2016 CustomerSuccessHowInnovativeCom
- (Mehta et al., 2016) ⇒ Nick Mehta, Dan Steinman, and Lincoln Murphy. (2016). “Customer Success: How Innovative Companies Are Reducing Churn and Growing Recurring Revenue.” John Wiley & Sons.
Subject Headings: Customer Success, Customer Churn, Net Promoter Score.
Notes
Cited By
Quotes
Table of Contents
Part I: Customer Success: The History, Organization, and Imperative
Chapter 1: The Recurring Revenue Tsunami: Why Customer Success Is Suddenly Crucial
In the Beginning
Attitudinal versus Behavioral Loyalty
The Birth of Software as a Service
Chapter 2: The Customer Success Strategy: The New Organization versus the Traditional Business Model
Why Does Customer Success Matter?
What Customer Success Is Not
Customer Success Is NOT Customer Support
What Customer Success Is
Customer Success's Cross-Functional Impact
Chapter 3: Customer Success for Traditional Nonrecurring Revenue Businesses
Are Subscriptions Only for Software and Magazines?
Delivering Customer Success
Part II: The Ten Laws of Customer Success
Chapter 4: The Practice of Customer Success
Chapter 5: Law 1: Sell to the Right Customer
How Do You Define the Right Customer?
Additional Commentary
High Touch
Low Touch
Tech Touch
Chapter 6: Law 2: The Natural Tendency for Customers and Vendors Is to Drift Apart
Additional Commentary
High Touch
Low Touch
Tech Touch
Chapter 7: Law 3: Customers Expect You to Make Them Wildly Successful
Additional Commentary
High Touch
Low Touch
Tech Touch
Chapter 8: Law 4: Relentlessly Monitor and Manage Customer Health
Additional Commentary
High Touch
Low Touch
Tech Touch
Chapter 9: Law 5: You Can No Longer Build Loyalty through Personal Relationships
Additional Commentary
High Touch
Low Touch
Part I: Customer Success: The History, Organization, and Imperative
Chapter 1: The Recurring Revenue Tsunami: Why Customer Success Is Suddenly Crucial
In the Beginning
Attitudinal versus Behavioral Loyalty
The Birth of Software as a Service
Chapter 2: The Customer Success Strategy: The New Organization versus the Traditional Business Model
Why Does Customer Success Matter? [1]
Before we dig into the organizational aspects of customer success, let's talk about the desired outcomes that drive the accompanying investment. This is important because the way you organize for customer success will often be driven by your primary motivations for investing in it. There are three basic benefits that come from executing customer success well:
- Reduce/manage churn.
- Drive increased contract value for existing customers.
- Improve the customer experience and customer satisfaction
Reduce/manage churn. As we explored in Chapter 1, using the early days of Salesforce as an example, churn can be the killer of a recurring revenue business. If churn is too high, one solution is to invest in customer success. It's important to understand that investing in customer success cannot make up for fundamental flaws in other parts of the enterprise. If your product is not good enough or your implementation processes do not meet customer requirements or your sales team is continually setting improper expectations, you will fail regardless of the quality of your customer success efforts. All things being competitively equal, an investment in the people, processes, and technology for delivering customer success will result in a reduction in churn if it's too high or a management of churn if it's at or near an acceptable and sustainable level. The ...
...
What Customer Success Is Not
Customer Success Is NOT Customer Support
What Customer Success Is
Customer Success's Cross-Functional Impact
Chapter 3: Customer Success for Traditional Nonrecurring Revenue Businesses [2]
Today, customer success is largely centered in the world of B2B SaaS companies. As we've discussed, it's the urgency created by the subscription model that has driven the need for customer success and placed it into the business consciousness. But, does it apply to other businesses as well?
The answer is a resounding, yes. The need for customer success concepts, by any name, is being discovered and, in some cases, rediscovered by many B2C and non-technology companies for a variety of reasons including:
- Most companies are thinking about how to become a subscription-based business or at least create some subscription-based products.
- Creating great customer experiences and ensuring that customers derive true business value from your products pays off. Even in a nonsubscription business, repeat business is key. If you live in a world where that's true, then consider how customer success can help you.
Remember that the phrase customer success is simply another way of saying loyalty creation and especially attitudinal loyalty creation. In businesses in which physical customer success teams exist, they exist to drive loyalty, which results in retention and revenue growth. Loyal customers stay with you and buy more from you. Every company wants their customers to do both of those things. Subscriptions have become step one in the process for doing just that, which is why, with the help of technology, they are ...
...
Are Subscriptions Only for Software and Magazines?
Delivering Customer Success
Part II: The Ten Laws of Customer Success
Chapter 4: The Practice of Customer Success [1]
In Part I of this book, we laid the foundation for customer success. We discussed the history of the subscription economy and SaaS and how the concept of customer success was the inevitable result of this new model. We talked about organizing around the philosophy of customer success, and then we got pragmatic about the actual organization called customer success (or something like it) and how it's changing the enterprise by impacting virtually all of the other key organizations, too. And then we debunked the theory that customer success might be relevant only for B2B SaaS companies. The truth is that it's conceptually relevant for every company and can be put into actual practice by not only B2B SaaS companies but also any subscription-based or pay-as-you-go company, including B2C and, more and more, traditional companies that are embracing the promised benefits of becoming customer success–centric and most likely trying to move at least part of their business to subscription.
Now it's time to get very practical. In 2010, Bessemer Venture Partners, a venture capital firm, put together a practical guide for people starting, running, or interested in understanding a SaaS company. It was called The Ten Laws of Cloud Computing also often referred to as the Ten Laws of SaaS. It was extremely well received and has been read by thousands of CEOs and entrepreneurs who wanted to venture into the wonderful world of SaaS. It became the handbook ...
...
Chapter 5: Law 1: Sell to the Right Customer [2]
Author: Ted Purcell, Senior Vice President of Sales and Customer Success, Clarizen
Selling to the right customer and being completely aligned with your product market fit (PMF) is a mission that growth companies need to focus on throughout the entire organization. The excitement of closing net new deals, especially ones involving common and well-known brands, is exciting for everyone. This is especially true if they are within your PMF, because then the revenue machine is empowered and your specialized handoff from pre-sales to post-sales can be templatized and scaled to help ensure expansion and reduce churn.
But if your customer isn't the right customer, the impact on your organization can be disastrous. The wrong customers can inhibit your organization and take you away from efforts that drive success, efficiency, and scale. On the other hand, this may be a fine line because these customers can also become critical design partners to help you extend your use case and PMF. The critical point? Be aligned on the aspects of what the right customer for your company is and is not!
The customer is the north star of a company—and its most valuable asset. For a company to live up to its aspirations and expectations at scale, the CSM needs to be the host responsible for the complete customer journey, both inside ...
How Do You Define the Right Customer?
Additional Commentary
High Touch
Low Touch
Tech Touch
Chapter 6: Law 2: The Natural Tendency for Customers and Vendors Is to Drift Apart [3]
Additional Commentary
High Touch
Low Touch
Tech Touch
Chapter 7: Law 3: Customers Expect You to Make Them Wildly Successful [4]
Additional Commentary
High Touch
Low Touch
Tech Touch
Chapter 8: Law 4: Relentlessly Monitor and Manage Customer Health [5]
Additional Commentary
High Touch
Low Touch
Tech Touch
Chapter 9: Law 5: You Can No Longer Build Loyalty through Personal Relationships [6]
Additional Commentary
High Touch
Low Touch
... You can't pour enough business into the top of the funnel to sustain real growth if customers are leaking out the bottom at a high rate. ...
... the daily job of the CSM in a SaaS company has to do with setting and resetting customer expectations, ...
References
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| Author | volume | Date Value | title | type | journal | titleUrl | doi | note | year | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 CustomerSuccessHowInnovativeCom | Nick Mehta Dan Steinman Lincoln Murphy | Customer Success: How Innovative Companies Are Reducing Churn and Growing Recurring Revenue |