In past posts, I think we addressed the question of whether Customer Success is changing. Of course it is. In fact, in many ways, it’s not so much changing as it is being created. How many companies even had an organization called “Customer Success” five years ago? It exists because SaaS has changed everything.
If we accept that supposition, then the logical question is “Now What?” I’ll try to address that question in this post. I am going to contend, without a lot of details for now, that there are four primary things that have to be carefully thought through if you are going to run an effective Customer Success organization today:
- Customer Stratification – you need to take this seriously and do it carefully because you can’t treat all customers alike.
- Customer Touch Model – this goes hand-in-hand with #1 but it also requires you to understand the overall customer experience at your company.
- Metrics – renewals, upsells, ROI, etc. Everything is different and you need to figure out what to measure, how to measure it, and what the right targets are.
- Automation – you must have a purpose-built application to help guide you in best practices and manage the complexities of this world you live in. Your CRM system and Excel just won’t cut it.
