“This should come as no surprise, but the most digital part of Customer Success is in your products. And the best digital products really see you. They know who you are. They know your goals. And they help guide you to the right outcomes.” Jake Ellis, Principal Product Evangelist, Gainsight
Customer Success (CS) leaders everywhere are embracing Digital Customer Success (Digital CS) in order to drive exceptional customer value efficiently at scale. For Digital CS to be truly successful, there’s a clear need to elevate and centralize the digital experiences our users navigate every day.
B2C technologies have trained users to expect a cohesive omnichannel experience, almost automatically. When you move between your laptop and phone, you expect apps like Spotify to remember you, right? In a similar way, Digital CS provides a framework for SaaS companies to consistently meet customers where they are—including in the product.
Craft the Digital Journey With In-app Engagements
A core component of Digital CS is identifying key touchpoints in the customer journey and then leveraging in-app engagements to deliver the right information to users at the right time—automatically. Working with product usage data, cross-functional teams can craft engagements to meet multiple goals by helping users:
- Achieve milestones like onboarding and adoption.
- Overcome challenges and accelerate Time to Value (TTV).
- Find more value and create stickier experiences with deeper feature usage.
- Ensure a cohesive, positive experience that leads to renewal.
But simply deploying engagements is not enough—content needs to be personalized in all the right ways to create a true Human-First experience. Keep these tips in mind when leveraging your product to create touchpoints in the digital customer journey:
- Feature a real teammate as the sender of the message, and ensure the customer can reach out to that person.
- Don’t spam your users with too many communications. Instead, create a strategy where a combination of user behaviors and attributes triggers in-app guidance.
- Personalize engagements based on users’ roles and objectives.
- Up-level the in-app experience by leveraging how-to content. Centralize and then make accessible Community, on-demand learning, and other content in-app—including peer-driven community conversations.
Learn more in our guide, Unlocking the Secrets of Human-First Digital CS.
Adoption Analytics Provide Game-Changing Insights
When it comes to understanding if your users are getting value out of your product or not, there’s no substitute for measuring in-product user behaviors. This data provides deep insight into how customers adopt and value your product. No matter the strength of your customer relationships, actual usage is key to building sticky experiences that drive user outcomes.
All software companies generate a constant stream of data, but if they aren’t
intentional about using it, that data isn’t doing them much good. Or worse, the data could be misinterpreted. Regardless of your product or vertical, your data tracking should be built to serve your business goals.
Usage and adoption data can help CS teams:
- Uncover the user journey as customers adopt and find value with your product—or hit roadblocks activating key features.
- Track your impact so that you have evidence to prove ROI during renewal conversations.
- Build targeted engagements that reach users at the right time based on their real-time activity in your product.
- Understand what features drive the most value, and gear digital and human-led programs to promote these features to customers to help them succeed.
Using adoption analytics to understand where users are spending their time, where they’re finding value, and where they’re getting stuck is a game-changer. Customer Success Managers (CSMs) can then step in and course-correct the adoption journey where needed.
Dive into more in-app tips in our guide, Best Practices for Effective Product Experiences.
Digital Customer Success requires cross-functional alliances. Both CS and Product teams can work together to leverage the product as a critical communication channel, improving customer experiences and outcomes. This alliance is the first step to creating cohesive in-product and in-person experiences.
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