Software Vendors Are Not Pro-Customer Companies Just Yet

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (PRWEB) MARCH 14, 2013

During a sold out “2013 Customer Success Summit”, the first conference dedicated to teaching software companies how to become more customer centric, Totango announced the results of its “Pro-Customer Company survey”.

The survey found that while software companies desire to become Pro-Customer Companies, most respondents still face gaps in organization, technology, and processes to reach their goal of anticipating and serving customer needs proactively.

“To become a Pro-Customer Company means to put your customers first, to deliver recurring value to customers always, to be proactive in anticipating and serving customer needs, and to professionalize customer-facing business processes”, said Guy Nirpaz, co-founder and CEO of Totango. “We are excited to see leading companies hire dedicated customer success teams, but also shocked to learn how little information software companies really have about their customers”.

The Pro-Customer Company - Survey Conclusions:

There is a gap between the desire of companies to become a Pro-Customer Company and the realities of today.

There is an urgent desire for software companies to become pro-customer companies.

In the Totango research, which surveyed 106 early adopter, leading edge software companies, the average self-reported renewal rates are no more than 80%, average use of licenses is 77% and the average customer use of features is no more than 55%. Totango analysis of 10 million software users conducted last year found that overall, in any given month, 50% of software users don’t use the software they paid for.

So it is no surprise that in response, software companies are taking steps to focus on their existing customers: to deliver more value to customers, to be more proactive in anticipating and serving individual customer needs, and to professionalize customer-facing business processes.

Most software companies still face people, technology and process gaps to becoming Pro-Customer Companies.

Organization gap
Only 0.1% of all software and internet companies have appointed dedicated customer advocates, though at early adopter companies the rate is closer to 65%, an indicator of what’s to come. Even early adopter organizations still have very small, typically fewer than five people, customer advocacy teams which are also still ill-equipped.

Technology gap
Most companies lack the ability to anticipate individual customer needs and to be proactive: 38% of customer facing personnel, even at early adopter organizations, do not know what percentage of licenses is currently being utilized, and 35% can’t detect an increase or decrease in usage -- a leading indicator for customer satisfaction.

Methodology gap
Most organizations communicate with existing customers only sporadically: 64% communicate no more than once a month and communications are not personalized and not triggered by individual customer needs. There are no processes in place to take the right action with the right customer at the right time, in part because 58% of customer facing personnel lack a view of customers ready to buy and 51% don’t know which customers are in trouble.

Get the full report with infographic here.

About The Customer Success Summit
The conference in San Francisco today is jointly hosted by Totango with the Software Information and Industry Association, Avangate, Influitive, KJR Associates, The Hotline Magazine and WalkMe. It is the first invite-only worldwide executive summit about growing user value. Follow #CSSummit for latest tweets from the event or #ProCustomer for future discussions and events.

About Totango
Headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, Totango’s Customer Engagement platform helps online services create an active and engaged user base. Totango combines big data analytics with powerful segmentation and engagement tools to allow online services to take the right actions with each customer, in real time. End-users become happier and more successful – driving usage and adoption, increasing conversions, sales and lifetime value while reducing churn.

‍