:00Z2015-01-26T09:00:00ZSarah E. BrownKnowing how, when and where to upsell is crucial for customer growth in a SaaS business. But what role should Customer Success teams play in an upsell? Can an upsell ever actually increase the risk of churn? What do you do when customers actively try to avoid bumping up to the next pricing tier? In our January Customer Success Chat, we explored these topics and more with experts David Mitzenmacher, Allison Metcalfe, and Tom Krackeler and many other participants. Here's a recap!<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/money_tree.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><style>
.question-section {
padding: 26px 0;
border-top: 1px solid #ababab;
}
.tweet-image {
display: block;
width: 100%;
margin-bottom: 26px !important;
padding: 20px 20px 30px 20px;
border: 1px solid #ececec;
border-top: 4px solid orange;
border-radius: 3px;
}
.tweet-question iframe {
width: 99% !important;
border-top: 4px solid orange !important;
}
.tweet-embed {
margin: 26px 0;
}
.line-spacer {
width: 100%;
height: 1px;
margin: 0 0 26px 0;
background: #f1f1f1;
}
</style>
<p>Knowing how, when and where to upsell is crucial for customer growth in a SaaS business. But what role should Customer Success teams play in an upsell? Can an upsell ever actually increase the risk of churn? What do you do when customers actively try to avoid bumping up to the next pricing tier?<br />
<p>
Our January <a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/customer-success-twitter-chat/" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a>, the fourth in the series, explored these topics and more as we discussed <b><i>Growing Successful Customers: The Ins & Outs of Upselling</i></b>. Our experts — <a href="https://twitter.com/davemitz" target="_blank">David Mitzenmacher</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/allisonmetcalfe" target="_blank">Allison Metcalfe</a>, and <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler" target="_blank">Tom Krackeler</a> — joined fellow Customer Success practitioners and enthusiasts from the field to discuss challenges and best practices in upselling and cross-selling. Here are the highlights.</p>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q1. Easy to ask, hard to answer: Should the #CustomerSuccess team also be responsible for upsell/cross-sell? Reasons? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/557583960239517696" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
Our first question addressed a fundamental concern: should Customer Success be responsible for upsells and cross-sells at all, and if so, to what extent? Experts and chat participants debated whether CSMs should actually do the selling, or if they should pass along the opportunity to the sales team.
<p>
David, Tom and other experts advocated for several variations of a hybrid approach, including:
<ol>
<li>having CSMs identifying upsell/cross-sell opportunities and teeing up to sales to close</li>
<li>having CSMs owning the upsell, and sales owning the cross-sell, and</li>
<li>having CSMs cross-selling/upselling existing relationships within the department,while sales goes after new departments. </li>
</ol>
Trust and the relationship between CSM and customer emerged as hot topics within this question. Chat participant Julie Martin pointed out that she didn't think Customer Success should be involved in sales for reasons of trust, while Lincoln Murphy pointed out that because of trust built between CSMs and customers, it's fine and even good for them to do simple upsells and then hand over more complex deals to sales.
<p>
Tom advocated that the Customer Success team should preside over user and tier growth, and then identify opportunities for Sales to sell new modules/products to different departments. The experts agreed that the complexity of the sale should drive whether CSMs handle upsells, not so-called "trust" issues.
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A1 - <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> depends on product complexity and product suite. i have always had csms own renewals and upsell </p>— Allison Metcalfe (@AllisonMetcalfe) <a href="https://twitter.com/AllisonMetcalfe/status/557585255595393024" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A1: re: Trust - If a waiter has taken great care of me throughout meal, doesn't hurt trust when they recommend dessert <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— David Mitzenmacher (@davemitz) <a href="https://twitter.com/davemitz/status/557586811355414528" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/lincolnmurphy" target="_blank">@lincolnmurphy</a> I don't mind offering the options, but I don't personally want to be doing the selling. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Julie Martin (@CSMJulie) <a href="https://twitter.com/CSMJulie/status/557590540125208577" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>.<a href="https://twitter.com/CSMJulie" target="_blank">@CSMJulie</a> that's the level of "selling" you should do. Offer right options, at right time, to right people. Done. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Lincoln Murphy (@lincolnmurphy) <a href="https://twitter.com/lincolnmurphy/status/557590962403155968" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q2. When is a dedicated "back to the base" <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/saas?f=realtime" target="_blank">#SaaS</a> sales team appropriate? Or not? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/557585629396353025" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
A few of the themes that arose here included:
<ul>
<li>It's crucial to align back-to-base sales with Customer Success team efforts.</li>
<li>CSMs can handle simple deals; Sales teams are needed for more complex and/or high-volume deals.</li>
<li>It can harm a relationship if the CSM expects an upsell before the customer is ready or without providing a clear ROI.</li>
</ul>
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler" target="_blank">@tomkrackeler</a> having sales own upsell can cause its own problems if they are trying to upsell b4 cust is ready</p>— Allison Metcalfe (@AllisonMetcalfe) <a href="https://twitter.com/AllisonMetcalfe/status/557587948409868288" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A2: Important thing is that, if you have back-to-base sales, that they are highly aligned with <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccess?f=realtime" target="_blank">#customersuccess</a> team <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— David Mitzenmacher (@davemitz) <a href="https://twitter.com/davemitz/status/557586250723770368" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A2. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/saas?f=realtime" target="_blank">#SaaS</a> co that's multi-product &/or $5M+ ARR should create distinct hunter, farmer & <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccess?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccess</a> Mgr roles. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Tom Krackeler (@tomkrackeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler/status/557586768468652032" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question weet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q3. Does a completed <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/saas?f=realtime" target="_blank">#SaaS</a> upsell/cross-sell always decrease churn risk, or could it potentially increase risk? How? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/557587374905905153" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
Does upsell/cross-sell increase or decrease churn risk? Both Tom and David asserted that done wrong, upselling/cross-selling can increase churn risk if there's a bad product fit or if the interaction damages the customer relationship. If you sell your customer something they don't need, that could entail a churn threat. But the mere act of upselling isn't a churn issue in and of itself. Experts said it's important to tie the upsell to customer milestones, and, perhaps most importantly, to clearly communicate the value to customers that can be gained by increasing in tier or adding products.
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A3. Could all too easily increase churn risk if it sours relationship w/ champion or if cross-sell is a bad fit. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Tom Krackeler (@tomkrackeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler/status/557588193751879680" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A3: Don't ever sleep on a new upsell. You must on-board, and not lose sight of churn risk or Almost Churn <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Matt Hogan (@HOGIE_) <a href="https://twitter.com/HOGIE_/status/557590322013032449" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A3: If you're acting with the customer's best interest in mind, whether they take the upsell or not, trust will go up <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Lincoln Murphy (@lincolnmurphy) <a href="https://twitter.com/lincolnmurphy/status/557588492041977856" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>.<a href="https://twitter.com/lincolnmurphy" target="_blank">@lincolnmurphy</a> Need to do more than act w/ customer's best interest. Need to communicate well so customer gets it. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Tom Krackeler (@tomkrackeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler/status/557589151647023106" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q4. What should you do if a <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/saas?f=realtime" target="_blank">#SaaS</a> customer takes "unnatural steps" to avoid bumping up to next pricing tier? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/557589264431841281" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
The next question centered on what to do when you notice oddities in your customer metrics that drive your pricing. Of course, this first requires that you notice that your customer is taking "unnatural steps". But once you do, what does it mean, and what can and should you do about it?
<p>
Lincoln Murphy suggested re-evaluating pricing in this case, because if it's happening a lot, that says something about the value of your offering held up against pricing. If you aren't differentiating your pricing tiers based on value, customers won't want to pay for more. Tom pointed out how important it is to ensure tiers step up in value beyond just "more of same" — ex. additional features, premier support, etc. Shannon Kluczny pointed out that a few customers statistically won't follow the "natural process", and that's not something to worry about unless it's more than 20% of cases.
<p>
Tom suggested providing a "clear line of sight to ROI", in order to showcase the value of the upsell/expanding app capabilities. Lincoln Murphy pointed out that not wanting to move up, gaming the system, sharing logins, deleting objects, etc. can be pricing issues and churn threats. The biggest problem with pricing that's incongruent with customer needs/wants is that it shows you don't understand your customers.
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A4: Reevaluate your pricing. If this is happening a lot, the thing your pricing is based on isn't valuable. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Lincoln Murphy (@lincolnmurphy) <a href="https://twitter.com/lincolnmurphy/status/557589780376981504" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A4: There's a difference between unnatural and unethical! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Shannon Kluczny (@skluczny13) <a href="https://twitter.com/skluczny13/status/557590584588652544" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf" target="_blank">@Frontleaf</a> is there any case where you just "go with it", seeking cust. feedback to determine "why" instead of "what"? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Brandon McLaughlin (@brandonmac63) <a href="https://twitter.com/brandonmac63/status/557590746799554560" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/liliklemz" target="_blank">@liliklemz</a> Yes, the goal of upsell is to create more value for your customer. The extra revenue is a happy byproduct <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Tom Krackeler (@tomkrackeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler/status/557590963393413121" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q5. Suppose your <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/saas?f=realtime" target="_blank">#SaaS</a> customer renews 5 straight years at exact same MRR. Is that good or bad? Why? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/557590913825116160" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
Here, the experts hit on three themes:
<ul>
<li>Retention is important and positive, but you need to build an expansion path for a healthy SaaS business model.</li>
<li>You may be missing an opportunity for expansion and it's important to dig into why your customer hasn't grown.</li>
<li>Assuming you've added more value to your app over time, it's likely your customers are (or should be) getting more and more out of your product, and it's important to price accordingly.</li>
</ul>
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf" target="_blank">@Frontleaf</a> A5. Good and bad -- good, because they're satisfied. Bad, because they're not growing/expanding. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Julie Martin (@CSMJulie) <a href="https://twitter.com/CSMJulie/status/557592220027846656" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A5. Retention always good, but not enough. Must have expansion path built into <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/saas?f=realtime" target="_blank">#SaaS</a> app for biz to be healthy. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Tom Krackeler (@tomkrackeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler/status/557592848523362305" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A5: Your pricing will have changed over 5 years. Try adjusting their account each year to align w/ pricing. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Matt Hogan (@HOGIE_) <a href="https://twitter.com/HOGIE_/status/557593649211785216" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q6. What's the worst <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/saas?f=realtime" target="_blank">#SaaS</a> upsell/cross-sell <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/fail?f=realtime" target="_blank">#FAIL</a> you've ever seen? Tips for avoiding? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/557592692713336832" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
What are the most egregious SaaS upsell/cross-sell snafus? We received a great list of "#FAILs" from our experts and participants. Take care none of these happen to you!
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A6: Misalignment with goals for success <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/fail?f=realtime" target="_blank">#FAIL</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Shannon Kluczny (@skluczny13) <a href="https://twitter.com/skluczny13/status/557593065863401472" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A6. Most inexcusable: customers are bumping up tiers & company isn't even aware / monitoring / invoicing properly. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Tom Krackeler (@tomkrackeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler/status/557593265269399552" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A6: Classic is upsell convo kicking off bakeoff on product that was already sold. Even if you re-win, hurts CAC:LTV <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— David Mitzenmacher (@davemitz) <a href="https://twitter.com/davemitz/status/557593497390546944" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q7. How can you use <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccess?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccess</a> data to get the timing & offer right for upsell/cross-sell? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/557594605626331136" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
What data matter most for setting the stage for a successful upsell? Our experts weighed in and said that data can be extremely helpful for framing upsell conversations. This included understanding trends, mapping them to milestones and outcomes, and filling in the gaps with upselling/cross-selling. Data can also identify when there are triggering events for decision-making, such as a change in primary user, or if customers are achieving multiples of the value they are paying. It's also smart to track trajectory of key metrics (ex. percent of licensed seats used) and step in well before hitting the limit. For the cross-sell, Tom suggested putting intro functionality or "learn more" teasers in the app, tracking who checks them out, and then engaging fast.
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A7: i.e. Getting value = capitalize on success. Not getting value = fix the problem. Either can result in up/cross-sell <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— David Mitzenmacher (@davemitz) <a href="https://twitter.com/davemitz/status/557595819407577090" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf" target="_blank">@Frontleaf</a> this year we're shifting to cohort metric tracking (from aggregate), thx to many of the minds in this chat! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Brandon McLaughlin (@brandonmac63) <a href="https://twitter.com/brandonmac63/status/557595825040527361" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q8. What is something you can do during <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/saas?f=realtime" target="_blank">#SaaS</a> sales or onboarding that sets the table for a future upsell? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/557596385881886721" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
In case you missed our last #CustomerSuccessChat on nailing and scaling onboarding, we highly recommend <a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/blog/nail-scale-customer-onboarding" target="_blank">reading the recap</a>! This question delved into how to set the stage for upsells during the onboarding process. Experts suggested capturing the customer's success goals during onboarding and then planning to deliver future value in their terms. Participant Shannon Kluczny recommended taking time during onboarding to see why they didn't buy other product offerings to see if you can fill in concerns down the line.
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A8: Capture customer's definition of success during sales/onboarding so you can talk value in their terms in future <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— David Mitzenmacher (@davemitz) <a href="https://twitter.com/davemitz/status/557596988955688960" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A8. Sell the vision & share the vision. Have a multi-year plan that's handed off well from Sales to <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccess?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccess</a>. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Tom Krackeler (@tomkrackeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler/status/557597775207337985" target="_blank">January 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<p>
As a side note, chat participant Matt Hogan asked if anyone knew of a term for when a customer nearly cancels and you flip into an up-sell. David called it an <b>"Upsave"</b> and Tom called it <b>"Churnaround"</b>. Feel free to co-opt these terms in your Customer Success department, or let us know if you've got another favorite!
<p>
Join us for the next <a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/customer-success-twitter-chat/" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> on Tuesday, 2/17/2015 at 9a PT / 12p ET. The topic will be: <b><i><a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/blog/ins-outs-upselling" target="_blank">#SuccessHacking: #CustomerSuccess as #GrowthHacking</a></i></b>.
</p>
</div>MindTouch & Frontleaf Partner to Provide Powerful Customer Insightsblog/mindtouch-partnership2015-01-13T07:30:00Z2015-01-13T07:30:00ZTom KrackelerWe're excited to announce a partnership between Frontleaf and MindTouch, representing an important step in the maturity of Customer Success applications and practices. Our shared tenets and product syngery demonstrate the benefits of having a comprehensive strategy for delivering an exceptional customer experience.<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/gears.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><p>Today we <a href="http://www.prweb.com/releases/2015/01/prweb12439273.htm" target="_blank">announced a product partnership</a> between <a href="http://www.frontleaf.com/" target="_blank">Frontleaf</a> and <a href="http://www.mindtouch.com/" target="_blank">MindTouch</a>. From the first time we spent together, it was clear that our two companies were motivated by a common philosophy of Customer Success, even though our product offerings take two very different paths to get there — MindTouch by enabling customers to help themselves, and Frontleaf by providing actionable insights about how to better serve those customers. </p>
<p>What is so exciting to me is that, by bringing these two approaches together, we can give our shared customers a 1 + 1 = 3 moment. In the very act of providing self-service support, companies can generate signals of customer health and act on them to keep and grow their customers. Let's take a look at how we got here.</p>
<h3>MindTouch and Frontleaf's Shared Tenets of Customer Success</h3>
<p>Customer Success has gone mainstream in the last year, and is even starting to become a buzzword along the lines of "Growth Hacking". But at its core, Customer Success refers to the process of ensuring your customers can reach their desired outcome through using your product, and in doing so your company gets downstream business benefits of increased customer retention and growth.</p>
<p>MindTouch and Frontleaf strongly subscribe to the following three tenets of delivering Customer Success:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><b>The Importance of Self-Service.</b> Regardless of whether your customers are paying you $20 or $20,000 per month, you need to offer them a way to help themselves. For some customers, it's just their preferred learning style. For others, it's because they like to work at 10pm or are based on another continent than your Customer Success team. In all cases, it's also a great way to ensure consistency and accuracy of important information.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>Nail and Scale Onboarding.</b> The new customer onboarding phase is a unique opportunity to create early value and a lasting positive relationship. Having the right balance of terrific materials, personal touch points, and a "do-it-yourself track” ensures customers get on the right path and stay there throughout their journey with your company.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>Look for Signals Beyond Product Usage.</b> Companies have gotten much better in the last couple years at analyzing how their customers use their products. Is it a coincidence this trend parallels the rise of companies like <a href="https://mixpanel.com/" target="_blank">MixPanel</a> and <a href="https://segment.com/" target="_blank">Segment</a>? Probably not. But it's not enough to analyze just how product usage correlates with customer churn and growth. There are a variety of touch points that comprise the customer experience — sales, marketing, customer support, executive visits, self-service resources, and events, to name just a few. The best indicators of customer health will incorporate this broader picture of customer engagement.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>With this shared perspective, it quickly became clear how Frontleaf and MindTouch could complement each other in a powerful way.</p>
<h3>The Combined Product Offering — The "Wow!" Moment</h3>
<p>So how did we figure out how combine our product offerings? Let's look at the basics of what each does. MindTouch provides self-service support, driving user adoption and accelerating sales cycles by ensuring that customers on your site find the most helpful content in the right context. Frontleaf, on the other hand, analyzes a variety of customer activities, especially product usage, so you can figure out which of your customers are at-risk and then easily take action to keep them.</p>
<p>The "Eureka!" moment for us was when MindTouch's CEO <a href="http://twitter.com/Roebot" target="_blank">Aaron Fulkerson</a> suggested that we take the exact same approach that Frontleaf uses to translate product usage into predictive customer health insights, and apply it to article consumption within MindTouch's Success Center content. </p>
<p>And why not? MindTouch has years of data and customer anecdotes to suggest that strategic use of self-serve content can accelerate sales cycles, create user advocates, and drive customer retention. Using Frontleaf to standardize the analytics required to generate those kinds of insights, and then make them available to any MindTouch customer suddenly seemed like a very good idea. And with that, we set out to let our shared customers both empower their users and unlock insights about how to retain and grow them at the very same time. </p>
<h3>How It Works</h3>
<p>To get started, companies just need to add a Frontleaf template to their existing MindTouch Success Center and enable Frontleaf's CRM integration features. Frontleaf then mines the database of article views and overlay it with sales, renewal, and upsell information. Frontleaf's predictive algorithms will identify the articles that have the biggest influence on sales and customer retention, as well as generate predictive models for purchase and churn based on article usage behaviors. Companies of all kinds can use Frontleaf and MindTouch together to monitor for customer risk and buying signals, then kick off action plans to intervene at the right time.</p>
<p>Check out this one-minute video from Mindtouch CEO Aaron Fulkerson to see more about how it works.</p>
<iframe src="//fast.wistia.net/embed/iframe/pyztw4kmxu" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" id="whyItMatters" class="wistia_embed" name="wistia_embed" allowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen width="640" height="400" style="width: 100%;"></iframe>
<h3>Why It Matters</h3>
<p>I can't wait to see how this combined offering is embraced by the market. I believe it represents an important step in the maturity of Customer Success applications and practices. It demonstrates the benefits of having a comprehensive strategy for delivering an exceptional customer experience, and learning from doing it so you can deliver better results over time.</p>To Boldly Go Where No Podcast Has Gone Before: Customer Success!blog/customer-success-radio-podcast2015-01-12T09:30:00Z2015-01-12T09:30:00ZSarah E. BrownThere are some great cloud technology and software podcasts out there, but there’s never before been a podcast dedicated specifically and exclusively to the topic of Customer Success for cloud software companies. We're proud to be changing that, with the launch of our new Customer Success Radio podcast!<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/on_the_air.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><p>Customer Success seems to be on the tips of everyone’s tongues lately, from high-profile venture capitalists to executives at growing software companies interested in driving adoption, engagement and retention. Our industry is featured in top business forums, television, print media, and across the blogosphere and social networks. But there’s one place customer success has barely made a footprint: in the world of podcasting. While there are some great cloud technology and software podcasts out there, there’s never before been a podcast dedicated specifically and exclusively to the topic of Customer Success for cloud software companies. </p>
<p>As our team considered our next content project for the new year, creating a Customer Success podcast sounded like an incredible idea. Frontleaf co-founders Rachel English and Tom Krackeler couldn’t wait to disseminate information on Customer Success topics while honoring that ever-precious resource: your time. It’s never been easier to listen to podcasts to and from the office, the gym, and while multitasking.</p>
<p>We’d never produced a podcast before, but we didn’t let that stop us. With some late nights spent researching the best microphones, software, recording processes, editing, hosting, and more, we were on our way to our MVP: the minimum viable podcast! We encountered some minor bumps in the road, but after a bit of testing, we were successful in recording and releasing our first two episodes, which are now available.</p>
<p>You can <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/customer-success-radio/id956033507" target="_blank">subscribe free via iTunes</a>, <a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/frontleaf/customer-success-radio/" target="_blank">add as a favorite on Stitcher</a>, <a href="http://www.frontleaf.com/podcast/" target="_blank">listen directly through our website</a>, or just push play below to hear the first episode:</p>
<div class="layout-thinbanner-player">
<iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/184801207&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_playcount=false"></iframe>
</div>
<p><br>
(More formats are coming soon!)</p>
<p>Our first episode, <a href="http://www.frontleaf.com/podcast/#ep1" target="_blank"><b><i>So You Want to Build A Customer Success Team?</i></b></a>, tackles building your first Customer Success team from scratch, and some tricks for getting it right. In episode two, <a href="http://www.frontleaf.com/podcast/#ep2" target="_blank"><b><i>Customer Success Traps and How to Escape Them</i></b></a>, Rachel and Tom discuss surprise churn, "Old School" CEOs, customer-product misfits, and other common traps that Customer Success teams fall victim to, plus some ideas for how to avoid them.</p>
<p>We’ve just recorded another yet-to-be-released episode with Service Rocket’s Bill Cushard (read his <a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/blog/connect-training-customer-success/" target="_blank">great interview with Tom</a> in the meantime) as our first guest, and we look forward to welcoming other Customer Success expert guests to share their thoughts and expertise on Customer Success topics in future episodes.</p>
<p>As this is the first podcast exclusively focused on Customer Success, we aim to ensure it's an informative and inspiring source of information and discussion among our fast-growing community. We’re just getting started, and welcome any feedback or future episode topic suggestions. We hope you’ll join us for the ride!</p>Connect the Dots between Enterprise Software Training and Customer Successblog/customer-success-customer-training2015-01-07T09:30:00Z2015-01-07T09:30:00ZBill CushardIt's time for training professionals to step away from the laser focus on learner satisfaction surveys as the primary data collected and start measuring the impact training programs have on customer outcomes. Bill Cushard from ServiceRocket pick's Tom Krackeler's brain on the topic.<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/connect_dots_success.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><style>
.interview-image {
display: inline-block;
float:left;
max-width: 10%;
border-radius: 1000px;
}
.interview-name {
display: inline-block;
vertical-align: top;
margin: 15px 0 0 10px;
font-weight: 600;
font-size: 18px;
}
</style>
<p>There are many important issues in the enterprise software training business, which include how to develop great training content through solid instructional design processes, using learning technologies (eLearning, LMSs, MOOCs, etc), and measuring the effectiveness of training. Among the most important issues in this business, training professionals are weakest (in my opinion) at measuring the effectiveness of training.</p>
<p>Sure, we have <a href="http://www.kirkpatrickpartners.com/OurPhilosophy/TheKirkpatrickModel/tabid/302/Default.aspx" target="_blank">frameworks</a> that have been around for many years, <a href="http://www.roiinstitute.net/" target="_blank">institutes</a> dedicated to helping us learn and apply these models in our organizations, conferences in our field with <a href="http://www.atdconference.org/index.cfm?do=cnt.page&pg=2003&a=1" target="_blank">tracks</a> dedicated to the topic of measuring the success of training programs, and <a href="https://www.td.org/Certification/Competency-Model" target="_blank">competency models</a> that highlight the analytics skill. But the gap between the demand to measure the impact of our training programs on outcomes and our lack of ability to do it well is a critical gap that must be addressed.</p>
<p>What better way to explore the link between training and customer success than to speak with a leader in the customer success analytics space. Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/tomkrackeler" target="_blank">Tom Krackeler</a>, the Co-Founder and CEO of <a href="http://www.frontleaf.com/" target="_blank">Frontleaf</a>. We had an enriching conversation about how analytics can be used to show a link between training programs and outcomes for customers (popularly known as customer success). I found it a privilege to get insight from Tom, and I wanted to share his insights with training professionals who are looking to figure out how to make sure their training programs are having the biggest impact possible on customer outcomes. </p>
<p>Join me in our discussion about how to connect the dots between training activities, customer usage, and results.</p>
<hr>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/bill.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Bill Cushard (Bill):</span></p>
<p>Training professionals are not known for being great at analytics, but they all want to ensure training has a meaningful impact on the desired results of the organization. How should training professionals look at data as they design and deliver customer training programs?</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/tom.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Tom Krackeler (Tom):</span></p>
<p>Training professionals see and hear about the impact of their work all the time. Well-trained customers adopt their company's product more quickly and take advantage of its advanced capabilities. The same customers give them feedback through learner satisfaction surveys. There is every reason to believe that good training helps customers get better results. And that this translates directly into higher customer retention and more upsell/cross-sell opportunities.</p>
<p>However, in the companies I've worked with, training teams don't get full credit for their impact on revenue. Sometimes they are viewed narrowly through the lens of a Services P&L, or worse, are considered to be a cost center. Why? Because they don't have the data that proves their full revenue contribution. Or they have the raw data, but are unable to connect the dots between today's training activities and tomorrow's customer renewal or upsell.</p>
<p>So training professionals should begin to look at data analysis as a tool to measure the true downstream revenue impact of their training programs, and to let that guide their upfront curriculum design. In other words, don't use data just to show that customers are satisfied with training offerings and are learning the material. Prove that good training changes customer behaviors in a way that lets them achieve stronger results with your product. And that those results (1) deliver higher renewal and upsell rates, and (2) can in fact be attributed to the training program.</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/bill.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Bill:</span></p>
<p>I am not a quant or a data scientist, so big data is an intimidating concept. Where should training professionals begin so that it is something attainable?</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/tom.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Tom:</span></p>
<p>Begin with tracking which customers attend each training class or consume self-service training content. Companies like <a href="http://servicerocket.com/" target="_blank">ServiceRocket</a> make this all very easy, so you can then proceed to figuring out what effect training activities have on usage behaviors and customer retention. </p>
<p>But not so fast. There is a blocking-and-tackling issue that has derailed countless companies in their attempts to generate insights from their customer data. In order to measure the business impact of your training program, you need begin with customer data integrity . </p>
<p>This means establishing a single unique ID that maps the customers (both companies and individuals) that are stored in your training solution with their records in your CRM and your own software application (not to mention the systems for customer support, forums, knowledge base, etc). Not a sexy concept, but it's an absolute must-do, and something that a surprising number of companies struggle with.</p>
<p>It also means striking the right balance between making training content super easy for your customers to access, while at the same time keeping the ability (through single-sign-on or other means of authentication) to track exactly who is accessing it. Remember, you can't tie anonymous training visitors back to actual customers and their outcomes.</p>
<p>This might be a good time to take someone from your IT or Engineering team out to lunch — you might need their help getting these things right!</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/bill.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Bill:</span></p>
<p>If I want to show evidence that training is having a meaningful impact, what data points should I focus on/collect?</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/tom.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Tom:</span></p>
<p>It all comes down to knowing what makes your customers successful and determining whether training is moving the needle on those behaviors. Start by picking a customer performance metric for each of your training classes or resources. In other words, identify exactly what customer behaviors it's intended to influence or what customer result it should accelerate. </p>
<p>For each training class, state this goal in the form of an objective measure, such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>increasing usage of a particular feature set;</li>
<li>reducing the time to it takes a customer reach a milestone;</li>
<li>increasing the percentage of users above an activity threshold; or best of all </li>
<li>a specific measurement for the very reason the customer bought your product in the first place.</li>
</ul>
<p><br>
Maybe you don't have access to a wide variety of customer engagement metrics. If so, just start with whatever basic usage or results measures you have in place. But bottom line, if you are completely blind to your customer's usage activities, you'll be out of luck trying to figure out how your training programs changed them.</p>
<p>Now power lies in showing the before/after impact of attending training classes or consuming training content on your chosen customer success metrics. You can also calculate the difference in customer performance across groups of customers who participated in training versus those that did not.</p>
<p>When you're ready to pull everything together, Customer Success analytics solutions like <a href="http://www.frontleaf.com/" target="_blank">Frontleaf</a> can help you track all of these customer metrics, and then connect the dots between training activities, customer usage and results, and business outcomes like increased retention and upsell.</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/bill.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Bill:</span></p>
<p>I understand that smart use of customer data can help me figure out if my training initiatives really mitigate customer churn. But my sixth sense is telling me it's not always quite so easy. What are common things that can go wrong when undertaking this?</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/tom.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Tom:</span></p>
<p>What are you talking about? Nothing ever goes wrong when it comes to software! Okay, scratch that. There are a few things you need to be on the look out for, even if you do a good job of capturing and organizing all the kinds of customer data we've been talking about. </p>
<p>First, get prepared for when a training class that gets terrific customer survey results turns out to have zero impact on the customer behavior it's meant to influence. I guarantee this will happen (probably too often for comfort). Silver lining: now that you are measuring it, you can decide what to do about it.</p>
<p>Also, it's easy to get tricked into seeing training as a revenue rainmaker by the presence of external factors that don't have anything to do with your training efforts. There is a fancy term for this called a confounding variable. For instance, suppose your Enterprise customers have a much higher retention rate than your SMB customers. The Enterprise customers may also be much more likely to take advantage of your training offering. Does this mean that training is directly responsible for their higher retention? Perhaps not, and that's where it's important to have some good analysts on it at your company or good analytics software at the ready, so they can help you draw the right insights from the data you're collecting.</p>
<p>Last, and most importantly, the thing that most frequently derails data analysis projects is poor data management practices. The old "garbage in, garbage out" adage applies. I can't tell you how many smart, "on top of it" technology companies struggle with getting a single view of their customers and their activity data. Duplicates, missing records, nonsensical data formats — you name it. When companies are growing fast, they tend to evolve customer data management on the fly and switch CRMs and other business apps. It's almost inevitable to have a few "data casualties" along the way.</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/bill.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Bill:</span></p>
<p>What is an example of a company that uses data analytics to show a training program is having the desired effect?</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/tom.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Tom:</span></p>
<p><a href="http://mindtouch.com/" target="_blank">Mindtouch</a> jumps to mind first. Mindtouch is a platform for delivering customer-facing content that helps companies accelerate sales cycles and drive Customer Success. Mindtouch optimizes their self-service training in a couple of interesting ways. First, they determine where they have gaps in their training content by analyzing their customers' aggregate search patterns and tying in each article's bounce rate.</p>
<p>The Mindtouch team then goes the extra step of overlaying their CRM data, so that they can identify the content resources that are the strongest drivers of new sales and customer renewals. That way, they know what help content to promote at each stage of the customer lifecycle, based on the type of customer and what training content would benefit it most.</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/bill.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Bill:</span></p>
<p>What is the top area that training teams should focus on in order to make the most impact on their company's growth?</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/tom.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Tom:</span></p>
<p>A training team can make the biggest impact on growth by building their curriculum (and measuring their effectiveness) around driving the actual usage behaviors and customer results that influence retention and expansion. Of course, there are plenty of non-usage reasons that customers churn, but the training team is perfectly positioned to influence the most important one: the customer's ability to achieve their desired outcome with your product.</p>
<p>Yes, this means placing a little less emphasis on operating margins for paid training and the results of learner satisfaction surveys. I know that can be uncomfortable. But as technology companies mature, the revenue impact of small improvements in customer retention will dwarf the typical growth in paid training revenue.</p>
<hr>
<h3>In Summary</h3>
<p>To briefly recap this insightful discussion with Tom, I would say that it's time for training professionals to step away from our laser focus on learner satisfaction surveys as the primary data we collect and start measuring the impact our training programs have on customer outcomes. That is certainly what customers want. They want to know that if they take your training, their teams (and companies overall) will achieve some desired outcome. With the right tools, like the one Frontleaf has built, heads of education services and customer success can now collect training activity data, customer usage results, and even key customer metrics data, then produce insight into how training is impacting customer success.</p>
<hr>
<p>Thank you to <a href="http://servicerocket.com/" target="_blank"><b>ServiceRocket</b></a>, who originally posted this article as a <a href="http://company.servicerocket.com/blog/2014/12/connect-dots-enterprise-software-training-customer-success/" target="_blank">guest post on their blog</a>. <a href="http://servicerocket.com/" target="_blank"><b>ServiceRocket</b></a> provides training, support, and utilization services for today's top software companies.</p>
<hr>Want Customer Success? Invest in Customer Training.blog/customer-success-customer-training2014-12-15T09:30:00Z2014-12-15T09:30:00ZTom KrackelerTraining is hard. It's time consuming to develop, costly, and needs constant updates. This is a big reason why so many enterprise software companies, especially Cloud/SaaS platforms, under-invest in training their customers. Here, Bill Cushard gives his expert take answering questions and digging in on the whys and hows of linking Training and Customer Success.<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/hand_raised.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><style>
.interview-image {
display: inline-block;
float:left;
max-width: 10%;
border-radius: 1000px;
}
.interview-name {
display: inline-block;
vertical-align: top;
margin: 15px 0 0 10px;
font-weight: 600;
font-size: 18px;
}
</style>
<p>We all know intuitively that customers who are well trained perform better. </p>
<p>The problem is that training is hard. It's time consuming to develop, and it seems like as soon as your awesome training program is complete, your product changes and it becomes obsolete. This is a big reason why <b><i>so many enterprise software companies, especially Cloud/SaaS platforms, under-invest in training their customers</i></b>.</p>
<p>There is another reason, too. The perception that the costs of providing a top-notch training program outweigh its benefits. Of course, this is just a perception, and not a data-driven conclusion, because companies are not very good at using data to measure the success of their training practices.</p>
<p>Lately, I've enjoyed some lively discussions on these topics with <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/billcushard" target="_blank"><b>Bill Cushard</b></a>, Head of Training at <a href="http://servicerocket.com/" target="_blank">ServiceRocket</a>, which provides training, support, and utilization services for today's top software companies. Bill has been helping me understand all the connections between Training and Customer Success, and I've been helping him think about the best way to use data analytics to prove that connection. And I'm lucky enough to have him join me here to answer a few of my questions.</p>
<hr>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/tom.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Tom Krackeler (Tom):</span></p>
<p>How do today's top enterprise SaaS companies think about customer training? And how do they deliver it — in person, via webinars, with videos, through in-app guidance, or some combination?</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/bill.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Bill Cushard (Bill):</span></p>
<p>Today's top enterprise SaaS companies treat customer training as a strategic imperative. These companies are betting on the belief that their software will ultimately change customers' financial statements and do not want to leave to chance that customers will adopt their product without help. Moreover, top enterprise SaaS companies understand the technology adoption lifecycle and treat each target group differently. As early stage companies sell to smaller, fast-growing companies, the users are more likely to be innovators and visionaries that do not need formal training. In these cases, good in-app help files are more than enough. However, when that enterprise SaaS company books a deal with a Fortune 500 customer, users are likely to be the early majority or even late adopters who expect training. In these cases, formal training (whether live or self-paced) is imperative and expected.</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/tom.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Tom:</span></p>
<p>What's an example of a company with a top-notch customer training program? What are the keys to success?</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/bill.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Bill:</span></p>
<p><a href="http://www.cloudera.com/" target="_blank">Cloudera</a> has a very good customer training program. A few keys to what makes it excel are:</p>
<ol>
<li>Training is featured prominently. Cloudera has a "Training" link in their main navigation, making it clear how important training is.</li>
<li>Training is discoverable. Cloudera makes training courses available on their web site and anyone can register. They do not make customers log in to find training courses. </li>
<li>Training is not just product-oriented. Classes offered range from industry topics to product training. For example, Cloudera offers a class called <i>Introduction to Data Science.</i> This is a valuable course for any attendee, even if they don't use Cloudera services. (And what do you think happens when non-Cloudera customers take this course?)</li>
<li>Training employs a variety of learning methods. Cloudera offers classroom training, online resources, certification, and private training to suit the needs of various audiences. </li>
</ol>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/tom.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Tom:</span></p>
<p>In today's world, you hear a lot about the "consumerization of the Enterprise," and how the introduction of simpler and more elegant user interfaces will change how enterprise software is bought and used. How does this impact the need for good training or how training will get delivered?</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/bill.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Bill:</span></p>
<p>I believe it's a false trade-off to say: "Since our product is so easy-to-use, we do not need training." Even if a product is as intuitive as the designer thinks it is (which is rare), if the product changes the way people or organizations work, people will need to learn that new way of working. Any enterprise software company that wants to help customers improve a result should spend time helping customers learn how to do that by using the new product, no matter how well the product is designed.</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/tom.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Tom:</span></p>
<p>Most tech companies have financial constraints. How should you decide whether to invest your marginal budget in making your software easier to use versus delivering a training curriculum?</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/bill.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Bill:</span></p>
<p>I'm a trainer, not a product designer, and even I would say if a choice must be made, I'd focus on improving the product design. However, the true answer to the question lies somewhere in the middle. Training, when done really well, is more about how to get work done using the product, rather than how to use particular features and workflows in a product. It's a subtle difference, but an important one. A good example of this difference is any of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEBKSMKm5pc" target="_blank">early iPhone commercials</a>. They were all instructional in nature, but none of them taught features. The commercials showed us how to order flowers for our wives at the last minute when we forget our anniversary, or how to find an apartment, or how to look up the name of a bird that we saw on a hike. When I watch these commercials, I'm learning how to accomplish things with the phone, not how to use the phone.</p>
<p>It's a constant trade-off. And I recommend chipping away at improving both your product and your training... over time. Very much in the spirit of the <a href="http://www.jimcollins.com/article_topics/articles/how-to-manage-through-chaos.html" target="_blank">20 Mile March</a>. </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/tom.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Tom:</span></p>
<p>How do you measure whether a training program is successful? What are the key metrics? Any industry benchmarks you can share for companies starting a training program?</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/bill.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Bill:</span></p>
<p>Training professionals use the <a href="http://www.kirkpatrickpartners.com/OurPhilosophy/TheKirkpatrickModel/tabid/302/Default.aspx" target="_blank">Kirkpatrick Four Levels</a> model for evaluating the success of training. This four-level model was built upon by Jack Phillips, who added a <a href="http://www.humanresourcesiq.com/metrics/columns/the-basics-of-roi/" target="_blank">fifth level</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><b>Level 1: Learner Satisfaction</b> — This data comes from the training surveys we have all completed at the end of training courses. The point is to ask participants about their satisfaction with the training event.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>Level 2: Knowledge Improvement</b> — The data here comes from tests. Did people learn what was taught in a training course, and did they demonstrate that by "passing" a test?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>Level 3: Behavior Change</b> — Data for this comes from finding out whether people have changed their behavior or otherwise taken action on what they learned in a training course. </p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>Level 4: Outcomes/Results</b> — Here is where Customer Success Analytics gets interesting. The data for this comes from the results people achieve after applying what they learned in a training course. Did productivity increase? Defects fall? Sales Increase? Costs decrease?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>Level 5: Return on Investment</b> — At this level, we're simply comparing the dollar amount earned on the results from level 4 with the investment made in the training program. If a company invests $50,000 in training and had $50,000 in improvement to the business in the first year, managers can make a decision about whether the investment was worth it.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>I'll skip the <a href="http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/trainsta.html" target="_blank">stats</a>... but surveys of training professionals consistently show that most trainers use Level 1, and as the levels ascend, fewer trainers utilize them. Almost no training professionals use level 5.</p>
<p>Training professionals usually do not have access to data at level 4, for a variety of reasons and because it's too time consuming to collect data at level 3. Finally, training professionals do not budget time and do not have the expertise to really analyze the data and create insights from it. Training professionals generally are very good at collecting and analyzing data at Levels 1 and 2.</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/tom.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Tom:</span></p>
<p>How do you know whether or not your company should charge for training?</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/bill.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Bill:</span></p>
<p>Ask the following questions to determine whether you should charge for training:</p>
<p><b><i>Is there a market for it?</i></b></p>
<p>Open source is an important example. There is a market to learn Linux, Hadoop, NGINX, etc.</p>
<p><b><i>Is there a need for the underlying skill?</i></b></p>
<p>In other words, learning how to use Hubspot is important if I work at a company that uses Hubspot. However, learning the skill of Inbound Marketing is valuable to any marketer. Charge for the Inbound Marketing training. That way, even non-customers can learn this skill and pay for it. Become known for inbound marketing expertise, rather than just marketing automation software.</p>
<p><b><i>Is the product so universal, complex, and mission critical to a business that needs training?</i></b></p>
<p><a href="http://www.salesforce.com/" target="_blank">Salesforce</a> makes this point. If customers cannot live without your product at their business, there is value to learning the product well. CRM, ERP, HRIS, Virtualization, and DevOps are all good examples. Even if a customer could use a competitor's products, they still have to use that kind of a product. Training is expected because learning to get the most out of products like these is mission critical to the business.</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/tom.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Tom:</span></p>
<p>Should training always be run as a profit center, with its own P&L and margin targets? Or if not, what are the factors in deciding?</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/bill.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Bill:</span></p>
<p>It depends on the answers to the questions above. However, if you do not run your training business as a profit center, it should certainly be run as a business. Factors to help determine include: philosophical approach, company stage in life cycle, nature of the underlying technology, and how prevalent/critical the product is to customer operations (see answer above).</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/tom.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Tom:</span></p>
<p>In many SaaS companies, Customer Success Managers do a lot of ad-hoc training, and sometimes even formalized training curriculum. What makes a great trainer, and how is that similar or different from what makes a great Customer Success Manager?</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/bill.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Bill:</span></p>
<p>A great trainer...</p>
<ol>
<li>Understands the audience.</li>
<li>Relates a topic to the real world.</li>
<li>Brings the topic alive.</li>
<li>Facilitates learning rather than pushes it.</li>
<li>Is not always an expert (but knowledgeable, yes).</li>
<li>Embraces that students are learning the topic and does not get frustrated with learners who struggle (as experts might).</li>
</ol>
<p>Customer Success Managers have many of these traits, too. With a few key differences. Customers Success Managers become experts by the nature of their job working with customers every day. The problem with experts is tacit knowledge. Experts can forget how they learned something, or might no longer understand how someone else does not know it — they can lose the ability to help someone new to the topic learn it.</p>
<p>Great trainers do not fall into this trap. They understand that the audience is new to the subject. Great trainers thrive in this circumstance. Experts tend to get frustrated. </p>
<p>It's the same secret ingredient that makes great rock stars and comedians. If you can play the same song or tell the same joke night after night with all the enthusiasm of the first time you told it because you know that this is not the 1,000th time you've played that song or told that joke, it is the <i>first</i> time you played that song or told that joke to <i>this audience</i>... then you have the makings of a great musical performer or comedian. That is the essential difference between a great trainer and an expert.</p>
<hr>
<p>To sum up, more and more companies are figuring out that a well-run training program is an important part of having wildly successful customers. Even for simple self-service products. An interesting next topic to explore is how to quantify the impact of training on customer renewal and upsell.</p>
<hr>
<p><img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/bill.jpg" style="max-width: 20%;float:left;padding-right:25px" /> <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/billcushard" target="_blank"><b>Bill Cushard</b></a> is Head of Training at <a href="http://servicerocket.com/" target="_blank">ServiceRocket</a>. His experience building training departments in high-growth organizations helps him lead ServiceRocket’s training services business. Bill is passionate about the "training business segment" of the learning management system (LMS) market and in helping early-stage enterprise software companies build and run strategic training businesses.</p>
<hr>Customer Lifecycle Marketing to Drive Loyalty & Lifetime Valueblog/customer-lifecycle-marketing2014-12-04T09:30:00Z2014-12-04T09:30:00ZTom Krackeler & Sarah E. BrownInterested in best practices for utilizing communications to influence your customers and drive increased loyalty, advocacy, retention, and lifetime value? Anthony Nygren of EMI Strategic Marketing shares his perspective and expert advice on Customer Lifecycle Marketing.<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/messages_happy_fingers.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><style>
.interview-image {
display: inline-block;
float:left;
max-width: 10%;
border-radius: 1000px;
}
.interview-name {
display: inline-block;
vertical-align: top;
margin: 15px 0 0 10px;
font-weight: 600;
font-size: 18px;
}
</style>
<p>Today’s best SaaS companies engage their prospects through value-driven, segmented marketing communications, which are crucial to convincing and converting them. And the best Customer Success organizations understand that, after the sale, ongoing engagement throughout the customer lifecycle is paramount for driving retention and increased customer lifetime value (CLTV). Once a prospect has funneled through marketing and sales and is now your customer, what principles and best practices should guide customer communications, and how can you effectively influence your customers to broaden their relationship and increase loyalty and advocacy?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.frontleaf.com/blog/frontleaf-50-to-follow/" target="_blank"><b><i>Frontleaf 50 to Follow</i></b></a> honoree <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonynygren" target="_blank"><b>Anthony Nygren</b></a> is an expert in doing just this — uncovering the underlying drivers of customer behaviors, then using that knowledge to develop programs that deliver customer retention and increase lifetime value. As Marketing, Customer Experience and CRM leader at <a href="http://www.emiboston.com/" target="_blank">EMI Strategic Marketing</a>, Anthony leads engagement teams that provide marketing strategy guidance and sales-oriented relationship marketing solutions to clients in software and financial services. Anthony and Frontleaf’s Tom Krackeler recently chatted about best practices for customer lifecycle marketing, including how to earn trust and build customer loyalty and CLTV.</p>
<hr>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/tom.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Tom Krackeler (Tom):</span></p>
<p>For starters, what is Customer Lifecycle Marketing?</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/anthony.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Anthony Nygren (Anthony):</span></p>
<p>“Customer Lifecycle Marketing,” which we might sometimes also call “Relationship Marketing,” represents a communications program targeting customers with a goal of influencing and deepening/broadening relationships with them. The thing that’s often missed by people outside of the world of Customer Success is that customers don’t just stick around and expand usage and feel loyalty on their own — you’ve got to earn all that and invest in capturing those positive outcomes. At this point, most companies recognize the need for content marketing and lead nurturing pre-sale; that same mindset needs to be applied once the contract is signed.</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/tom.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Tom:</span></p>
<p>What in your experience is the impact of Lifecycle Marketing programs on key customer metrics like retention rate and lifetime value?</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/anthony.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Anthony:</span></p>
<p>Intuitively, Lifecycle Marketing simply makes sense. Almost everyone is familiar with retail communications that present offers based on what we’ve bought or read or clicked on in the past…and in fact, those tend to be the emails to which we pay the most attention because they are the most relevant. But moving beyond the intuitive to the empirical, we’ve seen Lifecycle Marketing programs deliver a 40+% increase in loyalty, a 45+% increase in retention, and a 70+% increase in lifetime value. Again, that comes from delivering messages that are relevant, timely, and demonstrate a commitment to and understanding of customers.</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/tom.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Tom:</span></p>
<p>Any specific examples you'd like to point out where Customer Lifecycle Marketing is being done well?</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/anthony.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Anthony:</span></p>
<p>It seems like that question would be easy to answer, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that I honestly don’t really have anyone that I’d hold up as a model for good Lifecycle Marketing. There are companies that do a nice job with recurring communications — Evernote, for example, strikes a nice balance between highlighting new and unexplored features and trying to sell me accessories; Central Desktop is a company that I hold up a lot for their e-newsletter, which I think is a great example of strong value-added content marketing. But even Evernote doesn’t really leverage the data they have about my usage to tailor communications to me.</p>
<p>I often like to go outside of the narrow band of SaaS industry communications to get inspiration, but when I think of communications from my gym, my cable company, my subscription-based bike rental company, none of them really does a good job leveraging the data they have about me to create a program that influences my behavior. I think that there are two reasons why something that seems so intuitive and obvious in theory so often fails in practice: resource limitations and concerns about incremental ROI.</p>
<p>For companies that have actually started investing in customer communications, there are likely not a lot of spare internal resources to devote to the analysis, planning, and execution of a lifecycle program. Even if some time can be squeezed out of available resources, there’s an initial hurdle of questioning whether putting in that effort will produce enough of a lift — in loyalty, retention, lifetime value — to make it worthwhile. In both cases, my answer is that this shouldn’t be seen as an all-or-nothing proposition. There’s no reason why you can’t start small and pilot something, learn from the results, and expand if you find success.</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/tom.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Tom:</span></p>
<p>How do you go about planning a Lifecycle Marketing program? </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/anthony.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Anthony:</span></p>
<p>The starting point has to be with the customer lifecycle itself: what are the stages of the lifecycle, and for each, what should the focus of communications be. For example, initially, the focus of communications is likely to be the onboarding process, then driving adoption and time-to-first-value. After initial value, many customers will then enter an expansion stage; here, communications might focus on nurturing a deeper relationship through value-added content, or fueling advocacy, or introducing new features. </p>
<p><a href="http://ctt.ec/i88m3" target="_blank">[Click to Tweet:] <b>As you get into the details of planning, it’s really important to recognize that Lifecycle Marketing isn't just about sending messages customers might like — it’s about positively influencing their behavior.</b></a> Consequently, part of the planning process must be analyzing current customer behavior patterns to identify gaps and opportunities — places where a change in behavior could have an impact on lifetime value. So in the example above, the communications focused on options for the expansion stage shouldn’t be viewed as multiple choice — you need to pick the one that has the greatest potential to improve results and increase CLTV for the specific customer receiving it.</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/tom.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Tom:</span></p>
<p>What are some rules of thumb for how frequently to communicate with existing customers? </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/anthony.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Anthony:</span></p>
<p>When it comes to email frequency, it's really dangerous to work with assumptions...but you have to start somewhere. Ideally, you might gather some input from customers as you're in the planning phase. This input could be structured, like a brief survey, or could be somewhat anecdotal, like simply asking a few of your closer customers. With or without that input, it's still advisable to start slow and add, rather than to start blasting a few times a week and be greeted with a lot of unsubscribes and complaints.</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/tom.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Tom:</span></p>
<p>Is it important to base communications on what actions a customer takes (or fails to take) within your product, or is it better to make communications calendar or milestone-based?</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/anthony.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Anthony:</span></p>
<p>To me, the middle course is actually best: a combination of triggered messaging based on action or inaction AND a few ongoing, planned communications. Triggered messaging is incredibly powerful and almost always delightfully successful because people respond to relevance. The more a communication relates to who the recipient is and his/her interests and needs, the more likely it will be read.</p>
<p>That being said, if you only communicate based on behavioral triggers, it can result in a very inconsistent flow of communications — none for months then several within a few weeks — that can undermine performance. Everyone is so over-saturated with communications that if you haven't already demonstrated yourself to be a trusted, valuable communicator, your messages — even those based on behavior — are likely to get ignored and deleted before even being read because you haven't earned the right to make it past the split-second triage step ("am I going to take an extra few seconds and actually read this or just put it immediately in the trash"). And with email, it's vital to keep deliverability in mind: email server filters and spam blockers are often set up to flag "random" messages from a sender that has little or no established communication history.</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/tom.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Tom:</span></p>
<p>In past companies I've seen a distinction made between "marketing communication" and "customer service communication”, where the former is oriented around "selling" and the latter around "solving". What's the right tone to strike in communications, and what team should be in charge of the content?</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/anthony.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Anthony:</span></p>
<p>The first question is easy to answer — you need balance and a comprehensive communications strategy. Nobody wants communications that always "sell" — promote new features, introduce new services, remind about renewals. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that most people don't want those messages at all. Think about it — when was the last time you were excited about a work email that was trying to get your money? You have to earn the right to deliver "selling" communications through a history of delivering communications of value. That's why an integrated strategy — one that mixes "selling" and "support", in the form of best practices, tips and tricks, case studies — is the most effective. And why a recurring newsletter that effectively brings all those things together should be on every SaaS company's to-do list.</p>
<p>My answer to the second question is "it depends" or "it doesn't matter." The key thing isn't who does it, but that it's done, and done with strategic intent. To me, <b>regardless of who is executing the communications, the Customer Success function should be responsible for defining and optimizing the Customer Lifecycle Marketing strategy, since that's where the broader relationship management strategy should reside.</b></p>
<hr>
<p><img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/anthony.jpg" style="max-width: 20%;float:left;padding-right:25px" /> <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonynygren" target="_blank"><b>Anthony Nygren</b></a> is Executive Vice President at <a href="http://emiboston.com/" target="_blank">EMI Strategic Marketing</a>, and is known as a "customer whisperer". His expertise is in gathering customer knowledge and building an understanding of the drivers of customer behavior, then using that knowledge and understanding to create programs that measurably build awareness, maximize customer lifetime value, improve sales efficiency, optimize lead generation efficiency and effectiveness, and increase customer retention.</p>
<hr>How to Nail & Scale Customer Onboardingblog/nail-scale-customer-onboarding2014-12-01T09:00:00Z2014-12-01T09:00:00ZFrontleafIn onboarding your SaaS customers, how can you be sure that each one will achieve top-notch value quickly and land on the right path towards retention and growth? And once you nail that process, how can you make it repeatable and scale it as your customer base grows? Frontleaf recently hosted a CustomerSuccessChat on the subject, with industry leaders Andrew Racine, Julie Giannini, Katie Kortnie, Shannon Kluczny, and Tom Krackeler. Here's a recap!<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/hammer_nails.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><style>
.question-section {
padding: 26px 0;
border-top: 1px solid #ababab;
}
.tweet-image {
display: block;
width: 100%;
margin-bottom: 26px !important;
padding: 20px 20px 30px 20px;
border: 1px solid #ececec;
border-top: 4px solid orange;
border-radius: 3px;
}
.tweet-question iframe {
width: 99% !important;
border-top: 4px solid orange !important;
}
.tweet-embed {
margin: 26px 0;
}
.line-spacer {
width: 100%;
height: 1px;
margin: 0 0 26px 0;
background: #f1f1f1;
}
</style>
<p>Ask a Customer Success practitioner what is the most important priority for their team, and you'll likely hear that successfully onboarding new customers is at or near the top of the list. In most cases, the initial stage of a SaaS customer's lifecycle warrants the highest level of individual attention. But how can you be sure that each customer will achieve top-notch value quickly and land on the right path towards retention and growth? And once you nail that process, how can you make it repeatable and scale it as your customer base grows?</p>
<p>Our November <a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/customer-success-twitter-chat/" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a>, the third in the series, was on the topic: <b><i>How To Nail and Scale Customer Onboarding</i></b>. Our experts — <a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewRacine" target="_blank">Andrew Racine</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/jgiannin" target="_blank">Julie Giannini</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/KatieKortnie" target="_blank">Katie Kortnie</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/skluczny13" target="_blank">Shannon Kluczny</a>, and <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler" target="_blank">Tom Krackeler</a> — joined fellow Customer Success practitioners and enthusiasts from among our fast-growing community to discuss challenges and best practices in the world of customer onboarding. Here's a recap of the highlights.</p>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q1: How do you know (for sure) when a customer has been successfully onboarded? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/534753304928993280" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
Our first question tackled the crucial moment when a customer has turned the corner from product adoption and implementation to genuine self-sustained usage. The experts called out the concept of a customer's "first value" and the importance of defining exactly what it entails.
Shannon and Andrew mentioned the need to align goals and get client buy-in. Several chat participants pointed out that you are never "done" onboarding your customer for various reasons (new users, staff turnover, constantly evolving value of your app, etc.). But there was some consensus on treating a customer's first achievement of value as an important onboarding milestone.
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A1: Onboarding is the most critical step of the client relationship- getting client buy-in is all that matters <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Shannon Kluczny (@skluczny13) <a href="https://twitter.com/skluczny13/status/534754805340585984" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A1: They must achieve "first value" in the app, plus milestones you've defined, such as completing training or a config <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Tom Krackeler (@tomkrackeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler/status/534753941121011712" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q2: What key thing(s) absolutely MUST happen during onboarding for a customer to be successful down the road? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/534754854661419008" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
Our experts emphasized that you need to ask a customer what success looks like to them — don't assume you know. As Andrew pointed out, defining the plan and timeline as well as any potential challenges in the way of achieving that main first goal are also important. Chat participant <a href="https://twitter.com/davemitz" target="_blank">David Mitzenmacher</a> brought up that onboarding is also a crucial time to evaluate in the rare case there isn't product-customer fit. While misalignment ideally should be identified sooner upstream, Tom agreed it's important to have a tripwire in place to identify any potential poor fits during onboarding.
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A2: The customer must experience goal and value alignment. The additional "Aha" moments are priceless. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Katie Kortnie (@KatieKortnie) <a href="https://twitter.com/KatieKortnie/status/534755205523722240" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A2: Define the customer's goals, plan, timeline and potential challenges that could get in the way. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Andrew Racine (@AndrewRacine) <a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewRacine/status/534755334863458304" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question weet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q3: How do you balance high-touch vs self-serve during onboarding? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/534756287217541120" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
This question addresses something we debate all the time at Frontleaf. <em>(And in case you haven't seen it yet, <a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/blog/serve-or-self-serve/" target="_blank">check out our blog post on the topic</a>!)</em>
Tom and Andrew discussed that product price points play a deciding role in that quandary. However, as Julie pointed out and Shannon echoed, it's not impossible to offer both high-touch and self-service, as companies with high MRR price points still need to make self-service resources available, and those with lower MRR could benefit from a more personalized onboarding touchpoint. Katie and Tom discussed the benefits of group calls during onboarding, and the value they offer in creating initial shared customer experience right out of the gate.
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A3: During Traction Stage of your Business = All High Touch. During Growth Stage = segment based on MRR <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Andrew Racine (@AndrewRacine) <a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewRacine/status/534756766295556096" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A3: Do both. High MRR $ co's still need self-serve resources. Low $ MRR co's benefit from 1:1 onboarding touchpoint <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Tom Krackeler (@tomkrackeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler/status/534756994654011392" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A3: Accounts over a certain revenue get 1:1 calls. For those under run daily group calls. Group calls scale! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Katie Kortnie (@KatieKortnie) <a href="https://twitter.com/KatieKortnie/status/534756839553236992" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q4: What kinds of resources do you make available to help guide your customers through onboarding? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/534758230459572224" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
Our experts mentioned resources such as stellar knowledge bases, welcome packets, timelines, step-by-step guided support, phone support, trainings, plus how-to posts and videos. Andrew mentioned that onboarding resources may depend on the subscription level, with top tier customers getting a dedicated setup representative, live chat, video trainings and phone support. Tom pointed out that access to other customers can be a terrific resource.
Shannon brought up the value of virtual and live tutorials and printable materials, and ensuring learning materials address all adult learning theory models for training. Chat participant Julie Martin asked experts to weigh in on how to tell if resources become "too much," leading to "customer overload." <a href="https://twitter.com/davemitz" target="_blank">David Mitzenmacher</a> suggested having a CSM create a plan so customers wouldn't be exposed to the full gamut of resources at once.
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A4: Depends on Sub. Level = most get Dedicated Setup Rep, CSM/IS, On-Demand Video Tool Trainings, and Phone Support <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Andrew Racine (@AndrewRacine) <a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewRacine/status/534758836864028672" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A4: clear points of contact, welcome packets, timelines, step by step guided support <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Shannon Kluczny (@skluczny13) <a href="https://twitter.com/skluczny13/status/534758650925957121" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q5: How do you handle it when your customer has staff turnover or adds new users? Re-onboard? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/534759154217275392" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
Let's acknowledge the inconvenient truth that our customers have staff turnover and bring on new users all the time. And that institutional knowledge about your application can get lost. Our experts had a <em>lot</em> to say about this topic. It turns out that re-onboarding may just be unavoidable, but you can prepare for it.
Shannon advised developing coaches within the customer organization. Katie pointed out that daily group calls can easily scale, making room for new users to join any time.
Julie acknowledged that sometimes, no matter your preparation or best intentions, a Customer Success Manager has to go the extra mile to personally make sure that new customer staff gets value from your application. Andrew brought up a different kind of tactic: invite the new users to visit your office!
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A5: It's a great chance to get back in front of your customer to re-establish value, check-in, set up demos & eduction <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Julie Giannini (@jgiannin) <a href="https://twitter.com/jgiannin/status/534760624836710400" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A5: Prepare in advance for this to happen! Build coaches within the organization so you don't have to start over! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Shannon Kluczny (@skluczny13) <a href="https://twitter.com/skluczny13/status/534759576634003456" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A5: If you run daily group calls that scale, any new users can join. That's the beauty of it! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/scalability?f=realtime" target="_blank">#Scalability</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— KatieKortnie (@KatieKortnie) <a href="https://twitter.com/KatieKortnie/status/534759629679779840" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q6: What's the key to a proper sales handoff to the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccess?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccess</a> team? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/534760484122005504" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
The experts hit on three themes:
<ul>
<li>Capturing customer expectations from the sales process</li>
<li>Keeping the bonds that were developed during the sales cycle</li>
<li>Making sure the customer understands exactly what is coming next</li>
</ul>
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A6: Systematically capture customer's own specific goals for using your app. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Tom Krackeler (@tomkrackeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler/status/534762028074672128" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A6: Let the prospect know exactly what will happen; from the time the deal closes to first value delivered <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Lincoln Murphy (@lincolnmurphy) <a href="https://twitter.com/lincolnmurphy/status/534761622859165696" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A6: Sales/Service Communication is #1. Need formal process and an internal culture that encourages informal as well. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Andrew Racine (@AndrewRacine) <a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewRacine/status/534761068229578752" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q7: What are your go-to tools to help ensure <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/saas?f=realtime" target="_blank">#SaaS</a> customer onboarding is effective & efficient? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/534762129643929600" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
What are the top tools of the trade for ensuring customer onboarding is effective, efficient, and scalable? We received a great list of solutions recommended by our experts:
</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Communications</strong></li>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://salesloft.com/cadence/">SalesLoft Cadence</a></li>
</ul>
<li><strong>Community</strong></li>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.lithium.com/">Lithium Technologies</a></li>
</ul>
<li><strong>CRM</strong></li>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.salesforce.com/">Salesforce</a></li>
</ul>
<li><strong>Customer Success Management</strong></li>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.frontleaf.com">Frontleaf</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gainsight.com">Gainsight</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.totango.com">Totango</a></li>
</ul>
<li><strong>In-App Guidance</strong></li>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.walkme.com/">WalkMe</a></li>
</ul>
<li><strong>In-App Messaging</strong></li>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.intercom.io/">Intercom</a></li>
</ul>
<li><strong>Scheduling</strong></li>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://calendly.com">Calendly</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.timetrade.com/">TimeTrade</a></li>
</ul>
<li><strong>User Feedback</strong></li>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.clicktools.com/">Clicktools</a></li>
</ul>
</ul>
<p>
Some of our experts also recommended <em>processes</em> for nailing and scaling customer onboarding. These included:
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A7: Offline and online- post onboarding meeting to gain feedback, surveys to gather data and opinions. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Shannon Kluczny (@skluczny13) <a href="https://twitter.com/skluczny13/status/534762847348092928" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A7: In-App Usage Data + My internal and external conversations/experience <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Andrew Racine (@AndrewRacine) <a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewRacine/status/534763061295730688" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A7: A solid Customer Success Plan defined w the customer. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Julie Giannini (@jgiannin) <a href="https://twitter.com/jgiannin/status/534763332482260992" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q8: What are the most common customer onboarding mistakes? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/534763616797331456" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
After so much discussion centered around what to do well, we asked our experts to talk about customer onboarding mistakes, especially ones that may lead to churn. The experts raised challenges such as poor communication, disconnection on customer goals, and inability to tailor processes to a customer's specific situation.
Tom cautioned against directing attention away from the customer too soon after first value is achieved. <a href="https://twitter.com/davemitz" target="_blank">David Mitzenmacher</a> stressed the importance of breaking down cross-team silos, and Katie reminded us that good listening is a required skill for CSMs.
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A8: Applying a '1 Size Fits All' process/template for your customers <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Andrew Racine (@AndrewRacine) <a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewRacine/status/534764252532588544" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A8: Not defining what success looks like for your customer. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Julie Giannini (@jgiannin) <a href="https://twitter.com/jgiannin/status/534764056784019456" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A8: Taking eye off the ball after customer's "first value". Must make sure it "sticks" before onboarding is complete. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Tom Krackeler (@tomkrackeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler/status/534764181174489089" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q9: What are the top metrics you use to measure & improve customer onboarding? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/534765091334279168" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
Our experts were all over the map on this one, so let's hear it straight from them...
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A9: Best onboarding KPI: number of days between deal close and onboarding completion. Don't let 'em linger! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Tom Krackeler (@tomkrackeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler/status/534765841250660352" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A9: Churn, health score, NPS & renewal rates! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Julie Giannini (@jgiannin) <a href="https://twitter.com/jgiannin/status/534765589546287104" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A9: % of new clients onboarded monthly <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— KatieKortnie (@KatieKortnie) <a href="https://twitter.com/KatieKortnie/status/534765438727880704" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A9: Logins, Tool Usage and Adoption, Support Cases, Churn, NPS <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Andrew Racine (@AndrewRacine) <a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewRacine/status/534765761877655552" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A9: Time, Feedback, NPS, Client Score, Referrals <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Shannon Kluczny (@skluczny13) <a href="https://twitter.com/skluczny13/status/534765895629807616" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q10: What parts of customer onboarding should be automated? What parts shouldn't? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/534766604890812416" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
Things that <em>should</em> be automated included: follow up emails with best practices, FAQs and Knowledge Base links, scheduling, and billing. (<a href="https://twitter.com/davemitz" target="_blank">David Mitzenmacher</a> pointed out that CSMs should not be conducting billing under any circumstances!) Things that <em>shouldn't</em> be automated: strategy planning, relationship building, and consulting.
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A10: I think it depends on the company & client, but the human touch? Worth a ton. Use it well. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Julie Martin (@CSMJulie) <a href="https://twitter.com/CSMJulie/status/534766974300348416" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A10: Should: scheduling via <a href="https://twitter.com/Calendly" target="_blank">@Calendly</a>. Shouldn't: personalization, nothing better than a genuine touch <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— KatieKortnie (@KatieKortnie) <a href="https://twitter.com/KatieKortnie/status/534767241829814273" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A10: Strategy planning, relationship building and consulting cannot be automated <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Shannon Kluczny (@skluczny13) <a href="https://twitter.com/skluczny13/status/534767506494214146" target="_blank">November 18, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<p>
Join us for the next <a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/customer-success-twitter-chat/" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> on Tuesday, 1/20/2015 at 9a PT / 12p ET. The topic will be: <b><i><a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/blog/ins-outs-upselling" target="_blank">Growing Successful Customers: The Ins & Outs of Upselling</a></i></b>.
</p>
</div>Starting Down the Pathway to Customer Successblog/pathway-to-customer-success2014-11-26T09:00:00Z2014-11-26T09:00:00ZHsin-Ju ChuangGuest blogger Hsin-Ju Chuang explains that, although there are many twists and turns on the pathway to Customer Success, you can point yourself in the right starting direction by creating the mindset and structure, collecting the data and knowledge, and building a resource repository for your customers.<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/winding_path.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><p>Every company wants to optimize their customers’ experience. But with products and services becoming more complex, customers require a lot of help to understand how to best utilize all the features and functionalities a product has to offer. This, as a result, creates a situation where businesses must maintain constant "touch" with their customers in order to proactively educate and ensure adoption. Here are a few initial steps that every customer support organization should take to transition to Customer Success. </p>
<h3>Structure for Success</h3>
<p>Create a culture of "success" by shifting away from a transactional and reactive "customer service" model. The focus of every customer interaction should on teaching customers how to use your product or service better. This involves predicting downstream issues, sharing best practices, and inspiring customers to tackle new projects that will put them on a learning pathway towards product expertise. To achieve this, you might want to consider restructuring your customer-facing organization into distinct teams, such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>Customer Support</li>
<li>Onboarding & Training</li>
<li>Relationships & Renewals</li>
</ul>
<h3>Understand Your Customers</h3>
<p>Gather the information you need to gain clarity on your customer’s usage, results, subscription, support, and feedback across each lifecycle stage. Create a <a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/blog/why-customer-success-is-crucial-for-growth/" target="_blank">customer retention strategy</a>. Know <a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/blog/converting-to-customer-success/" target="_blank">what help content your customers are searching for, and whether they are finding it or getting stuck</a>. By taking such steps, your team will be able to uncover hidden signals of risk and opportunity.</p>
<h3>Provide an Authoritative Source of Information</h3>
<p>Businesses need a destination full of robust content where customers can learn about the products and platform, become experts, or simply find answers to their questions. Navigation and searchability are critical. In our society as a whole, and especially in the world of software, customers expect information to be <a href="http://mindtouch.com/blog/2014/09/17/3-steps-to-creating-a-customer-success-help-center" target="_blank">easily searchable and at their fingertips</a>. If it takes more than a few clicks to find the right answer, they experience frustration, and worse, lose faith in your brand. To avoid this pitfall:</p>
<ul>
<li>Make sure your customers see a clear ROI from using your product.</li>
<li>Make learning how to use your product as frustration-free as possible. </li>
<li>Guide your customers on a learning pathway and ensure that they're constantly getting smarter and achieving results.</li>
</ul>
<p>Of course, there are many twists and turns on the pathway to Customer Success, but you can point yourself in the right starting direction by creating the mindset and structure, collecting the data and knowledge, and building a resource repository for your customers.</p>
<hr>
<p><img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/hsin-ju.jpg" style="max-width: 20%;float:left;padding-right:25px" /> <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/hsinjuchuang" target="_blank"><b>Hsin-Ju Chuang</b></a> is Marketing Program Manager at <a href="http://mindtouch.com/" target="_blank">MindTouch</a>, a customer success content management platform that enables companies to provide exceptional help experiences to create smarter customers and accelerate sales.</p>
<hr>Frontleaf & New Relic Boost Customer Success Analyticsblog/frontleaf-new-relic-customer-success-analytics2014-11-12T05:00:00Z2014-11-12T05:00:00ZKarl GoldsteinWithin minutes of deploying New Relic to our Frontleaf production environment, we were collecting a wealth of performance information that has helped us pinpoint errors, tune queries, optimize code, and refine our system architecture. Learn how we transformed that data goldmine into invaluable customer insights, and how you can, too!<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/rocket.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><p>Like many software companies, when we built our application here at Frontleaf, we instrumented it with New Relic. We did so because we thought it was the simplest, most cost-effective way to monitor performance and reliability. Within minutes of deploying it to our production environment, we were collecting a wealth of information that has helped us pinpoint errors, tune queries, optimize code, and refine our system architecture.</p>
<p>From the beginning, it occurred to us that the data collected by New Relic could be useful for much more than just performance monitoring. With the right processing, information about requests, transactions, and queries could be transformed into patterns of customer usage. And those usage insights could help determine customer health and identify which customers pose a serious churn risk<strong>. </strong><em><a href="http://www.frontleaf.com/newrelic/" target="_blank">New Relic could become a platform for Customer Success Analytics. Frontleaf could help make this a reality.</a></em></p>
<p>The question is how to make that happen?</p>
<p>The addition of <a href="http://newrelic.com/insights" target="_blank">New Relic Insights</a> is the key. For New Relic users, raw data about all of your Web transactions already flows automatically into Insights, where you can query and visualize the data and export it for deeper analysis. The trick is applying a complete strategy for transforming your New Relic Web transactions into meaningful customer insights.</p>
<p>Here is how we did it:</p>
<h3>Types of Customer Usage Data</h3>
<p>Before getting to the strategy itself, let’s briefly review the two types of usage data that are particularly important for understanding customer outcomes:</p>
<p><strong>Direct user interactions.</strong> It is often possible to distinguish between renewing and cancelling customers by measuring differences in direct interactive usage. Sometimes the relationship is highly intuitive (renewing customers log in more often, enter more data, and use more advanced features) and sometimes it is not (cancelling customers might use a particular feature such as search more often, perhaps indicating that they are failing to accomplish some common task).</p>
<p>The most common strategy for collecting interaction data is to report events from the client, via a JavaScript “tracking beacon” for HTML interfaces or a native SDK for mobile applications. Many “Web analytics” services make it easy to get started with client-side instrumentation. However, it usually requires ongoing developer attention to add and maintain the instrumentation code.</p>
<p><strong>Performance metrics. </strong>Direct user interaction with an application is usually just a means to an end; users don’t necessarily want to interact with the application unless they need to. What often matters most to customers is what an application does <em>without </em>intervention, whether that is displaying Web pages, collecting form submissions, processing payments, or anything else. Performance metrics about these types of activities are often excellent proxies for the perceived customer value of an application.</p>
<p>The best source of performance metrics is usually either a production database or an internal data warehouse. Here too, the initial effort to write a few queries may be low, but it can require ongoing developer or operations effort to maintain proper access over time.</p>
<h3>Turning New Relic Web Transactions into Usage Data</h3>
<p>This helps explain why organizations often wind up pursuing two completely different implementation strategies for collecting interactive usage data and performance metrics. Developers, operations engineers, and data analysts are often on the hook both for deploying the initial code changes as well as maintaining them over time. Although it’s often overlooked, the maintenance requirements can grow to overshadow the initial work and become a barrier to adopting a data-driven customer success strategy.</p>
<p>The combination of New Relic APM and New Relic Insights provides an enticing alternative. Rather than requiring two new, completely distinct implementation projects, it builds on the New Relic instrumentation that you already have in place.</p>
<p>Let’s start with the data you already have, assuming you have deployed New Relic to production and are using a standard Web application framework. For example, let’s use an invoicing application that lets customers create and send invoices to other people, who can then view and pay the invoice. (For the screenshots, we created a simple app using Python and the <a href="http://flask.pocoo.org/" target="_blank">Flask micro framework</a>. Exactly what you see will vary depending on your framework and application.)</p>
<p>Let’s go to New Relic Insights and look at the names of recent transactions:</p>
<p><img src="/static/images/blog/newrelic_1.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;" /></p>
<p>Each “Web transaction” corresponds to a server request, which occurs each time a client loads a page or makes an API call. For most Web and mobile applications these days, the bulk of server requests are API calls triggered by user actions (clicking a button or link, submitting a form, dragging and dropping, making a touch gesture, etc.). Depending on the nature of your application, you may lose some detail by tracking direct user actions only through the lens of these server-side requests, but with the significant advantage of not having to instrument your client interface (or in many cases, multiple client interfaces.)</p>
<p>Conveniently, New Relic also records background tasks—such as sending an email, processing an image or document, or settling a payment transaction—in the same event stream as Web transactions. In aggregate, these tasks can be an important source for performance metrics that reflect value to the customer.</p>
<p>By default, the Python agent (and with some variation, other New Relic agents) names Web transactions by the function that handled them. These raw names don’t always map to meaningful customer actions, but the agent makes it easy to assign meaningful names to transactions:</p>
<pre><code class="”objectivec”">newrelic.agent.set_transaction_name("Pay Invoice", group="Payer")</code>
</pre>
<p>Before you go wild sprinkling these statements through your code base, however, remember this golden rule:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Instrumentation for customer data is most useful when it is consistent across application features and over time.</strong></p>
<p>When you start naming transactions, you are implicitly defining a <em>taxonomy </em>of customer actions that informs downstream analysis. Some types of “black box” models may not require this kind of structure, but it is necessary if you want to glean insights that have an intuitive connection to the source data.</p>
<p>So before you start coding, it’s worth documenting this taxonomy independently of how the application is currently implemented. Identify a limited set of abstract actions and performance metrics that best reflect both the hard value and emotional satisfaction that users get from your application.</p>
<p>Once you have documented an abstract taxonomy, you can start naming transactions accordingly, using conventions that help enforce consistency and completeness over time. Try to encapsulate transaction naming as a “separate concern” from the main logic of your request handlers, using whatever means are available in your framework of choice.</p>
<p>Once you’ve added transaction names to at least some request handlers, the data in Insights starts to look much more interesting:</p>
<p><img src="/static/images/blog/newrelic_2.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;" /></p>
<p>In our example, we grouped interesting transactions in a few major clusters by feature area, and used them to filter out unnamed transactions in Insights. As we’ll see below, you can use custom parameters to group named transactions in multiple ways for subsequent analysis.</p>
<h3>Identifying Accounts and Users</h3>
<p>The transactions look nicer this way, but customer data isn’t complete without actual customers. Every transaction needs to be associated with an “account” representing the user or organization that pays the bill. For multi-user applications, direct interactions should also be labeled by user.</p>
<p>Adding account and user attributes to every Web transaction is relatively easy; just look at the currently authenticated user and set some “custom_parameters”:</p>
<pre><code class="”objectivec”">newrelic.agent.add_custom_parameter("account_id", "432")
newrelic.agent.add_custom_parameter("account_name", "Acme, Inc.")
newrelic.agent.add_custom_parameter("user_id", "123")
newrelic.agent.add_custom_parameter("user_name", "Frances Rubio")</code>
</pre>
<p>Once you have done that, the identifiers simply show up as additional queryable parameters in New Relic Insights:</p>
<p><img src="/static/images/blog/newrelic_3.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;" /></p>
<p>Note that named background tasks should always be associated with an account, but not always with an individual user. Even if it’s just at the account level, background tasks still often provide useful raw data for performance metrics.</p>
<p>For downstream analysis, what really matters are the ID parameters; the names are there primarily for debugging. The ideal account and user IDs should be permanent, unique, and ubiquitous to help you unambiguously aggregate and link transactions with data from other customer systems, such as CRM, help desk, financials, and messaging.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, many companies don’t have perfect “master keys.” Internal systems often evolve organically over time, not always in complete lockstep with each other. Third-party tools get added and accumulate separate silos of data. Developers and data analysts get swamped with urgent customer and business demands and seldom have time to address this kind of “data quality debt.”</p>
<p>You don’t need to address all these issues as part of enhancing your New Relic instrumentation. But it helps to at least think about them, and try to leave some options open for downstream matching. For example, perhaps you can give every account a unique subdomain or short code in addition to an integer primary key.</p>
<h3>Adding Transaction Parameters</h3>
<p>This approach should help make your New Relic transaction data a good source of data for both direct user interaction as well as performance metrics, which together can support insights into customer engagement and outcomes.</p>
<p>One final enhancement is to add customer parameters that help to quantify or qualify the impact of each key transaction. In our example, two obvious candidates would be the total amount and number of line items in each invoice:</p>
<p><img src="/static/images/blog/newrelic_4.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;" /></p>
<p>Note that these parameter values are <em>specific </em>to each transaction. If they are available you could also add user- and account-level parameters, such as subscription plan or user role, which may be useful for aggregate analysis.</p>
<h3>Exploratory Analysis and Dashboard Creation</h3>
<p>New Relic Insights can deliver a rich stream of meaningful customer data for modelling risks and opportunities in your customer base. It’s critical to remember, however, that the principle of “Garbage In, Garbage Out” still applies. If the source data has gaps or inconsistencies in the naming of transactions, labeling of accounts and users, or setting of custom parameters, then it will be difficult to detect significant patterns in the data.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://blog.newrelic.com/2014/03/19/introducing-nrql-language/" target="_blank">New Relic Query Language</a> (NRQL) built into New Relic Insights provides a rich set of filtering and aggregation features that can help you understand and verify your customer data. Even better, you can quickly inspect query results in both tabular and graphical form. Here are a few suggestions:</p>
<ol>
<li>Use a <code>TIMESERIES</code> to review the daily count of key transactions for key accounts. If possible, check it against production data and make sure it looks correct.</li>
<li>Use <code>countUnique()</code> to check the number of accounts that report data on each day. Check that it matches your rough expectations for the overall number of active accounts.</li>
<li>Use <code>count()</code> with FACET to inspect the total number of transactions by name. Ensure that all expected transactions are being reported, and that the counts seem roughly aligned (e.g. you don’t see 1,000,000 logins but only 10 invoices created).</li>
<li>Use <code>histogram()</code>to look at the distribution of values for custom parameters such as invoice amount. Are you receiving the number of values that you expected, and do they look like they’re in the right range?</li>
</ol>
<p>Besides verifying the data and laying the groundwork for customer success analytics, these types of queries can also be the basis for dashboards that provide useful feedback to a variety of teams within your company. The sales team may be keen to track the activity of trial accounts, while the product group may want to look for changes in customer adoption of a specific feature after a release.</p>
<h3>Predictive Modelling</h3>
<p>The combination of New Relic APM and Insights provides companies with a compelling alternative for obtaining customer usage data that leverages the instrumentation you already have. This post has shared a complete strategy for transforming your raw Web transactions and background tasks into customer usage data that your entire organization can use.</p>
<p>If your ultimate goal is to assess customer retention risk, however, there is one more phase in the strategy, which is to build a predictive modelling pipeline:</p>
<ol>
<li>Use the New Relic Insights Query API to query interactive usage and performance metrics by account.</li>
<li>Match up the data from New Relic with other sources of customer data such as CRM, support, messaging, and financials.</li>
<li>Transform the data to generate a set of “features” (numeric or categorical values) that can be fed into a model.</li>
<li>Run the model and predict risk for each account.</li>
<li>Use the risk assessment to segment customers and drive customer success programs.</li>
<li>Periodically validate the model’s accuracy and update (or retrain) as necessary</li>
</ol>
<p>Customer success platforms such as Frontleaf aim to simplify the implementation and maintenance of these pipelines. Together with New Relic, they can provide you with a robust solution for customer success analytics.</p>
<hr>
<p>Thank you to <a href="http://newrelic.com/" target="_blank"><b>New Relic</b></a>, who originally posted this article as a <a href="http://blog.newrelic.com/2014/11/07/frontleaf-customer-success-analytics/" target="_blank">guest post on their blog</a>.</p>
<hr>High-Touch at High Volume: Automated Outreach for Customer Successblog/high-touch-high-volume2014-11-10T09:00:00Z2014-11-10T09:00:00ZFrontleafFrontleaf recently hosted the second CustomerSuccessChat on Twitter, featuring Customer Success industry leaders Colin Nederkoorn, Derek Skaletsky, Marc Baizman, and Tom Krackeler. This month's chat about automating Customer Success outreach drew experts and enthusiasts for a lively debate. Here's a recap of some of the gems!<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/loudspeaker.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><style>
.question-section {
padding: 26px 0;
border-top: 1px solid #ababab;
}
.tweet-image {
display: block;
width: 100%;
margin-bottom: 26px !important;
padding: 20px 20px 30px 20px;
border: 1px solid #ececec;
border-top: 4px solid orange;
border-radius: 3px;
}
.tweet-question iframe {
width: 99% !important;
border-top: 4px solid orange !important;
}
.tweet-embed {
margin: 26px 0;
}
.line-spacer {
width: 100%;
height: 1px;
margin: 0 0 26px 0;
background: #f1f1f1;
}
</style>
<p>Frontleaf recently hosted the second <a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/customer-success-twitter-chat/" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> on Twitter, featuring Customer Success industry leaders <a href="https://www.twitter.com/alphacolin" target="_blank">Colin Nederkoorn</a>, <a href="https://www.twitter.com/dskaletsky" target="_blank">Derek Skaletsky</a>, <a href="https://www.twitter.com/mbaizman" target="_blank">Marc Baizman</a>, and <a href="https://www.twitter.com/tomkrackeler" target="_blank">Tom Krackeler</a>. The topic for this month — <b><i>High-Touch at High Volume: Automated Outreach for Customer Success</i></b> — drew Customer Success experts and enthusiasts for a lively debate. If you weren't able to make it or want to review the discussion again, here's a recap of some of the gems from the chat.</p>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q1: How do you know when it's time to seriously scale your <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccess?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccess</a> practices? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/524591461434916864" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
Our first question explored the signs that it's time to scale a company's Customer Success practice. The central theme from our experts was that it's crucial to pay attention to when Customer Success teams are becoming more <i>reactive</i> than <i>proactive</i>. Other signals included: mismatched roles and responsibilities, and CSMs reaching workload capacity. Tom suggested that price is really more of a factor than number of users, and that it's crucial to lay the groundwork for when it's time to scale, including creating self-service resources.
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A1: When your Customer Success person is answering emails, tweets, DMs, texts, and pages24/7! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Marc Baizman (@mbaizman) <a href="https://twitter.com/mbaizman/status/524591798220365824" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A1: It's time to scale your <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccess?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccess</a> practices when you're being reactive rather than pro-active. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Colin Nederkoorn (@alphacolin) <a href="https://twitter.com/alphacolin/status/524592781663019009" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q2: Possible to build quality customer relationships with 250+ customers per <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccess?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccess</a> Mgr? Why or why not? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/524593137818542080" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
We then asked whether a CSM could develop and maintain real relationships with their customers when managing a large quantity. Derek said no way in B2B, or at least that it depended on market offering. Colin said their <a href="http://customer.io/" target="_blank">Customer.io</a> CSMs had up to 500 accounts per person, and added that average revenue per user was important to consider in terms of volume per CSM. Other participants suggested "account seats" (number of users at your customer) is another relevant factor in determining a CSM's ideal assigned account number. Chat participant <a href="https://twitter.com/Stay_Sea_" target="_blank">Stacey Cogswell</a> referenced a DreamForce session, suggesting number of accounts actually isn't the most important factor, and that each CSM should own $2M ARR.
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A2: Yes, automate first touch-points based on customer usage, results, or milestones. Then follow-up 1:1 as needed. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Tom Krackeler (@tomkrackeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler/status/524594287200460800" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A2: Depends on market/offering. b2b - 250 users? Sure. 250 accounts - very, very tough to do good job at that lvl <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Derek Skaletsky (@dskaletsky) <a href="https://twitter.com/dskaletsky/status/524595211163287552" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question weet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q3: What are your top <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccess?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccess</a> tactics for building relationships with high volumes of customers? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/524594432973492225" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
Next, we asked responders to weigh in on best practices for relationship-building at high volume. The experts advocated for creating low-touch resources for as many things as possible, including self-service resources and email outreach to deploy at key milestones. Derek suggested smart digest emails, and Tom highlighted the value of triggering congratulatory emails at customer goal completion points. Marc emphasized it's important that Customer Success not be the only department held accountable. Other strategies: excellent customer service, live chat, leveraging your customer advocates, or even sending hand-written notes to users to create "customer love".
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A3: Automate/eliminate tasks that are low customer value add and reinvest savings into activities that are high value. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— David Mitzenmacher (@davemitz) <a href="https://twitter.com/davemitz/status/524595017328099328" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A3: 3 - 5 touchpoints in first 2 weeks (use automation), fast support, rich interactions at scale (video, newsletters) <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Colin Nederkoorn (@alphacolin) <a href="https://twitter.com/alphacolin/status/524596220258295808" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q4: Can automated <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccess?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccess</a> communications deliver great customer experiences? If so, how? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/524595687338823680" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
Our experts debated whether it's even possible to deliver high-quality customer experiences through automated communications. The verdict: yes, it <i>can</i> be done, but it has to be done <i>right</i>. Many agreed that if automated communications are executed improperly, the customer relationships can severely suffer. Tom pointed out that, at lower price-point SaaS companies, any help is valued, automated or otherwise. Marc and Colin emphasized the importance of creating personalized automated correspondence, and using intelligent solutions to tailor messages to customers. Derek suggested automation is fine, as long as some key interactions stay non-automated.
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A4: If you're sending personalized, timely, relevant content (and it's making it through spam filters, etc) then yes. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Marc Baizman (@mbaizman) <a href="https://twitter.com/mbaizman/status/524596653823520769" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A4: Make it personal (not creepy personal) about the recipient. People love reading about themselves. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Colin Nederkoorn (@alphacolin) <a href="https://twitter.com/alphacolin/status/524597822432083968" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q5: When is automated <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccess?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccess</a> outreach *not* appropriate or advisable? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/524597308835778560" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
This brought us to our next question: at which times would it be inappropriate or inadvisable to use automated Customer Success outreach? Tom argued that onboarding is one time to stay hands-on. Marc and Colin said that if the customer is "seeing red,"" frustrated, or having a negative experience, it's best to engage in a non-automated, CSM-to-customer interaction. And one specific time that it's not advisable to lean on automated communications: during cancellation or billing issues.
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A5: Take special care to deliver hands-on guidance during onboarding in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/saas?f=realtime" target="_blank">#SaaS</a>. That's where you get the most leverage. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Tom Krackeler (@tomkrackeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler/status/524597681650683904" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A5: You want a positive, fun tone in automation. Manual interactions are better when people are frustrated. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Colin Nederkoorn (@alphacolin) <a href="https://twitter.com/alphacolin/status/524598984195588096" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q6: What are your favorite, go-to tools for scaling <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccess?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccess</a> practices & communications? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/524598621673906176" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
What are the top tools of the trade for delivering excellent automated outreach or other tricks for scaling? We received a fantastic list of solutions recommended by our experts:
</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Advocate Marketing</strong></li>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://influitive.com/">Influitive</a></li>
</ul>
<li><strong>Community</strong></li>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.salesforce.com/communities/">Salesforce Communities</a></li>
</ul>
<li><strong>Customer Data</strong></li>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://segment.com/">Segment</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.woopra.com">Woopra</a></li>
</ul>
<li><strong>Customer Success Management</strong></li>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://getamity.com/">Amity</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.frontleaf.com">Frontleaf</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gainsight.com">Gainsight</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.totango.com">Totango</a></li>
</ul>
<li><strong>Email</strong></li>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.baydin.com/">Boomerang</a></li>
<li><a href="http://frontapp.com">Front</a></li>
<li><a href="http://customer.io/">Customer.io</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.exacttarget.com/">ExactTarget</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.knowtify.io/">Knowtify</a></li>
<li><a href="http://mailchimp.com/">MailChimp</a></li>
<li><a href="http://salesloft.com/cadence/">SalesLoft Cadence</a></li>
</ul>
<li><strong>In-App Messaging</strong></li>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.intercom.io/">Intercom</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.localytics.com/">Localytics</a></li>
</ul>
<li><strong>Productivity</strong></li>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.trankynam.com/atext/">AText</a></li>
</ul>
<li><strong>Scheduling</strong></li>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://calendly.com">Calendly</a></li>
</ul>
<li><strong>Subscription</strong></li>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://recurly.com/">Recurly</a></li>
</ul>
<li><strong>Support</strong></li>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.groovehq.com/">Groove</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.helpscout.net/">HelpScout</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.helpsocial.com">HelpSocial</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.zendesk.com">Zendesk</a></li>
</ul>
<li><strong>Surveys</strong></li>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.promoter.io/">Promoter.io</a></li>
</ul>
</ul>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A6: LOVE me some <a href="https://www.twitter.com/calendly" target="_blank">@Calendly</a> and Atext <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Katie Kortnie (@KatieKortnie) <a href="https://twitter.com/KatieKortnie/status/524598822258089984" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A6: Great time to be in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccess?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccess</a> w/ tools from <a href="https://www.twitter.com/frontleaf" target="_blank">@Frontleaf</a>, <a href="https://www.twitter.com/gainsighthq" target="_blank">@GainsightHQ</a>, <a href="https://www.twitter.com/intercom" target="_blank">@intercom</a>, <a href="https://www.twitter.com/influitive" target="_blank">@influitive</a>, etc. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— David Mitzenmacher (@davemitz) <a href="https://twitter.com/davemitz/status/524599368268017664" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q7: Have you ever known automated <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccess?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccess</a> outreach to backfire? Lessons learned? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/524600308539084800" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
Next, experts discussed potential negative outcomes of automating Customer Success, including specific examples. A few highlights included: bad links in emails or sloppy communications, automated content conflicting with personal CSM email content, too much contact, and mismatched communications sent to the wrong customers at the wrong time. Colin humorously pointed out that it's important not to attempt to mislead your customer into thinking an automated interaction is sent from a human.
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A7. Bad data or misfired triggers can send wrong message to wrong customers. Lesson: test, test, test, then test. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Tom Krackeler (@tomkrackeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler/status/524600867518177280" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A7: Don't lie. "Sent from my iPhone" on automated outreach may fool some, but makes you look bad to many people <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Colin Nederkoorn (@alphacolin) <a href="https://twitter.com/alphacolin/status/524602170465742848" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q8: Once you've automated parts of your <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccess?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccess</a> practice, how do you know what's working or not? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/524601624581652480" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
Is the machine running right? The experts agreed that good data is crucial and that tying automation to quality metrics is key. Examples of such metrics can include: email open rates/replies, decreases in common questions, and seeing whether customers who read your automated messages actually improve in the areas covered. But don't forget to talk to your users!
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A8: DATA DATA DATA (plus a story or two ;) Look at how people are using your system(s). Identify key metrics & trends. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Marc Baizman (@mbaizman) <a href="https://twitter.com/mbaizman/status/524602025015660544" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A8: try to break down "engagement" into points in the lifecycle. Measure each point against each initiative. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Derek Skaletsky (@dskaletsky) <a href="https://twitter.com/dskaletsky/status/524603755119915008" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q9: What's the role (if any) for automated <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccess?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccess</a> communications to your "Top Tier" customers? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/524603123449737216" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
For your highest level customers, should you even bother automating communications at all? The consensus among experts was: yes, <i>automation is possible at all tiers</i>. This includes internal emails for red flags that alert the team to any risks or opportunities, and automated outreach that actually add value where a human wouldn't as easily.
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A9: Internal emails: Like when it's time to check in with a customer or if there are any red flags on the account. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Colin Nederkoorn (@alphacolin) <a href="https://twitter.com/alphacolin/status/524603744114057216" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A9: There's a role for automation at any customer tier. Scale is a key goal & humans not good at some things <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Tom Krackeler (@tomkrackeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler/status/524604552621064193" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q10: Your #1 tip for someone trying to scale a <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccess?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccess</a> practice by automating process & communications? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/524604747685580800" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
Our final question asked for the best piece of advice our experts have for anyone trying to scale their Customer Success operation using automation. Our experts had this to say:
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A10: Work hard to get clean customer data for usage, engagement & subscriptions. That's what drives any automation. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Tom Krackeler (@tomkrackeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler/status/524605683887767553" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A10: Test ideas manually first to understand people and motivations then automate it. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Colin Nederkoorn (@alphacolin) <a href="https://twitter.com/alphacolin/status/524605862870921217" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A10: build understanding & empathy for ur users as if your business depends on it (it does). All is easier after that. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Derek Skaletsky (@dskaletsky) <a href="https://twitter.com/dskaletsky/status/524606040269004801" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A10: Map out the customer lifecycle and step through the entire process yourself. and TALK TO CUSTOMERS. They know a lot <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Marc Baizman (@mbaizman) <a href="https://twitter.com/mbaizman/status/524605311424794625" target="_blank">October 21, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<p>
Join us for the next <a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/customer-success-twitter-chat/" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> on Tuesday, 11/18/2014 at 9a PT/12p ET. The topic will be <i><b><a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/nail-scale-customer-onboarding/" target="_blank">How to Nail & Scale Customer Onboarding</a></b></i>!
</p>
</div>A Triggered Outreach Cookbookblog/triggered-outreach-cookbook2014-10-15T16:30:00Z2014-10-15T16:30:00ZRachel EnglishAre you managing Customer Success at high volume, but looking to keep things high-touch? Get some superpowers with these example recipes that can enable you to drive highly personalized, better timed, more pertinent customer outreach than ever before, all with significantly less time and manual labor involved.<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/cooking.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><p>Do you have customers coming out your ears? Congratulations! Welcome to "high volume" customer management. That's fantastic news for your business, and a wonderful problem to have. Now it's time to start knocking it out of the park on the scaling front. You and your team can't possibly have a personal relationship with every one of those customers. <i>Or can you?</i></p>
<p><b><i>What if you had superpowers?</i></b> – the ability to send a personalized message to each of your customers at just the right time, based on exactly what they were (or weren't!) doing in your application, the results they were achieving, their lifecycle milestones, their interactions with your resources, or best of all… a combination of all of the above? It might sound pie in the sky, but it's not out of reach. As long as your customer data house is in order and you leverage it well, you can cook up some systematized triggers to kick off highly automated customer outreach that tastes just like homemade. In other words, even as each individual customer represents an ever shrinking proportion of your base, there's no need for them to feel any less like individuals. In fact, following or jumping off from some of the example "recipes" here can enable you to <b><i>drive highly personalized, better timed, more pertinent customer communications than ever before, all with significantly less time and manual labor involved.</i></b></p>
<p>It's also worth noting that it's not just the number of customers you are managing, but also what they are paying you and how that might impact your strategy and execution in this area. If you have customers paying you $99 per month, you will likely need to rely fairly heavily on automation and scale to success. If, on the other hand, you have customers paying you $25,000 per year, you can afford to be more one-on-one oriented in many of your Customer Success activities. But still, as you grow, automation for certain tasks will enable your team to prioritize their time and spend it on the highest value activities.</p>
<p>Before we get started, let's take one moment for a quick definition: <b>What is a "trigger" anyway?</b></p>
<blockquote>A trigger is a pre-defined sign that a customer might be in trouble (unsuccessful with the product, at risk of non-renewal or debook, etc.) or showing potential for growth (approaching high utilization, achieving extraordinary results, etc.) which, when detected, kicks off an established, often automated or partially automated course correction or opportunity creation process.</blockquote>
<p>Now let's step through some tested examples of triggered Customer Success outreach – first understanding some considerations, then tackling the low-hanging fruit, then reaching for some more advanced applications.</p>
<h3>Considerations</h3>
<ol>
<li>
<p><b>Don't over-engineer.</b> You don't have to go from fully manual to fully automated overnight. This kind of shift lends itself to a phased, iterative approach, and it's really an ongoing process. Take things one step at a time, have an experimental mindset, and learn as you go. Also, keep in mind that <i>the goal should probably not be to automate absolutely everything</i>. There might be certain customers (ex. top tier), timing (ex. during onboarding), or other circumstances (ex. when follow-up communication is needed) where you want to keep the kid gloves on and maintain fully person-to-person outreach. Remember that you'll be making more time for your team to excel at that kind of work by automating the areas where it does make sense to do so.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>Don't over-message.</b> You should never use automation as an excuse to intentionally or unintentionally inundate your customers with emails or message pop-ups in your application. Remember that, even though <i>you are enlisting the super-human powers</i> of automated outreach, <i>your customers are still human</i> and will get bored or annoyed by incessant communications from you, no matter how timely or relevant they may be. Always put yourself in your customers' shoes. And lean on best-of-breed tools (such as <a href="http://mailchimp.com/features/automation/" target="_blank"> MailChimp Automation</a>) that can help prevent customers from ending up in the same campaign more than once.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>Don't under-apply.</b> The examples below are primarily focused on Customer Success initiatives. But there are most certainly other realms where a similar approach can be equally useful. For example, does your sales team want to get more systematic and scale-oriented around trial conversion? Or would your product team love to reach out to the users adopting that newly released functionality for feedback? Once you've nailed this approach for your own use cases and requirements, share the learnings with other teams. You just might be their hero.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<h3>The Low-Hanging Fruit</h3>
<p>Just to get your creative juices flowing, here are some basic examples of triggered outreach "recipes". If you haven't tried any of these yet, they're a great place to start. Keep in mind that these are only sample (although based on real-life) scenarios – you should be applying the lens of <i>your</i> customers, <i>your</i> company, <i>your</i> application, and make adjustments as needed to any of the aspects described.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.clicktools.com/" target="_blank"><img src="/static/images/blog/recipe01-not_logging_in.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;" /></a></p>
<p><img src="/static/images/blog/recipe02-approaching_renewal.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;" /></p>
<p><img src="/static/images/blog/recipe03-low_utilization.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;" /></p>
<p><img src="/static/images/blog/recipe04-started_but_stopped.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;" /></p>
<h3>And Now… On to the Trickier Stuff</h3>
<p>If the "recipes" above seemed like old hat to you, or merely whet your appetite, then you're ready to take on some more advanced use cases of triggered, automated Customer Success outreach. The following examples utilize more layers and types of customer data and/or more complex customer insights. They also could be based on a secret sauce that combines your team's knowledge and intuition with factors that you need an analytics model to identify. Accommodating that may necessitate adoption of a Customer Success solution (shameless plug alert… such as <a href="http://frontleaf.com/" target="_blank"><b>Frontleaf</b></a>!) if you don't already have one in place. But these types of scenarios have the distinct advantage of demonstrating to your customers that you are really paying attention – and to the very same things, no less, that matter to them!</p>
<p><a href="http://www.frontleaf.com/blog/serve-or-self-serve/" target="_blank"><img src="/static/images/blog/recipe05-doing_this_not_that.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;" /></a></p>
<p><img src="/static/images/blog/recipe06-not_achieving_value.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;" /></p>
<p><img src="/static/images/blog/recipe07-spike_in_value.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;" /></p>
<p><img src="/static/images/blog/recipe08-stuck_in_implementation.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;" /></p>
<p><img src="/static/images/blog/recipe09-advocate_target.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;" /></p>
<p><img src="/static/images/blog/recipe10-lost_in_resources.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;" /></p>
<p>The moral of the story: you don't have to be personally, manually recognizing the need for and generating all of the communications to your customers to do outreach well. Enabling automation to shoulder some of that burden can, in fact, result in <b><i>more personalized, more timely, more useful messages</i></b> reaching your customers.</p>
<p>I hope some of these examples have gotten your wheels turning on the possibilities of triggered outreach for Customer Success, or added to the list of what you already knew was possible. <b>Please share your tales from the trenches! What's worked for you, what's backfired, what are your other go-to "recipes"?</b> Bon appetit!</p>To Serve or To Foster Self-Service, That Is the Questionblog/serve-or-self-serve2014-10-08T16:30:00Z2014-10-08T16:30:00ZRachel EnglishIn our role as purveyors of Customer Success, we're continuously working to ensure that our customers are seamlessly achieving value by utilizing our SaaS application and interacting with our company. But to that end, how do we know when it's the right time to jump in and serve them personally, and when it makes sense to direct them to non-staffed resources that can provide assistance, perhaps even faster and better than we can?<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/self-serve.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><p>It's 10PM. Do you know where your customers are? You can be sure at least a couple of them are using your application, maybe with varying levels of success. What if one runs into an issue, or has a how-to question? Can they easily find an answer on their own, so that they can complete their task? Or are they destined to go to bed frustrated?</p>
<p>Or what if it's 10AM, and you notice that a customer in the midst of onboarding has submitted several questions in your online user community, and they aren't getting any answers. (Wait, did you even notice?) Should you reach out and provide personal assistance? Should you make sure the answers are available and easy to find in your knowledge base? Should you do both?</p>
<p>Hamlet's not the only one facing a dilemma. In our role as purveyors of Customer Success, we're continuously working to ensure that our customers are seamlessly achieving value by utilizing our SaaS application and interacting with our company. But to that end, <b><i>how do we know when it's the right time to jump in and serve them personally, and when it makes sense to direct them to non-staffed resources that can provide assistance, perhaps even faster and better than we can?</i></b> When do they really need that one-on-one attention via phone, chat, email, support tickets, social media, or in-person meetings? And when is self-service – delivered through a rich set of materials including a knowledge base, user community, feature request forum, best practices guides, recorded trainings, etc. – the best way to help? What are the right guidelines and considerations to establish a balance that will allow our customers and our company to succeed?</p>
<p><b><i>And balance is definitely the goal.</i></b> Too far over to the high-touch side, and unless you're charging north of $5k/month, the service model will at some point likely become difficult to scale. And even if your application and pricing do lend themselves to supporting an assigned Customer Success Manager for every customer account on an ongoing basis, if you're not taking advantage of self-service at all, you are missing out on potential cost savings as well as some other key benefits.</p>
<p>No matter the size of your company, customer base, or customer accounts, self-service resources tend to have the advantage in the following circumstances:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><b>When a customer could benefit from another customer's expertise.</b> Online user communities do take some amount of staff resources to moderate, especially when first launched. But that effort will pay off in spades when you see users interacting with each other to answer questions (that your support reps otherwise would have had to), share experiences (or "what I did in a similar situation"), or serve as a reference. (Remember you need to provide your trial users with access to your online user community to enable that last one to happen!)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>When the same questions are being asked again and again.</b> Here's where a knowledge base is critical. And even more critical is ensuring that it's easily accessible, searchable, up-to-date, and overall well-maintained. Again, a small, consistent time investment is needed to achieve this. But a well-coordinated, collaborative effort that empowers your team members to share their knowledge will allow your customers to easily access that information without requiring one-on-one attention. Even if your team had all the time in the world, wouldn't you rather they spend it being proactive and generating value for customers, rather than answering the same FAQs over and over again? Trust me, you'll feel like a proud parent when one of your customers asks a question in your user community, and another customer answers it by pointing them to a knowledge base article. And you will find nuggets of gold in your customer data when you analyze what users are searching for, what results they are finding, what they are clicking on, and what they did next. (Did they submit a support ticket? Successfully accomplish a task in the application? Something else?). The keys for customer and employee satisfaction, scaling, growth, and success for your company lie within.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>When DIY is the customer's preferred learning style.</b> Some people (including yours truly!) are just wired to crave doing their own research to solve their own problems. They might submit a ticket or jump on a chat as a last resort, but they won't love doing so. And they <i>definitely</i> won't love being <i>forced</i> to do so by a lack of available information. Don't start them off on the wrong foot. Make sure you are providing the resources they need to easily find their own answers. These are often also the users who will repay you by readily chiming in with pointers when other users ask questions in the online community!</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>When staff just isn't available.</b> Whether it's due to welcome growth, or because it's the middle of the night, there will inevitably come a time when it's difficult or impossible to find someone who's around and free to answer a customer's question. (This can especially become a problem as you look to expand your customer base internationally – it's hard to cover business hours in every timezone.) If your self-service resources are robust and accessible, this kind of capacity or availability crisis can be easily weathered. If not, your social reviews, NPS scores, or other satisfaction measures could rapidly and drastically suffer. Don't wait until this happens. Be proactive in building out and maintaining your always-available knowledge base, user community, feature request forum, best practices guides, recorded trainings, and other valuable resources. Enable your customers to serve themselves even when it might be harder than usual to reach their account manager, or when ticket turn-around times are longer than ideal.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Notice I did <i>not</i> have on the list above: "When your customer is in the top tier." Don't make the mistake of assuming that your highest value or enterprise-level customers only want one-on-one service. What they ultimately want is the ability to get excellent answers quickly via the channel that suits their needs at the moment. Make sure they have options and that they experience excellence every way they might turn.</p>
<p>But that's not to say self-service resources are the best answer in every situation. Again, it's all about balance. Here are some circumstances where personal attention is usually the best approach:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><b>When the customer is just starting out.</b> During the critical onboarding phase, no matter how "easy to use" your application might be, you have a unique opportunity to personally connect with your new customer, understand their goals and how they are measuring value, get to know their style and potential, and put in place the building blocks for a solid, mutually-beneficial relationship. Don't squander it – you will not get this particular chance again. But in addition to doing all of the above, do use this one-on-one time to personally walk the customer <i>to</i> and <i>through</i> the self-service resources that are available. They should feel that they are well supported, no matter which way they turn.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>When your user is simply a people person.</b> Just as some would prefer to dig into documentation, run a quick search query, or ask a question in an online forum, some users are naturally inclined to pick up the phone or hop on a chat to get some speedy expertise. Don't try to change this fundamental nature – you will fail. Make sure that various staffed channels are available (tickets, email, telephone, chat, etc.) and well covered, and provide that personal attention on request. But <i>do</i> remember to kindly and consistently reference self-service resources that could resolve the issue, or to take the opportunity to create them if they don't already exist. (If that happens, be sure to thank the requesting customer for saving you time down the road and helping other users!). At least <i>some</i> "people people" will learn to try their hand at some quick research before reaching out for one-on-one help, as long as the resources are easy to use and hold the answers they are seeking.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>When emotions are at play.</b> There is nothing worse than submitting a furious or urgent support ticket, and receiving an obviously scripted response or being pointed to a pre-written article and then asked: "Did that help?" When a customer is clearly irate or even just approaching anger, it is always worth it to take the time for a personal response. The simple act of corresponding with or talking to an identifiable human being, as opposed to a perceived "robot", can take the edge off and help make the conversation much more constructive for all involved. And on the other end of the spectrum, a personal touch when a customer is clearly delighted can be the special sauce that turns them into a reference for life or a fantastic case study. Learn to read your customers' moods and to handle the extremes with special care.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>When revenue is on the line.</b> Speaking of handling with care, make sure all customer-facing teams have the tools and understanding they need to be especially sensitive when a customer is showing higher-than-normal risk for churn or opportunity for growth. (That's not to say that other customers should be treated carelessly – any of them could, of course, choose to take their revenue elsewhere at any time.) To support this mindset, your teams need customer lifecycle, health status, usage trends, engagement measures, and results data at their fingertips at all times. And "flags" or "triggers" must be predefined and clearly communicated, so that staff can quickly know if a particular customer is struggling to achieve value during onboarding or as they are approaching renewal, demonstrating upgrade or advocacy potential, or heading toward a possible downgrade or debook firedrill. In such circumstances, when either risk or opportunity are clearly present, coach your staff to work proactively and personally with the customers for the best outcomes.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>But does all of this apply, even at the very low end of the MRR spectrum? Is there any price point at which customers should <i>only</i> self-serve? If your SaaS offering is priced in the $100/month ballpark or lower, it goes without saying that you will not have one-on-one relationships with each of your customers, and maybe not even with any of them. But that is <i>not</i> to say that you will not personally serve them. Ensure that there are plenty of high-quality self-service resources at their disposal. But also leverage automation to send highly personalized outreach that reflects both the customer's lifecycle milestones as well as what they are doing in and achieving with your application. And in addition to steadily steering them to help themselves, give them at least one channel for connecting directly with your company if needed. Even for the low, low price of a Netflix membership, I'm given the option to chat or call if that movie just won't stream and I need to talk to someone.</p>
<p>So... to serve or to foster self-service? At the end of the day, it's not a matter of doing one or the other, but rather of doing both well. Here are a few key take-aways to keep in mind in the process:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><b>Top-notch self-service resources boost productivity and proactivity.</b> Once your customers are empowered to help themselves, your Customer Success team is freed up to spend their time where it matters most: providing one-on-one assistance when it's really needed, creating and improving their programs, and building relationships. And what's even more powerful, that extra time gained, in combination with insights into how your customers are engaging with your self-service resources and application, can be used to power proactivity. You'll find you now have the bandwidth and knowledge needed to get out of reactive mode and instead step in and help your customers before they might even know they need it.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>It's a balancing act.</b> Always strive for excellence in <i>both</i> staffed service interactions and self-service resources. Keep in mind that there are circumstances where each are essential, and one size will never fit all. The critical components for both modes are accessibility and quality. You must make sure that the customer is aware of these tools, can find and navigate them easily, and can successfully use them to answer their questions or troubleshoot their problems. If your self-service resources fall down on any of those points, they fail to do their job. And your customers will be quickly trained to ignore them.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>Self-service <i>is</i> service!</b> Just make sure you keep a laser focus on the <i>service</i> and not the <i>self</i>. If your users feel abandoned in an unstaffed void of materials that are clunky, convoluted, out-of-date, sparse, or otherwise difficult to use, they are not being served and they will not return to those resources or, worse yet, to your application. But if you and your team actively build, maintain, and enhance a high-quality set of self-service materials, your customers and your company will reap the rewards. In many circumstances and for many customers, self-service can, in fact, be the <i>best</i> kind of service.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<hr>
<p>Thank you to <a href="http://mindtouch.com/" target="_blank"><b>MindTouch</b></a>, who originally posted this article as a <a href="http://mindtouch.com/blog/2014/09/29/serve-foster-self-service-question-whats-right-mix-optimize-customer-success" target="_blank">guest post on their blog</a>. <a href="http://mindtouch.com/" target="_blank"><b>MindTouch</b></a> helps companies provide exceptional help experiences to create user advocates and product experts.</p>
<hr>How to Build a Winning Customer Success Organizationblog/customer-success-that-spans2014-10-06T06:30:00Z2014-10-06T06:30:00ZTom KrackelerLooking to start up or fine tune Customer Success in your company? We were lucky to get the opportunity to pick the brains of four industry thought leaders, who shared their experiences and advice around building a thriving Customer Success organization, the hurdles they had to clear, and some tips for doing it right.<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/building.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><style>
.interview-image {
display: inline-block;
float:left;
max-width: 10%;
border-radius: 1000px;
}
.interview-name {
display: inline-block;
vertical-align: top;
margin: 15px 0 0 10px;
font-weight: 600;
font-size: 18px;
}
</style>
<p>Do you work at a startup that’s just establishing a scalable customer engagement process? Or perhaps at an established SaaS company that’s re-examining its approach to customer service? Well, then you may be one of a large number of SaaS practitioners in the process of creating a Customer Success practice and developing the team to make it happen. </p>
<p>We were lucky to get the opportunity to pick the brains of four Customer Success thought leaders (and <a href="http://www.frontleaf.com/blog/frontleaf-50-to-follow/" target="_blank"><b><i>Frontleaf 50 to Follow</i></b></a> honorees to boot):</p>
<ul>
<li><a href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/dennishennessey' target='_blank'><b>Dennis Hennessey</b></a>, Senior Customer Success Manager at <a href="http://www.nasuni.com/" target="_blank">Nasuni Corporation</a></li>
<li><a href='http://twitter.com/KZRTech' target='_blank'><b>Kathleen Rouse</b></a>, Director, Customer Success at <a href="http://www.findly.com/" target="_blank">Findly</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/mredbord' target='_blank'><b>Michael Redbord</b></a>, Director, Global Customer Support & Success at <a href="http://www.hubspot.com/" target="_blank">HubSpot</a></li>
<li><a href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/mgrafham' target='_blank'><b>Mike Grafham</b></a>, Office 365 Customer Success Lead at <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/" target="_blank">Microsoft</a></li>
</ul>
<p>They shared their experiences and advice around building a thriving Customer Success organization, the hurdles they had to clear, and some tips for doing it right.</p>
<p>After getting to know these leaders a bit, we’ll explore topics such as how to know it’s time to fully commit to a Customer Success practice and what the priorities should be for a new Customer Success team.</p>
<p>I can say it was a lot of fun to interact with all four of these experts, and thank them for being generous with their time. Okay, lets get started!</p>
<hr>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf.png" />
<span class="interview-name">Frontleaf:</span></p>
<h3>How did you first become involved with Customer Success?</h3>
<p>Our leaders hit on three main themes:</p>
<ol>
<li>Bringing together a natural passion for technology with a desire to help people make the most of it,</li>
<li>Being inspired by exceptional customer service practices at a previous company, and</li>
<li>Having an innate focus on customer experiences across a wide variety of settings.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/DennisHennessey.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Dennis:</span></p>
<p>I found my way into Customer Success through being a sales rep. I realized quickly that I wasn't great at the act of selling, but I really excelled at and had a passion for building and maintaining relationships with customers. I eventually transitioned out of sales and followed my passion for customer service. Another indicator for me that this was a career I should purse were my experiences of being a customer. Whether I’m at a restaurant, department store, buying a car, on the phone with tech support, or juggling vendors for a project, <b>I’ve always been keenly interested in what works and what doesn’t with regards to customer service.</b> Some people might go to a restaurant in search of the perfect steak, but I’m just as interested in the vibe the staff gives off. Generally, by the time I am ordering my drink, I’ve already drafted a pretty accurate assessment of what the experience will amount to and if I’ll be back or not.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/KathleenRouse.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Kathleen:</span></p>
<p>In a previous role, I had the opportunity to roll out Yammer and to work with <a href="http://twitter.com/espnguyen" target="_blank">Steve Nguyen</a> who, as my Customer Success Manager, acted as my partner and trusted advisor. He and I partnered to shift the way my company thought about about sharing knowledge across department boundaries to answer the most pressing questions of our globally distributed professional services organization improving the quality of service we provide to our clients. <b>The success of that roll-out and my own personal experience inspired me to guide and be the trusted advisor for others</b>, and so I joined Yammer as a Customer Success Manager.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/MichaelRedbord.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Michael:</span></p>
<p>Like a lot of people I’ve met in Customer Success, I just kind of fell into it right after school. Over the years, <b>I’ve really enjoyed the unique combination of human and tech factors</b> that Customer Success involves, and I’ve just kind of stayed in this line of work. I consider myself a technologist at heart and the interaction of tech and people is interesting in a general sense, so it’s proven a good fit.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/MikeGrafham.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Mike:</span></p>
<p>If I look back at the roles that I’ve done throughout my career, they’ve <b>always been about helping businesses understand how to use technology to do things differently</b>, focusing on what it means that the business can do. As Customer Success is all about helping customers understand what the product is for (as opposed to what the product is), it seemed like a natural transition when I made the move to Yammer a few years ago.</p>
<hr>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf.png" />
<span class="interview-name">Frontleaf:</span></p>
<h3>How does your company approach Customer Success?</h3>
<p>Our leaders have a similar philosophy of what Customer Success means, but their companies approach it from all different angles. We found that Customer Success serves as a piece of a larger organizational mission — it's all about enabling colleagues to be more effective in their customer-facing roles, it's built around valuing customer feedback, and it's about the right way to balance high-touch and self-service engagement. Let’s find out more.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/KathleenRouse.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Kathleen:</span></p>
<p>Customer Success is about delivering the best customer experience in the industry that leads our clients to achieve amazing value, increase adoption of our solutions and building client success stories. We do this by <b>driving a consultative engagement model, building thought leadership</b> around On-Demand Talent Management and strong product expertise to inspire client advocates with compelling stories of success backed with measurable evidence of success.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/DennisHennessey.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Dennis:</span></p>
<p><b>Listening is the main driver of our Customer Success philosophy.</b> As the saying goes, there’s a reason why we have two ears and only one mouth. At Nasuni, we’re very much interested in what our customers have to say, from how they use our product, how they’d like our product to evolve, and what aspects of our business we can improve upon. Most importantly, our minds are just as open as our ears.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/MikeGrafham.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Mike:</span></p>
<p>It’s been really interesting in the years following Microsoft’s Yammer acquisition to think about how the Customer Success model applies more broadly to the Office 365 product line. Microsoft has a very highly mature set of account teams working with customers every day, a great professional services organization, and this huge set of partners who are all there to help drive the success of customers, so my team’s role is to help all these people help their customers change how work gets done with Office 365. So <b>we approach Customer Success very broadly and from a lot of different angles because we already have the scale to be able to do that.</b></p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/MichaelRedbord.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Michael:</span></p>
<p>HubSpot’s approach to Customer Success is a hybrid of traditional enterprise software
onboarding and lighter weight customer-directed / app-enabled self-service. Because
we work with such a range of businesses, our installed base demands a variety of
onboarding, self-service, and ongoing Customer Success offerings. <b>Philosophically,
we’re always trying to find the best spot between those two models (light & fast vs. human-heavy)</b> and provide our customers the most value we can as fast as we can.</p>
<hr>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf.png" />
<span class="interview-name">Frontleaf:</span></p>
<h3>At what point do you think companies need to break out a separate Customer Success department? How do you know when it’s time?</h3>
<p>Our leaders differentiated between the time when a SaaS company should start applying the principles of Customer Success (immediately!) and when it’s time to dedicate a team to it. All agreed that it depends on your product, number of customers, and customer size. Though some pointed out it may not always be necessary to form a dedicated team, if you have the right company culture.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/KathleenRouse.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Kathleen:</span></p>
<p>Companies need to break out a Customer Success department at a couple of points. First, they may identify a gap in the way their clients think about their work that limits the value they can gain out of the company’s solution. Second, <b>there may be a gap in the way the company deploys its solutions and the expectations of their ideal clients</b> that requires a more robust communication and education strategy. A company can tell it is appropriate to launch a Customer Success department when that gap is apparent based on lack of adoption and/or insight into the actual problems their solution solves across its client-base.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/MichaelRedbord.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Michael:</span></p>
<p>At HubSpot, <b>we don’t differentiate between “Customer Success” and “Services” or “Support”</b>. Our approach doesn’t create a team dedicated to making customers successful with HubSpot — it’s just something everyone always does. As a SaaS business, this has been a pretty easy pill to swallow.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/DennisHennessey.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Dennis:</span></p>
<p>I don’t believe there’s a predefined point that is applicable across the board. Every company is different and the needs of their customers will vary. Personally, I think that there are two main drivers to pulling the trigger on a Customer Success program. First is number of customers. <b>If your customer base is growing and your Support and Sales teams are stretched thin, it’s certainly time to carve out a Customer Success group</b> that allows those teams to shift their focus back to their normal functions. Second is size of customers. A company might have a smaller customer base, but the customers they do have are large and have many moving parts. This is another great opportunity to bring in Customer Success to ensure the smooth sailing and the growth of these accounts.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/MikeGrafham.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Mike:</span></p>
<p>I think it very much depends on the organization. I see the role of a Customer Success organization in a SaaS company as filling the gap between what you’ve sold to a customer and the value they’ll need to get from it in order to renew and increase their investment with you. <b>If your product is good enough to do that on its own (or if the core team has it covered) then you won’t need a Customer Success organization.</b> Most organizations aren’t there yet, though.</p>
<hr>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf.png" />
<span class="interview-name">Frontleaf:</span></p>
<h3>Do you have any advice for companies interested in turning their Customer Service or Account Management group into a Customer Success team, or building one from scratch?</h3>
<p>Our leaders almost all emphasized that you must start by putting yourself in the shoes of your customer, to fully understand their capabilities and needs, and then work backwards from there. How do you do that? Well, that’s where opinions and experiences began to differ. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/MichaelRedbord.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Michael:</span></p>
<p>Start with the base philosophies of your frontline people — the “edge” of your organization is the center of the customer experience. And it’s highly likely <b>your frontline people know where you’re failing your customers in the human sense — where your business processes are creating unhuman, awkward, friction-filled interactions</b>. Spend time with those people, see how those experiences really work, and advocate for your frontline people and your customers as one. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/KathleenRouse.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Kathleen:</span></p>
<p>I don’t think you should convert either a Customer Service or Account Management team into a Customer Success team. To begin with, the skill-set and motivations of someone in Customer Service are often not the same as someone in Customer Success, even though both roles are important. There should also be some clear delineations between an Account Management and a Customer Success team. The Account Managers are focused on renewals and upsells for individual clients, whereas <b>the Customer Success organization is focused on building out best practices and measures of success that are leveraged across the entire client base.</b></p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/DennisHennessey.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Dennis:</span></p>
<p>If you are building from scratch, don’t worry about nailing it right out of the gate. Despite your best laid plans, <b>it’ll ultimately be your customer’s needs that dictate how your program evolves</b>. The first step should be writing up a list of needs and an overall goal. Without a clear understanding of what the objective of the Customer Success program is, you’re setting yourself up for failure. How do you measure success if you’d haven’t yet defined it? Lastly, make sure the entire company understands this goal and is on board. Having company-wide buy-in increases your odds of success as no CSM can be effective without the support of cross-functional teams.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/MikeGrafham.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Mike:</span></p>
<p><b>Focus on what the promise is that you gave the customer when you marketed and sold the product to them.</b> Why did they buy it in the first place? What are they hoping it’ll do for their organization? Then think about what your investment is as the product company in helping them get there. How much help is enough help? At which point should you ask for your customer to invest more with you for additional help? When should you consider partnering with other organizations instead? What do you offer today? Thinking about the answers to these questions is a great way of understanding the scope of what your Customer Success organization could cover.</p>
<hr>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf.png" />
<span class="interview-name">Frontleaf:</span></p>
<h3>What are some challenges associated with the process of building a new Customer Success department? Any tips for avoiding or overcoming them?</h3>
<p>When it came to advice on building out a Customer Success deparment, our leaders tended to gravitate first to people and communication issues. Having clear role definitions, clear expectation setting, and a clear understanding of the value a Customer Success practice can deliver were all paramount.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/MikeGrafham.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Mike:</span></p>
<p>I think a key challenge lots of organizations will face early on is being very clear about the value you add and how you engage with the other parts of the business. Customer Success is still a relatively new discipline, and so there’s a risk of overlap with other teams and roles — <b>being very crisp about where you bring something different to the table is a huge help</b> in that regard. That’s challenging in a startup environment where everyone’s just pitching in to get the job done, so the trick is noticing the point that your organization has started to scale enough that getting clear on what you do really matters.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/MichaelRedbord.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Michael:</span></p>
<p>If you build a new department dedicated to Customer Success alongside traditional
service and support organizations, <b>an issue that will come up is that you start to generate employee experiences that include “that’s not my job” as part of their vernacular</b>. At HubSpot, we’ve been very careful to make Customer Success everyone’s job — and no one can ever look at the org and say “not my job” with regard to advocating for customers. That employee experience is important for Customer Success and for the growth of our business — as we grow, we’ll want to always be adding responsibility to every employee’s plate, not removing it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/DennisHennessey.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Dennis:</span></p>
<p>Finding the right people. <b>Don’t settle for someone that you’re not 100% sold on.</b> Remember, CSM’s are the ambassadors to the company and how they are perceived by the customer will reflect back on your entire organization.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/KathleenRouse.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Kathleen:</span></p>
<p>Remember that Customer Success is still very new for both your company and your clients so be sure to:</p>
<ol>
<li>Clearly state the purpose and value-add of the Customer Success manager with everyone you meet.</li>
<li><b>Get access to usage data tying back to KPIs the client cares about on Day 0 to ground every conversation in tangible measures of success.</b></li>
<li>Double-down on building out communication and education best practices and guides for your clients.</li>
<li>Share your knowledge and learnings with everyone in your organization.</li>
<li>Connect your clients with as many resources (in the form of thought-leaders, people, and content) as you possibly can.</li>
</ol>
<hr>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf.png" />
<span class="interview-name">Frontleaf:</span></p>
<h3>For companies interested in forming Customer Success departments, what should their priorities be out of the gate?</h3>
<p>Our leaders touched on a variety of initiatives that could top a priority list for a new Customer Success group, including establishing customer metrics, finding the right people to staff the team, establishing company-wide buy-in to the Customer Success team’s mission, and building a culture that addresses root causes of customer problems rather than applies superficial fixes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/MichaelRedbord.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Michael:</span></p>
<p>Here is the #1 priority: <b>Do the right thing. This is so simple, but so hard at scale!</b> Start off by not cutting corners, but doing things right, and by fixing the root cause of systemic issues that create negative customer experiences. Over time, the business will force you to cut corners (budget, customer attention, channel, other needs); start off doing things as right as you can and hold on to that for as long as you can.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/KathleenRouse.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Kathleen:</span></p>
<p>The top three priorities should be:</p>
<ol>
<li>Data: usage data, industry trends, <b>KPIs the client cares about (i.e. the bottom line) and how the solution helps them to meet their goals</b>.</li>
<li>Clearly define how they will allocate the Customer Success team’s time from a client perspective. (Will you start with strategic clients only or will you go after all at once?)</li>
<li>What their current and ideal client base looks like and the specific strategies taken by the Customer Success team to bridge the gap.</li>
</ol>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/DennisHennessey.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Dennis:</span></p>
<p>Initial priorities can be simple. Start with a clearly defined goal, get the company on board and believing in this goal, and then <b>don’t compromise on the hiring process</b>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/MikeGrafham.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Mike:</span></p>
<p>Top priority is <b>understanding the gap that you currently have between what you’ve promised the customer they will be able to do with your product and their ability to achieve it.</b> Then work out how much you’re prepared to invest as an organization in closing that gap. (It should probably be roughly enough to get the customer to the level of usage at which point they would renew.) That investment is what your Customer Success organization should look like.</p>
<hr>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf.png" />
<span class="interview-name">Frontleaf:</span></p>
<h3>Are there any other best practices companies should adopt as they build their Customer Success teams?</h3>
<p>Our leaders raised a few new topics here, including the relationship between customer experience and employee experience, alignment with Product, Sales, and Marketing teams, and the importance of building a customer community. A great set of thoughts to leave us with.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/MichaelRedbord.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Michael:</span></p>
<p>For HubSpot, at least, a big part of what makes us us is how we treat each other and
how managers pay keen attention to each employee’s experience. <b>Sometimes in
service environments you can create great customer experiences but awful employee
experiences</b>, and that’s just not sustainable. Employee experience and happiness has
economic value that you can’t ignore long-term.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/KathleenRouse.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Kathleen:</span></p>
<p>Quickly develop, test, and iterate on the ways you educate, guide and measure success across your clients. Be open and collaborative as an organization with your Customer Success team. <b>Ensure there is strong buy-in and alignment across your Product, Implementation, Sales and Marketing teams for Customer Success</b> otherwise it will be hard to be effective.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/MikeGrafham.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Mike:</span></p>
<p>We’ve been sharing what we’ve been learning as a team (and what others have been writing about their experiences in the field) at <a href="http://www.medium.com/customer-success" target="_blank">www.medium.com/customer-success</a>. One key topic we cover there is <b>the importance of forming a customer community that’s more than just lip service</b>. Your customers often have the solutions to one another’s problems, so bringing them together is a great opportunity for everyone to learn.</p>
<hr>Becoming a Data-Driven Customer Success Teamblog/customer-success-chat-recap2014-09-25T09:00:00Z2014-09-25T09:00:00ZFrontleafWhat do Bob Hayes, Chad Horenfeldt, Lincoln Murphy, Nichole DeMeré, Todd Eby, and Tom Krackeler all have in common? If you guessed that they are all Frontleaf 50 to Follow honorees… you're right! But that's not all. They were also the Customer Success industry experts that Frontleaf brought together earlier this month when we hosted the first-ever CustomerSuccessChat on Twitter.<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/dashboard.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><style>
.question-section {
padding: 26px 0;
border-top: 1px solid #ababab;
}
.tweet-image {
display: block;
width: 100%;
margin-bottom: 26px !important;
padding: 20px 20px 30px 20px;
border: 1px solid #ececec;
border-top: 4px solid orange;
border-radius: 3px;
}
.tweet-question iframe {
width: 99% !important;
border-top: 4px solid orange !important;
}
.tweet-embed {
margin: 26px 0;
}
.line-spacer {
width: 100%;
height: 1px;
margin: 0 0 26px 0;
background: #f1f1f1;
}
</style>
<p>What do <a href="https://twitter.com/bobehayes" target="_blank">Bob Hayes</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/ChadTev" target="_blank">Chad Horenfeldt</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/lincolnmurphy" target="_blank">Lincoln Murphy</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/NikkiElizDemere" target="_blank">Nichole DeMeré</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/toddceby" target="_blank">Todd Eby</a>, and <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler" target="_blank">Tom Krackeler</a> all have in common? If you guessed that they are all <a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/blog/frontleaf-50-to-follow/" target="_blank">Frontleaf 50 to Follow</a> honorees… you're right! But that's not all. They were also the Customer Success industry experts that Frontleaf brought together earlier this month when we hosted the first-ever <a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/customer-success-twitter-chat/" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> on Twitter. The topic — <b><i>Becoming A Data-Driven Customer Success Team</i></b> — drew quite a crowd and spawned a fascinating discussion. In case you missed it or just want to reminisce, we've captured the highlights here:</p>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q1: What does it mean to have a data-driven <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccess?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccess</a> practice? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/511908172572155905" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
Our first question addressed how to define a data-driven Customer Success Practice. One of the main points of contention among our experts: "Does data replace the classic human decision-making tool, intuition?"
</p>
<p>
Chad and Bob thought metrics and insight should replace intuition and "hunches," while Lincoln argued that "data-driven" was a baseline from which to make critical decisions, but that data doesn't replace the decision or decision-maker (the human element).
</p>
<p>
Tom mentioned that data was helpful for making decisions about customer health, tactics, programs, and resource allocations – using data to inform decision-making along with using intuition to figure out which metrics to look at in the first place. All experts agreed that CSMs need to find ways to leverage quantifiable data to help them prevent churn, even if they still rely on "non-traditional" data sources like "gut feelings".
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A1: "data driven" is like saying "gas powered" for your car; only as good as your ability to drive & navigate <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Lincoln Murphy (@lincolnmurphy) <a href="https://twitter.com/lincolnmurphy/status/511910225860128768" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A1: Data allows you to cut through the BS and quantify what is otherwise all gut and guesses <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Todd Eby (@toddceby) <a href="https://twitter.com/toddceby/status/511909744609869824" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Next Question! Q2: Which matters more for <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccess?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccess</a> — data or relationships? (Not a trick question.) <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/511909720677158913" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
We asked our experts to weigh whether data or relationships matter more in the world of Customer Success. Todd thought that relationships were critical, above all. Nichole agreed, and pointed out that in her experience, NPS scores for relationships were more important than those for product. Chad disagreed, suggesting data trumped all else. Bob felt both were important, and Tom seconded that, also saying relationships were especially critical at the high end.
</p>
<p>
Nichole recommended a high touch approach for retention, including frequent customer visits, and our experts discussed what this would mean at scale. The verdict: relationships are most important at higher price points, and data is the foundation or "context" for strong relationships.
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A2: You can have high relationship NPS scores and low product NPS scores and still retain customers. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Nichole Elizabeth (@NikkiElizDemere) <a href="https://twitter.com/NikkiElizDemere/status/511910237063102464" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A2: Customer engagement data = always critical. Above $2.5k MRR, relationships are also must-have. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Tom Krackeler (@tomkrackeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler/status/511910567138066432" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question weet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Next question! Q3: How do you use data to understand the value your customers are gaining from your <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/saas?f=realtime" target="_blank">#SaaS</a> app? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/511911596562477056" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
The experts weighed in on the practical aspects of communicating the value of a SaaS offering to customers. Bob suggested that using self-reports (where customers estimate the value being received) can be helpful. Other ideas: showing customers their results through objective metrics like usage, while acknowledging that high usage does not always mean high achievement, and that low usage does not equate to low value.
</p>
<p>
Tom offered that finding out exactly how your customers get value and then measuring that is crucial. You need to track what success means to your customer, not just what you think it should mean. One way to do this, Tom pointed out, is relatively straightforward: Ask them! Chad noted that customer advocacy is another good measure of whether your customer is getting value.
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A3 part 1: Use self-reports by letting customers estimate improvements they have realized from software. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Bob E. Hayes, PhD (@bobehayes) <a href="https://twitter.com/bobehayes/status/511911630930993152" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A3: Focus on breadth & depth of adoption in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccess?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccess</a>. We also measure customer advocacy <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Chad Horenfeldt (@ChadTev) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChadTev/status/511912027242000384" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q4: Which is a better signal of health: customer's usage vs. own track record or vs. benchmark of other customers? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/511913860379721728" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
So which is better context – how a customer compares to their own past performance, or how they compare to other customers? Lincoln thought a customer's own track record is the way to go. Bob and Tom felt that both comparisons were important, but recommended focusing on a customer's own track record first and graduating to benchmarks later. Todd, Chad, and Nichole all felt that customers needed to define their own value and focus on achieving that, rather than look at historical or external benchmarks.
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A4. Both important. Early in customer lifecycle, compare more vs benchmarks. Later on compare vs past performance. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Tom Krackeler (@tomkrackeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler/status/511914592415383552" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A4: Best signal of health is that the customer is successful based on their definition of what that means <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Nichole Elizabeth (@NikkiElizDemere) <a href="https://twitter.com/NikkiElizDemere/status/511914594571661312" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q5: What kinds of data *other than usage* are must-haves for <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccess?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccess</a>? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/511915869669441537" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
Usage is just one way to think about Customer Success, so we asked our experts to tell us which other kinds of data matter most. Loyalty (retention, advocacy, upsells) and NPS topped the list. Also discussed were: time to first value, other lifecycle and contract milestones, MRR, support data, billing data, content interactions, and meetings.
</p>
<p>
Lincoln, Chad, and Todd all pointed out that the "gut feel" inputs into customer health from CSMs and others who interact with the customers also have an important place in the equation.
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A5 You need to have the full monty - NPS, Cases, Features, Invoicing, Adds/Reductions, References, etc. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Todd Eby (@toddceby) <a href="https://twitter.com/toddceby/status/511916682986934274" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A5: don't downplay the input your AEs or CSMs have on customer health. Their "gut-level" feelings are valid <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Lincoln Murphy (@lincolnmurphy) <a href="https://twitter.com/lincolnmurphy/status/511917427295526912" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q6: What are examples of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccess?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccess</a> actions or initiatives that data analysis make possible? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/511918378433667072" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
This question explored the "so what next?" of Customer Success initiatives, looking at how the analytics can and should be actionable. Bob suggested that customer experience improvements could be a direct result of data analysis. Todd, Lincoln, Tom, Nichole, and other chat participants all talked about an early churn warning system. And productivity, feature development, upsells and new sales, and second-level onboarding were also mentioned.
</p>
<p>
The theme: quality data analysis can enable the "proactive save" by highlighting patterns of trouble that could be churn indicators, and can essentially super-charge your CSMs.
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A6: Data turns your <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccess?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccess</a> team into superstars - they are faster & more strategic <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Chad Horenfeldt (@ChadTev) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChadTev/status/511919652763467777" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A6: Calculating the impact of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/churn?f=realtime" target="_blank">#churn</a> and updating initiatives accordingly <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> <a href="http://t.co/lApg7D01tq">pic.twitter.com/lApg7D01tq</a></p>— Nichole Elizabeth (@NikkiElizDemere) <a href="https://twitter.com/NikkiElizDemere/status/511918999375204352" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q7: What is your advice for a first-time <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccess?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccess</a> data analysis project? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/511919513236168704" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
For SaaS companies just starting down the road of Customer Success data analysis, what are the most important considerations? Start small, choose a specific problem to solve, know your data, and know your biases were some of the valuable tips offered.
</p>
<p>
Bob, who lives and breathes data, pointed out the importance of rooting out biases. And Tom stressed how crucial it is not to silo efforts to prevent misunderstandings.
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A7. Have the "customer people" and the "tech people" talk every step of the way. Misunderstandings rampant. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Tom Krackeler (@tomkrackeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler/status/511920153840201730" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A7: Garbage in/out. Know quality of your data. Also, we speak for data; know your biases - <a href="http://t.co/5GvbWiaRsc">http://t.co/5GvbWiaRsc</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Bob E. Hayes, PhD (@bobehayes) <a href="https://twitter.com/bobehayes/status/511919930602967040" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q8: When and how should you share your <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccess?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccess</a> data analysis directly with your customers? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/511920798937137152" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
Can your customers benefit from the learnings you are gathering from their data and from your analysis of your customer data as a whole? What is the right role for transparency? Ideas from the experts included: monthly scorecards, quarterly business reviews, insight emails, and in-app messaging. The right channel and cadence seemed to depend on the customer's need, with the goal being to have the communication occurring as often as possible to make renewal a "non-event".
</p>
<p>
Lincoln Murphy pointed out that transparency is crucial – if you're scared to share your data findings with your customers, that's a problem.
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A8: If you're afraid of sharing their success scorecard with them, you have a fragile relationship <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Lincoln Murphy (@lincolnmurphy) <a href="https://twitter.com/lincolnmurphy/status/511922127340339200" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A8: Regularly, if it truly demonstrates what customer has achieved & what's possible/next. Maybe even right within app! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Tom Krackeler (@tomkrackeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomkrackeler/status/511921720500834304" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q9: Predictive analytics for customer churn — holy grail or all hype? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/511921571351773184" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
Just how important a tool can predictive analytics be for customer churn? We know the likes of Verizon and Netflix are all over this practice, but how does it apply in B2B SaaS, if at all? Our experts didn't find consensus on this topic, with Todd raising a warning flag, Lincoln pointing out the importance of taking the right actions on findings, and Bob explaining that you need to carefully measure what you are trying to predict.
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A9 Holy Hype!? Lots of promise but can you trust it? Success is very individual, no 1 size fits all definition <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Todd Eby (@toddceby) <a href="https://twitter.com/toddceby/status/511922089650323456" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A9 You have to create accurate churn profiles to be successful with analytics! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— KatieKortnie (@KatieKortnie) <a href="https://twitter.com/KatieKortnie/status/511922234827767808" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<div class="tweet-question tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Q10: What are your top 3 favorite customer health metrics? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Frontleaf (@Frontleaf) <a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf/status/511922060416008192" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p>
Should SaaS companies let a thousand flowers bloom or focus in on just a few key SaaS metrics? And if so, which ones? Our experts were all over the map on this, mentioning metrics that touch on sales, usage, sentiment, willingness to recommend, and overall engagement.
</p>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/Frontleaf">@Frontleaf</a> A10 - MRR, Last Login, support satisfaction. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Mike Raab (@mikeraab) <a href="https://twitter.com/mikeraab/status/511922830468861953" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<div class="tweet-embed">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>A10: I encourage companies to use, whenever possible, objective metrics of health, not only subjective metrics <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/customersuccesschat?f=realtime" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a></p>— Bob E. Hayes, PhD (@bobehayes) <a href="https://twitter.com/bobehayes/status/511922212191088640" target="_blank">September 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
</div>
<div class="question-section">
<p>
Join us for the next <a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/customer-success-twitter-chat/" target="_blank">#CustomerSuccessChat</a> on Tuesday, 10/21/2014 at 9a PT/12p ET. The topic will be <i><b><a href="https://www.frontleaf.com/blog/high-touch-high-volume/" target="_blank">High-Touch at High Volume: Automated Outreach for Customer Success</a></b></i>!
</p>
</div>Look Both Ways: Customer Success that Spans Enterprise & SMBblog/customer-success-that-spans2014-09-15T16:30:00Z2014-09-15T16:30:00ZTom KrackelerDoes your SaaS application serve both Enterprise and SMB customers, or are you considering moving up- or down-market so that it does? Make sure you carefully weigh Customer Success implications in the process. Todd Eby of Five9 shares his experiences and expert advice on building Customer Success practices that work for both markets.<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/look_both_ways.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><style>
.interview-image {
display: inline-block;
float:left;
max-width: 10%;
border-radius: 1000px;
}
.interview-name {
display: inline-block;
vertical-align: top;
margin: 15px 0 0 10px;
font-weight: 600;
font-size: 18px;
}
</style>
<p>Many of the top SaaS companies, such as <a href="http://www.zendesk.com/" target="_blank">Zendesk</a>, <a href="http://www.five9.com/" target="_blank">Five9</a>, and <a href="http://www.hubspot.com/" target="_blank">Hubspot</a>, have successfully moved up-market from exclusively serving SMB customers to also serving the Enterprise. A smaller number of Enterprise SaaS companies have managed to move down-market to also serve Small and Mid-sized Businesses (SMBs).</p>
<p>Trust me, this is VERY hard to do. It's no surprise that the needs and expectations of Enterprise and SMB customers are quite distinct. The degree that a SaaS company's culture, skillset, and DNA is tied to a particular market segment is not always obvious. Being able to span both segments — from a product, customer experience, services, competitive, and even HR perspective — often requires a high-wire act.</p>
<p>I've previously lived this myself, and wanted to talk with someone who seems to have mastered it from a Customer Success perspective. I was lucky enough to get <a href="http://www.frontleaf.com/blog/frontleaf-50-to-follow/" target="_blank"><b><i>Frontleaf 50 to Follow</i></b></a> honoree <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/toddceby" target="_blank"><b>Todd Eby</b></a> of <a href="http://www.five9.com/" target="_blank">Five9</a> to share his thoughts on how to build out Customer Success practices that work for both the Enterprise and SMBs.</p>
<hr>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/tom.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Tom Krackeler (Tom):</span></p>
<p>Congratulations on being recognized as a Customer Success thought leader in <a href="http://www.frontleaf.com/blog/frontleaf-50-to-follow/" target="_blank"><b><i>Frontleaf 50 to Follow</i></b></a>. I wanted to talk with you today about something I know you have experience with at <a href="http://www.five9.com/" target="_blank">Five9</a>, namely how to serve both Enterprise and SMB customers, without short-changing either segment. First off, do you have to design two completely different customer engagement models and build two separate teams, or are there common approaches that can apply to both segments?</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/todd.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Todd Eby (Todd):</span></p>
<p>Thanks, it was quite an unexpected honor to be recognized along with such notable figures in our space.</p>
<p>I've found that designing a Success Program that can serve two markets doesn't necessarily require two completely different approaches. Instead, I would suggest that you get the most bang for your buck by creating a reusable set of core principles and behaviors to govern the overall implementation, and then segmenting the experience and approach by market. This way, you create your core methodology and processes, and then adjust or remove portions of the supporting elements in order to specialize the experience for the two different market spaces. This modular approach enables the use of common materials and tooling, which is critical to your ability to scale.</p>
<p>On the team front, I favor specialization. And because of that, I recommend that a dedicated team be built for each market. If you try and take the ironman approach — one team to do it all — you'll quickly see that the expected efficiencies are not going to materialize, and that, because of the effort needed to context switch effectively between the two worlds, you're actually negatively impacting your ability to scale and deliver a streamlined experience based on the market segment of the customer.</p>
<p>In short, <b>go common (but modular) with your methodology and process, but specialized and dedicated with your people</b>.</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/tom.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Tom:</span></p>
<p>What's your best advice for structuring Customer Success staffing when serving two market segments? Should you have teams specialized by market expertise, or by role serving both markets? Or something else?</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/todd.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Todd:</span></p>
<p><b>People can make or break your approach.</b> As I mentioned before, I've seen the best results occur from specializing the teams by market to start and then gradually, as both teams mature and build experience, begin to cross-pollinate in order to share best practices and lessons learned. This approach really enables you to build the critical core knowledge and competencies necessary to truly serve a given market, while enabling you to leverage the learned best practices that cross the market boundaries once they have been developed and recognized. Additionally, this approach helps you with team cohesion and morale, as it mitigates the "red-headed step child" syndrome that seems to inevitably infect the teams as one is seemingly given more attention than the other.</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/tom.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Tom:</span></p>
<p>What's the single biggest difference in what an Enterprise customer needs in order to get value from a SaaS product versus an SMB customer?</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/todd.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Todd:</span></p>
<p>When it comes to delivering value, the single biggest difference between SMB and Enterprise comes not necessarily in what they need, but in determining what they believe success or value looks like.</p>
<p>What I've found is that, more often than not, SMB customers require more time on the definition of success, on identifying what value they are truly looking for, than the Enterprise does. This is not because they don't know what they're doing, far from it. The problem is often that they are so busy doing it that they don't have time to stop and instrument what they're doing so that they can measure their success. It's the "go-go-go" environment and mindset that leads to the SMB accounts typically having only a general picture of success. And this is where the SMB Onboarding Team has to really work to dig in and get down to the specifics — the measures and KPIs that would usually just be there in the Enterprise simply aren't. Don't get me wrong, both teams need to do this key step effectively. However, I believe that the SMB team has to take it to the next level, as they are often working in situations where this exercise will not only dictate the long-term success of the project, but also the customer's business.</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/tom.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Tom:</span></p>
<p>What's your advice to a new VP of Customer Success for serving both segments well at the same time?</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/todd.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Todd:</span></p>
<p>I really have three pieces of advice:</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p><b>Measure Twice, Cut Once.</b> Be very deliberate in how you build your Success program. Don't get caught up in the need to get something in place. Instead, take a measured, deliberate approach and put the <i>right</i> thing in place — you won't easily find the time to go back and fix things once you really start to scale, so skip the band-aid approach and build it right the first time.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>Divide and Conquer.</b> You can't win with a foot in each world, so create separate teams that are focused on the markets. Build your leadership team in the same manner. In order to succeed, you need to focus on each segment and truly understand it — while they are similar on the surface, they are very different in the details. Each team needs to understand the key pain points and opportunities for the given market and size in order to be able to fully deliver on the promise of the offering.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><b>Never Assume — Know Your Customer, Know Yourself.</b> Know <i>their definition of success</i>, and know <i>your definition of success</i>. Never make assumptions based on size or market. Some of the largest, most sophisticated customers we have started with three seats and had a very complicated definition of success, but you would never have known it by just "looking" at them. Be sure to dig deeply into a customer's definition of success — often times what appears on the surface is only the tip of the iceberg.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/tom.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Tom:</span></p>
<p>I've spent time with companies that had conflicts over which customer segment gets more resources directed their way, both in terms of customer-facing hires and product roadmap development capacity. Is that kind of thing avoidable, and if so, how?</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/todd.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Todd:</span></p>
<p>In the short-term, I think it's healthy to focus on the high-growth area. However, if you fail to balance it out for the long-term, and lose sight of where you came from, then you run the risk of having a situation where your deferred attention comes back to bite you in the form of a non-relevant product roadmap, frustrated customers, and retention issues that occur from not securing the base and business.</p>
<p>Avoiding this trap is not the easiest thing. My suggestion is to approach it like you might look at an investment (that is what it is after all) or an Agile planning session — assign each area an amount of points that they have at their disposal. I favor approaching it in this manner, as it forces you to be very deliberate in your choices, and enables you to gauge your "investment" in each area to see if you're skimping in either. Agree that Enterprise gets X amount of points worth of development and SMB gets Y amount. Leverage the same tactic for all relevant dimensions so that you maintain a rational approach to your investment.</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/tom.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Tom:</span></p>
<p>Last question: Is it easier to take an SMB-oriented product and move it up market, or to simplify an Enterprise product for the mid-market? Are there examples of companies that have done either particularly well, and if so, what role can Customer Success teams play in making it happen?</p>
<p><img class="interview-image" src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/todd.jpg" />
<span class="interview-name">Todd:</span></p>
<p>Honestly, going in either direction is tough if you haven't built the product from the outset with that intent at the core of the offering. In the Contact Center space, I've seen multiple attempts at going in either direction, and generally they fall far short of the intended outcome. Some end in outright train wrecks as the companies come to realize that the strategy of simply bolting on or stripping off is leaving them with an imperfect offering. The most common outcome that you see in my space and others is the tale of two platforms: one for SMB and another for Enterprise.</p>
<p>Often this happens when a down-market player tries to push their offering up-market. They find that the simplicity the SMB market demanded prevented the measure of flexibility the Enterprise market expected, and after banging their heads on all of the catch-up they needed to do, instead opted for an inorganic approach to solving the problem. The great thing for the companies taking this approach is the likely "two-fer": they end up enlisting both people and a new version of the product, so they can "plug" both experience and product gaps in one fell swoop. Great benefit notwithstanding, this is really a two-edged sword. On the downside, you have a potentially challenging corporate integration situation. And migration for growing customers between platforms will most likely require a forklift upgrade plus maintenance and support that has to be delivered in two places. Life just got better, but more complicated. Also, you rarely find a perfect fit, so then you have the challenge of either expanding the set of features/functionality for that platform, or going back into the cycle once more and grabbing another offering with all the attendant challenges and benefits.</p>
<p>At <a href="http://www.five9.com/" target="_blank">Five9</a>, we learned a great deal as we moved up-market. Our platform was designed to be very simple and flexible from the outset. However, we found that, despite our best planning, the Enterprise market still had unexpected curveballs to throw at us. What has made us successful and able to handle the curveballs coming our way as we moved up-market was the investment in Success and Product that we made at the outset.</p>
<p><a href="http://ctt.ec/cDdl8" target="_blank">[Click to Tweet:] <b>Customer Success and Product really are inextricably linked in complex offerings. You cannot achieve one without delivering excellence in the other.</b></a> In our case, we knew that one of our biggest challenges on the Product front was to offer flexibility while still maintaining simplicity as we went up-market. Our answer was to invest in exposing elements of the platform via APIs, so that we could keep pace with the Enterprise market's demands for customized solutions while still retaining our core offerings' simplicity. On the Success front, we recognized that we needed to aggressively pursue a more proactive approach to Success. We invested heavily in the front end of the lifecycle, building an onboarding program that <b>focused on understanding what Success looked like to our clients and delivering that value to them from the outset</b>. This practice, coupled with our focus on being a trusted advisor for our in-base customers, has enabled us to maintain extremely high retention rates and grow our customers to their fullest potential.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, the Success team at <a href="http://www.five9.com/" target="_blank">Five9</a> has always focused on building deep relationships with our customers from the outset. <b>We know that <i>our</i> ultimate success is only achievable if <i>our customers</i> are successful, and we strive each and every day to deliver that success for our customers.</b> I think it's that type of mandate, one that transcends markets, that ultimately got us where we are today and will continue to guide us as we seek to grow in both the SMB and Enterprise spaces.</p>
<hr>
<p><img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/todd.jpg" style="max-width: 20%;float:left;padding-right:25px" /> <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/toddceby" target="_blank"><b>Todd Eby</b></a> is Vice President, Professional Services at <a href="http://www.five9.com/" target="_blank">Five9</a>, and a seasoned leader focused on Customer Success. He understands that customers are no longer simply buying products, they're buying results. In today's market, success for a SaaS company comes through truly partnering with the customer through their entire lifecycle, their journey, and focusing on delivering the onboarding, education, and support that enable them to achieve the results that spur their adoption and keep them coming back month after month, year after year.</p>
<hr>Leading Growth Experts Discuss Why Customer Success Is Crucial for Growthblog/why-customer-success-is-crucial-for-growth2014-08-28T16:30:00Z2014-08-28T16:30:00ZBrandon PindulicMany people see Growth and Customer Success as two very separate functions within a SaaS company — getting customers in the door vs. keeping them. But the experts agree: Growth and Customer Success are actually two highly interrelated practices, and each one fails without the other.<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/growth_plant.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><p>Many people see Growth and Customer Success as two very separate functions within a SaaS company — getting customers in the door vs. keeping them. Two teams with different goals, different practices, different subcultures. And, oftentimes, in conflict.</p>
<p>This viewpoint is completely false. <i><strong>Growth and Customer Success are two highly interrelated practices, and each one fails without the other.</strong></i> As growth lead for <a href="http://www.proofhq.com/" target="_blank">ProofHQ</a>, a SaaS company focused on speeding up the content review and approval process, I see firsthand evidence of the interdependence of Growth and Customer Success. </p>
<p>To explore this topic further, I spoke with other growth experts to get their take on Customer Success and what role it plays in the growth of a successful SaaS business. I asked:</p>
<blockquote>How does Customer Success impact Growth for SaaS companies?</blockquote>
<p>... and received some surprising and important answers. Many think of growth in terms of acquisition, which, without retention, is not sustainable, scalable or cost-effective. The experts weighed in, and highlighted that, in fact, <a href="http://www.referralsaasquatch.com/how-to-calculate-saas-growth/" target="_blank">SaaS growth is predicated on Customer Success</a>, and without exceptional customer retention, a SaaS business (or any business, for that matter) won’t be able to scale.</p>
<p><strong>Lars Lofgren, Growth Manager at <a href="https://www.kissmetrics.com/" target="_blank">KISSMetrics</a></strong>, points out that when customers recognize the full value of your product early on in their trial process, they tend to convert quicker, stay longer, and generally derive more value from your service. Lars said:</p>
<blockquote>Customers with a smoother transition into your product will integrate it more deeply into their lives. Which means they buy more frequently or stay subscribed. And when loyal customers hit a problem, it ensures that problem doesn't drive them away.
<p> </p>
This usually doesn't impact your acquisition directly. If you have world-class customer service, you can start to accelerate organic demand and word-of-mouth. Zappos is the classic example of this. But very few companies achieve this; it doesn't happen by accident. However, it WILL give your other marketing and growth initiatives more breathing room, due to increased ROI. Marketing, sales, and growth hacks won't have to recover nearly as many customers to maintain your current sales volume. This means more of your acquisition gets applied to actual growth instead of just maintenance.</blockquote>
<p>Lars’ argument that Customer Success actually improves acquisition efforts by driving up Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) and earning word-of-mouth referrals is absolutely key; servicing existing customers and ensuring their success will pay off in spades.</p>
<p><strong>Morgan Brown, Head of Growth at <a href="https://qualaroo.com/" target="_blank">Qualaroo</a></strong>, said:</p>
<blockquote>Customer Success is one of the secret ingredients to sustainable SaaS growth.</blockquote>
<p>Morgan elaborated on this by stating that Customer Success done right is a growth driver in three areas:</p>
<blockquote>First, converting a trial user to an active user in SaaS means a significant investment in onboarding. Customer Success creates the framework to drive that transition. Things like email drip series, knowledge base and tutorial materials, webinars, videos, and both proactive and responsive handholding all go into turning a trial user into an active user — a key growth milestone. At the same time these tactics ensure that the learning curve isn't so steep as to turn new users off. With many of the same tools from onboarding, users are moved from beginners to experts, making the product as valuable and sticky as possible.
<p> </p>
Customer Success also impacts growth by reducing churn. Understanding what makes accounts successful vs. unsuccessful, the Customer Success team should proactively create the conditions to make as many accounts successful, while at the same time monitoring and winning back accounts that may be slipping away.
<p> </p>
And beyond simply reducing churn, Customer Success can help identify and drive negative churn, by generating upsell opportunities and account upgrades through an understanding of the signals that suggest an account is a good candidate for expansion.</blockquote>
<p>These three areas are critical to driving sustainable growth, and the Customer Success team plays a big role in each of them. Morgan’s insights are crucial to understand while growing a SaaS company. By properly onboarding customers and servicing them, Customer Success generates data which can be used to see what differences successful accounts have versus unsuccessful accounts, which allows you to iterate and improve on your growth efforts.</p>
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
<p>While Customer Success doesn’t directly impact acquisition like inbound marketing or paid marketing does, it’s the key behind making acquisition efforts actually work. In addition, successful customers are the driving force behind the greatest kind of marketing of all time: word-of-mouth referrals. And if they change jobs, they’re much more likely to recommend your product to their new team. If a potential customer is onboarded successfully, they’re also much more likely to continue after the free trial, upgrade their plan, and stick with you during bugs and other hiccups. It’s such an essential piece of growing a SaaS business that <i><strong>every successful SaaS company must engage in some form of Customer Success initiative in order to scale and sustain growth</strong></i>.</p>
<hr>
<p>Brandon Pindulic is the Growth & Inbound Marketing Lead at <a href="http://www.proofhq.com/" target="_blank">ProofHQ</a>, and he regularly blogs at <a href="http://brandonpindulic.co/" target="_blank">brandonpindulic.co</a>.</p>
<hr>Frontleaf 50 to Followblog/frontleaf-50-to-follow2014-08-12T09:00:00Z2014-08-12T09:00:00ZFrontleafWe are pleased to introduce the Frontleaf 50 to Follow, our first annual list of the movers-and-shakers in the world of Customer Success. We are recognizing the innovators who are pioneering the best practices, building the enabling technologies, and educating the industry on all things Customer Success. Congratulations to the honorees! And we hope our readers have the opportunity to check out some of their fantastic work.<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/frontleaf-50-graphic.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><p>We are pleased to introduce the <i><strong>Frontleaf 50 to Follow</strong></i>, our first annual list of the movers-and-shakers in the world of Customer Success. We are recognizing the innovators who are pioneering the best practices, building the enabling technologies, and educating the industry on all things Customer Success.</p>
<p>Why did we make this list? Well, Customer Success is a rapidly evolving mindset and operation, based on the view that the <strong>#1 way to build a successful business is to ensure that your customers are achieving value through the use of your product and their relationship with your company</strong>. We often get asked: “What should I be reading to learn more about Customer Success?” Instead of focusing on just the resources, we chose to call out the people who are doing the best thinking, discovering, and sharing in this exciting new field, and to bring together all of their valuable thought leadership.</p>
<p>We broke our list into three categories, and include the individuals alphabetically within them. <strong><a href="#strategists">Strategists</a></strong> are developing and evangelizing the concepts underlying Customer Success — from the financial benefits to the latest techniques to the customer-centric mentality. <strong><a href="#practitioners">Practitioners</a></strong> are on the front lines every day, leading teams and sharing what they are discovering. <strong><a href="#technologists">Technologists</a></strong> are building the rich tapestry of products that make Customer Success practices more effective.</p>
<p><a href="http://ctt.ec/3HzcK" target='_blank'><b>CLICK to TWEET: Reading fantastic thought leadership from the "@Frontleaf 50 to Follow" to learn best practices for #CustomerSuccess. bit.ly/Frontleaf50</b></a></p>
<p>So without further ado, presenting the <i><strong>Frontleaf 50 to Follow</strong></i>...</p>
<style>
.people-highlight {
display: block;
width: 100%;
}
.people-highlight-headline {
display: block;
margin: 40px 0 10px 0;
padding: 0 0 10px 0;
font-size: 25px;
font-weight: bold;
border-bottom: 1px solid #f1f1f1;
}
.people-highlight-jump {
display: block;
margin-bottom: 30px;
padding-bottom: 15px;
border-bottom: 1px solid #F1F1F1;
}
.people-highlight-jump a {
font-weight: 600 !important;
color: #FFB638 !important;
text-decoration: none !important;
}
.people-highlight-jump a:hover {
text-decoration: underline !important;
}
.people-highlight-section {
display: block;
margin: 0 0 40px 0;
padding: 0 0 40px 0;
border-bottom: 1px solid #f7f7f7;
}
.people-highlight-section:last-child, .people-highlight-section.no-border {
border: none;
}
.people-highlight-section-left {
position: relative;
display: inline-block;
vertical-align: top;
width: 100%;
}
.people-highlight-image {
display: inline-block !important;
width: 110px;
height: 110px;
background: #ccc;
border-radius: 1000px;
}
@media screen and (max-width: 991px) {
.people-highlight-image {
width: 75px;
height: 75px;
}
}
@media screen and (max-width: 440px) {
.people-highlight-image {
width: 55px;
height: 55px;
}
}
.people-highlight-details {
display: inline-block;
vertical-align: top;
max-width: 75%;
margin: 5px 0 0 20px;
}
@media screen and (max-width: 440px) {
.people-highlight-details {
max-width: 74%;
margin-left: 15px;
}
}
.people-highlight-name {
display: block;
font-size: 21px;
font-weight: bold;
color: #464646;
}
.people-highlight-title {
display: block;
margin: 5px 0 0 0;
font-size: 14px;
line-height: 14px;
color: #464646;
}
@media screen and (max-width: 568px) {
.people-highlight-title {
margin-top: 5px;
}
}
.people-highlight-company {
display: block;
margin: -2px 0 5px 0;
font-size: 14px !important;
font-weight: 600 !important;
color: #2D9BFF !important;
text-decoration: none !important;
}
.people-highlight-company.inline {
display: inline-block;
}
.people-highlight-company-container {
display: block;
}
@media screen and (max-width: 568px) {
.people-highlight-company {
margin: 0 0 10px 0;
}
}
.people-highlight-social {
display: inline-block;
font-size: 14px;
width: 42px;
height: 21px;
margin: 0 5px 0 0;
border-radius: 4px;
}
.people-highlight-social.twitter {
background: url( "/static/images/twitter-button-small.png" ) no-repeat 0 0;
}
.people-highlight-social.linkedin {
background: url( "/static/images/linkedin-button-small.png" ) no-repeat 0 0;
}
.people-highlight-section-right {
display: block;
margin: 10px 0;
}
.people-highlight-summary {
display: block;
font-size: 16px;
color: #383838;
}
.people-highlight-link-title {
display: inline-block;
vertical-align: top;
margin: 9px 10px 0 0;
font-size: 16px;
font-weight: 600;
color: #515151;
}
.people-highlight-link {
display: inline-block;
vertical-align: top;
margin: 10px 3px 10px 0;
font-size: 15px;
font-weight: bold;
color: #2D9BFF !important;
text-decoration: none !important;
}
.people-highlight-separator {
display: inline-block;
vertical-align: top;
margin: 11px 3px 0 0;
font-family: Arial !important;
}
.people-highlight-directory {
position: fixed;
opacity: 0;
right: 0;
top: 200px;
width: 220px;
padding: 10px;
border: 1px solid #d9d9d9;
background: #fff;
text-align: center;
border-radius: 3px;
box-shadow: 0 0 4px 0 #ccc;
transition: all .3s ease-in-out;
-webkit-transition: all .3s ease-in-out;
-moz-transition: all .3s ease-in-out;
-ms-transition: all .3s ease-in-out;
}
.people-highlight-directory.visible {
opacity: 1;
}
@media screen and (max-width: 1275px) {
.people-highlight-directory {
display: none;
}
}
.people-highlight-directory-current {
display: block;
font-size: 21px;
font-weight: 600;
text-decoration: none !important;
}
.people-highlight-directory-label {
display: block;
margin: 0 0 10px 0;
padding: 0 0 10px 0;
font-size: 14px;
color: #6A6A6A;
border-bottom: 1px solid #f1f1f1;
}
.people-highlight-directory-subsection {
display: block;
}
.people-highlight-directory-jump {
display: inline-block;
color: #4b4b4b;
}
.people-highlight-directory-link {
display: inline-block;
text-decoration: none !important;
}
.people-highlight-directory-link:hover {
text-decoration: underline !important;
}
</style>
<!-- Go to www.addthis.com/dashboard to customize your tools -->
<div class="addthis_sharing_toolbox"></div>
<p>
<span class="people-highlight" id="strategists">
<span class="people-highlight-directory" people-highlight-directory >
<a class="people-highlight-directory-current" people-highlight-directory-current ></a>
<span class="people-highlight-directory-label">current section</span>
<span class="people-highlight-directory-subsection">
<span class="people-highlight-directory-jump">go to: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-directory-link" people-highlight-directory-jump ></a>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-directory-subsection">
<span class="people-highlight-directory-jump">go to: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-directory-link" people-highlight-directory-jump ></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-headline">Strategists</span>
<span class="people-highlight-jump">Go to: <a href="#practitioners">Practitioners</a> | Go to: <a href="#technologists">Technologists</a></span>
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/AnnetteFranz.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Annette Franz</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Director, VOC Consulting - Americas</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.confirmit.com/' target='_blank'>Confirmit</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='https://twitter.com/annettefranz' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='https://www.linkedin.com/in/annettegleneicki' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Annette is recognized as a thought leader on customer experience, and advocates building people-first organizations as the first step towards customer retention and business success.</span>
<span class="people-highlight-link-title">Annette's Blog: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.cx-journey.com/" target='_blank'>CX Journey</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.cx-journey.com/2014/07/how-to-lose-customer-in-10-days.html" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/AnthonyNygren.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Anthony Nygren</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Executive Vice President</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.emiboston.com/' target='_blank'>EMI Strategic Marketing</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='https://twitter.com/emistrategic' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonynygren' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Anthony is an expert in uncovering the underlying drivers of customer behaviors, then using that knowledge to develop programs to deliver customer retention and increase lifetime value.</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://emiboston.com/category/customer-success-management/" target='_blank'>EMI Customer Success Blog</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://emiboston.com/the-measure-of-success-in-customer-success/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/BobHayes.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Bob Hayes</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Chief Customer Officer</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.tcelab.com/' target='_blank'>TCELab</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/bobehayes' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/bobehayes' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Bob researches and writes on customer experience, big data, and analytics, and how they all work together.</span>
<span class="people-highlight-link-title">Bob's Blog: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://businessoverbroadway.com/" target='_blank'>Business Over Broadway</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://businessoverbroadway.com/the-hidden-bias-in-customer-metrics" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/BrianGladstein.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Brian Gladstein</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">CEO & Founder</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.explorics.com/' target='_blank'>Explorics</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='https://twitter.com/briangladstein' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='https://www.linkedin.com/in/briangladstein' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Brian offers strategies for creating customer advocates and managing customer advocacy programs to enhance market engagement.</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.explorics.com/blog/" target='_blank'>Explorics Blog</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.explorics.com/episode-5-why-do-customers-agree-to-advocate-for-companies/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/CurtisBingham.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Curtis Bingham</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Founder & Executive Director</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.ccocouncil.org/' target='_blank'>Chief Customer Officer Council</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='https://twitter.com/curtisbingham' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='https://www.linkedin.com/in/curtisbingham' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Curtis promotes the Chief Customer Officer role as a source of competitive advantage, enabling companies to more effectively drive Customer Success as a step towards higher profitability.</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://blog.ccocouncil.org/" target='_blank'>CCO Council Blog</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://blog.ccocouncil.org/post/WHEN-Do-You-Need-a-Chief-Customer-Officer.aspx" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/DaveKellog.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Dave Kellogg</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">CEO</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.hostanalytics.com/' target='_blank'>Host Analytics</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='https://twitter.com/Kellblog' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelloggdave' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Dave speaks from his vast startup experience and breaks down churn analysis and the corresponding metrics, sharing his deep understanding of how Customer Success can impact the bottom line.</span>
<span class="people-highlight-link-title">Dave's Blog: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://kellblog.com/" target='_blank'>Kellblog</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://kellblog.com/2014/07/26/you-cant-analyze-churn-by-analyzing-churn/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/DavidSkok.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">David Skok</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">General Partner</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.matrixpartners.com/' target='_blank'>Matrix Partners</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='https://twitter.com/BostonVC' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='https://www.linkedin.com/in/dskok' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">David is a pioneer of SaaS business models and metrics, from customer acquisition to retention and beyond.</span>
<span class="people-highlight-link-title">David's Blog: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/blog/" target='_blank'>For Entrepreneurs</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/customer-success/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/EdPowers.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Ed Powers</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Principal</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.se-partners.com/' target='_blank'>Service Excellence Partners</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='https://www.linkedin.com/pub/ed-powers/0/315/ab5' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Ed helps Customer Success practitioners investigate the root causes of customer churn. He uncovers the interconnected impacts of product development, customer acquisition, service delivery, and account management on customer health.</span>
<span class="people-highlight-link-title">Ed's Blog: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://se-partners.blogspot.com/" target='_blank'>Excel-lens</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://se-partners.blogspot.com/2014/06/why-customer-defections-mean-things-are.html" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/JasonLemkin.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Jason Lemkin</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Managing Director</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.stormventures.com/' target='_blank'>Storm Ventures</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='https://twitter.com/jasonlk' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonmlemkin' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Jason has lived the startup roller coaster from idea to $100M ARR. He advises companies to pursue what he calls "second order revenue", which comes from making customers wildly successful.</span>
<span class="people-highlight-link-title">Jason's Blog: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://saastr.com/" target='_blank'>SaaStr</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://saastr.com/2013/10/01/the-2-million-dollar-man-woman-how-to-think-about-scaling-your-customer-success-team/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/JasonWhitehead.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Jason Whitehead</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">CEO</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.trituns.com/' target='_blank'>Tri Tuns</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='https://twitter.com/TriTuns' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonwhitehead' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Jason's background in information technology and organizational development enables him to provide unique expertise in accelerating user adoption and the downstream business benefits of Customer Success.</span>
<span class="people-highlight-link-title">Jason's Blog: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.trituns.com/user-adoption-insights-from-tri-tuns" target='_blank'>Insights Blog</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.trituns.com/user-adoption-insights-from-tri-tuns/how-to-develop-a-cohesive-customer-success-management-strategy#.U-MN0YBdXds" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/JoelYork.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Joel York</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Chief Blogger & Consultant</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.chaotic-flow.com/' target='_blank'>Chaotic Flow</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='https://twitter.com/chaoticflow' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelyork' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Joel is a long-time cloud software exec who shares expertise on SaaS growth strategies and metrics across the customer lifecycle.</span>
<span class="people-highlight-link-title">Joel's Blog: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://chaotic-flow.com/" target='_blank'>Chaotic Flow</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://chaotic-flow.com/saas-growth-strategy-a-customer-lifecycle-approach/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/LincolnMurphy.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Lincoln Murphy</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Growth Hacker, Customer Success Evangelist</span>
<span class="people-highlight-company-container">
<a class="people-highlight-company inline" href='http://www.sixteenventures.com/' target='_blank'>Sixteen Ventures</a>, <a class="people-highlight-company inline" href='http://www.gainsight.com/' target='_blank'>Gainsight</a>
</span>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='https://twitter.com/lincolnmurphy' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='https://www.linkedin.com/in/lincolnmurphy' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Lincoln is a growth hacker and a Customer Success strategist rolled into one. He explores the connections between these two realms, and provides valuable reference guides for anyone trying to accomplish either.</span>
<span class="people-highlight-link-title">Lincoln's Blog: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://sixteenventures.com/" target='_blank'>Sixteen Ventures</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://sixteenventures.com/ideal-customer" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/LynnHunsaker.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Lynn Hunsaker</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Customer Experience Optimization Strategist</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.clearactioncx.com/' target='_blank'>ClearAction</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='https://twitter.com/clearaction' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='https://www.linkedin.com/in/lynnhunsaker' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Lynn offers expertise in how companies can innovate their customer experience and differentiate it from competitors in order to increase loyalty and profits.</span>
<span class="people-highlight-link-title">Lynn's Blog: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://clearactioncx.com/blog/" target='_blank'>ClearAction Blog</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://clearactioncx.com/customer-experience-intelligence-inspires-innovation/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/MikaelBlaisdell.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Mikael Blaisdell</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Publisher</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://customersuccessmagazine.com/' target='_blank'>Customer Success Magazine</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='https://twitter.com/MikaelBlaisdell' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaelblaisdell' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Mikael leads the Customer Success Association and the popular Customer Success Forum on LinkedIn. He has been one of the longest and strongest advocates for SaaS Customer Success practices.</span>
<span class="people-highlight-link-title">Mikael's Blog: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://customersuccessmagazine.com/" target='_blank'>Customer Success Magazine</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://mblaisdell.com/2012/09/21/mind-the-gap-the-disconnection-between-customer-retention-strategy-and-process/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/NicholeDeMere.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Nichole Elizabeth DeMeré</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Community & Customer Success Evangelist</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.producthunt.com/' target='_blank'>Product Hunt</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/NikkiElizDemere' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/nikkielizabeth' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Nichole operates right at the intersection of new product development, growth hacking, and Customer Success.</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://medium.com/@NikkiElizDemere" target='_blank'>Nichole on Medium</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://medium.com/the-growth-hackers-cookbook/customer-success-has-a-quantifiable-impact-on-revenue-d18d25786863" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/OlivierDelerm.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Olivier Delerm</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">CEO</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.a6group.com/' target='_blank'>A6 Group</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='https://twitter.com/odelerm' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='https://www.linkedin.com/in/odelerm' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Olivier advises SaaS companies on how to measure, monitor, and reduce customer churn. His RevenueLane website pulls together essential Customer Success content and skips the fluff.</span>
<span class="people-highlight-link-title">Olivier's Blog: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.revenuelane.com/" target='_blank'>RevenueLane</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.revenuelane.com/category/customer-success-2/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/TerenceChan.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Terence Chan</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Chief Experience Officer</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.cxgasia.com/' target='_blank'>The Customer Experience Group</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='https://twitter.com/cxgasia' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='https://www.linkedin.com/in/terencechan' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Terence practices and promotes "human-centered customer experience", his lens for helping companies differentiate through excellence and innovation.</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/3530373" target='_blank'>Terence on LinkedIn</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140613111253-3530373-the-7-habits-of-highly-effective-customer-experience-leaders" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/TobinLehman.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Tobin Lehman</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">President & Lead Strategist</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.newnorth.com/' target='_blank'>New North</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/gonewnorth' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/tobinlehman' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Tobin strategizes and shares his philosophies on retaining and growing customers, with a balanced look at the interplay between customer data, metrics, and loyalty.</span>
<span class="people-highlight-link-title">Tobin's Blog: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.newnorth.com/insights/" target='_blank'>Retention Insights</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.newnorth.com/3-tactics-reading-customer-data/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section no-border">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/TomaszTunguz.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Tomasz Tunguz</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Partner</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.redpoint.com/' target='_blank'>Redpoint Ventures</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/ttunguz' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasztunguz' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Tomasz takes a quantitative approach to understanding trends in SaaS and startups, and has explored the financial and organizational impact of Customer Success practices.</span>
<span class="people-highlight-link-title">Tomasz's Blog: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://tomtunguz.com/categories/customer-success/" target='_blank'>Ex Post Facto</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://tomtunguz.com/performance-customer-success-management/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<a href="http://ctt.ec/3HzcK" target='_blank'><b>CLICK to TWEET: Reading fantastic thought leadership from the "@Frontleaf 50 to Follow" to learn best practices for #CustomerSuccess. bit.ly/Frontleaf50</b></a>
<!-- Go to www.addthis.com/dashboard to customize your tools -->
<div class="addthis_sharing_toolbox"></div>
<span class="people-highlight-headline" id="practitioners">Practitioners</span>
<span class="people-highlight-jump">Go to: <a href="#strategists">Strategists</a> | Go to: <a href="#technologists">Technologists</a></span>
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/CatherineBlackmore.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Catherine Blackmore</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Chief Customer Officer</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.bluenose.com/' target='_blank'>Bluenose Analytics</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/catherineblckmr' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/catherineblackmore' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Catherine has led Customer Success teams at a bunch of successful SaaS companies. She shares her knowledge about how to be both a strategic Customer Success leader as well as an effective team member.</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.bluenose.com/resources/blog/" target='_blank'>Bluenose Blog</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.bluenose.com/leaders-planning-customer-success/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/ChadHorenfeldt.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Chad Horenfeldt</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Director, Customer Operations</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.influitive.com/' target='_blank'>Influitive</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/ChadTev' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/chadhorenfeldt' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Chad regularly posts practical advice for CSMs, and openly shares his learnings from running customer operations with an advocacy focus.</span>
<span class="people-highlight-link-title">Chad's Blog: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://enlightenedcustomer.wordpress.com/" target='_blank'>The Enlightened Customer</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://enlightenedcustomer.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/what-should-i-be-doing-5-tips-for-day-in-the-life-of-a-customer-success-manager/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/DanSteinman.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Dan Steinman</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Chief Customer Officer</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.gainsight.com' target='_blank'>Gainsight</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/dantsteinman' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dan-steinman/0/272/79b' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Dan is a veteran in the field of Customer Success, offering best practices on everything from customer engagement to organizational structure to customer health measurement.</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://customersuccess.gainsight.com" target='_blank'>Gainsight Blog</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://customersuccess.gainsight.com/tracking-product-adoption/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/DavidMitzenmacher.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">David Mitzenmacher</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Vice President of Customer Success</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.kareo.com/' target='_blank'>Kareo</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/davemitz' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/davemitz' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">David brings together a weekly roundup of the latest in the world of Customer Success management, including interesting articles on retention, engagement, and growth.</span>
<span class="people-highlight-link-title">David's Blog: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://paper.li/davemitz/1328737564" target='_blank'>Customer Loyalty Weekly</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://paper.li/davemitz/1328737564" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/DennisHennessey.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Dennis Hennessey</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Customer Success</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.nasuni.com/' target='_blank'>Nasuni</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/DHennessey75' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/dennishennessey' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Dennis is experienced at building Customer Success teams and practices from the ground up, and generously shares his learnings and tips.</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.linkedin.com/today/author/56939903" target='_blank'>Dennis on LinkedIn</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140623200252-56939903-the-invisible-csm" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/DmitryShkliarevsky.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Dmitry Shkliarevsky</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Director, IT Business Management - Professional Services – Americas</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.vmware.com/' target='_blank'>VMware</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/dshkliar' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/dmitryshkliarevsky' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Dmitry is a pro at growing value from a Customer Success mindset, and he focuses his writing on exploring metrics, analytics, and best practices.</span>
<span class="people-highlight-link-title">Dmitry's Blog: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://workinitprogress.wordpress.com/" target='_blank'>Work-in-Progress</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://workinitprogress.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/managing-customer-success-with-a-customer-centric-dashboard/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/FlavioMartins.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Flavio Martins</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">VP of Operations</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.digicert.com/' target='_blank'>DigiCert</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/flavmartins' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/flaviomartins' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Flavio showcases stories of exceptional customer service, with a generous sprinkling of actionable advice.</span>
<span class="people-highlight-link-title">Flavio's Blog: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://winthecustomer.com/customer-service-blog/" target='_blank'>Win the Customer</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://winthecustomer.com/customer-service-metrics/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/KamilRextin.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Kamil Rextin</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Growth & Marketing | Customer Success | Product</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.organimi.com/' target='_blank'>Organimi</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/kamilrextin' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/kamilrextin' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Kamil embodies Customer Success at his startup, blending human touch with technology tools to track his customers... all while wearing at least eight other hats.</span>
<span class="people-highlight-link-title">Kamil's Blog: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.kamilrextin.com/blog/category/customer-success/" target='_blank'>Customer Success Blog</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.kamilrextin.com/blog/customer-success/customer-success/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/KathleenRouse.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Kathleen Rouse</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Director, Customer Success</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.findly.com/' target='_blank'>Findly</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/KZRTech' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/kathleenrouse' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Kathleen shares real-life stories of Customer Success practices from the front lines — like shifting from an account-by-account focus to conceiving of a network of customers.</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://medium.com/@KZRTech" target='_blank'>Kathleen on Medium</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://medium.com/@KZRTech/activity-vs-account-based-cf34528105f8" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/LizPedro.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Liz Pedro</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Director - Customer Success Marketing</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.mitel.com/' target='_blank'>Mitel</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/mslizpedro' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/lizpedro' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Liz describes herself as "customer obsessed", and has received many accolades for both her Customer Success marketing initiatives and her customer advocacy programs.</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.linkedin.com/today/author/8577261" target='_blank'>Liz on LinkedIn</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140430230733-8577261-how-to-grow-revenue-with-customer-success" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/MarcusBragg.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Marcus Bragg</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">SVP WW Sales & Customer Success</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.zendesk.com/' target='_blank'>Zendesk</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/marcusbragg' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/marcusbragg' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Marcus is an expert in Customer Success execution and methodologies, and leads a well-oiled operation that's known in the market for its customer focus.</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.zendesk.com/blog" target='_blank'>Zendesk Blog</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXR_yRvdy2g" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/MichaelRedbord.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Michael Redbord</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Director, Global Customer Support & Success</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.hubspot.com/' target='_blank'>HubSpot</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/redbord' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/mredbord' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Michael excels at demystifying customer support quandries from a Customer Success perspective, and at telling it like it is.</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.redbord.com/" target='_blank'>Michael's Blog</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.redbord.com/how-to-predict-solve-and-avoid-dangerous-customer-service-queues" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/MichelleSun.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Michelle Sun</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Growth & Analytics</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://bufferapp.com/' target='_blank'>Buffer</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/michellelsun' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=52046707' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Michelle looks at customer churn from a both a product design and an analytics perspective, and offers tips for squashing it.</span>
<span class="people-highlight-link-title">Buffer Blog: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://open.bufferapp.com/" target='_blank'>Buffer Open</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://open.bufferapp.com/6-ideas-to-reduce-your-products-churn-rate/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/MikeGrafham.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Mike Grafham</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Office 365 Customer Success Lead</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.microsoft.com/' target='_blank'>Microsoft</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/mgrafham' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/mgrafham' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Mike has been a visionary Customer Success leader for years, and has recently created an excellent primer and model for other practitioners to emulate.</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://medium.com/@mgrafham" target='_blank'>Mike on Medium</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://medium.com/p/c50805644d79" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/MonicaAdractas.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Monica Adractas</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Senior Director, Customer Retention</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.box.com/' target='_blank'>Box</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/madractas' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Monica spearheads Box's customer retention efforts, and talks about practical steps companies can take to first understand and then reduce customer churn.</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.linkedin.com/today/author/5482828" target='_blank'>Monica on LinkedIn</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140316233925-5482828-here-s-why-your-customers-are-leaving?trk=mp-reader-card" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/NelloFranco.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Nello Franco</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">SVP, Customer Success</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.talend.com/' target='_blank'>Talend</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/nfranco' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/nellofranco' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Nello takes a structured approach to Customer Success, and his framework for defining customer segmentation and engagement models is top notch.</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://blog.nellofranco.com/" target='_blank'>Nello's Blog</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://blog.nellofranco.com/2013/10/17/b2b-customer-segments-where-do-you-draw-the-line/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/RachelEnglish.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Rachel English</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Co-Founder & VP, Customer Success</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.frontleaf.com/' target='_blank'>Frontleaf</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/Frontleaf' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelenglish/' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Rachel is a long-time Customer Success leader, and developed the "Circle of Success" series that establishes the foundation for an effective Customer Success practice.</span>
<span class="people-highlight-link-title">Frontleaf Blog: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.frontleaf.com/blog/" target='_blank'>Back of the Leaf</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.frontleaf.com/blog/customer-success-for-ninjas-scaling-onboarding/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section no-border">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/ToddEby.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Todd Eby</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Vice President, Professional Services</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.five9.com/' target='_blank'>Five9</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/toddceby' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/toddeby' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Todd focuses on bridging the gap between success theory and its practical application, sharing insights into how a single organization can be structured and scaled to deliver Customer Success to both Enterprise and SMB customers simultaneously.</span>
<span class="people-highlight-link-title">Todd's Blog: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://paper.li/toddceby/1399047932" target='_blank'>Customer Success Journal</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://paper.li/toddceby/1399047932" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<p><a href="http://ctt.ec/3HzcK" target='_blank'><b>CLICK to TWEET: Reading fantastic thought leadership from the "@Frontleaf 50 to Follow" to learn best practices for #CustomerSuccess. bit.ly/Frontleaf50</b></a></p>
<!-- Go to www.addthis.com/dashboard to customize your tools -->
<div class="addthis_sharing_toolbox"></div>
<span class="people-highlight-headline" id="technologists">Technologists</span>
<span class="people-highlight-jump">Go to: <a href="#strategists">Strategists</a> | Go to: <a href="#practitioners">Practitioners</a></span>
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/AaronFulkerson.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Aaron Fulkerson</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Founder & CEO</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.mindtouch.com/' target='_blank'>MindTouch</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/Roebot' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronfulkerson' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Aaron has built a company and platform for powering Customer Success knowledge centers and analytics that drive value and self-service.</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.mindtouch.com/blog" target='_blank'>MindTouch Blog</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140531044451-3957190-customer-success-management-drives-shareholder-value" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/DerekSkaletsky.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Derek Skaletsky</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Founder & CEO</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.knowtify.io/' target='_blank'>Knowtify</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/dskaletsky' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/dskaletsky' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Derek digs deep into user engagement, and helps his customers and readers understand how best to leverage user data to enhance communication and foster success.</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://blog.knowtify.io/" target='_blank'>Knowtify Blog</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://blog.knowtify.io/post/91790336776/who-owns-user-engagement" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/DesTraynor.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Des Traynor</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Co-Founder & VP of Customer Success</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.intercom.io' target='_blank'>Intercom</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/destraynor' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/destraynor' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Des turned his background in user experience and interaction design into powerful assets for creating a tool that helps product and customer teams track and message users.</span>
<span class="people-highlight-link-title">Intercom Blog: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://insideintercom.io/" target='_blank'>Inside Intercom</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://insideintercom.io/churn-retention-and-reengaging-customers/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/GregoryCiotti.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Gregory Ciotti</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Marketing</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.helpscout.com/' target='_blank'>Help Scout</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/GregoryCiotti' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/ciotti' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Greg practices content marketing with a Customer Success focus, and shares his wisdom on creating and enhancing customer loyalty.</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.helpscout.net/blog/" target='_blank'>Help Scout Blog</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.helpscout.net/blog/frugal-wow/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/LiamGooding.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Liam Gooding</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Co-Founder & CEO</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://trak.io' target='_blank'>Trak.io</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/liamgooding' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamgooding' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Liam builds products and shares his expertise on how SaaS startups can drive growth with Customer Success.</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://blog.trak.io/" target='_blank'>Trak.io Blog</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://blog.trak.io/saas-onboarding-do-you-really-know-what-the-aha-moment-is-for-your-product/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/MarcBenioff.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Marc Benioff</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Chairman & CEO</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.salesforce.com/' target='_blank'>Salesforce</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/Benioff' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbenioff' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Marc spearheaded the concept of "Customer Success" at Salesforce, and first put in place many of the practices Customer Success teams use today.</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://blogs.salesforce.com/" target='_blank'>Salesforce Blog</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.salesforce.com/behindthecloud/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/MatthewShanahan.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Matthew Shanahan</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">VP, Product Strategy</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.scoutanalytics.com/' target='_blank'>Scout by ServiceSource</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/ScoutAnalytics' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/shanahanmatthew' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Matt helps educate the sector on the connections between adoption, usage, and recurring revenue.</span>
<span class="people-highlight-link-title">Scout Blog: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://research.scoutanalytics.com/" target='_blank'>Scout Research</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://research.scoutanalytics.com/revenue-retention/user-nurturing-with-a-twist-and-why-its-critical-to-customer-success/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/MichaelGeller.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Michael Geller</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">CEO</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.preact.com/' target='_blank'>Preact</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/mgeller142' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/mgeller142' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Michael is a SaaS industry veteran, building technology which enables SaaS companies to predict customer retention based on usage patterns.</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.preact.com/blog" target='_blank'>Preact Blog</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.preact.com/blog/why-now" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/OmerGotlieb.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Omer Gotlieb</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Co-Founder & Chief Customer Officer</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.totango.com/' target='_blank'>Totango</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/omergotlieb' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/omergotlieb' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Omer advocates for defining and tracking the customer journey, so companies can act quickly and efficiently when their customers fall off course.</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://blog.totango.com/" target='_blank'>Totango Blog</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://blog.totango.com/2014/08/customer-success-orienteering-101-map-your-customer-journey/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/PamMcbride.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Pam McBride</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Director of Marketing</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.getamity.com/' target='_blank'>Amity</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/pmcbride4' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/pammcbride' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Pam curates and publishes the SaaS Tattler, a weekly compilation of the most relevant articles, insights, companies, and products in the world of Customer Success.</span>
<span class="people-highlight-link-title">Amity Blog: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://getamity.com/blog/" target='_blank'>The Engaged Customer</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://getamity.com/2014/07/18/saas-2-0-tattler-issue-18/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/RichardWhite.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Richard White</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Founder, CEO</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.uservoice.com/' target='_blank'>UserVoice</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/rrwhite' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/rrwhite' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Richard is a tireless advocate for an outstanding user experience. He builds products that open communication channels between companies and their customers.</span>
<span class="people-highlight-link-title">UserVoice Blog: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://community.uservoice.com/blog/" target='_blank'>UserCentered</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://community.uservoice.com/blog/the-era-of-the-entitled-customer-and-the-future-of-customer-engagement/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/TienTzuo.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Tien Tzuo</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Founder & CEO</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.zuora.com/' target='_blank'>Zuora</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/tientzuo' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/tientzuo' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Tien coined the term "Subscription Economy" and established the 9 Keys to Subscription Success.</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://blog.zuora.com/" target='_blank'>Zuora Blog</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.zuora.com/top3saasmetrics/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
<!-- *** Single Person ***-->
<span class="people-highlight-section">
<span class="people-highlight-section-left">
<img class="people-highlight-image" src='/static/images/blog/frontleaf-50/TomKrackeler.jpg' />
<span class="people-highlight-details">
<span class="people-highlight-name">Tom Krackeler</span>
<span class="people-highlight-title">Co-Founder & CEO</span>
<a class="people-highlight-company" href='http://www.frontleaf.com/' target='_blank'>Frontleaf</a>
<a class="people-highlight-social twitter" href='http://twitter.com/tomkrackeler' target='_blank'></a>
<a class="people-highlight-social linkedin" href='http://www.linkedin.com/in/tomkrackeler' target='_blank'></a>
</span>
</span>
<span class="people-highlight-section-right">
<span class="people-highlight-summary">Tom explores the intersection of Customer Success and Product Management at SaaS companies, and offers practical guidance on how to apply data analytics for Customer Success.</span>
<span class="people-highlight-link-title">Frontleaf Blog: </span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.frontleaf.com/blog/" target='_blank'>Back of the Leaf</a>
<span class="people-highlight-separator">•</span>
<a class="people-highlight-link" href="http://www.frontleaf.com/blog/data-analytics-ladder-for-customer-success-1/" target='_blank'>Frontleaf Featured Post</a>
</span>
</span>
<!-- *** End of Single Person *** -->
</span>
<script type="text/javascript">
var peopleHighlightDirectory;
(function( $ ){
peopleHighlightDirectory = {
directoryElement : '.people-highlight-directory',
contentContainer : '.blog-content',
sections : [
'#strategists',
'#practitioners',
'#technologists'
],
scrollPositions: [],
initialize : function(){
this.setPosition();
this.setScrollPos();
this.setEventListeners();
},
setEventListeners : function(){
var This = this;
$(window).scroll(function( event ){
This.checkOffsets( $(this) );
}).resize(function( event){
This.setPosition( $(this) );
});
},
setPosition : function(){
var directory = $(this.directoryElement);
var container = $(this.contentContainer);
var containerOffset = container.offset();
var containerRightEdge = containerOffset.left + container.width();
var directoryOffet = 35;
var leftAmount = containerRightEdge + directoryOffet;
directory.css( 'left', leftAmount );
},
setScrollPos : function(){
var element;
var offset;
for ( var i = 0; i < this.sections.length; i++ ){
element = $( this.sections[ i ] );
offset = element.offset().top;
this.scrollPositions.push( offset );
}
},
checkOffsets : function( scrollElement ){
var offset = scrollElement.scrollTop();
var additionalOffset = 100;
var elementPos;
var currentSection = 0;
for ( var i = 0; i < this.scrollPositions.length; i++ ){
elementPos = this.scrollPositions[ i ];
if ( parseInt( offset ) > parseInt( elementPos ) - additionalOffset ){
currentSection = i + 1;
}
}
this.handleCurrentSection( currentSection );
},
handleCurrentSection : function( current ){
var element = $(this.directoryElement);
if ( current == 0 ){
element.removeClass('visible');
}
else {
element.addClass('visible');
this.setSections( current );
}
},
setSections : function( current ){
var element;
var otherSections = [];
var jumpLinks;
jumpLinks = $('[people-highlight-directory-jump]');
$('[people-highlight-directory-current]').attr('href', this.sections[current-1] ).text( this.getSectionName( this.sections[current-1] ) );
for ( var i = 0; i < this.sections.length; i++ ){
if ( i != current-1 ){
otherSections.push(i);
}
}
for ( var j = 0; j < otherSections.length; j++ ){
element = otherSections[ j ];
$( jumpLinks[j] ).attr('href', this.sections[element] ).text( this.getSectionName( this.sections[element] ) );
}
},
getSectionName: function( selectorText ) {
var name = selectorText.replace('#','');
name = name.substr(0, 1).toUpperCase() + name.substr(1);
return name;
}
} //End of module
})( jQuery );
peopleHighlightDirectory.initialize();
</script>
<span class="people-highlight-jump">Go to: <a href="#strategists">Strategists</a> | Go to: <a href="#practitioners">Practitioners</a> | Go to: <a href="#technologists">Technologists</a></span>
<p>
Congratulations to this knowledgeable and diverse group of Customer Success innovators and thought leaders. We hope our readers have the opportunity to check out some of the work cited here — very impressive and useful stuff.
</p>
<p>
Do you know a Customer Success guru you’d like to nominate for the next <i><strong>Frontleaf 50 to Follow</strong></i>? <a href="mailto:info@frontleaf.com"><strong>Send them our way!</strong></a>
<p>
Do you have colleagues you think would benefit from following the list? Please share it with them!
<p>
<a href="http://ctt.ec/3HzcK" target='_blank'><b>CLICK to TWEET: Reading fantastic thought leadership from the "@Frontleaf 50 to Follow" to learn best practices for #CustomerSuccess. bit.ly/Frontleaf50</b></a>
</span>
<!-- Go to www.addthis.com/dashboard to customize your tools -->
<div class="addthis_sharing_toolbox"></div>Climbing the Data Analytics Ladder for Customer Successblog/data-analytics-ladder-for-customer-success-12014-07-28T16:30:00Z2014-07-28T16:30:00ZTom KrackelerCustomer Success teams are more data savvy than ever, and are utilizing data analytics to get an edge in their efforts at customer retention. But what kinds of data analytics are Customer Success teams putting into practice today? What are the biggest challenges? And how can we best proceed up the 5-Step Data Analytics Ladder for Customer Success?<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/ladder_kid.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><p>The practice of Customer Success is taking off across the SaaS industry and beyond. It’s become an executive priority. It’s baked into the culture at winning companies. It’s even a job title you are seeing everywhere.</p>
<p>Customer Success teams are now more data savvy than ever. Talk to a Customer Success Director, and she will tell you that having a timely and integrated view of her customers' usage, support, relationship, and subscription data is a requirement for doing her job. She’ll also tell you she wants her team to <b><i>act faster and more decisively on early warning signs of customer churn</i></b>. And she may let on that her team struggles with information overload, that <b><i>uncovering customer health signals can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack</i></b>.</p>
<p>So what are these meaningful customer health insights? How does our Customer Success Director discover them, and why should she put trust in them? That’s where the world of data analytics comes into play, and why it’s so important to have data smarts (or access to them) on the Customer Success team.</p>
<p>In this post and the next, I’ll explore what kinds of data analytics Customer Success teams are putting into practice today, what the biggest challenges are, and I’ll introduce the <b>5-Step Data Analytics Ladder for Customer Success</b>.</p>
<h3>Data Science — Hype or Hope?</h3>
<p>Anyone paying attention to technology hears important-sounding terms like data science, data mining, big data, or predictive analytics thrown around all the time. The general concept is that you want not only to describe and visualize your customer data, but also to extract useful knowledge from it. And for folks in Customer Success roles, <b><i>the holy grail is being able to accurately predict which of your customers are likely to churn and what are the most effective actions to you can take to keep them</i></b>. </p>
<p>Sound too good to be true? </p>
<p>Well, often it is. The hype around data science techniques suggests that, with the right smarts or software, you could just point a firehose of customer data at a black-box predictive model, and it will magically spit out a list of customers who are going to cancel. Not surprisingly, these kinds of claims raise some healthy skepticism among Customer Success practitioners. </p>
<p>But let’s not knock down that straw man, and instead let’s look at how data analytics is being used in practice today by Customer Success teams, and how they are taking steps up the analytics ladder towards the ultimate goal of accurate churn prediction and effective mitigation.</p>
<h3>How Are Customer Success Teams Applying Analytics Today?</h3>
<p>All Customer Success teams are performing some kind of data analysis today. Either they are doing it themselves in spreadsheets, collaborating with Analysts at their company, or using specialized software applications. The level of analytical depth and sophistication varies, often based simply on their number of customers, overall company maturity, and access to customer data sources. </p>
<p>We can break these activities into what I call the <b>5-Step Data Analytics Ladder for Customer Success</b>.</p>
<h4><b>Step 1: Summarization</b></h4>
<p><img src="/static/images/blog/summarization.jpg" style="max-width: 40%;float:left" />This is the most basic way to understand your customers based on the data you already have on hand, by quantitatively or visually describing their main characteristics. </p>
<p>It can be as simple as running a report in Salesforce.com that shows all your active Accounts along with their Tier and Last Login Date. Or creating a dashboard that shows each Customer Success Manager’s amount of Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) up for renewal. Data summarization is a good starting point for any deeper analysis of your customers, and enables spot checking that can be helpful in uncovering errors or operational issues. </p>
<p>But <b><i>if you stop here, you are not likely to get many epiphanies that supercharge your Customer Success team's productivity and results</i></b>. You are missing rules for how to group up customers so you can treat them differently based on their situation, and failing to realize connections between customer activities and outcomes (like churn or renewal).</p>
<h4><b>Step 2: Segmentation</b></h4>
<p><img src="/static/images/blog/segmentation.jpg" style="max-width: 40%;float:left" />Segments are subsets of customers that share one or more meaningful characteristics, such as their value to your company or their usage behaviors. They serve as a basis for Customer Success programs that treat different groups of customers distinctly, or as triggers for risk-based alerts to CSMs. A segment is not a permanent list of customers — customers can jump between segments when their characteristics change. </p>
<p><b><i>Customer segmentation becomes more powerful when you can combine multiple kinds of customer data, such as application usage, subscription information, customer support, demographics, etc.</i></b> If you use a Customer Success Management app to create and save a list of “High Risk Enterprise Customers” that (1) are paying at least $2,500 MRR, (2) have completed implementation, but (3) have used your application less than four times in the last month, you are performing customer segmentation.</p>
<p>In a formal sense, segments would be defined as mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive — that is, every customer is a member of one and only one segment. But in practice, Customer Success teams often define overlapping groups of customers for complementary programs and outreach. For instance, a customer could be in an “onboarding” group that gets a series of predefined communications, and also a “low engagement risk” group that gets an offer of special 1:1 training.</p>
<p>Another flavor of segmentation that Customer Success teams utilize is a <i><u>cohort analysis</u></i>, for instance to see if customers who started after your big new product release or revamped onboarding program are performing better than their peers who started beforehand.</p>
<p>One limitation of this kind of analysis is that customer segmentation rules are often arbitrary in practice. For the “High Risk Enterprise Customers” example above, why is the segment defined as “less than 4” logins last month, and not 3 or 10? <i>Where is the meaningful distinction in logins, and for that matter, why use logins at all instead of some other usage metric?</i></p>
<p>Most Customer Success teams rely on their own judgment or their collective wisdom to define these segments. A perfectly fine starting point – nobody knows your customers better than you. But as we move up the ladder, we’ll see some techniques for uncovering the “right” segment criteria in your customer data.</p>
<h4><b>Step 3: Descriptive Insights</b></h4>
<p><img src="/static/images/blog/descriptive_insights.jpg" style="max-width: 40%;float:left" />This is where things start to get interesting. Descriptive insights expose useful customer knowledge that has been compiled from your underlying raw customer data. (Think <a href="http://klout.com/corp/score" target="_blank">Klout score</a>.) <b><i>These insights don’t predict anything per se, but they offer real meaning that's understandable at a glance.</i></b> But they tend to require a higher degree of difficulty in terms of data collection, analysis, and calculation.</p>
<p>A simple example is a visual badge that shows if a customer has "Good, Normal, or Bad" performance for a particular metric (e.g. Seat License Utilization) relative to its segment or relative to its own history. </p>
<p>Another example is <a href="http://www.frontleaf.com/" target="_blank">Frontleaf</a>’s Usage Intensity metric, which answers the question of which companies and people are your heaviest product users. Frontleaf takes all your application usage events and uses them to score customers on a scale of 1-10, with special provisions to smooth outliers and gradually weigh more recent usage more heavily than past usage. This is a useful insight because it’s immediately understandable, it’s thoughtfully constructed, and it hides all the messy details.</p>
<p>A last example is a Customer Health Index that uses any number of configurable data inputs to produce a single Red/Yellow/Green classification. There can be tremendous flexibility in setting up how the Index is calculated — which is good and bad. <b><i>Good because the Customer Success team can fully reflect their deep understanding of how customer health is represented within the data. Bad because if there are any biases or misunderstandings on the team, it will be reflected in the Health Index.</i></b> In other words — there isn’t any “learning” from the customer data.</p>
<p>There are other kinds of descriptive analyses that are in use by Customer Success teams. <i><u>Regression analysis</u></i> can be used to help figure out which customer metrics should go into a rules-based formula, by indicating which attributes are most strongly and uniquely correlated with past customer outcomes. <i><u>Survival analysis</u></i> models the amount of time it takes customers in different segments to reach certain stages, such as “inactive” or “cancelled”.</p>
<p>One last note: For any of these insights to be... well, insightful for Customer Success Managers, they will almost always reflect findings in <i><u>time series data</u></i>, such as how customers use your product or derive value from it over time (which is part of the reason they have a higher degree of difficulty). In customer data analytics, it’s <b><i>at least as important to understand how a customer's behavior or results are changing over time as it is to know there they stand at the present moment</i></b>.</p>
<h4><b>Step 4: Predictive Models</b></h4>
<p><img src="/static/images/blog/predictive_models.jpg" style="max-width: 40%;float:left" />There is a lot of great material out there about predictive analytics. And most of the time it’s applied to things that are not relevant to Customer Success teams, such as fraud detection or credit default. </p>
<p>When I talk to Customer Success practitioners, some ask for something that will <b><i>“tell me something about my customers that I don’t already know.”</i></b> A Customer Health Index is fine and good, but it’s just a handy and systematic way to reflect our own opinions, which many not be 100% accurate.</p>
<p>Predictive models offer the opportunity to break from the mold of rules-based insights — and instead to produce novel learnings from your data about which customers are likely to churn and why. You don’t need a predictive churn model to be perfectly accurate for it to be useful and provide a compelling ROI. It just needs to be better than what you are currently doing to identify and act on signs of customer risk.</p>
<p>Of course, deploying a predictive model comes fraught with the danger of getting things flat out wrong.</p>
<p>There is one fundamental requirement of predictive analytics for Customer Success — that you are able to <b><i>connect the outcomes you aim to predict (e.g. churn) with the activities you think may be predictive of them (e.g. product usage, customer relationship signals, etc), all in a single customer data set with a master customer ID</i></b>. There are a bunch of interesting things you can learn by analyzing customer activities without customer outcomes — however predicting churn is not one of them.</p>
<p>Now, there are all sorts of machine learning techniques and statistical models out there, but <b><i>the basic mechanics are the same whether you hire a data scientist, use a software application, or some combination</i></b>:</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Select the customer outcome</b> you want to predict, such as a cancellation, renewal, or upsell. </li>
<li><b>Gather your customer data inputs</b> (called model “features”) that you think may have explanatory power for the selected outcome — things like usage, support experience, customer milestones, relationships, surveys, etc. <i><u>This is where your customer understanding and intuition is most important.</u></i></li>
<li><b>Do the dirty work.</b> Preparing these data inputs, or model features, often takes massive data engineering efforts to collect, match up, massage, aggregate, transform, and even impute missing values of data from various sources. It may require tracking customer activities and creating customer data where none has existed before. This is definitely where the heavy lifting occurs and where predictive analysis efforts most often run into a brick wall. A rule of thumb I’ve heard from data scientists is that <i><u>80% of the work of developing a churn model is the data preparation</u></i>.</li>
<li><b>Choose which statistical model to use.</b> Okay, don’t worry, you don’t have to literally choose a model all by yourself. There are several in vogue with data scientists, with fancy names like Random Forests, Neural Networks, Markov Chains, and Bayesian methods. They vary in complexity and by when each is most useful. But <i><u>the bottom line is that they are just different techniques to solve the same problem</u></i>, and someone or something with technical knowledge — either your data analyst or your software application — will pick one (or will try a few). Assuming the data is good. For analysts, it's relatively easy to find the right statistical model to process a good data set, but it's usually impossible to compensate for a bad data set with a more sophisticated statistical model.</li>
<li>Now it's time to <b>crunch the numbers and check out the results</b>.</li>
</ul>
<p>So what are the results? The model will deliver findings for each customer in the form of either a flat out yes/no churn prediction, a probability of churn, a numerical risk score, or a risk classification such as high/medium/low.</p>
<p><i>Will such an exercise actually provide you any clear findings? If not, does that mean customer churn at your company is essentially random? If so, will you trust the results enough to start acting on them, even when they contradict your intuition? And if it really is a fairly repeatable process, with such potential benefits, why aren’t more Customer Success teams building statistical churn models?</i> </p>
<p>We’ll explore these questions in Part 2 of this series.</p>
<h4><b>Step 5: Prescriptive Action Plans</b></h4>
<p><img src="/static/images/blog/prescriptive_action_plans.jpg" style="max-width: 40%;float:left" />The final step on our data analytics ladder is to use machine learning to indicate which types of customer-facing outreach, programs, or playbooks are most effective at mitigating churn risk for a particular customer. </p>
<p>Suppose your churn model classifies a customer as high-risk. A prescriptive action plan would then recommend a specific set of customer-facing actions, based on (1) the underlying reasons the customer is at risk, along with (2) the history of which actions have been most effective at mitigating churn risk for similar customers in the past. </p>
<p>Of course, many companies have defined Customer Success playbooks and have set up business rules to apply each of them in specific situations, such as when a customer is flagged for signs of poor onboarding or low engagement. </p>
<p>What makes a prescriptive action plan different is that it <b><i>employs a model similar to a recommendations engine in order to match at-risk customers to playbooks</i></b>, and automatically evolves its recommendations based on measuring what happened to similar customers that received that playbook in the past (e.g. did their churn risk return from elevated to normal?).</p>
<p>However, there is a major requirement before attempting something like this. <b><i>You need to standardize and track all of your team’s customer-facing activities and programs.</i></b> Without a lot of specificity and uniformity around customer playbooks, it just won’t work. This may feel uncomfortable or cumbersome for many Customer Success teams, or necessitate new kinds of intelligent applications like <a href="http://www.relateiq.com/" target="_blank">RelateIQ</a> for automatically tracking communications. In any case, it’s pushing the envelope.</p>
<p>Looking across the SaaS industry, I have seen almost no examples of prescriptive action plans that are fully implemented and running on autopilot. They represent the top of the data analytics ladder, something for all of us to shoot for as our Customer Success practices mature.</p>
<h3>Wrapping Up & Coming Next</h3>
<p>Customer Success teams are more data savvy than ever, and are utilizing data analytics to get an edge in their efforts at customer retention. I’ve categorized the wide variety of data analysis in practice by Customer Success teams today into a <b>5-Step Data Analytics Ladder for Customer Success</b>:</p>
<ol>
<li>Summarization</li>
<li>Segmentation</li>
<li>Descriptive Insights</li>
<li>Predictive Models</li>
<li>Prescriptive Action Plans</li>
</ol>
<p>Customer Success teams are scrambling their way up this ladder, with the help of their friendly data analysts that work down the hallway as well as rapidly evolving and specialized software solutions. In the second part of this series, I’ll describe five challenges Customer Success teams face as they ascend the data analytics ladder, and I’ll give you my take on how to overcome them.</p>Looking to Break into Customer Success? Here’s What Employers Are After.blog/tips-for-breaking-into-customer-success2014-07-21T16:30:00Z2014-07-21T16:30:00ZRachel EnglishEager to know what hiring companies are looking for in a Customer Success Manager? Or how you can best prepare your application materials and interview strategy so you have the best shot at landing that dream Customer Success job? We've got fascinating study results and actionable tips for you!<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/breakthrough.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><p>Recently, I was lucky to be given the opportunity to do a Q&A with <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/104728223469733708031/about" target="_blank">Jay Ivey</a>, CRM researcher at <a href="http://www.softwareadvice.com/crm/" target="_blank">Software Advice</a>, a trusted site for CRM software review and comparisons that help buyers identify the right systems. Jay had just published a study on <i>What Employers Look for in a Customer Success Manager</i>. His research entailed systematically analyzing a random sample of 300 job listings for Customer Success Management titles from companies of all sizes, seeking out commonalities and patterns.
I was curious, after reading Jay’s excellent write-up, about a few things, such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>What’s the secret sauce that a Customer Success Manager applicant should boast about?</li>
<li>Since Customer Success is still the new kid on the block, do CSMs get to do a lot of “new” things?</li>
<li>Do CSMs usually have to sell?
<p></li>
</ul>
<p>Read on for Jay’s insightful answers to those and more questions from me, as well as <a href="#takeaways">three specific tips for landing your next Customer Success gig</a>.</p>
<h3>The Q&A</h3>
<h5><b>Me</b>:</h5>
<blockquote>What advice would you give someone looking to enter the Customer Success field? What kinds of skills and/or experiences should they try to gain or highlight in the application process? What would make their application stand out from the pack?</blockquote>
<h5><b>Jay</b>:</h5>
<blockquote>Employers are looking for a remarkably wide range of qualities and experience in candidates, but we did see two major trends underlying most of the listings:
<p> </p>
First, employers want applicants to have experience interfacing directly with clients, preferably at the executive level. So if you’re a consultant, for instance, and you once delivered a presentation to C-suite level clients… that would definitely be something to emphasize.
<p> </p>
Second, employers want applicants with a technical side (in addition to those customer-facing skills). Having a technical degree, experience at a SaaS company, competency with CRM systems or (increasingly) Customer Success Management platforms like <a href="http://www.frontleaf.com/" target="_blank">Frontleaf</a> — these are all big pluses.</blockquote>
<h5><b>Me</b>:</h5>
<blockquote>Given that Customer Success is a relatively new practice, did you find evidence that the hiring companies would be looking to these new hires to create new processes, help build new teams, and otherwise innovate in the Customer Success arena? If so, what kinds of evidence?</blockquote>
<h5><b>Jay</b>:</h5>
<blockquote>The fact that many employers were looking for candidates with several years of account management experience at the executive level might suggest that they wanted to bring in CSMs they could trust to take complete ownership of the Customer Success process, including team-building. But relatively few listings specifically requested people management experience, so it’s hard to say.</blockquote>
<h5><b>Me</b>:</h5>
<blockquote>What proportion of the listings would you say included at least some sales component or responsibility? How would a potential applicant best be able to tell whether or not the role is quota carrying?</blockquote>
<h5><b>Jay</b>:</h5>
<blockquote>Thirty percent of the listings specifically requested candidates with sales experience, although many of those also requested other types of experience as well. However, far more included some kind of sales-related component somewhere in the job description, although we didn’t collect data regarding the exact percentage.
<p> </p>
Employers who specifically mention upselling or exclusively request sales experience will be more likely to require CSM’s to meet quotas. However, the only way to be certain would be to ask directly during an interview.</blockquote>
<h5><b>Me</b>:</h5>
<blockquote>What findings from the study most surprised you, and why?</blockquote>
<h5><b>Jay</b>:</h5>
<blockquote>It was somewhat surprising to see how, of those listings that requested a degree in a specific field of study, just as many requested technical degrees (computer science, engineering, MIS etc.) as requested traditional business degrees. With so much emphasis on client-facing experience, as well as customer support and sales skills, it was interesting to see that SaaS employers in particular are still very serious about hiring candidates with the technical backgrounds to really understand their products, communicate technical concepts to customers, and interface with internal development if needed.</blockquote>
<h5><b>Me</b>:</h5>
<blockquote>Why do you think there is such a wide range of qualifications and required experience across the 300 job listings you studied?</blockquote>
<h5><b>Jay</b>:</h5>
<blockquote>Good question. I think this has to do with the infancy of the role and with how different companies have very different ideas about what a Customer Success Manager should be. Some of these companies think “Customer Success Manager” is just the latest buzzword for account manager. Others clearly want CSMs to be salespeople first, whereas others still want CSMs to represent the voice of the customer.</blockquote>
<p><a name="takeaways"> </a></p>
<h3>The Takeaways</h3>
<p>Are you polishing up your game plan and résumé in hopes of breaking into the exciting Customer Success world? Or preparing to take your next step up the Customer Success ladder? From reading Jay’s <a href="http://blog.softwareadvice.com/articles/crm/customer-success-manager-job-analysis-0614/" target="_blank">findings and conclusions</a>, getting the chance to ask him further questions, and my own experiences hiring Customer Success Managers and talking with Customer Success Leaders, here are my top tips for you:</p>
<h4><b>Tip #1</b>:</h4>
<p>Learn all you possibly can about the hiring company and its software offering(s). That’s good advice for any job search, but it’s especially true for Customer Success roles, where the employer will expect you to be able to quickly become an expert guide for your customers. Demonstrating that you can do so even before getting hired is a huge bonus. And don’t stop at just reading up. Get yourself a free trial version of their application, and be ready to speak to its capabilities, supporting resources, and customer experience.</p>
<h4><b>Tip #2</b>:</h4>
<p>Talk up your past customer interactions. Include some examples of struggles, and highlight stories with great outcomes. Don’t make up tales, but do tell honest anecdotes about times you handled a difficult customer or tricky situation with grace, helped a customer achieve and recognize value, or turned a retention risk firedrill into an upsell and reference.</p>
<h4><b>Tip #3</b>:</h4>
<p>Become an expert in – or at least familiarize yourself with – Customer Success Management software solutions, such as <a href="http://www.frontleaf.com/" target="_blank">Frontleaf</a>. Then show off your knowledge of how to do Customer Success right by bringing all customer data sources into a holistic view to understand, classify and engage customers and to evaluate and scale customer programs.
<p> </p>
What are the lessons you’ve learned in perusing Customer Success job listings or going on CSM interviews? We’d love to hear from you!</p>Customer Success for Ninjas: Tips for Scaling Customer Onboarding (& Walls!)blog/customer-success-for-ninjas-product-management2014-06-19T16:30:00Z2014-06-19T16:30:00ZRachel EnglishThe new customer onboarding phase is a unique opportunity to leverage a personal touch to create early value and a lasting positive relationship. But that makes is tricky to scale! If you’re stuck trying to build or adjust your onboarding operation for better scalability, here are five effective tactics to the rescue.<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/wall.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><p>When I ask Customer Success practitioners at all levels what is the most important priority for their team, it’s common to hear that <b><i>successfully onboarding new customers is at or near the top of the list</i></b>. And even those who feel they have a good process in place, or are onto something that will work, often wonder aloud how they’ll manage to sustain it as their incoming customer flow grows and their onboarding team does not.</p>
<p>In most cases, the initial stage of a SaaS customer’s lifecycle warrants the highest level of individual attention. During onboarding, the focus is on ensuring that each customer...</p>
<ul>
<li>Gets lots of personal love right out of the gates,</li>
<li>Is properly set up to achieve top-notch value quickly,</li>
<li>Is enabled to get ongoing returns from using the application, and</li>
<li>Is therefore likely to be retained as a customer in the long run.
<p></li>
</ul>
<p>But coming from that sound mindset, it can be difficult to find ways to scale such a process. If you’re stuck trying to build or adjust your onboarding operation for better scalability, here are five effective tactics to the rescue.</p>
<h3>1) Use your customer data to learn what really matters.</h3>
<p>In order to make well-founded decisions on how best to scale, you need to know:</p>
<p>A. What are your onboarding customers doing…</p>
<ul>
<li>In the application</li>
<li>In terms of results achieved</li>
<li>In scheduling or attending coaching sessions</li>
<li>In providing feedback on surveys</li>
<li>In their interactions with support</li>
<li>In their consumption of self-service resources</li>
<li>In any way you can track
<p></li>
</ul>
<p>B. Do any of those factors, in isolation or combination, correlate with customers...</p>
<ul>
<li>Gaining first value from the application the most quickly,</li>
<li>Establishing a positive trend of results that continues to improve over time, and/or</li>
<li>Sticking around and renewing!
<p></li>
</ul>
<p>C. If so, then you’ve got an important finding to act on. Now you need to answer: Which of those factors can best be bolstered by 1:1 interactions in the early days, and which can be approached from a lower-touch, more automated methodology?</p>
<p>Okay, so those are complicated questions to answer… but it can be done! The key is bringing as many as possible of the various customer data streams together in one place, then doing analysis from that holistic viewpoint to explore the correlations. (Shameless plug: I can personally recommend <a href="http://www.frontleaf.com/" target="_blank">Frontleaf</a> as ideally suited for the job!) With the right solution that offers flexible integrations and intuitive visualizations, you don’t need a PhD in Statistics to find important trends, patterns, and opportunities to fine tune the balance of your onboarding programs for greater scalability.</p>
<h3>2) Encourage, remind, beg, cajole, and incent your new customers to utilize self-service resources <font size=-1>(Knowledge Base, User Community, Ideas Forum, Recorded Trainings, Best Practices Papers, etc.)</font>.</h3>
<p>Sound repetitive? It is. Most customers, especially while they have a personal connection to reach out to, will skip doing any initial problem solving themselves. This is natural, and onboarding coaches should never brush their customers off, or just point them to a resource and leave it at that. But every time a question is answered, support ticket is resolved, or coaching session is facilitated, always include gentle reminders of where and how to find the information the next time. Even if you’ve said it before, and even if you’re likely to again.</p>
<p>Establish the self-serve habit up front. The more your onboarding customers learn to serve themselves and love doing so during their onboarding phase, the less they’ll be leaning on support down the road, after their personal coach might no longer be as available to them.</p>
<p>And it goes without saying: Ensure your self-service resources are stellar, well organized, easy to access, searchable, and up to date. If not, no amount of pleading will get your customers to utilize them.</p>
<h3>3) Consider what aspects of your onboarding flow could be managed in customer cohorts vs. individual touchpoints.</h3>
<p>At a previous SaaS company, we had an initial call – dubbed the Welcome Wagon – with each new customer individually within a day of their purchase. This served to thank, welcome, and orient them, and help them understand next steps. After that, they participated in weekly calls together with other customers who had started the same week. In those cohort coaching calls, we walked them through the typical onboarding, training, and best practices as they were getting up to speed on the application. Our finding: not only could we accommodate more customers with fewer coaches, but the customers also interacted with and learned from each other, and reported enjoying doing so.</p>
<p>We also created a specialized online Onboarding Forum, closely monitored by our most senior Customer Success team members, and accessible only to customers in the midst of their onboarding phase. It housed a combination of onboarding-specific FAQs, dialogues between customers at similar companies and/or facing similar implementation scenarios, technical tips pertinent to getting set up properly, and so on. Much of the information was available in our broader Knowledge Base, but this special forum was designed to distill that into what mattered most at the outset, and make the information very easy to find and interact with.</p>
<h3>4) Make scheduling stupidly simple.</h3>
<p>It seems mundane, but I’ve always found that one of the aspects of onboarding – or of any 1:1 business interactions, really – that gets everyone the most bogged down is the trickiness of scheduling. Luckily, there are tools available to help (such as <a href="http://www.doodle.com/" target="_blank">Doodle</a>), and more and more of them every day. Look for a solution that makes it easy and transparent for customers to see when their coaches are available for calls, automatically offer time options to book them, provide quick ways to update or reschedule appointments, etc. Obliterating this hurdle can mean night and day in terms of productiveness for your team and seamlessness for your customers.</p>
<h3>5) Get comfortable with the fact that some aspects of onboarding cannot and should not be scaled.</h3>
<p>For many SaaS applications, new customers need, deserve, and benefit greatly from at least a little personal touch and guidance at the outset. This is not a bad thing. As we all know, you can make or break a customer’s entire lifecycle experience just by virtue of their initial opinion on the personality, knowledge, accessibility, helpfulness and responsiveness of the people they are interacting with in the early days. So don’t shortchange the importance of putting the right people in that role, empowering them to fulfill it with excellence, and staffing up when needed. Just look for ways to scale – using the tips above or others – so that every single interaction doesn’t fall on their shoulders and they can manage more and more customers per coach over time.</p>Customer Success for Ninjas: How to Command (the Attention of) Your Product Teamblog/customer-success-for-ninjas-product-management2014-06-16T16:30:00Z2014-06-16T16:30:00ZTom KrackelerEver struggled to get buy-in for customer needs among product owners? Here’s an action plan for working respectfully with Product Management to ensure a Customer Success agenda is reflected in your company’s application roadmap.<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/mind_control.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><blockquote>“Heck, I know how our product works better than Product Management does. Why should I have any confidence you guys will deliver what my customers need to be successful?”
<br><font size="-1">— Frustrated Customer Success Manager</font></blockquote>
<p>I’ve heard variations of this statement many times over the years in my SaaS product leadership roles, and I can empathize. At too many companies, <b><i>Customer Success leaders have struggled to get their rightful seat at the table for the Product Council meetings</i></b>.</p>
<p>When the big product roadmap decisions get made and software development capacity gets allocated, CSMs are stuck hearing about it afterwards. Even though they often represent the most accurate knowledge of how the company’s customer base uses (or struggles with) the product.</p>
<h3>CS & PM: The Disconnect</h3>
<p><b><i>Customer Success Managers live where the rubber hits the road — where a real customer with real goals, bosses, and deadlines, needs to use your company's product to get their job done.</i></b> CSMs know how to steer customers to the right product capabilities and away from trouble. They’re familiar with the product's “known issues” and all the best workarounds. Often better than anyone else at their company.</p>
<p>On the other hand, <b><i>Product Managers often can’t get to that level of practical knowledge</i></b>, even with their best efforts. They are hearing from the exec team that they need to “get out of the weeds” and be more strategic. They are asked by their bosses to manage their product like an investment portfolio, to apply the best practices of product positioning, competitive analysis, market research, and pricing optimization in order to yield the highest return on the software development investment.</p>
<p>On top of that, PMs often receive disparate feedback from various customers and CSMs, often to the point where these requests start to cancel themselves out. Plus, PMs may be be highly influenced by a small number of big enterprise customers that they’ve spent 1:1 time with, perhaps as part of a customer steering committee for a new set of features. Now, good PMs closely watch the company's Ideas boards (if they have them) for customer feedback, and some are able to analyze usage data to draw inferences about the product's effectiveness.</p>
<p>But in general, <b><i>CSMs attain a unique product/customer expertise that Product Managers can’t match</i></b>. And many companies fail to fully take advantage of this fact, and neglect to prioritize Customer Success efforts via the product roadmap.</p>
<h3>Bridge the Gap</h3>
<p>Considering all of this, it’s not surprising that there is often a disconnect between CSMs and PMs. This doesn’t have to be the case. <b><i>You, as the CSM, can bridge this gap, command the respect of the PM team, and drive a Customer Success agenda at Product Council.</i></b></p>
<p>But it’s on you to make the first move.</p>
<p>The good news is that many PMs want nothing more than to enhance their product line to truly meet the needs of existing customers and turn them into full-throated customer advocates. But more often than not, they are being asked to change the product to win the big deal, outflank competitors, and enable penetration of new market segments. And this soaks up most of their time and energy.</p>
<p>How do you overcome these obstacles? </p>
<p>Do some of the hard work yourself and <b><i>make it easy for Product Management to drive a Customer Success agenda</i></b>. Now don’t laugh or dismiss out of hand... but this can be done most effectively through a Customer & Product Success Working Group.</p>
<h3>Customer & Product Success Working Group</h3>
<p>Oh no, not another committee?!! Don’t worry this one will be cool, strategic, and effective. Just follow these steps:</p>
<h4><b>Step 1: Convene the Group</b></h4>
<ul>
<li>Find an ambitious, customer-focused Product Manager to serve as your partner.</li>
<li>Jointly convene the group. </li>
<li>It should include representatives from Customer Success, Renewals Team, Support, ProServ, Product Management, and Engineering.</li>
<li>Also get exec sponsorship from the VPs of Customer Service, Product Management, and Engineering.</li>
<li>Get C-level visibility by having the exec sponsors announce it at the weekly exec meeting.</li>
</ul>
<h4><b>Step 2: Define the Charter</b></h4>
<ul>
<li>The charter of the group should be to <b><i>speak in a single, clear voice for a Customer Success agenda at Product Council</i></b>.</li>
<li>And do it in a way that helps the Product team be more effective!</li>
<li>The group can also give hands-on feedback for current product development efforts.</li>
</ul>
<h4><b>Step 3: Do the Hard Work</b></h4>
<ul>
<li>It’s not the job of the group to inventory and prioritize all the bugs and enhancement requests that frustrate customers. Many of the participants will try to go there — be sure to avoid it.</li>
<li>Instead, you need to define the product objectives and high-level requirements that enable your ideal customer to get the full value from your company’s existing product.</li>
<li>This is very hard, and sometimes messy. It requires making tough tradeoffs. It requires knowing your ideal customer and favoring their product use scenarios at the expense of other, less “important” customer segments.</li>
<li>It helps to bring data to the table. Bonus points if you can use detailed Customer Survey data, or better yet, product usage analytics to understand exactly where product dissatisfaction and disengagement arise.</li>
<li>Sometimes it helps to do an exercise where everyone has 100 points to allocate across one or more of a dozen product improvement themes, just to see where consensus lies.</li>
<li>In the end you should aim to <b><i>articulate 3-5 key product improvement objectives that most effectively move the needle on customer satisfaction and retention</i></b>. This is the language the product leadership understands, and it makes their job much easier to get it in this form with the blessing of an entire customer service department.</li>
</ul>
<p>Here is an example of a good output product objective this working group might come up with for an HR Job Recruiting application:</p>
<blockquote>“Increase the percentage of job interviews conducted where the interviewer enters their notes into the app to more than 75%.”</blockquote>
<p>This product objective may be based on the following findings:</p>
<ul>
<li>Use of the “interview notes” feature is highly correlated with customer retention vs. churn.</li>
<li>It’s a product area with a large number of existing bugs reported.</li>
<li>Customer surveys may indicate this feature is confusing or frustrating.</li>
<li>Poor design of the feature blocks adoption of the application from additional users outside the power users in the HR department.</li>
<li>“75% interview notes recorded” provides an objective and measurable goal.</li>
<li>It does not try to specify implementation details that are better left to the product and engineering teams.</li>
</ul>
<p>Now why spend time on something like this as a CSM? Isn’t this stepping outside of your job function and into the world of Product Management? Yes, that may be true, but won’t <b><i>you get more bang for the buck from product improvements than by expertly coaching your customers on workarounds</i></b>?</p>
<p>Convening a Customer & Product Success Working Group is a creative way to get real movement on what’s most important for your customers. Is it still possible that your company lands a huge new enterprise account that sucks up all the product development capacity? Of course, those things happen. But this approach is guaranteed to earn you the respect of the PM team (and probably your execs), and is your best chance to have a Customer Success agenda reflected in your company’s product roadmap.</p>Converting from Customer Service to Customer Successblog/converting-to-customer-success2014-06-05T16:30:00Z2014-06-05T16:30:00ZRachel EnglishHave you been inspired or asked to reinvent an existing Customer Service team and make it over as a Customer Success operation instead? Here are three driving mottos to rally your team around through such a conversion process.<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/change.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><p>Is it time for a change? Have you been inspired or asked to reinvent an existing Customer Service team and make it over as a Customer Success operation instead? I’ve talked with many leaders in that exact position, and have led such transitions myself. And I often get asked: How does one go about it? What are the organizing principles for turning a “traditional” SaaS customer service team (usually including some combination of support reps, trainers, implementation managers, and account managers) into a high-functioning Customer Success team?</p>
<p>Here are three driving mottos that I’ve leaned on and rallied my team around to manage such a conversion process in past Customer Success leadership roles. [Spoiler Alert: <b>Empowerment is the key!</b>]</p>
<h3>Everyone Owns the Customer, All the Time, Period</h3>
<p>Each individual team member still had a primary focus – delivering training, responding to support tickets, guiding customers through onboarding, securing renewals and upsells, etc. But roles were highly fluid, and our <b>approach was very holistic</b>. If an inbound support ticket indicated a need for training, the support agent would deliver that training themselves by whatever means necessary. (Worried that’s not part of your agents’ skillset? Rest assured: all of your team members have expertise to share and should be encouraged to unleash it.) If a certain “trigger” was tripped – ex. a customer was showing signs of risk such as a decreasing usage trend or plateau in results – all team members were aware, and several were directly enlisted with responsibilities to course correct, with a main owner streamlining communications with the customer.</p>
<p>Although this might seem intuitive on the surface, expect it to feel unnatural at first. Remember, the team was accustomed to and protected by a certain way of defining their roles – where their responsibilities began and ended, and how and when to hand off. <b>They’ll need to adjust to a new sense of ownership and to new ways of measuring their own effectiveness.</b> (See notes on metrics below.) You’ll know it’s working when you have team members coming to you and asking if they can stay closely engaged with a customer even though their support issue has been resolved, and as you receive fewer and fewer customer complaints about bumpy hand-offs and crossed wires.</p>
<h3>Everyone Owns the Knowledge</h3>
<p>We committed to delivering very high-touch service to the customers we could tell or anticipate needed it at the moment – those who might be struggling to achieve value, traversing a lifecycle “pothole”, or otherwise trending in a direction that indicated risk. The trade-off was steering the vast majority of customers whenever possible to self-service resources: a comprehensive knowledge base, interactive ideas forum, active user community, library of recorded trainings, etc. So we had a very strong <b>focus on providing seamless access to those resources, and on continuously creating and improving them</b>.</p>
<p>Once again, all members of the team were owners of this initiative, with <b>full empowerment to write and update materials and propose structural changes</b>. Primary responsibility for moderating our user community rotated weekly among all team members (including leadership), as did our ongoing “3R: Resource Research & Repair” project. That project involved investigation into what our users were searching for, the results of those searches, what they were interacting with, and whether or not they then opened a support ticket. The team member assigned for the week would identify one “problem” in such a flow and fix it by adding, updating, or restructuring resources. We were amazed at the kinds of issues we were able to uncover and preempt with this simple, continuous research task, and at the <b>immediate and significant reduction in support burden</b> we were able to achieve through doing so. For example, one team member noted that users who searched our resources for “create form” were served 42 resulting matches, would usually click on just one or two of those matches, and would almost always subsequently open a support ticket for help with forms functionality. Simply combining, revising, and retagging several of the resource items gave our users a clear path to get their own help, and resulted in a drastic decline in new support tickets of that type.</p>
<p>And one more item worth mentioning in this area (because I find it’s not often the case): our <b>Product Documentation team of technical writers was part of our Customer Success team</b>. This meant that literally everything our customers had available to them to learn about our application was centrally and holistically owned – we considered it one large body of work, measured our customers’ engagement with all of it, and continuously iterated on it.</p>
<h3>Everyone Owns the Metrics</h3>
<p>We had a standing agenda item on every team member’s weekly one-on-one meeting to ensure that they understood <b>how their day-to-day work was impacting and could help to improve each of the KPIs we were measuring</b>. Ours included: quarterly and annual gross revenue churn, implementation completion timelines, customer health ratios, support ticket and training session ratings, and NPS survey results. All metrics were <b>available in real-time via dashboards</b> and reported weekly, including targets and trends. And <i>all</i> team members were responsible for <i>all</i> of them, not just for the one or two that mapped directly to their primary role.</p>
<h3>It’s All About Empowerment</h3>
<p>The obvious theme here?: Empowerment. It’s not just a tenet of good leadership, it’s specifically applicable and critical in the Customer Success world. <b>The more you can effectively empower all members of your team to serve your customers and take ownership of their success, and the better you can empower your customers to serve themselves and to achieve fantastic results, the greater the value generated for both your customers and your company.</b> It’s a win-win.</p>
<h3>Experiences to Share?</h3>
<p>What guiding principles have you relied on to lead a conversion from a “traditional” SaaS customer service model into a Customer Success operation, or to restructure or manage a Customer Success team? Please share any thoughts on the ideas here, as well as your team mottos and how you’ve put them into practice.</p>3 Smooth Moves in Applying the Customer Success Mindsetblog/customer-success-smooth-moves2014-05-27T16:30:00Z2014-05-27T16:30:00ZTom KrackelerCustomer Success is becoming ingrained in the daily operations of more Software-as-a-Service companies every day. Here are three examples of how applying the Customer Success mindset is great for your customers and great for your company.<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/smooth_move.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><p>Customer Success is becoming ingrained in the daily operations of more Software-as-a-Service companies every day. This is very good news. I’m not talking about Customer Success as a team or a technology — but rather as a mindset, a culture, a way of thinking and doing business. It’s the recognition that you need to continue to earn your customers' business every month, and that you should harness the same creativity and discipline that you use to build, market, and sell your product. Here are three examples of how applying the Customer Success mindset is great for your customers and great for your company.</p>
<h3>Smooth Move #1: Own Your Mistakes</h3>
<p>“We got this one wrong.” So said the subject line of an email that the CEO of Buffer, Joel Gascoigne, sent a couple weeks ago to his tens of thousands of customers. Buffer is an application that lets you easily snag content from websites and blogs, then write and schedule tweets about it. They'd just come out with a nice, time-saving feature called “Feeds” that lets you pull all content directly to your Buffer dashboard, and requires upgrading from a free to a paid subscription plan. So far so good.</p>
<p>The catch: with the entry-level subscription plan, you were only allowed to pull a single blog into your Buffer Feed. Kind of useless, and reeked of a bait-and-switch to force customers up to the higher-level subscription plans. And not surprisingly, it ticked off a bunch of Buffer customers. Here’s how Joel replied the next day as part of that email (<b><i>bold italics</i></b> are mine):</p>
<blockquote>I wanted to get in touch to let you know that <b><i>we messed up here</i></b>. We’ve increased the limits from 1 feed on Awesome and 10 feeds on Business plans, to 15 feeds on Awesome and Business plans.
<p> <p>
Many of you wrote emails, Tweets and blog comments to let us know that we had gotten it wrong, and <b><i>I can’t thank you enough for taking the time out of your day to do that. We’re lucky that so many of you care enough to take that step and share your thoughts and expertise.</i></b>
<p> <p>
<b><i>Sorry for letting you down here.</i></b> We’re excited to keep making Feeds and Buffer as a whole much better over time. Thanks again for all your support. If you want to ask anything or have any more thoughts at all, hit reply to this email and we’ll be sure to respond quickly. :-)</blockquote>
<p>In doing this, Joel and the Buffer team:</p>
<ul>
<li>Showed they were listening</li>
<li>Showed they cared</li>
<li>Came across as genuine, as a real person not a faceless company</li>
<li>Opened up a dialog with their customers</li>
</ul>
<p>All things that strengthen a customer’s bond with a company. So by applying a Customer Success mindset, Buffer turned this pricing/packaging error from a PR mess into what I’m quite sure will be a net-positive outcome for the company (and actually does a better job of marketing their new Feeds feature than typical marketing tactics).</p>
<h3>Smooth Move #2: Nothing Beats Smart Onboarding</h3>
<p>Many SaaS companies strive for a touchless experience when you try, buy, and use their application. The thinking goes: “Its scalable!” “Who wants to talk to sales people?.” “Look at what Atlassian does!” </p>
<p>Building an easy, self-service SaaS product is of course a good thing. However, taking a hands off approach when your customers are trying to figure out how to use your application and whether to buy it — that’s a lost opportunity, and one that leads to customer churn down the road.</p>
<p><a href="http://constantcontact.com" target="_blank">Constant Contact</a> sells email and marketing software for as low as $20 per month. But as soon as you start to kick the tires with their application, one of their friendly “coaches” immediately reaches out to see how they can help. Maybe it’s getting your list imported, or setting up your first email campaign, or getting your display template designed, or pointing you to some best practices... you name it. However, two things they are NOT doing:</p>
<ol>
<li>They are not asking you for an order, and</li>
<li>They are not trying to set land speed records for quickly they can “close out” your issue. </li>
</ol>
<p>Another example of smart onboarding program is from <a href="http://influitive.com" target="_blank">Influitive</a>, a SaaS marketing application that lets companies organize and motivate their customers to advocate on their behalf. Influitive assigns an Advocacy Coach to all new customers for a <a href="http://influitive.com/blog/customer-onboarding/" target="_blank">structured, 5-step program</a>. The nifty part: Influitive enrolls their new customers in their own advocate “VIP” program — a win-win move that lets the customer experience best practices from an advocate’s perspective as well be on the ready to advocate for Influitive, itself.</p>
<p>The end result from these two examples of smart onboarding? Higher conversion rates, higher customer satisfaction, and lower churn. Constant Contact can make this model work with pricing plans at $20 and $45 per month. Influitive has found a way to train its own customers by getting them to advocate on its behalf in social media and other channels. If there is one time where a little extra personal touch and a little extra creativity really pay off, it’s during that window of time when your customer is first figuring out how to use and gain value from your product.</p>
<h3>Smooth Move #3: Celebrate Your Customers' Wins</h3>
<blockquote>We noticed you had some terrific fundraising results last week. Congratulations! You’re really accomplishing great things using Convio Common Ground.
<p> <p>
P.S. Let us know if you want to share how you did it with others in our customer community.</blockquote>
<p>Another opportunity for demonstrating a Customer Success mindset is when your customer gets strong results using your product. We sent this email at Convio to customers of our mid market application, which enabled charities and nonprofits to engage supporters and raise funds.</p>
<p>We did it by measuring the customer's weekly donations and comparing them to the rolling average of their weekly donation levels for the last month. A 3x spike triggered a personalized congratulatory auto-email to our primary contact for that customer organization. Once we got this working, we added a few wrinkles to handle things like variation from seasonality and new accounts. And we added a personal phone call on top of the auto-email for our highest value customers.</p>
<p>This accomplished a number of very positive things. It showed we were paying attention and we were rooting for our customers to succeed. It clearly demonstrated the value they were gaining from using our application, and gave them a specific example to rally around. Sometimes it was the start of a back-and-forth that let us share more deeply in our customers' successes. It also provided a way for us to identify potential references and customer advocates.</p>
<p>Now, depending on your product and your target market, sending a note when your customers accomplish something excellent with your application may not make sense, but I’d recommend it for companies whose product can be a part of delivering what feels like a “win” for its customers.</p>
<h3>To Wrap Up</h3>
<p>As the Customer Success mindset continues to permeate all our business operations, we’ll see companies applying more resources, smarts, creativity, and rapid responses to the mission of delivering and demonstrating real business value to their customers month after month. And like in the examples above, we’ll see that the benefits flow both to the customers and to the companies themselves.</p>Keeping the Dogs Awake: How to Measure & Prove Customer Valueblog/circle-of-success-42014-04-03T12:00:00Z2014-04-03T12:00:00ZRachel EnglishIt’s definitely in your best interest to keep your customers from becoming "sleeping dogs". Make it your mission to continually measure the value your customers are gaining from your product, and to demonstrate that value to them simply and often.<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/sleepy_puppies.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><p>You know those customers who just keep paying their monthly fees or renewing their annual contracts even though they aren’t really utilizing your application much (or at all), aren’t achieving any results, and don’t really seem to notice? Sure, every SaaS company has at least a few of those, and the typical approach for customers like that is to “let sleeping dogs lie.” Why poke them, right, if they’re content to stay on in apparent blissful ignorance? And it may seem like a great strategy to continue accepting their revenue when they usually require little to no attention. Until they wake up – then they tend to bite (and those stitches can be costly!), or run away, or both. So it’s definitely in your best interest to keep your customers from becoming sleeping dogs in the first place. But how?</p>
<p>As discussed in <a href="../circle-of-success-2">a previous post</a>, it’s important to gather and analyze data on what your customers are doing and what they’re saying in order to understand whether they’re likely to continue their business relationship with your company. And it is even more critical that you – and your customers – have a clear line of sight into what they’re accomplishing with your application. <b>Make it your mission to continually measure the value your customers are gaining from your product, and to demonstrate that value to them simply and often.</b> If you provide a human resources recruiting tool, are your customers hiring better job applicants more quickly and easily by using it? And can you prove it? It’s time to get crystal clear about your Customer Value Indicators, because you can’t afford to wait until after a customer churns to ask why.</p>
<blockquote>“Simply put, when realization of value stops, that customer is already gone; and as a SaaS provider you are in a unique position to actively monitor for threats and stop your customers from getting to that point.”
<br><font size="-1">(from <i><a href="http://sandhill.com/article/saas-providers-growth-requires-proactive-customer-retention" target=new>SaaS Providers: Growth Requires Proactive Customer Retention</a></i>, a blog post by Lincoln Murphy on Sand Hill)</font></blockquote>
<p>Let’s start with a definition:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Customer Value Indicators</strong> – Signs or patterns, in the form of metrics, actions, events, or attributes, that are generally correlated with customers attaining value from your application.</li>
</ul>
<p>In our <a href="../circle-of-success-1">discussion of Business Outcome Indicators</a>, we used a scientific method approach: start with a question, form a hypothesis, experiment. That’s a helpful framework for zeroing in on Customer Value Indicators, as well. Let’s work through an example, from the perspective of a fictitious HR recruiting product:</p>
<p><strong>Question: What are the signs that a customer is gaining value from our application by improving the efficiency of their hiring process?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Hypothesis: If a customer reduces the average time from when a job req is submitted to when it’s posted, their hiring process is becoming more efficient.</strong></p>
<p>You’ll note that “improving the efficiency of hiring process” came straight out of the Customer Value definition statement we spelled out in the <a href="../circle-of-success-3">previous post in this series</a>. Always start by mining your Customer Value definition statement for the basis of your approach – your customers’ goals.</p>
<p>You’ll also notice that usage patterns such as number of logins, time in application, features used, and number of users are <i>not</i> included in that Customer Value definition statement, and should <i>not</i> be your primary Customer Value Indicators. While <i>you</i> may be interested in those factors as secondary signs of value, your customers are not, and they won’t be measuring their success by such metrics.</p>
<p>In previous articles, comments, and conversations, I’ve referred to the importance of measuring both Product Usage and Results Metrics. And I’ve had people ask me: What’s the difference, and do I really need to be concerned with both? If product usage is stellar – if my customer is logging in every day, using advanced functionality, and adding users – can’t I assume that they are an extremely low churn risk? And I say: Yes, sure. <i>If</i> you’re willing to wager your revenue on an assumption. You might have a good idea of what your customer is doing, but what about <i>how</i> they’re doing? Are they getting the results they signed up for, and can you demonstrate those results?</p>
<h3>Time to Experiment</h3>
<p>Now that you’ve asked your question and turned it into a hypothesis, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get dirty in the data. What do you need to show your customer to prove to them that they are achieving their goals? Here are three types of patterns to be on the lookout for:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>Trends</strong> – Results that are better than the customer’s own previous results.</p>
<ul>
<li>Example: A 20% increase in a key performance indicator (KPI) over the past 90 days.<p></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Outliers</strong> - Results that are exceptionally good for that particular customer.</p>
<ul>
<li>Example: One more occurrences in the past 60 days of a 200% or greater spike (vs. previous average) in a weekly KPI.<p></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Comparisons</strong> – Results that are better than similar customers’ results.</p>
<ul>
<li>Example: A 10% higher average monthly KPI than comparably sized customers, customers in the same vertical, or customers that started in the same month.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>For every one of your hypotheses, you should be continually experimenting with two things:</p>
<ol>
<li>Finding the right metrics and patterns to paint the value picture.</li>
<li>Finding the right way (timing, channel, etc.) to message that value to your customers.</li>
</ol>
<p>This experimentation process is ongoing. As you get access to new data points and analytical tools, as your application grows and changes, as your customers’ definition of value evolves – you name it, there are a thousand reasons to iterate your value measurement and communication process over time.</p>
<p>Of course, you should also set yourself up to get alerted when a customer’s value metrics are trending down, unusually bad, or worse than others’. Although you’ll obviously want to message differently, take proactive advantage of those opportunities to connect with the customer in a consultative role, share your expertise and best practices, and turn the ship around. <b>Do <i>not</i> let sleeping dogs lie.</b></p>
<h3>Measured vs. Reported Value</h3>
<p>I’ve brainstormed with many Customer Success leaders who are frustrated because their application doesn’t support capturing the right value indicators. They often feel stuck in a very high-touch model (even if their price points don’t warrant it), forced to assign Customer Success Managers to small groups of accounts. To bridge the data gap, the CSMs are responsible for staying in close, frequent contact via phone calls and meetings, and regularly quizzing their customers about the value the application provides. While having close relationships with customers is never a bad thing in and of itself, it’s a difficult model to scale, and the customers’ reports are often unreliable.</p>
<p>That said, if high-touch is where you are (for good reasons or otherwise), don’t fret. But do make sure that the valuable data points from the conversations your CSMs are having with your customers are being systematically captured, that a history is being maintained, and that you have tools in place to allow you to analyze that data together with all of your other customer data for a complete picture. Look for efficiencies: Could a regular customer survey, call script, or quarterly business review process be used to reliably collect this metric for trending over time? Whatever you do, don’t get stuck in the mode of having your most dire data silo be your team’s brains – it’s not good for you, for your team members, for your customers, or ultimately for your retention rate.</p>
<p>Also keep in mind that you might be able to use the information your team is gathering straight from customers’ mouths (and stats on the time it’s taking to collect it) to make the case for better product instrumentation or new features. For example, if your customers report that the applicants they’ve hired using your recruiting tool are performing better and staying longer than those they were getting before, should you consider building performance review functionality into the application and measuring that value directly?</p>
<p>Whether it’s through conversations with your customers or finely tuned metrics within your application, or a combination of the two, <b>you must consistently capture the evidence of what your customers have achieved by using your product <i>and</i> ensure that they understand the impact of those achievements.</b></p>
<h3>Value Inside Lifecycle</h3>
<p>Once you have a solid list of the Customer Value Indicators you plan to measure, take the time to consider customer lifecycle events and their impact on those indicators. Typically, achievement of value looks different during the onboarding phase than it does later, during mature product usage. Firsts are important milestones. If you sold a company an HR recruiting tool, how many days lapsed between the time they signed their contract and the time they posted their first job opening? What’s typical for other customers their size? How long before their first hire? Are you retaining those statistics so that they are available for cohort analysis? Are you triggering proactive outreach if that time to first value drags on for longer than it should? These are all important considerations. And down the road, it’s to your distinct advantage if value indicators are exceptionally and consistently strong in the period leading up to renewal. <b>Once again, it’s all about measuring and demonstrating value, throughout the customer lifecycle.</b></p>
<h3>Review & Recalibrate</h3>
<p>Ultimately, your final proxy for determining whether or not your customers are really achieving the value they’re after is whether or not they continue to pay you. Unfortunately, as a lagging indicator, measuring value by way of outcome won’t help you be proactive in retaining customers or ensuring their success. But it’s still important to periodically assess your value metrics against the reality of historical outcomes. If half of your customer base’s value indicators are generally “average”, and the other half is achieving “good” value, but very few of your customers are renewing, it’s time to recalibrate.</p>
<h3>Bring the Bacon</h3>
<p>So how do you make sure the dogs* don’t fall asleep? Keep treats in your pockets. That’s right, make sure you always have something on hand to show them how well they’re doing and entice them into doing even better. <b>Keep that information about what your customers are accomplishing front of mind – communicate it clearly and regularly – and they’ll want more.</b></p>
<p>Next time we’ll complete the circle and talk about how to get alignment in your Customer Success program, so that by delivering customer value you can achieve your business objectives. Until then!</p>
<hr>
<p><font size="-2">*For any customer-types (aren’t we all?) reading this post, please take no offense at the comparison to dogs. I love dogs. And customers. But in this metaphor, it’s just not good for the owners – or for the dogs – when they sleep.</font></p>Illuminate Your Customer Success Operationblog/customer-clairvoyance2014-02-06T12:00:00Z2014-02-06T12:00:00ZRachel EnglishAll too often, the job of retaining customers in a Software-as-a-Service business feels like a series of shots in the dark. But there is no need to stay in the dark anymore. You can illuminate your Customer Success operation by gaining “customer clairvoyance”.<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/crystal_ball_hand.png" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><p>All too often, the job of retaining customers in a Software-as-a-Service business feels like a series of shots in the dark. Too many Customer Success teams are essentially operating blindfolded, with:</p>
<ul>
<li>Little to no knowledge of how customers are actually using their product and whether or not they are gaining value from it,</li>
<li>Data about how customers are interacting with their company sparse and spread between multiple systems, and</li>
<li>Only a very vague comprehension of how those moments that make up the customer journey impact the customer’s likelihood to churn, renew, or buy more.</li>
</ul>
<p>But there is no need to stay in the dark anymore. You can illuminate your Customer Success operation by gaining “customer clairvoyance”. Don’t worry, you don’t need to venture into the paranormal, or develop your ESP. The term “clairvoyance” comes from the French words meaning “clear or lighted vision”. And you can begin to apply it to your customers by adopting a mindset and taking a few straightforward steps. Let’s take a moment to briefly define what “customer clairvoyance” actually is, why it matters, who is involved, and how it can be achieved.</p>
<h3>What: Proactivity</h3>
<p>It’s time to stop operating in firefighting mode, and instead start anticipating which customers are at risk of churning, which are sailing along smoothly, and which might be ready to buy more. To develop your ability to look forward with this lense, start by looking backward. Gather as much historic customer data as you can, including product usage, results metrics, profile attributes, support tickets, survey responses, and any revenue-related outcomes. (Read more <a href="../circle-of-success-1/">here</a> about defining business objectives and outcomes.) Look through the data – either yourself, or with the help of a statistical analysis expert or tool – to find which indicators tend to lead to the outcomes that matter to your business. Seek answers to questions like:</p>
<ul>
<li>Does a decrease in the frequency of a certain action in the application in the 90 days before renewal usually mean the customer will churn?</li>
<li>Do customers with a high number of positive support ticket ratings renew at a higher than normal rate?</li>
<li>Is the customer’s salesperson, implementation timeline, or results in the first 60 days correlated to a greater or lesser than usual likelihood to churn?</li>
</ul>
<p>Use the answers to these and countless similar questions to focus on customer accounts whose recent or current behaviors or attributes could indicate risk or opportunity.</p>
<p>And just as you would prefer to anticipate rather than be surprised by your customers’ behaviors, your customers will appreciate when you are proactive with information about your application or services. Whenever possible, notify your users of a problem they might experience in your application (planned outage, known bug, etc.) rather than waiting for them to report it. But be sure you can lean on quality usage data to zero in on the affected users, so you don’t have to bother or worry those to whom the message doesn’t apply.</p>
<h3>Why: Value Creation</h3>
<p>Unless your customers are accomplishing what they need to by utilizing your application, they aren’t likely to stick around. Always keep front of mind that the primary purpose of customer clairvoyance is ensuring that your customers are gaining the value promised by your product so that they continue to represent value to your business. The first step toward that goal is getting crystal clear on what your customers are hoping to achieve, and how they, and you, can measure whether or not they are doing so. Consider creating a Customer Value Statement (such as the one described <a href="../circle-of-success-3/">here</a>), and regularly assess whether generating that value is at the center of your Customer Success operation and all of its activities.</p>
<h3>Who: Segmentation & Evangelization</h3>
<p>The most important “who” in customer clairvoyance is obviously your customers. But it’s not just a matter of taking them as a whole. You need to carefully develop customer segments, so that you can ensure that you’re sending the right messages to the right customers at the right times and for the right reasons. To do that, make sure that all of your customer data is well aggregated, and that your analysis is leveraging an appropriate balance of statistical methodology and experienced intuition. Take the findings from the questions you asked above, and turn them into precise criteria that define the customers most in need of your attention. Then use those criteria to create dynamic groups, and take action as soon as a customer enters a group.</p>
<p>There is also another “who” in customer clairvoyance, and that is your colleagues. No matter how well planned and executed your efforts to anticipate and respond to customer risks and opportunities might be, your program will fall flat, either in reality or perception or both, if it is not understood and supported throughout your company. Make an effort to evangelize, with every department and employee, what “success” really means for your customers, how your operation helps them achieve it, and how each of your colleagues can be a part of that initiative.</p>
<h3>How: Creation & Iteration</h3>
<p>While it’s commendable in and of itself to get very clear on which customers are likely to churn and why, you can’t move the needle on retention until you know what to do about it. Ultimately, there are two basic types of programmatic approaches: those that prevent the underlying causes of churn from occurring in the first place, and those that attempt to rectify them once they do. You need to create and systematize both types of programs. And you need to ensure that the interactions that are a part of those programs are recorded and become part of your customer data. Why? So that you can measure the effectiveness of your programs. Just like you need to know whether failing to attend training tends to lead to a customer leaving, you need to know whether outreach aimed at enticing a customer to take training actually brings them to class, and whether changing the path of that parameter caused the customer to renew. If a program is not making a measurable difference, consider how it could be adjusted or whether it should be stopped. And even if it is having the desired impact, regularly evaluate each running program to ensure that it is maintaining effectiveness and not having any undesired consequences or conflicting with other programs.</p>
<h3>But… When?</h3>
<p>Now that we’ve briefly described the what, why, who and how of customer clairvoyance, let’s take a moment to ask: When? I’d say there’s no time like now. Of course, shifting fully to this new mode won’t happen overnight – it’s a process that has to be planned, executed, and continually iterated. But you can make start making changes today that will help collect the critical data, ask the insightful questions, frame your team’s approach, and ultimately generate value for your customers and for your business.</p>
<hr>
<p>Thank you to <a href="http://iridize.com/" target="_blank"><b>Iridize</b></a>, who originally posted this article as a <a href="http://blog.iridize.com/the-what-why-who-and-how-of-customer-clairvoyance/" target="_blank">guest post on their blog</a>. <a href="http://iridize.com/" target="_blank"><b>Iridize</b></a> helps SaaS companies optimize their user onboarding process.</p>
<hr>Customer Value – Do You Own It?blog/circle-of-success-32013-12-23T12:00:00Z2013-12-23T12:00:00ZRachel EnglishIn order for your Customer Success function to really serve your customers and your company, it’s critical that you own establishing and delivering Customer Value from the perspective of the people and businesses that are using, and hopefully will go on using, your application. In this post, we’ll look to our customers and talk about how to define the value we provide them, and why it matters.<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/customer_weighing_value.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><p>Who owns your company’s Value Proposition? If you’re like most SaaS companies, it’s probably in Marketing’s court. And usually they’ve done a fine job encapsulating what your product does, for whom, and why it’s useful – but they’ve almost certainly done it thinking primarily about customer acquisition, rather than ongoing customer retention and loyalty. Now it’s your time to shine! In order for your Customer Success function to really serve your customers and your company, it’s critical that <i>you own</i> establishing and delivering Customer Value from the perspective of the people and businesses that are using, and hopefully will go on using, your application.</p>
<p>This post is the third in a series geared at laying the groundwork and providing the context for a relevant, scalable, value-generating Customer Success operation that’s honed to reduce churn, increase loyalty, and expand revenue. We started the series with a <a href="../circle-of-success-1">discussion of business objectives, and the outcomes (such as renewals, upsells, and trial conversions) that support those objectives</a>. Then we covered <a href="../circle-of-success-2">how to develop hypotheses to help identify what leads up to those critical revenue events</a>. In this post, we’ll look to our customers and talk about how to define the value we provide them, and why it matters.</p>
<h3>What it Means to Own Customer Value</h3>
<p>Even if Marketing has already crafted a value proposition that’s at the heart of a wildly successful customer acquisition process, it’s another thing entirely to fully own the value your customers are receiving after they’re on board. Here’s what the latter entails:</p>
<h4>Defining Value</h4>
<p>In the <a href="../circle-of-success-2">previous post in this series</a>, we touched briefly on the importance of understanding what your customers are achieving by subscribing to and utilizing your application. But in order to know what they are achieving, we have to first be aware of what they are seeking to achieve. Why did they come? What did they think they’d be getting out of the deal? What’s the measuring stick (or sticks) they are using to decide whether or not to stick around? Actually write down, precisely and thoroughly, what your customers are looking to accomplish with your product, and how they can assess whether or not they have done so.</p>
<p>Here’s an example of what a Customer Value definition statement might look like for a fictitious human resources recruiting application:</p>
<p><img src="/static/images/blog/customer_value_statement.png" style="max-width: 100%;" /></p>
<h4>Maintaining Value</h4>
<p>Keep it up to date. Your company and product will evolve over time, and so will your industry’s best practices, your customers’ definition of value, and your competitive landscape. Make sure that your Customer Value statement is informed by and evolving at pace with all of those factors.</p>
<h4>Evangelizing Value</h4>
<p>It’s not enough for you to understand Customer Value, or even for your Customer Success team to embody it. It’s your job to ensure that every single employee in your company, from front line to corner office, knows exactly what your customers are trying to achieve and how he or she can have an impact on that achievement.</p>
<h4>Delivering Value</h4>
<p>Now that you’ve spelled it out and shouted it from the rooftops, it’s time to make sure it’s actually happening. You’re on the hook to recognize the need for and create any programs or services that are required to ensure that your customers are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Receiving the value your product is capable of providing</li>
<li>Aware of the value they are receiving from your product</li>
<li>Clear on how to obtain even more value from your product</li>
</ul>
<h4>Measuring Value</h4>
<p>You need to continuously analyze whether or not customers are receiving the value promised by your product. We’ll discuss this aspect in depth in the <a href="../circle-of-success-4">next post in this series regarding Customer Value Indicators</a>.</p>
<h3>Considerations to Keep in Mind</h3>
<h4>Whenever Possible, Quantify</h4>
<p>Value that can be represented as numbers – preferably numbers with dollar signs in front of them – is by far the easiest to assess. And therefore it’s the easiest kind of value to defensibly deliver. Remember, your customer is a business. And that business’ job is to bring in more money and reduce costs. If your product can help them do one or the other or both of those core tasks, and you can demonstrate its ability to do so, then your product becomes critical to your customer’s business.</p>
<p>At a previous SaaS company, we worked hard to ensure that using our product made our customers feel good, and termed that effect “Emotional ROI”. It was a great selling point, and contributed to the best references and testimonials, but it was tricky to substantiate for our customers. Don’t get me wrong, “Emotional ROI” and other soft benefits can be powerful, and you should strive to provide them as well. But, while they make a great sidebar in a case study, they are inherently difficult to measure and prove. So don’t make them the central tenets of your Customer Value statement.</p>
<h4>Value Is Your Job, Not Your Customers’</h4>
<p>Never make the mistake of assuming that one of your customers’ goals is to understand or measure the value they are getting out of your application. That’s on you. And your customer will almost certainly look to you for that information at some point to assess the return on their investment and decide whether to continue with it or, better yet, to invest more deeply. You can help them (and provide additional value in the process!) by being proactive in delivering that information regularly and clearly. Before-and-after snapshots, year-over-year performance assessments, industry benchmarks… it’s critical that you systematize both the creation of these measuring tools and the programs to serve them up to your customers in a timely and digestible way. And don’t forget to leverage your application as a mechanism for consistently displaying its own value front and center. The more you can bake in and surface analysis to quantify how your customers are achieving their goals, the better.</p>
<h4>Relationship as Value</h4>
<p>Although your application is likely the primary means for your company to provide value to your customers, remember to consider your customer’s entire relationship with your company and any aspects outside of your product that deliver value. Do you offer guidance on best practices that transform the way your customers do business? Can your customers purchase services, such as premiere support or virtual administration, to help them better utilize your application and gain the value it promises? Is your customer conference the best training and networking event in your industry? Be sure you are tracking all such value-enhancing interactions, so that you can investigate and work to quantify both their impact for your customers and their correlation to revenue-related events for your business.</p>
<h3>Challenges & Preventative Measures</h3>
<p>When a customer churns because they aren’t getting or seeing enough value – and I’d argue that the vast majority of customer churn is at least partially value-related – there are only a handful of types of reasons. And there are definite steps that can be taken to avoid them. Maintaining focus on each of these checklist items through all aspects of the Customer Value ownership charter described above will help to reduce the frequency of Customer Value challenges and the rate of customer churn.</p>
<p><img src="/static/images/blog/customer_value_challenges.png" style="max-width: 100%;" /></p>
<h3>What Next?</h3>
<p>So we’ve defined customer value as the result of your customers achieving their goals by utilizing your application and interacting with your company. And we’ve outlined some important considerations for conceiving, quantifying, demonstrating, and enhancing that value. But how do we know whether or not our customers are, in fact, attaining it? Next time, we’ll take it back to science class as we seek out the signs and patterns that are <a href="../circle-of-success-4">Customer Value Indicators</a>.</p>The Telltale Signs: What Your Customers Are Doing, Saying & Achievingblog/circle-of-success-22013-11-12T12:00:00Z2013-11-12T12:00:00ZRachel EnglishHow could we know whether or not our customers were happy or engaged? How could we tell which were likely to renew, and which were headed off the rails to churn-land? And better yet, how could we use that knowledge to get out of reactive mode and instead proactively address churn risk before it was too late? Our solution...<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/telltale_sign.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><p>In building the customer success function at a previous company, I faced a common challenge. We knew our prime directive: keep customer churn under 7% annually. We obviously knew that customers had to renew their contracts in order for that to happen. And we generally knew that they needed to be happy and engaged, with both our product and our company, if they were going to be retained. But that wasn’t enough. It was too murky to establish a program around, to measure, or to impact. How could we know whether or not they were happy or engaged? How could we tell which were likely to renew, and which were headed off the rails to churn-land? And better yet, how could we use that knowledge to get out of reactive mode and instead proactively address churn risk before it was too late? Our solution was to create what we called “triggers” – pre-defined signs that a client might be in trouble (unsuccessful with our product, at risk of non-renewal or debook) which, when detected, kicked off an established, often automated or partially automated course correction process. And the secret sauce for our “triggers”? Carefully zeroing in on the right combinations of signs to trip the wire.</p>
<p>In the <a href="../circle-of-success-1">first post in this series</a>, we discussed establishing business objectives – how your company defines success, from a revenue perspective – and business outcomes – the things your customers do that constitute that success. Now that we’ve set and prioritized the objectives we’re aiming to achieve and specified the outcomes that support them, let’s discuss how we can know when those outcomes are happening or likely to happen. For starters, a definition:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Business Outcome Indicators</strong> – Signs or patterns, in the form of actions, events, attributes and/or metrics, which have a tendency to lead to a defined business outcome. For example, for the business outcome “renew for additional term”, a likely indicator might be “utilize product regularly.”</li>
</ul>
<h3>Channel Your Third Grade Science Teacher</h3>
<p>So how do you know what kinds or combinations of behaviors and characteristics are indicative of the outcomes you’re after? Amid the sea of all of the possible customer attributes and actions, how do you determine which ones hold the key to the mysteries of conversion, retention or expansion? The simple answer is: You know more than you might think. Give your intuition some credit, and recognize it as the perfect place to begin. Remember the good old scientific method from grade school?</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>Start with a Question:</strong> What leads to our customers doing Business Outcome Z?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Form a Hypothesis:</strong> If customers are like X and do Y, then they are likely to Z.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Experiment:</strong> Analyze your data to see if the correlation you anticipated is valid. (If so, get proactive! If not, adjust your hypothesis and continue to experiment.)</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Sounds great, right? Very third grade science fair. But, wait…</p>
<h3>Watch Out for the Potholes</h3>
<p>Where do you get the data you need to do the historical analysis on the hypothesized indicators and anticipated outcomes? Your company has likely been collecting at least some types of information about your customers’ attributes and actions. But there are usually a few common hurdles to overcome here:</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p><strong>Incomplete Data</strong> – Even if your application’s backend database has thorough activity logging and your company’s CRM system is neat as a pin (and one or both of those are often NOT the case), you might find that it’s difficult or impossible to retrieve historic attribute information, that the particular product usage event you are interested in has not been captured, or that a certain type of data (ex. billing) wasn’t available prior to a recent implementation (ex. new finance system).</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Siloed Data</strong> – What’s more, even if your data is relatively complete, you are likely to find that it’s strewn all over the place like a deck of cards in the wind. You might need to go digging in several disparate sources and departments to get the complete data set that you need for your analysis.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Lack of Analytical Tools or Resources</strong> – Finally, even if you’re able to track down all of the needed information and gather it in one place, you might find yourself crunching sheets in Excel on nights and weekends, simply because you don’t have a better tool or someone dedicated to doing that sort of work.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>Are you facing one or more of these non-ideal scenarios? Never fear! Proceed with identifying the indicators you want to track, and use that list as a convincing argument to make the case for establishing a solid data pipeline and analytical toolset. And in the meantime, zero in on a few hypotheses to test that do have the necessary data available, and anticipate getting very hands on with the analysis.</p>
<h3>Ask the Right Questions</h3>
<p>To begin building your list of hypotheses, and in doing so identifying the relevant indicators, start by asking yourself the following questions:</p>
<p><strong>Question 1: What things are true about a customer account and/or what have they recently done prior to <span style="background-color:lightgreen">renewing their contract for an additional term</span>?</strong> <em>(Insert each of your business outcomes in the green highlighted area.)</em></p>
<p><strong>Question 2: What things are true about a customer account and/or what have they recently done prior to <span style="background-color:indianred">terminating their contract at renewal time</span>?</strong> <em>(Insert <span style="text-decoration:underline">the opposite of</span> each of your business outcomes in the red highlighted area.)</em></p>
<p>It’s helpful to organize your thinking as you’re listing indicators by categorizing them into three major groups: what customers are doing, what customers are saying, and what customers are achieving.</p>
<h3>What Customers Are Doing</h3>
<p>In this category, product usage is king. Although it’s certainly not the only thing they are doing, it goes without saying that whether and how your customers are utilizing your application is central to whether they are likely to continue paying you for it. Make sure that any usage indicators you are considering as factors in your hypotheses are consistently tracked and available to you, or that you have a plan to ensure that they are in the future.</p>
<p>Besides activity in your product, there are other important usage behaviors to investigate, namely utilization or consumption of customer resources. These generally fall into two categories:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>Service Resources</strong> – Direct interaction with your customer-facing teams, such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Support Tickets</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Account Management</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>1:1 Training</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Self-Service Resources</strong> – Interaction with un-staffed and/or generally available supportive assets, such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Recorded Training / Online Tutorials</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Knowledge Base</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Customer Community</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Company Website</p>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>To continue with our example above, the next step is to formulate hypotheses in answer to your questions, identifying indicators in the process. Let’s start with a couple “what customers are doing” types of indicators. For instance:</p>
<p><strong>Hypothesis 1: Customers who <span style="background-color:lightblue">have added two or more users in the past year</span> are likely to <span style="background-color:lightgreen">renew their contract for an additional term</span>.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Hypothesis 2: Customers who <span style="background-color:lightblue">have never submitted a support ticket, attended a training, or searched the knowledge base</span> are likely to <span style="background-color:indianred">terminate their contract at renewal time</span>.</strong></p>
<p>List as many hypotheses of the “what customers are doing” type as you are interested in potentially testing. Highlight (as in blue here) the behaviors you are interested in examining. Those will become your list of indicators to track and measure. As you can see from the example above, they are often behavior trends over time or combinations of behaviors rather than stand-alone actions. However, there are exceptions to that generality, such as:</p>
<p><strong>Hypothesis 3: Customers who <span style="background-color:lightblue">have visited the account cancellation page</span> are likely to <span style="background-color:indianred">terminate their contract at renewal time</span>.</strong></p>
<p>The best hypotheses are devised when you put yourself in the customer’s shoes and imagine what path and actions you would take if you were considering or approaching, in this case, renewing or terminating your contract.</p>
<h3>What Customers Are Saying</h3>
<p>In addition to your customers’ behavior, it is essential to take into consideration their voice. This category of indicators probes into items such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Survey Responses</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Feature Requests</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Online Reviews</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Social Media</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Referenceability</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Continue building your list of hypotheses, this time focusing on “what customers are saying” types of indicators. For example:</p>
<p><strong>Hypothesis 4: Customers who <span style="background-color:lightblue">have given an NPS rating of 9 or 10 in the past six months</span> are likely to <span style="background-color:lightgreen">renew their contract for an additional term</span>.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Hypothesis 5: Customers who <span style="background-color:lightblue">have posted a negative review</span> are likely to <span style="background-color:indianred">terminate their contract at renewal time</span>.</strong></p>
<p>Your list of indicators is now growing and becoming more diverse. You may have an intuition that there is an interdependency between indicators, and want to test a hypothesis that includes more than one category, such as:</p>
<p><strong>Hypothesis 6: Customers who <span style="background-color:lightblue">log in at least three times per week</span> and <span style="background-color:lightblue">serve as a reference at least twice per year</span> are likely to <span style="background-color:lightgreen">renew their contract for an additional term</span>.</strong></p>
<p>You might also layer in attributes that are not directly related to customer activity, but are important characteristics of the account, such as health index (as assessed by an account owner, usually a distillation of what the customer is saying) or upcoming renewal date. For example:</p>
<p><strong>Hypothesis 7: Customers who <span style="background-color:lightblue">are within three months of upcoming renewal</span> and <span style="background-color:lightblue">have a health index of yellow</span> are likely to <span style="background-color:indianred">terminate their contract at renewal time</span>.</strong></p>
<h3>What Customers Are Achieving</h3>
<p>Don’t be lulled into assuming that what your customers are doing and saying, while both critically important to capture and consider, are alone an accurate representation of how they are feeling about your product or how likely they are to stick around. Defining and measuring the actual value that your customers are attaining through utilizing your application is the best proxy for determining what they are thinking, and must be weighed the most heavily. Stay tuned for our <a href="../circle-of-success-3">upcoming discussion on customer value</a>.</p>
<h3>Until Next Time…</h3>
<p><img src="/static/images/blog/circle.gif" style="max-width: 100%;" /></p>
<p>We’ve now explored the business side of the “circle of success”: stating objectives, specifying the outcomes that support those objectives, and identifying the indicators of those outcomes. In the coming posts in this series, we’ll cover <a href="../circle-of-success-3">how to define customer value</a> and <a href="../circle-of-success-4">identify its indicators</a>. Doing so will enable you to create a robust list of hypotheses to test that frame success both from your company’s and from your customers’ perspectives. Operationalizing the process of creating, evaluating and iterating on those hypotheses will become the core of your customer success initiative and serve as the basis for demonstrating its impact.</p>SaaS Customer Bill of Rightsblog/bill-of-rights2013-10-21T12:00:00Z2013-10-21T12:00:00ZTom KrackelerWhen we developed a new product line at my last company, we decided to explicitly put together a "Customer Bill of Rights", which served as a set of organizing principles for our customer success initiative.<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/we_the_people.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><p>When we developed a new product line at my last company, we decided to explicitly put together a "Customer Bill of Rights", which served as a set of organizing principles for our customer success initiative. We did this once we got to around 25 customers, when our product was still relatively immature, but we had gotten a good sense of where it fit in our market.</p>
<p>Our average selling price for this product line was around $6,000 ACV. We did not have enterprise customers -- pretty much everyone paid somewhere between $200-1,000 per month, so this dictated what kind of customer success model we could put in place. Here is what we committed to.</p>
<p><strong>All Customers Have The Right To:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>A fully functioning and intuitive product</li>
<li>High-quality implementation of their product instance</li>
<li>Simple access to excellent resources (documentation, training, forums, support) within their product instance</li>
<li>The ability to easily provide product and services feedback (ideas, surveys) and evidence that feedback is being appropriately considered</li>
<li>Timely, valuable communications about product releases and other important news</li>
<li>Proactive assistance in response to signs of difficulty (e.g. non-usage)</li>
<li>A means to obtain additional services (e.g. custom training, virtual DBA, consulting) beyond implementation, if desired</li>
</ul>
<p>Our goal was to give our customers the perception of a "high-touch" customer experience, but to deliver it in a highly scalable manner with gross margins at least in the high 60's. Every customer interaction was done in a one-to-many model (e.g. free weekly training webinars) or else a many-to-many model (e.g. online forums & user groups), except for the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>A single post-sale kick-off meeting (that we nicknamed the "Welcome Wagon")</li>
<li>Unlimited technical support via web/email/chat (but not phone) for all users</li>
<li>Proactive outreach from a Customer Success Manager when product usage patterns or ROI metrics signaled trouble or showed signs of high value achievement or possible readiness for additional purchase</li>
</ul>
<p>The best part of doing this exercise was that it forced our various teams -- product management, support, engineering, and customer success -- to come together and jointly commit to this Customer Bill of Rights. There were dependencies to work through -- engineering work was required to capture the usage signals of customer retention risk, and make them accessible to the customer success team. Product management had to make an extra effort to create processes that ensured customers knew where their feature requests stood on our product roadmap.</p>
<p>Defining and committing to our customer success requirements in a Customer Bill of Rights during our first few months of operations, we created a powerful symbol. Customer success had an equal stature to our product roadmap and sales plan that was never questioned, creating a balance that served us and our customers well.</p>Customer Success Begins at the Bottom Lineblog/circle-of-success-12013-10-07T12:00:00Z2013-10-07T12:00:00ZRachel EnglishHeard the one about the Customer Success team that talked to each of their top tier customers every week, ran detailed monthly risk meetings, sent NPS surveys twice a year, followed up personally with responders, and still got surprised every quarter with an unacceptable churn number?<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/circle_6.png" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><p>Heard the one about the Customer Success team that talked to each of their top tier customers every week, ran detailed monthly risk meetings, sent NPS surveys twice a year, followed up personally with responders, and still got surprised every quarter with an unacceptable churn number? And the punchline: even though their plates were already full and the client base was growing, the company cut the team size in half because Customer Success was a significant cost center with little demonstrated impact.</p>
<p>This might sound like a bad joke, but it’s all too serious – and all too common. Does it sound familiar to you, either from reality or from your worst nightmare? Are you working to define or restructure one or more aspects of your Customer Success program? Have you been pondering what framework you need to effectively answer questions such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>Which customers are succeeding with our application and what do they have in common?</li>
<li>How do we replicate the success of our top customers across our whole base?</li>
<li>How much recurring revenue is at risk in this quarter, and why?</li>
<li>Which customers are most likely to upgrade their plan, add users, or buy add-ons?</li>
<li>Is our free trial effective, and which trial customers warrant the most attention?</li>
<li>What customer segment is costliest to serve, and how can we make them more self-sufficient?</li>
<li>Did our recent product release have a material impact on our customers?</li>
</ul>
<p>Whether you are starting from scratch creating your company’s first true Customer Success initiative or fine tuning one that’s already running, it pays (literally!) to go back to basics and make sure that the building blocks are in place, explicitly stated, and well understood. Take a few extra background steps to tie your program’s goals directly to those of both your company and your customers. Building up from that foundation will ensure that your approach is genuine, that it can be appropriately measured, and that it remains valid.</p>
<p>But don’t worry, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel – you can roll with this one!</p>
<p><img src="/static/images/blog/circle.gif" style="max-width: 100%;" /></p>
<p>This post is the first in a series that will address each of the circles above and their linkages, walking through a useful framework for creating a high-functioning Customer Success initiative. As a first step, we’ll discuss specifying business objectives and outcomes, starting with some definitions:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>Business Objectives</strong> – The goals that define and serve to measure success for your company, usually with a direct impact on bottom line</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Business Outcomes</strong> – Customer events or behaviors that consistently support your company’s business objectives</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Why, you ask, are we starting from the perspective of our business, rather than that of our customers? Are we more concerned with our own success than with theirs? Absolutely not – we are 100% concerned with both, and they are inextricably intertwined. As I discussed in a <a href="../crest-of-success">recent post</a>, a good Customer Success initiative is always a two-way street. We only succeed when our customers do, and vice versa.</p>
<p>Specifying business objectives is usually very straightforward. <strong>Simply list the ways your Customer Success program can impact generation of revenue or reduction in costs.</strong> In our experience and conversations with many SaaS B2B companies, the following common threads have surfaced as usual business objectives:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Trial Conversion</strong> – Turning free accounts into paying customers</li>
<li><strong>Customer Retention</strong> – Maintaining the stream of recurring revenue and reducing churn</li>
<li><strong>Revenue Expansion</strong> – Maximizing new revenue from existing customers through upgrades and add-ons</li>
<li><strong>Operational Scaling</strong> – Building capacity to serve customers and expand revenue while keeping costs low</li>
<li><strong>Customer Acquisition</strong> – Closing opportunities that both win new revenue and grow the size of the customer base</li>
</ul>
<p>You should decide if all of these business objectives apply to your initiative, whether there are others to include in your list, and how they should be appropriately prioritized.</p>
<p>The next step is to enumerate all desired business outcomes and map each to a business objective. Ask and answer the question: <strong>What do we ultimately need our customers to be doing in order for our business to achieve its objectives?</strong> If this sounds basic, that’s because it is. But it’s important to be explicit, so that things stay as grounded as possible when it comes to the next, more complicated step of <a href="../circle-of-success-2">determining what leads to those outcomes</a>.</p>
<p>As you work through these steps for your Customer Success program, you might create a list such as the following:</p>
<p><img src="/static/images/blog/objectives_outcomes.png" style="max-width: 100%;" /></p>
<p>Keep your list handy, so that you can build on it when we cover the upcoming topics in this series:</p>
<ul>
<li><em><a href="../circle-of-success-2">Circle of Success, Part 2: Determining Business Outcome Indicators</a></em></li>
<li><em><a href="../circle-of-success-3">Circle of Success, Part 3: Defining Customer Value</a></em></li>
<li><em><a href="../circle-of-success-4">Circle of Success, Part 4: Determining Customer Value Indicators</a></em></li>
<li><em>Circle of Success, Part 5: Aligning Customer Value & Business Objectives</em></li>
</ul>
<p>Whether your list looks similar to or quite different from the example above, you are probably already noticing that some of the tactics your Customer Success initiative utilizes or tasks it’s asked to execute cannot be tied directly to an outcome you are seeking. Those are exactly the kinds of inconsistencies we’re hoping to uncover and prevent or address through this exercise and those that will follow.</p>
<p>Notice your team spending a lot of their time talking with customers, but not with those who represent the most immediate opportunities for renewal or upsell? Lean on your documented business outcomes to help steer them to efficiency and scalability. Suspect that your product’s trial design doesn’t lend itself toward conversion? Arm yourself with your business objectives and outcomes combined with data on trial customer behavior (discussed more in the <a href="../circle-of-success-2">next post</a>), and seek out a productive discussion with your product team. For these and many other scenarios, taking the time to put the right building blocks in place now will pay off down the road.</p>
<p>The discussions in this series are designed to help you lay the best, business-based foundation for your Customer Success initiative so that it can become a thriving profit center that’s taken seriously by your company’s leadership, truly help your customers achieve the value they sought out in purchasing your application, and keep you from ending up in the punchline of a bad joke.</p>Should They Stay or Should They Go?blog/stay-or-go2013-09-05T16:30:00Z2013-09-05T16:30:00ZRachel EnglishCan you feel the buzz? The world of Software-as-a-Service Customer Success is hopping right now. Gone are the days when the only customer-oriented focus was on acquisition. “Retain, retain, retain” has become the new do-or-die motto. And I couldn’t be happier.<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/stay_go.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><p>Can you feel the buzz? The world of Software-as-a-Service Customer Success is hopping right now. Gone are the days when the only customer-oriented focus was on acquisition. “Retain, retain, retain” has become the new do-or-die motto. And I couldn’t be happier. For those of us who’ve operated in a retention mindset for a long time, it’s refreshing that something we’ve been going on and on about is now becoming common sense. It’s clear that the SaaS companies that succeed will be those that master not only getting customers in the door, but keeping them, and keeping them delighted.</p>
<p>That said, though, I can’t help but consider a possible downside to this sudden focus on retention. I’ve even been caught in the middle of it myself. If we are dedicated purely to retaining our customers, to avoiding churn of any kind at all cost, are we best serving our customers needs and those of our companies? In short, <b>is there such a thing as a customer who should not be retained?</b></p>
<p>The SaaS companies most likely to get caught in a scenario where they need to answer this question and find themselves unable to do so are those whose primary or sole metric around customer success is a retention target. Don’t get me wrong -- having a solid, thoughtful, aggressive retention or churn target is critical. If your SaaS company doesn’t have one yet, it’s the right place to start. And there’s a lot to consider: Should you define it on a customer or a revenue basis? What’s the right target to aim for? Is it best to track pure or net churn ? (I highly recommend Lincoln Murphy’s <a href="http://sixteenventures.com/retention-churn-reduction-resource-guide" target="_blank">SaaS Churn & Customer Retention Guide</a> for thorough, expert advice on the subject.)</p>
<p>But don’t stop there! Kudos for defining a retention target, and for optimizing your customer success and other business operations in support of that important measure. Now it’s time to move on to the next layers of the onion, and I highly recommend these two metrics as the next steps to tackle:</p>
<p><b>1. Cost to Serve.</b> Can you accurately assess how much employee time and other resources are needed to sustain each of your customers at any given point in their lifecycle? Sure, if you ask your support team who are their biggest sinks, they’ll easily be able to rattle off the top five “Hall of Fame”, and probably have some colorful anecdotes to go along with them. But what would it take for you to have real, systematic data on support cases, escalations, and other “staffed” interactions available for analysis in combination with other critical streams such as product usage, lifecycle stage and subscription information? With data like that readily available, it becomes much easier to provide an informed answer to the question: “How far should we really go to keep this customer?”</p>
<p><b>2. Customer Lifetime Value.</b> Can you predict what a particular customer is likely to spend with your company in total over all time? For this metric, you may have some historical averages at your disposal. If you’re lucky, you might even know that customers of a certain size or in a specific vertical tend to stick around for X years and pay Y dollars per year, so you can do some simple math. But how realistic is that model when you’re facing an individual customer who’s threatening to leave and asking for the sun, moon and stars “in consideration”? How much “consideration” is the right amount? What’s the right price for the sun, moon and stars? When, if ever, will you reach breakeven? Once again, good data is key. You need to be able to zero in on what other customers that truly look and behave like the at-risk customer have paid for your service, and how long they have stayed.</p>
<p>And last but not least, when faced with a customer escalation that constitutes a churn risk, it’s also important to assess that customer’s potential impact in your market. Have they served as a reference or provided referrals in the past? If retained, what would it take to ensure that they continue to do so? Are they active and influential in social media? It’s safe to always operate under the assumption that your customer, <i>whether they stay or go</i>, will not hesitate to complain publicly about perceived mistreatment, lack of satisfaction with your product or services, or unprofessionalism.</p>
<p>It’s all too common an experience for SaaS companies to go all out in a fight to keep a customer. They might give the customer a special, unheard of, ongoing price reduction, and even throw in some free services, guaranteed to make them succeed beyond their wildest dreams. Then find out a few months down the road that their now lowest paying customer is still far and away their highest support cost burden, is still writing terrible rants on review sites, and has no intention of going anywhere, ever thanks to the sweet pricing they’ve been given. And perhaps saddest of all, the customer is not gaining any real value from using the application, and maybe another one would have been a better fit. It’s a worst case scenario for all parties.</p>
<p>To avoid it, don’t just fall back on the easy answer to the question: “Is it good to keep customers?” Of course it is, generally speaking. Instead, arm yourself to be able to answer the real question: “Is it good to keep <b><i>this</i></b> customer?” And to answer that, you need to know how much you stand to lose, how much you stand to gain, and what the customer’s disposition will be if you do or don’t retain them. Paint a more complete picture with not only a retention target, but also calculated cost to serve and customer lifetime value. You need to have these metrics and the data pipeline behind them solidly in place before the customer is on fire and your team needs to make a snap decision.</p>Go Ahead and Price Your SaaS Low — But You Better Nail Customer Success!blog/low-price2013-08-26T10:30:00Z2013-08-26T10:30:00ZTom KrackelerDoes it make sense for inside sales reps to work deals as low as $99/month? A critical part of the "how-low-can-you-go" calculus is your customer success model.<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/low_price.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><p>Jason Lemkin is the king of actionable advice for the business side of running a SaaS startup.</p>
<p>Here's an article where he explains <a href="http://saastr.com/2013/08/15/smb-sales-reps-how-low-can-you-and-your-acv-go/" target="_blank">how low you can price a SaaS product</a> and still utilize an inside sales model, not just pure self-service online buying. It's chock full of practical advice and back-of-the-envelope numbers from Jason’s experience at EchoSign. It's a must-read for SaaS leaders if <b>the market is telling you to price low, but the buying process requires 1:1 demos, multiple stakeholders, and thoughtful objection handling</b>.</p>
<h3>Use an Inside Sales Team for a $99/mo Product?</h3>
<p>Jason’s point is that even though conventional wisdom (and math) suggests that an inside sales model won’t work for average selling prices below $299/mo, <b><i>it can make sense for inside reps to work deals as low as $99/mo</i></b>.</p>
<p>Why?</p>
<p>To begin with, the marketing money was already spent to produce these leads, so the marginal cost of taking the business is just the sales effort. It’s also a great training ground for new reps. And most importantly, your best inside sales reps will get so efficient at qualifying, demoing, and objection handling that they can generate enough volume to make it worthwhile — assuming your marketing team can produce the leads.</p>
<p>But there’s another important factor that Jason doesn't cover here: customer lifetime value (CLTV). If you can retain customers and grow them over time, and if you do it with a scalable customer engagement model, SaaS businesses can justify an inside sales model at some uncomfortably low price points. And guess what — if these customers love your product they will start referring new business and bringing you into their new companies when they change jobs.</p>
<p>All of this is amounts to what Jason has elsewhere called "<b>second order revenue</b>."</p>
<h3>Your Customer Success Model Makes All The Difference</h3>
<p>I went through an exercise like this at Convio when we were launching a new product called Common Ground — CRM designed for small/medium nonprofit organizations and built on the Salesforce.com platform.</p>
<p>We used an inside sales model and wound up setting our baseline pricing at $200/mo. In the first year, that’s the price point where most of our deals got done. But as we learned, replacing a donor database or adopting a CRM is a big decision for even small nonprofits — it required a bunch of selling. So, as you would predict, our cost of acquisition (CAC) started out in the tank. But we had decent growth rates and bet that we could make the unit economics work by focusing on two things to drive high customer lifetime value.</p>
<p>The two things that all SaaS companies with low price points should obsess over post-sale are:</p>
<p><b>(1) Scalable Customer Success Programs.</b> If you can figure out to make customers successful without much staff intervention, you can profitably serve low price-point customers and pay back that cost of acquisition in a reasonable amount of time. However, if it takes sales effort to close a deal in the $100-300/mo range and then requires a bunch of implemententation services and 1:1 troubleshooting for the customer to get value — it’s game over for your SaaS business.</p>
<p>So here's a recommendation that goes against conventional wisdom. <b>From early on, <i>you should point some of your R&D capacity at streamlining your customer engagement model</i>.</b> It's hard as hell to do that instead of building the next feature that prospect just asked for. Do it anyway.</p>
<p>At Convio Common Ground, we took everything that a customer needed to be successful, and we baked it right inline within the product itself, treating it like it was another core product feature. So accessing things like support, knowledge base, forums, web trainings, and user groups were absolutely frictionless for our users. And we promoted the hell out of them to our customer base.</p>
<p>Establishing this programmatic and community-led customer service model probably caused us to lose a few deals on features, but we put ourselves in a position to have a customer base that loved us and a customer engagement model that could scale.</p>
<p><b>(2) Expansion Revenue.</b> It’s imperative to find the right revenue expansion vectors for your low-price customers. At Convio Common Ground, our expansion path was a coordinated effort of (a) getting new users from other teams, and (b) selling add-on modules that complemented our core fundraising offering. Now both of these required investment in new product development, but allowed us to take those $200/mo customers up to the mid $400’s in less than two years. <b><i>And believe me, nothing is sweeter on your SaaS unit economics than doubling ASPs.</i></b> Now of course, you need a frictionless upgrade path — it defeats the purpose if the inside sales team needs to get deeply involved to close the add-on deals and there is a bunch of implementation messiness to go live.</p>
<h3>To Sum Up</h3>
<p>Jason Lemkin explains that, from a purely sales and marketing perspective, it can make sense to point inside sales reps at deals with ASPs as low as $99/mo. I think <b><i>a critical part of the "how-low-can-you-go" calculus is your customer success model</i></b>. If you (1) can deliver high retention with a scalable engagement model, and (2) believe in your revenue expansion vectors, then don't be afraid to price as low as $99/mo and keep your inside sales team.</p>Five Steps to the CREST of Successblog/crest-of-success2013-08-22T13:30:00Z2013-08-22T13:30:00ZRachel EnglishSuccess… every company delivering Software-as-a-Service wants to achieve it. And there is a rapidly growing, now almost overwhelming awareness in the industry that customers – and their success – are perhaps the most critical components of our own.<img src="https://www.frontleaf.com/static/images/blog/crest.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;"><p><p>Success… every company delivering Software-as-a-Service wants to achieve it. And there is a rapidly growing, now almost overwhelming awareness in the industry that customers – and their success – are perhaps the most critical components of our own.</p>
<p>But with all of the moving parts faced by both new and established customer success teams – from service offerings to support metrics to account staffing to product usage to customer lifecycles and on – it’s easy to lose track of how that success is truly measured within our own organizations, and the basic building blocks that comprise its achievement.</p>
<p>To stay focused, I use this simple mnemonic to zero in each day, each task, on the five outcomes that matter to most to our business:</p>
<p><b>Convert</b> – Engage free accounts and turn them into paying customers.</p>
<p><b>Retain</b> – Keep customers happy and successful… keep recurring revenue!</p>
<p><b>Expand</b> – Raise the value of the customer base with upgrades and add-ons.</p>
<p><b>Scale</b> – Deliver exceptional customer experience efficiently as the base grows.</p>
<p><b>Triumph</b> – Don’t just succeed among others. Be distinctive, do it right, emerge victorious!</p>
<p>Of course, these are no small feat. Each of these tasks is complex and challenging, with a science all its own and a lot of skill needed to deliver. But I find having the right tools and the right frame of reference is key to moving the needle in all of these areas, keeping them in balance, and ultimately improving my company’s bottom line.</p>
<p>While these five critical components of your company’s success should be front of mind for you every day, be careful not to get your wires crossed. SaaS company success and SaaS customer success, though closely intertwined, are not the same thing. If you ask one of your customers whether they are feeling successful because they have converted from a free to a paid subscription for your software, or because they have leveraged self-service resources and helped keep your costs down, I imagine – I hope – that they would hang up the phone on you and maybe even cancel their plan.</p>
<p>To me, the beauty of a good Customer Success practice is that it’s a two-way street, just like all of the best, healthiest relationships I know. <b><i>Your customers will only help you achieve your business objectives if you and your software help them achieve their desired goals.</i></b> And you’ll only be able to offer them your product and services if your organization is healthy and attaining its financial milestones. You can ensure that your company and your customers are happily in the same boat together by explicitly modeling customer outcomes (e.g. retention or expansion) that correlate directly to the goals your customers are trying to reach.</p>
<p>As I’ve regularly told team members that I’ve led: “I hope that you joined this team as a Customer Success Manager because you care about how successful our solution is making our customers. But I know that you’ll only flourish as a Customer Success Manager if you measure yourself by how successful our team is making our company.”</p>
<p>Keep this in mind, and you, your team, and your company can rise to the CREST of success! (And stay tuned for more on defining the right customer outcomes to get there in an <a href="../circle-of-success-1/">upcoming post</a>.)</p>