Reducing Churn For Customer Success

According to a new study by RegalixResearch, organizations are realizing Customer Success importance in their own growth curve and have begun investing in Customer Success teams. Some questions that the study set out to find answers to spoke in depth to 100 senior Customer Success executives in large and medium sized organizations in the technology to help shape the report.

The study addressed what these Customer Success teams are striving to achieve; how are they faring in meeting those objectives; what the challenges they are facing; and what is the positive outcome that organizations are deriving out of their Customer Success initiatives.

72% of organizations had a clearly defined Customer Success strategy while the remaining 28% said they didn’t have one yet. The top three objectives chosen by marketers as driving their Customer Success program were

• ‘Reducing churn’ (66%)
• ‘Increasing product usage’ (65%)
• ‘Increasing renewal’ (57%)

While these work well as primary objectives of a Customer Success program, the report suggests that the benefits of such a program could be more far-reaching.

It appears, says the report, that not many marketers were yet leveraging the program to maximize revenue from their existing customer base through ‘upsell & cross-sell’ (38%), ‘increase revenue from each customer’ (32%) or ‘gain referrals’ (16%).

‘Product adoption’ is the key benefit to a customer, say marketers. 87% of respondents believed their Customer Success programs helped their customers in ‘product adoption’. ‘Better ROI’ (82%) and ‘easier onboarding’ (60%) were other key benefits mentioned by them.

• 87%  Help with using the product (product adoption)
• 82% Customers get a better return
• 60% Easier onboarding
• 34% Customers save time
• 5% Customers are monetarily benefited (through referral promotions, loyalty programs) on their investment

When asked about the key metrics used to measure the performance of Customer Success in their organization, 68% of respondents mentioned ‘renewals’ and 55% chose ‘customer churn rate’. Metrics like ‘quantum of upsell and cross-sell’ (16%), ‘customer referral rate’ (10%) and ‘lifetime value’ (5%) to gauge the long term performance of a Customer Success program are yet to gain traction amongst marketers.

Key metrics used to measure the performance of Customer Success:

• 68% Renewals
• 55% Customer churn rate
• 42% Customer health score
• 34% Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• 31% Customer Satisfaction level (CSAT)
• 27% Revenue generated
• 23% Engagement metrics
• 19% Adoption rate
• 16% Quantum of up-sell & cross-sell
• 10% Customer referral rate
• 10% ROI
• 5% Lifetime Value

64% of respondents said their preferred Customer Success software was Salesforce, while 26% said that they used Gainsight. Customer Success software or platform:

• 64% Salesforce
• 26% Gainsight
• 22% We don’t use one at the moment
• 7% Marketo
• 3% Client success
• 2% Totango
• 2% Amity

Email and Phone are the most preferred customer engagement channels, says the report. When choosing a channel for engaging with existing customers, companies preferred using ‘email’ (88%) and ‘phone’ (80%). ‘Webinar & online events’ (37%) and ‘social media’ (12%) did not seem to find much favor despite having proven advantages:

• 88% Email
• 80% Phone
• 37% Webinars & online events
• 24% Offline events (workshops/ seminars etc.)
• 12% Social media
• 10% Website

When marketers were asked what they found most challenging in ensuring the success of their Customer Success programs, 57% of them said it was ‘managing customer expectations’. ‘Measuring customer satisfaction’ (52%) came next in their list followed by ‘getting actionable insights from customer data’ (48%). ‘Live demos’ (78%) is the most-used asset for customer onboarding.

Predictive analytics is the most sought-after technology in Customer Success. 67% of respondents currently employ or hope to employ predictive analytics technology in their Customer Success program. ‘Artificial intelligence & machine learning’ (38%) and ‘chatbots’ (27%) were the other picks.

Customer Success has caught the imagination of marketers in recent times, and not without reason. There are enough studies on the subject that show that acquiring a new customer is considerably more expensive than retaining an existing one and that increasing the customer retention rate increases profits, says the report.

Existing customers can not only deliver profits, but can add immense value to a business by providing honest feedback on products and services. By knowing what is working and what is not in their business offering, an organization can put itself in the sweet spot of future growth and profitability.

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Originally published at https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/314767/reducing-churn-for-customer-success.html