For many companies, implementing “customer success” processes and capabilities is a relatively new concept. SaaS companies have been the early adopters of institutionalizing customer success as a core function – Customer Success Managers at SaaS companies are focused day-to-day on driving renewals, increasing up-sell and cross-sell revenue, and managing their customers more proactively and efficiently.
Companies like Gainsight help make those Customer Success Managers even better. But is customer success only specific to software and SaaS? We don’t think so.
Customer success is a universal concept that can apply to any B2B company. Whether you call it customer service or support, account management, or renewals, if your goal is to build long-term, sticky, valuable relationships with your customers, then you’re in the business of customer success.
One industry that could benefit from implementing customer success processes is hardware, specifically:
- Communications and networking companies
- Computer hardware companies
- Storage and data management companies
Although hardware companies may not have usage data like SaaS companies, that shouldn’t be a deterrent in their mission to better understand customers. Instead, support data and regular customer surveys become valuable indicators of usage and customer health.
Hardware companies can use Gainsight in several ways:
- Drive renewals on your maintenance contracts for your hardware products
- Better identify up-sell opportunities, e.g. sell more hardware products to your customers
- Better identify cross-sell opportunities, e.g. opportunities for your professional services teams to engage with customers
- Understand your customers’ usage of your hardware by integrating data from software measuring your hardware (if you have it) and other data sources like support tickets, surveys, and sponsor tracking
Ultimately, we think all B2B companies should be adopting customer success best practices. But hardware should be next to jump on the bandwagon.
