If there’s a word in business that’s used more often than “churn,” it’s almost certainly the word “scale.” The influence and importance of scale can be both a burden and a blessing.
Scaling is critical to every business, and every company begins with the idea that it can create a great product. However, when they turn their attention to driving growth, their primary challenge will be scaling in a way that drives true efficiency. For example, you can scale your CS team directly to support your growing customer base. Still, you’ll ultimately reach a point where it doesn’t make financial sense to continue adding headcount for every new customer you bring on.
“There are financial limits to the cost of scaling, and that’s why the word ‘scaling’ really needs to be combined with the word ‘efficiency.’”
You can scale with an unlimited amount of money – however, we know that most executive boards would not approve of that plan. So instead, they are looking for tried and true best practices from those who have already done this successfully. That is where Gainsight’s Executive Playbook for Scale and Efficiency can help.
“There is a phrase often used in conversations with other CEOs, ‘Your churn rate is your choice.’”
For Gainsight, driving scale and efficiency in your Customer Success strategy go hand in hand. Putting customer success at the core of your business allows you to deliver personalized engagement to all of your customers at scale while also giving your team time to focus on activities and accounts driving significant impact for your business. The Executive Playbook for Scale and Efficiency goes into depth about how to accomplish that. First, however, if you want some tidbits, let us explain that every organization focuses on engaging different customer segments with appropriate models to ensure that CS teams can optimize time spent focusing on key customer groups.
“The simple premise is that you can’t afford to treat all your customers the same unless you want to treat them all poorly. In which case it won’t cost very much.”
Every company must create a segmentation model that aligns with their go-to-market and financial model to provide an exceptional customer journey to each segment. Providing a similar experience for every customer, regardless of their firmographics, can increase churn because they do not get the most relevant information or level of engagement needed. Segmentation allows you to scale by grouping customers based on common attributes and developing a strategy to engage customers with the most relevant messages, at the right times and in the most effective channels for communicating with each.
Additionally, by utilizing different engagement models across your various customer segments, your team can be more efficient – spending time where it’s needed most and leveraging automation where personal, one-to-one communication is not required.
“The universal truth about scaling is that technology is the key. After all, the primary purpose of technology is to solve business problems, and tech companies are already solving issues you know about.”
Every conversation about scale and efficiency must include how the right technology fits into that framework. But which solution is the best fit for your business?
Each has unique challenges and needs, from high-touch and mid-touch to digital-touch and the long-tail business segments. At Gainsight, we have proved successful in helping our customers identify their customers’ challenges and create the best experience and journey for each. So whether it is hyper-focusing on enterprise or creating an experience that feels similar for your one-to-many customer, we have the answer.
Scale and efficiency can be accomplished with the right mindset, skills, and use of technology. From emails to webinars, in-app guides to online communities—the options are endless, and we have ideas around what can work for you. Our webinar series, Priorities and Playbooks For Customer Success, will help achieve all of this, including solutions and technology that enable teams to work efficiently and scale their Customer Success strategy.
