Customer Success: What Is It?

Many companies are beginning to see the value of incorporating customer success into their overall marketing plan. This is because creating connections and improving the customer experience have become increasingly important for brands over the past decade. In fact, investing in customer success has emerged as one of the most significant growth opportunities in business.

But what is customer success exactly, and how do you measure it?

What Is Customer Success?

Put simply, customer success is a business strategy for managing profitable custom relationships. It’s about giving your customers the best possible experience with your brand, anticipating any potential customer challenges, and proactively developing solutions that boost customer satisfaction and retention and, consequently, increase customer loyalty and the bottom line of your business: profits.

Customer success goes beyond the concept of delivering customer service and support. It’s about having real-time visibility over the issues that your customers typically encounter, and proactively offering solutions so that customers get maximum value from your brand. The best way to achieve this is by developing a system of continuous feedback so that you are tuned into the needs, wants, pain points, and desires of your customer base.

Why Is Customer Success Important?

Now that we’ve addressed what customer success is, let’s take a look at why developing a customer success strategy in your company can help you grow and develop as a brand.

• Keeping your customers happy is the most cost-effective way to build a business. This is primarily because it is far cheaper to retain a customer than to source a new one.
• It helps you build long-lasting relationships with your customers.
• Happy customers are the best form of brand promotion.
• Customer success helps reduce your churn rates, improve customer satisfaction levels, and boost revenue.
• It pinpoints problems and opportunities by collecting and leveraging as many data points as possible about the customer.
• It boosts corporate profitability and growth.
• It increases the lifetime value of each customer.
• It helps you better understand the customer experience and lifecycle so that you can make better strategic decisions.

Customer Success Metrics

There are a number of metrics that can help you measure your customer success rate.

Here are some of the most commonly used KPIs. How many are you currently tracking?

Customer Health Score

One of the most effective metrics for tracking your customer success rate is using a customer health score.

A customer health score is a metric used to determine whether customers are healthy or at-risk. You can use it to determine your overall customer success rate, and identify which individuals you need to reach out to in order to retain them as customers before it’s too late.

Are your customers seeing value from your products or services? Are they receiving assistance with any issues? Does your product or service eliminate their pain points? Are they getting what they want and expect from your brand?

The scale you use to score your customers will depend on the nature of your business. You need to define what a “healthy” customer looks like and develop a subjective index for measuring and scoring their health. For example, you could track product usage, website activity, customer feedback or community participation.

Net Promoter Score

Another popular metric for measuring customer satisfaction is a Net Promoter Score. A Net Promoter Score is primarily focused on whether or not a customer would recommend your company to someone else. This is done by asking existing customers to rate their experience with you on a numerical scale and provide an explanation for their score. This provides you with quantitative and qualitative data about your customers.

Customer Churn Rate

The next customer success metric we will look at is the customer churn rate. This is a very valuable KPI as it is a direct reflection of the success of your customer relationships. The higher your churn rate, the more you need to work on improving the buyer experience and developing and retaining loyal customers.

You should aim to monitor your churn rates on a monthly basis. You should also reach out to churned customers to help you understand why they are not satisfied with your brand. This will help you reduce your churn rates in the future.

Tips to Improve Customer Success

Let’s take a look at a few tips to help you boost your customer success rate and develop profitable relationships with your client base. These strategies can be highly effective for reducing your churn and boosting retention.

Offer a Personalized Experience

A highly effective strategy for improving your customer success rate is offering your customers a personalized experience. This helps each and every customer feel that you are listening to them and that you understand their specific needs, goals, and pain points. In fact, studies have shown that consumers are 91% more likely to shop with brands who recognize, remember, and provide them with relevant offers and recommendations.

Monitor User Engagement

You also need to make sure you monitor customer engagement on a regular basis to make sure your customers are engaging with your products or services. Remember that the customer lifecycle goes beyond the point of purchase. Keep track of all interactions and analyze how people interact with your brand. This will help you provide the maximum value to your customers.

Act on Feedback

Finally, perhaps the most important strategy for ensuring customer success is requesting regular feedback from your customers and acting on it. Find out exactly what your customers think of your brand.

What do they love about their experience with you? What do you need to work on? Which customer touchpoints do you need to develop in order to improve the buyer experience and provide your customers with value at every stage of their lifecycle?

Not only will this help your customers feel heard and valued, but it will help you develop a successful CX that attracts loyal customers that further promote your brand.