In the first part of this series on the Business Benefit Of Customer Success Management (CSM), I talked about who benefits from CSM and how the ROI is measured from having a CSM organization.
Now I want to dive into the first business benefit Forrester cites in their report “An Executive Primer to Customer Success Management., and that’s Expanded Revenue.
Data-Driven Revenue Expansion
From up-sells to price increases, when a CSM has a data-driven conversation with their customer, one based not just on usage data, but the myriad other inputs into a Customer Health Score, the ability for Customer Success Management to directly impact top-line revenue is substantial.
Forrester found in their research what we’ve known to be true, and that is the power of having a data-driven conversation with customers. Knowing how customers are using your product and how they feel about their experience therein, among other data points, can lead to increased product usage within your customer’s organization, and allows appropriate cross-sells and up-sell opportunities to surface that are actually aligned with their business goals (the definition of customer success, right?).
Further, in their report, Forrester shows that when the customer is presented with data that quantifies the ROI they’ve received from the solution, it has a significant boost to up-sells. The report goes into detail on this, including the actual percentage.
In fact, one CSM manager is quoted in the report as saying, “We understand our customers’ goals and we know how they are using our products. It makes the right conversations easy to have at renewal time.” That’s power.
In their report, Forrester breaks down the three main areas of Customer Success Management business benefit – Expanded Revenue, Preserved Revenue, and New Bookings – which I’ll continue to outline over the next two posts.
Or, you can skip ahead and read all of Forrester’s findings on Customer Success – including the process they used to determine their findings – by downloading “An Executive Primer to Customer Success Management” right now.
