I am always asked this question by my peers –

The customer retention is organically good and the churn is below industry standards. What other KPIs can I set for my team to keep them motivated? 

Interesting question, isn’t it?

My immediate response was an applause! A loud one!

Achieving organic customer retention is definitely AWESOME! It shows the team is performing as per the customer’s expectations and the customer objectives are MET.

What further excites me is their willingness to go the extra mile and improve their performance so that they can be exceptional and continue their winning streak!

We always hear people quoting “make hay while the sun shines”. This question is the perfect example of being proactive – the key to becoming a valued Customer Success Manager 

Being proactive is the key to becoming a valued Customer Success Manager

Tweet

As an answer, I have a consolidated approach –

1. Create ideal customer profiles – 

Define your best customer! Find the behavioral patterns. Note down the product features or services utilized extensively. Include company size, industry, MRR, the workforce needed. Also include the duration required to achieve certain customer journey milestones like Onboarding, Product Adoption, Upsells/Upgrades, etc.

Once you consolidate all this information, share the ideal profile with your Marketing, Sales, and Executive team. This will help them generate quality leads, increase prospect conversions, and sales closures.

2. Check customer’s product usage and adoption with a fine comb

Any lack of understanding/usage/inconvenience about the product at the customer’s end is an opportunity to upsell/cross-sell the customer. This can be done in the form of feature upgrades, paid team-trainings, etc. 

For this, proactively interacting with each happy customer on a regular basis is the key. 

3. Review customer touchpoints post-sale

Check the communication that is sent to the customer during the entire customer journey on all the channels. Make sure the communication emphasizes more about meeting the customer’s objective rather than boosting your company.

Customer communication should emphasize more about meeting the customer’s objective rather than boosting your company.

Tweet

4. A Customer Advisory Board

Your happy customers are an asset. They not just love your product/service but will also help you with the information about why they love it. 

Form a customer advisory board and involve as many customers as you can. Collaborate with these champions when launching a new product, fine-tuning your existing products or services, beta-testing new features, or even for initial discussions regarding product roadmaps or customer journey maps. 

5. Customer Advocacy

Every happy customer has the potential to be your brand promoter! And if requested politely they will happily oblige! Get lots of success stories, case studies, testimonials, video interviews ready with your successful customers. You can utilize these in your sales pitch, marketing collaterals, social media channels, customer onboarding pitch etc.

6. Search for opportunities to delight the customer

Going a step ahead, check the processes at the customer’s end BEFORE and AFTER they use your product/service and search for opportunities to innovate, digitize, or simplify them.

For instance, if your product requires uploading files in certain format, provide the customers an option to

a. download a sample file in the required format

b. help them convert their file into the required format.

In short, putting yourself into the customer’s shoes and thinking from their perspective.

To conclude, customer retention if done wisely can perform as a separate profit centre for the company. It is essential to continue the retention efforts even when the times are good to maintain the loyalty in the minds of the customers.

With these approaches, I am sure you will stay one step ahead in your pursuit of being an exceptional customer success manager!

Do drop your feedback and let me know if you have any more different strategies that we can add to the above list!