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9 Ways To Ensure That Your Saas Is Focused On Customer Success

As a startup, one of the most important things you should never lose focus on is the customers. Although it's hard to start from scratch and sometimes be cut off financially, it will ultimately make you much more successful in securing your company’s future.

Entrepreneurs and CEOs know that their startup must be customer-centric, but how does one ensure it? Industries the world over—whether they’re B2B or B2C—are building their livelihoods from a perspective of bottomless consumerism.

To build customer loyalty, it is important to know your customer’s needs. This will allow you to be proactive in innovating, solving problems effectively and understanding what they need most—customer advocates.

We’ve compiled a list of eight ways your small business can succeed from day one—all by putting the customer first.

1. It starts at the top

As a CEO of a startup, it is important to establish your company's philosophy on customer success from the beginning.

Employees are often willing to go the extra mile for employers, but this is especially true if there is a culture of customer-centric values from early on.

When your business is committed to its customers, the culture of customer-focused practices continues to grow as your company grows.

Successful startup executives know how to balance their time with customers in order to nurture and maximize relationships. When a customer is signed, it’s not just for the number on the contract—it’s for what that number will grow into.

Building relationships from day one with customers helps build loyalty that lasts long-term—and leads to referrals.

So where do you start? There are numerous ways for startup executives to be involved personally with each of their customers.

CEOs who choose to focus on loyalty will see recurring revenue which is based upon loyal customers. The relationship between these customers and business are continuous, so touchpoints are hugely important for businesses in order to succeed.

You may not think you're spending time reaching out to your customers, but it's worth setting a block of time on your calendar each week

Suggest that customer success managers provide an executive summary to their CEO about the current lifecycle of their customers monthly (or weekly!).

As the CEO, be sure to take notice of your customers’ successes. It is important to make time for acknowledgement in order to stay involved with your customers.

Being an early-stage company CEO comes with a lot of responsibility. Whether you're building your business from scratch or taking the reins from someone else, there are two things that will make life easier: frequent customer engagement and concrete goals.

Doing so will show customers that the company genuinely cares about them from the top down.

2. Empower everyone to use the “emergency stop” cord.

Having metrics in place to ensure the entire team is accountable to the goal you have set for your startup is great. However, a truly successful startup takes it one step further and ensures their team of employees are each accountable on an individual level – not just collectively as a company group – by holding each employee individually responsible for his or her contribution and

Giving employees the autonomy and responsibility they need to do their jobs well is a great way to increase morale.

As a leader, it’s about providing your team with the tools they need to succeed.

Due to the demands of their work, leaders often feel like they have to oversee every part of the assembly process.

The greatest challenge in managing your employees and their projects is knowing what tools to provide.

Remember, as a startup the business is moving fast. You need every leader on board to ensure success.

3. Keep an escalation plan

No matter how many safety steps you take, or what proactive steps are taken to avoid a problem, customer service will inevitably escalate— especially for the first group of customers.

Whether a client wants to complain, needs help with technology access, or just isn’t satisfied in general, you need a framework for handling these issues. Don't just have this map out on a handbook that's handed out at the start of service: Keep it clearly visible at all times.

It is crucial the company has an escalation plan that doesn’t just cover customer requests, but also supports new employees.

What does the process look like? There are a few steps in this plan that require good communication and transparency.

Set up three basics to any solution:

1. The problem or issue is to identify.

2. Progress: Clearly define the steps to reach a resolution.

3. Prevention: Put preventative measures in place to hopefully avoid the same thing happening again.

In order to be successful, your escalation plan must have a solid set of stakeholders for each phase.

Showing your clients that you not only care, but have a plan for their success - even when things go bad - transforms you from merely a vendor, to a partner.

How you handle an escalation could be the deciding factor in truly gaining the customer’s loyalty and advocacy.

4. Early customer journeys will inevitably have some rough patches.

If you’re a startup, however inexperienced or experienced you may be, it's vital to remember that your first clients are guaranteed to face some challenges.

The key to success is understanding what your customers want and catering to their needs. If you’re still new in the industry, remember that not everything will work out perfectly right away.

Even when you have a few problems, there will be success stories as well. Making winning moments even better is how you handle those hiccups. You might not know what I need, but that doesn't mean it's not worth figuring out. Building loyalty and customer satisfaction is making sure you go the extra mile to provide a solution for them.

Rather than wishing for flawless paths, make yourself a better driver by understanding the challenges of unpaved roads and their occasional hazards.

5. Calling all CEOs: You don’t have to do everything on your own.

Great leadership starts with understanding the strengths of each member on your team and trusting their abilities to do a good job.

CEOs must not do everything themselves, they need to focus on the entire team and include different people in their projects.

Employees at a startup company wear many hats, with the CEO wearing all of them.

If a CEO tries to solve every problem, the rest of the organisation will come to rely on him or her. You want your CEO to nurture other team members' abilities.

If you don't build the ability to successfully scale your business, then no matter how big it is today, it will never grow past a certain point.

This is particularly true when the customers are mid- to senior-level decision makers. You want to help them solve their own problems, not be a point of escalation for those who can’t do it themselves.

6. Map out the journey your ideal customers take

The most successful companies understand the customer journey from day one. Because of this, all employees are focused on meeting the needs and challenges that people have right when they start as a client, versus just showing up when there needs arise (like many other firms).

Ensure that your product, services, and sales team are aligned with the customer lifecycle.

As you know the various steps in your customer journey, it becomes easier to identify what goals need to be achieved across your organisation. Which then means that each team will know how they can contribute towards those goals.

Know your customer's desired outcome and you can anticipate their needs.

Always understand the customer’s perspective of their journey not only in terms of how it will help you but also to make sure your idea aligns with theirs. Grow with your customers so that you can refine what your ideal journey looks like over time.

7. Treasure your most active customers

At the outset of your business—as well as later down the line—you’ll have customers that want to provide feedback, whether you like it or not.

The best startups do not shirk away from their loudest or most demanding customers. They prioritize customer experience and improve accessibility to accommodate anyone with a challenge, regardless of size.

Feedback from customers can be a mixed bag; some of the feedback will validate your work and give you the confidence to keep this path while other feedback might provide lessons for improvement.

Encourage your team to have conversations with these vocal customers to understand their pain points. If you can address those, problems sufficiently, you will most likely solve issues other customers care about as well.

The most important customer feedback comes from those who have experienced your product or service.

Building customer loyalty can be a daunting task for any company, but it is especially difficult when your customers don't feel heard.

8. Know what to Prioritise

As an early-stage company, how do you balance staying hyper focused on executing your company vision while still satisfying customer requests

It's easy to make the mistake of chasing what your customers think they want instead of delivering what your customer really needs.

Recognize that your business isn't necessarily stacked to compete in every category, and set these customer expectations accordingly.

1. You need to maintain a balance between customer service and your other priorities in order to succeed over the long term.

2. Companies should plan is to include the vision, and consider how it fits with their current projects so they provide an ideal service.

Once you have identified your team's strengths and weaknesses, it becomes easier to know what you need to start doing more of and less of.

No task, project, or program is successful without a measurable success.

Conclusion

Consider why your startup originated: To solve significant problems for your customers and this industry. Customers also feel the same way about their company.

by Costi

10 Steps to a Successful Customer Support

A successful customer support has a connection element – satisfied customers feel like they’re part of our company, and they’d never leave.

In order to develop relationships with your customers and win them over, customer service leaders need to find out what passions drive their customers. This will allow the customer service agent to use these passions for a positive relationship with every type of customer no matter how difficult the situation is.

Every paying customer has a need that needs to be met. The type of need depends on the individual, but there is always some form of requirement for their business to satisfy them.

Someone who chooses a company to complete this transaction is taking a risk, since they are trusting the transaction will be completed.

Employees work together to fulfill this promise by targeting the same standard of customer service. Good customer service is integral to any business, and teamwork among employees plays a pivotal role in how it will be achieved.

An individual can have a position as either a trainer or member of staff.

Trainers teach company employees how to be successful with customers.

Staff members provide customer service whether they are interacting with a person face to face or over the phone.

When both customer-facing and back office staff work together to meet the needs of customers, successful service is always only a few steps away.

Step One: Determine the service's mission and underlying motivation.

Customer service professionals need to identify their own passions in order to come up with good customer service strategies that are based on the very things they enjoy.

For those who are unsure about the type of work they want, asking yourself a number of questions like "why have you chosen this field?" or "how does your work make an impact?" will help you find more clarity.

By finding their strengths, customer service staff can identify the key values that drive them to succeed. A true personal value must fulfill three criteria: Choosing (at least one of the client's core values), Prizing (how valuable this strength is), and Acting in line with it.

When crafting their company's policies, customer service reps should use a value that represents both the company and themselves.

When the employee knows this value, it must be one that they can highlight through their work and life. Acting this value out on the job is key to success.

Once a company identifies its mission, it's important for employees to understand how the process works. They should be able to create Mission Statements that illustrate their customer service approach and show them where they need make adjustments in order to uphold this ideology.

A customer service mission statement should be personal and brief, reflecting values and how they pertain to life, work, and others. These statements can even reveal hidden talents that staff members were not aware of, helping them find a more enjoyable place in the company.

Step Two: How would you define great service for your company?

A customer usually defines their perception of the company's service not with the business.

The easiest way for an organization to understand great customer service is by asking their customers about it. What do the customers prefer?

What drives customers to switch between brands? Why do they get attached and loyal to certain companies?

A company’s customers expect five specific behaviors from the companies with which they do business: 1) Reliability, 2) Responsiveness, 3) Assurance, 4) Empathy, and 5) Tangibles.

A customer-oriented approach to business takes reliability to the core of its dealings, which includes honoring promises it makes to customers in its advertisements.

Responsiveness is primarily a time factor, how quick the company can close transactions and perform services.

Providing expert service as an employee is a key part of customer satisfaction.

Recognizing the value in understanding and patience are just some of the qualities that make empathy a helpful trait for managers to have.

Tangibles are physical objects that help satisfy customers.

Companies are often concerned with the Tangibles, such as brand name and similar activities that will wow customers.

Most people remember great customer service from an individualized touch or a moment of unexpected kindness. Trainers can create these outcomes by holding sessions and making lists, but there are also staples to consider in the service industry.

These are the building blocks that fulfill great customer service.

Step Three: Build Strong Relationships

In customer service, the knowledge staff have with regards to their job role helps them establish rapport with the customer and fix any problems they may experience.

People are curious about how people behave, which is why many social theories exist that focus on professional behaviors and consumer-based relationships.

One of the most important concepts for customer service employees is reciprocity.

Reciprocity deals with balance in relationships, especially communication. When a customer gives information, he or she expects similar information back and that includes similar emotional, intellectual, and substantial responses.

There are two key principles to reciprocity.

1. Your actions should be of equal value to other people’s if you want to experience positive interactions on the road.

2. Giving of yourself comes at a cost that is often repaid in some way the giver deems to be valuable.

Customers often underestimate the customer service representative's ability to reciprocate in an interactive situation, so they provide more information rather than less.

Customer service professionals can also be thrown into an imbalance when they try to serve customers and provide all the information, but are unable to make customers feel satisfied.

Building reciprocity is easy in most service relationships. Customers typically greet smiles with smiles, regardless of how they’re feeling. Listening is also crucial; customer service staff should be prepared to listen and understand a client at all times.

The staff should not take for granted any customer response. Whenever a customer complements or thanks an employee, the staff should react with appreciation.

Step Four: Help foster trusting relationships that last

Trust and time are always changing variables when it comes to customer service.

Trust is intrinsic to each customer service relationship. Sometimes employees can earn a customer's trust in seconds with a simple offer of help or simply smiling.

Other customers are less willing to speak with you and may keep their distance for much longer.

The first step is to listen seriously and with your full attention. Listening is important for every aspect of customer service, but when it comes to building a trusting relationship, listening is the most powerful tool you have in your arsenal.

Employees should first turn off their cell phones or any other distractions before they interact with customers. If an environment is noisy, employees should find a quieter place to talk to the customer one on one.

Customer service staff should listen to their customers on an empathetic level, hearing not only what they have to say but what they need and the entire scope of their problem.

Service staff should paraphrase and repeat what the customer said to make sure they understand, setting up trust between them. The more the service employee understands, the easier it will be to ask questions that will address their needs.

A customer service representative typically has a choice between asking closed- or open-ended questions.

An open-ended question allows the customer to expand on a certain point in their own words, often beginning with, “Can you tell me more,” “What happened,” or "How did."

"What would happen if," is not an example of an effective open-ended question.

Close-ended questions focus the respondents answers to a single yes or no and start with “Did you” or “Can you.

Staff members can also lead with questions designed to focus on a particular type of information, like a more thorough definition of the problem (When this happens what do you do?), a relay question to get the customer’s thoughts on the matter (What do you think?), or past success questions.

Step Five: Improve your mood and outlook on life by becoming more positive.

The Law of Attraction is an age-old theory in business that speaks to the power of positive thinking.

The law of attraction is the principle that one's thoughts, intentions and words can attract desired effects.

People who think positively get more positive things in return. When people consider the world around them, it has a beneficial impact.

The law of attraction is not a zero-sum game; it cannot account for negative modifiers. When employees state, “I will not listen to gossip today” they are actively attracting thoughts, events and words related to “listening to gossip.

Employees using the Law of Attraction should focus on positive thoughts given that these attract more people.

Administrators should encourage staff to believe that they are capable of being excellent at their jobs even with the challenges.

Employees should never argue with customers, no matter how angry.

Instead of telling customers “no,” employees should find alternate words to use when speaking with the customer.

Rather than saying, "You left this off," a customer service person can rephrase their response with something like,"I'm sure we can find what happened."

The company representative might say, "Let me clear up that point for you.". This helps the customer and the service member focus on positive aspects of their relationship with each other, which strengthens the relationship.

Every customer service representative should be personable while they answer the phone. They should speak at a comfortable voice level and remember to smile!

Be succinct, clear and explicit when communicating via email to avoid confusion.

Step Six: Solve problems quickly and aggressively, even difficult ones

Issues between customers and companies are usually caused by problems with communication or organizational structure. Customers are easily angered by misinformation or lack of communication.

When businesses change, oversights in service or technology and even a new person at the helm could create complications.

When faced with a customer complaint, service staff should remember these five steps:

1. Managers should seek to describe the problem at hand to either their employees or their customers.

2. Next, employees should look for reasons such as the root causes of the problem, and how it can be solved in order to understand what is going wrong.

3. After researching the situation, employees usually have a number of solutions in mind. They can talk to either customers or managers about their ideas and what types of outcomes they hope for.

4. Once the problem is resolved, staff should also consider other possible solutions if the same issue ever arises again. The more options they can offer to their next customer, the better impression they will make.

5. As the date approaches, employees should also look for ways to improve customer service and ensure everything runs smoothly. Businesses should plan in advance by looking for solutions to any problems that may arise.

Step Seven: If you've made a mistake, own up to it.

Mistakes happen. The goal of recovery is to regain the loyalty of a customer after they have been burnt by one too many errors or unsatisfactory experiences.

Build rapport with your clients by gracefully handling any mistakes.

The first step in resolving a complaint is to apologize. This does not mean the company or the customer service representative did anything wrong; it just acknowledges that you are aware they are dissatisfied with the business' actions so far.

When apologizing to the customer, the representative should use their information to figure out what went wrong and how it can be fixed.

An angry customer assumes that the company has broken a promise. The service member should react calmly and avoid arguing with an angry customer.

It is better to provide a credit, take back damaged merchandise, and break company rules than create negative word of mouth.

When a customer has a problem, they expect some type of compensation. The staff should be prepared to offer the best solution possible, whether it was their fault or not.

Once the problem has been resolved, staff should follow up with a customer by phone to ensure the issue was fully dealt with. This is often an unexpected and refreshing gesture, so it’s an effective way to turn even angry clients into satisfied customers.

Step Eight: Give Customers and Yourself a Break

Different people view the world differently. There are many different personality combinations, and every customer has their own distinctive set of characteristics and habits that affect how they see things.

Some people are more demanding than others and a well-trained staff will be able to better handle these customers.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Test (MBTI) is one of the most popular personality tests. The MBTI divides people into four different combinations of preferences like perceiving, thinking, judging and feeling.

Customer service representatives can be more effective if they know what type of personality they are dealing with.

Customers with differing communication styles should be met with different types of responses. Extraverts respond best to listening, open-ended questions and new solutions. Introverts best respond to enthusiasm and patience.

Confronted by empathetic people? Staff should be prepared to concentrate on the big picture, provide reasons for their own viewpoints, and repeat details as needed. Thinkers require a more efficient approach and prefer being well-informed.

Step Nine: When Things Get Hot, Keep Cool

When customers become angry at customer service representatives, it's typically the result of prior interactions with company staff or policies. Customers may go through three stages of anger before coming to a resolution.

Customers who attempt to solve a problem but fail, then feel powerless and overrun with frustration. This is followed by anger when customers start blaming the company for their problems.

There are three steps to keeping calm when you're confronted with an angry customer.

1) Listen to the person's frustration.

2) Sort their complaint into major and minor complaints or problems, so that you can address them one at a time.

3) Be sure to thank them for bringing up any issues that they have and let

Dealing with customer problems is essential, but one of the key tips for calming frustrated customers is listening to their concerns attentively.

Customer service personnel should be assertive when necessary.

In some cases, a customer may need to be calmed down and some feedback helps the customer realize their actions are not practical.

When dealing with a customer who is very angry, service agents should not take advantage of them. The agent can help diffuse and calm the situation by remaining impartial.

Step Ten: Be Your Own Best Customer

In order to provide customers with the best possible service, customer service employees should always be happy. In reality, members of staff should view themselves as one of their customers and treat themselves kindly.

Constantly working without time for simple pleasures in life can lead to depression and reduced customer service efficiency. If it seems like people are becoming a hassle, it may be time to address personal happiness.

Treats like catching up with friends and taking a break from work could help improve your customer service, specifically in the workplace.

by Costi

How to Build & Scale a Customer Support Team

Customer success is a must-have for any company that builds products oriented around the customer experience. Software providers know this best, where great customer service is no longer a nice-to-have; it's an essential component of their day to day business operations.

As corporate solutions become more complicated and business teams engage in investment into more platforms, it is becoming critical to take advantage of all the tools they have at their disposal.

Sales teams and account executives initially managed customer relationships for businesses, but the advent of new software led to a greater demand for Customer Success specialists.

In addition to benefiting customers, a customer success role is just as beneficial for the company.

Below are a few eye-opening stats from Invesp Consulting:

Experienced customers are more likely to try new products and spend 31% more than new ones.

Increasing customer retention by 5% can have a total impact of up to 95%.

Around nine out of every 10 companies see customer experience as a key factor in driving customers’ loyalty and the retention.

One of the biggest mistakes many companies make when it comes to customer success is including it too much as an afterthought.

Most SaaS organizations start with a product idea, bring in sales reps to grow revenue, and then think about building a customer success team once there are customers on board who are asking for more.

In reality, customer success should be included in initial conversations concerning either products or sales.

Creating and keeping long-term relationships with your customers should be an immediate priority for any company

Part 1: Building Your Team

Starting out, you should have your customer success team involved in every process at your company. This often means working with sales, product, support and other departments to establish a process that works well for both the employees AND the customers.

As you scale your department, and customers want different things from your team, it’s important to get clear on what they value most.

This is the list of what to do when you are building a customer success department.

1. What your company considers to be customer success?

Building your team can be a confusing time. It is important to establish expectations about customer success from the start.

Concerning customer success, there are many ways to interpret the overarching theme. Consequently, your team can customize this meaning how you see fit.

Perhaps your customer success team will mainly be focused on onboarding and serving new clients.

Working with a customer's lifecycle directly affects your team. Your team should be aware of when to intervene on behalf of the customer, and when to refer them to other departments for help.

2. You need to have competent customer service representatives to manage your customers accounts

Now comes the fun part: finding the right people to actually manage your customers. Once you know what success looks like and how you’re going to get there, it’s time to put these plans in place.

Due to the increased complexity in today's' market, an effective CSM goes one step beyond the traditional role.

Customer service managers are responsible for the success of their organization because customer retention, satisfaction and loyalty is so key to success.

CSMs typically have a multitude of tasks, some more demanding than others.

We are first and foremost responsible for welcoming new account holders, training our users, and helping them realize the value of both their relationship with us as well as our product.

Customer service managers are the main point of contact for customers and other departments. They answer customer escalations, help with questions and concerns, and perform complicated projects in between these responsibilities.

Even if CSMs are not responsible for closing renewals or upsells, they still need to keep customers happy and guide them towards these conversations.

Customers want to work with vendors who are willing and able to help. CSM's keep a constant eye on accounts, regardless of the time they have been customers, and speak as advocates during important conversations or decisions.

Yes, the lives of CSMs are stress-filled. They have to keep track of a lot for even one account and some CSMs may be dealing with up to twelve accounts at once.

The right members of your Customer Success team are crucial to the success of both your organization and its members.

3. Measure the achievements of your KPIs and metrics.

Understanding your organization's metrics and what 'success' means for the business will help you keep track of customer success.

Every company has their own system for tracking customer success metrics.

How often are users actually logging in and using your product?

Has your product gained traction with users and are they committed to using it?

Customer engagement - how often are customers interacting with your team?

The customer pulse, or gut feeling, is the perception that the service team has about each individual client's likelihood of staying a customer.

• Net Promoter Score: a measure of customer willingness to recommend your company's products

4. Ensure that customer success is an integral part of your company culture.

This last process in putting together a customer success department is one of the most important parts for your company and client relationships.

To ensure lasting success, everyone in an organization-from the executive to the lowest level employee-need to be mentally invested in your customer.

Why invest time and effort into gaining new customers, just to see them churn a few years later?

In order to create a profitable, scalable customer success department, customer success managers should have a seat at the table – but they also need the ear and assistance from other departments.

Here are a few reasons why a company's customer success is essential to its long-term health:

• Review metrics and review goals to track success with clients.

Other departments may have already considered the idea but this department has the chance to implement it.

• Goals are aligned to the broader office and each department.

• Customers feel good knowing that the entire company is focused on their success, which keeps internal and external stakeholders happy.

When you can’t see the customer up close and personal on a regular basis, being able to rely on data from your team will allow you, as an executive or board member, to focus on the success of those accounts.

Part 2: How to Scale Your Team

Once your customer success team is in place, it’s time to start building and growing value for your internal team. This will involve processes that are customized to the needs of both teams.

A customer success team should rely on their own processes and procedures to ensure cracks in the complexity of customer accounts don't slip through.

1. Make sure your manager and customer service representative have the skills to service clients, provide support, and retain them.

A customer success team's growth starts by setting up shop with the right people and skills. There is no one straight-forward process to guarantee customer satisfaction.

While not every customer success team will have access to these tools, there are some fundamental principles that every single one should follow.

Building repeatable processes: Successful customer success teams are responsible for a lot. From keeping clients happy to facilitating onboarding and training to working with executives to close renewal deals, there's a lot going on.

This is also why cultivating repeatable procedures will be invaluable. Your team can seamlessly manage all of the day-to-day CSM work with ease by quickly bringing new team members into play when necessary.

Balancing new and long-term accounts: Many customer success teams struggle to scale while juggling in the meantime.

On one hand, new customers require a lot of attention and assistance with account setup when they are first brought into the company. On the other hand, long-term accounts might be neglected which may lead to lost opportunities for upsells.

As your customer base grows, making sure you have an account management strategy in place will ensure that both new and existing accounts are equitably addressed.

Re-engaging with dormant customers: If your team has been around for a while and you have some strong customers on the roster, they might not need as much attention as new or finicky ones.

One of the potential issues that often arises is an organic lapse in communication. However, as much as possible, it's important to re-engage with your customers.

When you first start thinking about how you'll engage with customers, it's important to take a big step back and consider the following questions: What is your company's annual sales price? Will a model that has many customer service reps actually support revenue growth or will you need an engagement model that’s less touch?

There is no foolproof way to prevent customer churn, but putting the right safeguards in place can help. Once an account starts getting close to canceling, CSMs should put a freeze or other limits on their account so that they don’t end up losing them at the last minute.

3. Create a compensation plan that can grow with your company.

CSM compensation plans start to look more and more like sales salaries in that they are inherently tied to performance and target revenue goals.

Compensation models for CSMs are typically three:

• Base salary with no bonus or variable component

• Base salary with bonus opportunities.

• The base salary will include a variable component that both rewards for performance and provides an opportunity for greater earnings over time.

Based on your company’s compensation plan, putting a system in place that makes sure CSMs are rewarded for lifetime customer value with an additional variable component.

3. Ensure you have the right tools.

Hiring employees is one part of the growth equation, but it's not the only key component. As important as bringing on new people are ensuring that you have the right tools in place to help your current customers.

When a business grows, finding the right customer success platform to support this growth and managing any difficulty with improving customer relationships is critical.

4. Look for a point in which to scale.

When deciding when to scale, think about these three things:

• Annual Contract Value targeted per CSM

• Product Complexity

• Quantity of Customers Per CSM

Three key factors contribute to a customer service team’s success: the number of employees, (ARR), their individual skill level (complexity) and volume.

When it comes to budgeting your business, you will need to take different factors into account. You may not fit in one of the three categories above and find that your company needs to be modeled differently.

Signs that your company needs to improve customer service include shallow relationships with customers, overworked CSMs, lack of insight into the customer base and an increase in churn.

5. Put your customers on the path to growth.

Another step toward scaling a customer success team is preparing your customers to grow with you. No matter how well prepared your team may be, unless the customer is committed to your product and long-term partnership there's nothing that can be done.

The key to when you’re starting a company is focusing on customer loyalty and long-term success.

• Having a long-term outlook, right out of the gate – for example, during your sales calls or kick-off meeting.
• Being accessible to customers when they need you and having the answers on-hand or knowing who to ask for help.
• Understanding the long-term success expectations of each customer is vital to provide excellent service. Listening and research are important where defining these expectations.
• Flawlessly executing every possible customer hand off between departments so that the customer is always made to feel at home.
• You should have a long-term vision for success to reach customers, starting with your initial meeting.

Part 3: Optimizing output

Having a customer success team in place can make the difference between satisfied customers and those who are not.

One of our first thoughts when optimizing a team may be to look at CSM performance. Let’s say you manage a team with varying degrees of success and retention rates among clients.

Low-performing representatives receive more attention in the average organization, whereas they should be treated like high performers.

Understanding how high-performing employees organize their days, communicate with clients, work with other departments, and measure success can help maximize the output of your entire team.

Here are some strategies to transform your customer success team into the best ever:

• Use live chat as a way to communicate with your customers and provide a link to helpful content in case they need more context.
• Repeating the same webinars and demos for new prospects is not enough. Host client-specific meetups, forums, and demonstrations to highlight new features, products, and provide space for clients to share their experiences with others in a setting where they feel comfortable.
• Work with your marketing team to create a strategic customer marketing plan that connects advertising best practices to the rapport of CSMs.
• Create an online system where customers can interact with each other and ask questions.Your customers will be able to share tips, tricks, and advice.
• Install pop-ups and notifications on your platform or in your product to let customers know when there are new features, products, or updates available.

Important takeaways

Use these tips to ensure your customer success team is fully prepared for their day-to-day duties.

• Ensure customer success is clear by having a single idea of what it means for each person in the company.
• It is important to match customer success managers with the appropriate personality traits in order to convey empathy and satisfaction.
• Setting strong goals so that your team, department, company, investors and customers know how things stand.
• Business owners should make their customers’ satisfaction with the company a priority, not just of marketing and customer service staff but of the whole organisation.
• CSMs help customers reach their highest potential by focusing on customer skills and tools.
• Laying the foundation for long-term relationships that mutually benefit both the company and their customers by being transparent, trustworthy, and providing a value.
• No matter how long a customer has been partnered with the company, you should always look for ways to surprise them.

Fortunately, your customer success team is successful in large part do to the efforts of their CSMs.

Great customer success managers take a while to form, and require the company's focus on bolstering their skills and growing the account.

by Costi

How to Put Your SAAS Customer First

Today’s SaaS companies are expecting continual change and innovation—it’s in their DNA to stay responsive to the market. Increasingly, customer success functions have been introduced as a way of re-engaging users and reducing churn rates.

The function of customer success is evolving every day and being adopted by more companies, which understands that their sole purpose lies in providing for the customer.

As customers become savvier, many companies are focusing on customer satisfaction. Customers evaluate your company in the same way they evaluate their other providers - how well you listen to them and what you do for their needs.

With the drastic changes to our industry, we've been doing research and listening to some of our customers and leaders to hear from them how you can take steps today After to years put of your serving customer customers first in order poorly, our for industry the is future finally. changing for the better. To make sure you’re set up for success and don’t just keep coasting in mediocrity, we recommend taking a few important steps to put your customers first.

When it's time to put the customer first, there are three fundamental steps that you'll want to take.

Knowing your customers’ goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) is essential for successful business marketing.

Do you know the unique needs of your customers? Successful long-term partnerships start with establishing relationships that go deep within the organization. Ask questions to figure out what is most important for each customer relationship and deepen those connections.

• What kinds of questions should you ask?
• How can you best support their team’s goals for your solution?
• What are their goals for the solution?
• How did they feel on decision-making process?
• How are they measured?
• What goals do they want to achieve or what are their most important metrics?
• Have they had any alliances or former business relationships with the competition?
• Do you and your contact have any common connections? Is it possible this could help or hinder you in any way?

The key to success is understanding customers on a deep, personal level and this takes time. Understanding your customers goes far beyond talking with them; you need to know what matters most to them and their company’s goals.

To grow a customer relationship, it's important to understand the metrics that are most important to them and what will be necessary for their success.

Instead of just selling, dedicate time to educating your customers.

In today’s increasingly demanding marketplace, people are becoming less interested in being sold to. Sometimes even having a “sales title” on your business card or email signature can cause the prospect or customer to go cold.

As most businesses discovered, their approach to selling has changed over time.

Some of your customers want to be educated—they want to learn, they want to understand what other customers using your solution are doing and how they stack up, and they might want to save time and money. By educating them about your product or service in more depth you could even get those people as repeat business ers in the future.

Notice two contrasting personal experiences.

Have you ever walked into a clothing store where the salespersons are compensated based on commission? If so, do you cringe when they ask how they can help and respond with “just looking” even if you know what size or color you are looking for?

You don't know if you're looking for anything specific, but they may try to sell you something. You may want to find a particular item, but if you tell this salesperson your goal, they will do everything possible to sell that one item.

That’s not always the case, but a few bad experiences have probably left You you skeptical. take You may be tuning out like reliable advice that.

Now imagine a different scenario:

You walk into an electronics store and need to find a set of headphones. You tell the associate you are interested in finding some headphones.

The salesperson responds by asking you a series of questions in order to find the perfect pair for your needs:

“How much money are you looking to spend?”

“What style would you prefer- wired, wireless or do they not matter that much?”

These are all important questions when selecting the appropriate product, as well as determining the best educational methods about how to get the most from that product.

But most importantly, this is not a sales pitch—it's genuine. And you'll probably feel no different when you walk out of the store without making a purchase as well as after your overall experience.

Why? Because the individual spends time getting to know you and inquires about what your goals are for these headphones before talking with you about which ones to choose.

Now, think about that back to software industry. Giving away education rather than a sales pitch is refreshing — especially in the software business where your customer probably expects you to hard sell.

By getting to know them intimately, by benchmarking their goals and not your own, they will begin to trust you. Their investments in the relationship -- usually measured by referrals and more business for you - will grow over time.

Be your customer’s champion for change.

As a customer success professional, you have the responsibility of cultivating relationships with the customers that make your business thrive. Since they’ve been building their relationship with you and have been educated about how to get more out of your product, they now are sharing successes, opportunities, and concerns with you.

Their experiences shape how they view your company, even if it is positive or negative.

The fact is, you're not the only person interacting with customers. Most people in your organization will come into contact with them at some point or another- whether by talking to them over the phone, meeting them in person, or sending information their way via mail.

As a customer success professional, you should be able to enact change throughout the company when necessary.

You know that your customer is facing many difficulties because their contract process is painful? Their invoicing process is confusing and the services process only allows them to access help with vague goals for getting better.

But more than simply reporting to a person, it is important that you see your manager as an honest partner and confidant.

What if you could actually have a profitable, customer-centric business where everyone from your employees to your suppliers was 100% sold out for your customers?

Put yourself in the shoes of your customer—after all, you too are likely a customer of someone else's. When there is an issue with a product or service, it is important to have tools in place that will let you know if any actions were taken as a result of your feedback.

Organizations that focus on the customer experience should empower their professionals to not only suggest changes, but make them happen if they will lead to an improved customer experience.

As a customer success professional, it's not enough to simply advocate for your customers. The focus has shifted to making the necessary changes to better the customer experience as well as that of your team members.

by Costi

How to Surprise and Delight Your Customers

In this age of information, it's rare that we get the chance to meet with people face-to-face and interact in person. We investigate customer reviews online before visiting a restaurant or getting rideshare service, watch our favorite TV show episodes on demand through any device at any time - even during work meetings.

A recent Harvard Business Review article argues that since our lives have never been more predictable, “surprise and delight” remain the most powerful marketing tools. Strategies that focus on investing in relationships make companies attractive to prospective customers, but also foster deep authentic relationships with current customers.

So how can you surprise and delight your customers?

Handwritten notes are more thoughtful than text or email

A handwritten card goes a long way because it shows the sender put time and thought into their message. How many times have you seen a handwritten, thoughtful note from one of your vendors?

Do you remember who sent that card?

As much as we all rely on technology to get through the day, sometimes a handwritten note goes far. Send handwritten thank you notes to your customers. Congratulate them for anniversaries or promotions and throw in some flowers or cookies for good measure too!

Customers experience a range of challenges when partaking in a difficult transaction such as implementation or coping with personal setbacks. A card expressing thoughtful words is just as important as one that simply says, “Thank you for your purchase.”

It can be difficult to determine which customers are your best, but five examples of great customer service are those who have a personal relationship with you, act as an active and engaged member of the company, provides referrals for other prospects, or does speaking engagements.

A hand-written card this week can go a long way in thanking employees for their work. Next, identify 5 customers who've had difficulties with your business and send them an email or letter to be more sincere and see if you can help them out.

Encourage all employees to use social media

B2B software companies can learn from their B2C counterparts’ ability to engage with customers.

Business to business companies, while usually more private in their approach, can still have the very same impact B2C companies often do. No executive is too high up. No person is excluded--whatever their title. Everyone across the company should be on high alert for on how they can personally affect a customer in a positive way.

Create a position for an executive sponsor at your company which will be responsible for overseeing and guiding the dealings specifically with a key account.

You should also have your clients come visit your offices at least once a quarter to meet the people that use their product, attend quarterly business reviews, and experience tense moments like implementations or escalations calls.

Trade shows offer a prime opportunity for executives to engage with both customers and other business partners face to face.

Do you host private dinners or exclusive events? Have your senior executives attend, and also have them toast to the customers in attendance. Give executives seat assignments by our custom- ers—not just prospects.

Treating your customers with respect will show them how much you value their business.

Talk to them on social media

Social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram give you a unique glimpse into the personal lives of your customers in a way that other professional accounts cannot.

Sometimes, people forget the importance of individuals in business-to-business transactions.

Even though a customer is an organization and not an individual, there are still real people who represent that company and use your product on a regular basis.

Twitter users in your area may have tweeted that they plan to read a certain book or visit a particular restaurant. When you see this happen, use the opportunity to spend time with them and treat it like an implicit referral.

Posts about general topics of interest

It includes soliciting feedback and input from customers, prospects, employees, and other important stakeholders.

Establish customer service pages for your business that are specifically designed to more quickly answer any questions candidates have.

Even if your company controls the social media for your brand, usages of personal accounts can be beneficial.

Twitter provides a great starting point for research. It’s less personal, so it won’t feel intrusive to follow the people you found in your customer accounts.

Send the list of Twitter followers to both your marketing department and social media team before following anyone yourself.

When you see what your colleague enjoys outside of work, find out some interesting fact and use this to surprise them with something.

Give the gift of a thank you card in addition to company schwag with your logo.

Invest in your customer’s networks

There are few aspects that say you care more about relationships with customers than opening up your own networks. When a customer asks for your help in connecting, offering to make connections on their behalf goes the extra mile.

We don’t necessarily mean your social butterfly of a co-worker that will strike up a conversation with any person at the company holiday cocktail party or the guy who “always has a guy.”

We mean an individual who has a great reputation in their community because of their involvement, friends, and professional network. These individuals are rare because they care about providing value to those around them instead of only caring about themselves.

Select your favorite customers who have a strong relationship with you and consistently handle business in a way that you respect.

When creating your Linked-in profile, go through your personal contacts and make a list of 5 individuals you think are the best match for your customer.

Please create a short bio about yourself and the reasons why your intro would be useful to both the customer, as well as the contact.

Interested customers will be thrilled at the opportunity to meet other people. They'll often want to return the favor in the future too.

Sweat even the small stuff

Freebies aside, an unexpected discount on a recent purchase is certainly welcome and appreciated.

Demonstrating your investment in customer success can seem daunting. As customer challenges may vary greatly and have some unique extenuating circumstances, the key to showing that you care for them is being vigilant about focusing on “small stuff.”

One of the most important traits in a customer service professional is a passionate drive to make their customers successful. Sometimes you get so busy that you forget about the little things, but often what your customers want most are for you to care about even seemingly small issues.

Sometimes even the smallest problems can get forgotten in a business. Next time one of your customers has an issue, address it or find someone else who can handle it fairly quickly.

Express your desire to work on these "small wins" to your manager and ask for assistance in taking care of some of these details or by requesting for a few hours that week to work remotely. This will show you care about the customer—because you're willing to do a little extra.

Conclusion

We’ve included five quick ways to delight customers, but we all know there are more opportunities you could pursue.

Share with us! What are some ways that you have surprised and delighted your clients? What have you learned along the way?

by Costi

Delivering Great Customer Service Across Different Cultures

To improve our customer service, we recommend implementing nine strategies:

Empathy.

Through an empathetic approach, customer service representatives listen to what their clients are experiencing in order to determine what they need.

In addition to listening, these professionals open up non-verbal cues and offer supportive comments when possible. The key is empathy - knowing how the client feels - which makes them a true asset to any company!

Courtesy.

Customer service representatives need to be polite when dealing with our customers.

Respect.

For a company to succeed in the marketplace, customers must be valued and respected.

Professional attitude.

When working in customer service, the best outcome is a positive first contact.

Attention to detail.

Workers who are knowledgeable about the company's offerings and committed to providing high-quality service will provide better customer service.

Equitable treatment.

When treating your customers fairly, you'll get loyalty. Without it, no one will stick with you!

Qualified and trained staff.

Excellent managers know of the strategic value of customer service and ensure that their employees are well-trained.

Efficient service.

Customers dislike unnecessary delays and are not happy with an unprepared service provider who wastes their time. Satisfying customers quickly is critical to any business - if there are unavoidable delays, the customer service team should share the reason for them and allow them to decide whether they want to wait or cancel.

Effective complaint resolution.

Customer complaints enable companies to identify areas that need improvement. Once a customer’s issue is identified, the service provider must resolve it as soon as possible. Customers should be thanked for identifying the situation and giving the company a chance to fix it.

by Costi

What Kind of Help Content Do You Need

The Article on Getting Started

Effective customer support is essential for onboarding new customers and users. A “Getting Started” reference guide will create a warm first impression and provide basic steps for getting started, such as installation, configuration, and usage of key features.

Creating a How-To Article

A good how-to is written in a sequence – first you do this, and then you do this. The essential question to ask yourself when writing a how-to is “What happens next?”. Keep answering that question over and over again until the end of the process has been reached.

This is especially useful for tricky workflows that require multiple steps, such as installing your product. Talk to your customer support team to find out where people are getting stuck and prioritize creating how-to articles for each of those use cases.

The Troubleshooting Guide

Once someone has learned your product, they’ll have to delve into the finer points of some area or another. This often leads to problems with understanding what’s going on. Troubleshooting articles help handle them by providing immediate solutions for common or easily solvable problems while saving time and energy for more important tasks.

For example, if it’s common for customers to get an error when importing their data, create a list of the top five things they can try and fix the issue.

FAQs

FAQ pages have become treasure troves of help guides, the place where information we don’t know what to do with is stored. They tend to feature questions which are bizarre and borderline insane.

Frequently Asked Questions are an easy way to show customers that their questions not only have been heard, but answered. Create FAQs which answer common questions and check with Customer Support if you're unsure of what these would be.

To provide a workaround for an issue many customers are experiencing, you could outline your best alternative solution. To explain why you haven't built a certain feature that customers are requesting, you could outline the challenges in developing this feature and what prevents its development.

Best practices article

Successful help content will not only answer the most common customer questions, but also act as a motivational GPS that keeps your customers on track.

To ensure that customers are getting the most out of your products, proactively teach them how to do something new.

Best practices are the most effective way to become an expert.

• Share your best tips for using the product, as well as what others have shared about how they use it.
• Share real-life customer examples that reflect your business goals and message.
• Interview your team to discover their advice for how they use your product.
• Ask your product-related and non-product-related questions to better understand what the customers are trying to do.

by Costi