3 Customer Success Strategy Improvements To Navigate Disruption, Retain Customers, and Stay Ahead of the Competition

Customer Needs Are Changing… Is Your Customer Success Strategy Keeping Up?

Customer needs are shifting in the marketplace as a result of COVID-19. Your users’ lives have in many cases shrunk to the boundaries of their home and with that, the reliance on accessible and reliable technology to enable them to perform their jobs to be done has grown exponentially. According to a McKinsey Global Survey of executives done in July 2020, the current crisis has accelerated the digitization of customer interactions by several years.

B2B SaaS companies are now faced with the challenge of helping their customers adopt products and achieve success within the constraints of this new decentralized virtual workplace.. Your business is likely facing new competitors and more demanding end-users that bring on challenges that might not have existed pre-COVID.  Customer retention was perhaps not a problem when your product(s) could rely on its differentiated capabilities in the pre-COVID economy., However, many B2B SaaS companies are now faced with the reality that those times are changing. 

So, how can you help retain customers and differentiate your company from the competition, when product alone can no longer set you apart? Your Customer Success strategy can do that. With a few improvements to your CS strategy, you can  raise the bar and deliver solutions that meet customer demands in these changing times. 

Here are three things to focus on in your organization that will ultimately set you apart from the competition:

1) Know your Ideal Customer Personas

If you don’t already have segmentation in place that defines your customer groups and planned service models, start by talking to your customers about how they’re using your products. Understand what success looks like to them and what their pain points are. Which customers are trying to make your product fit in a use case that it simply wasn’t designed for? What are some other ways they could be using it to make them successful? This will help to give you more focus on your ideal customer, which can then be shared broadly across the organization so every department knows and understands who you are targeting.  Many enterprise software companies don’t have a grasp on their ideal customer or the specific product use cases that drive success.

2) Connect CS with your Sales and Product teams

Typically, these three departments operate in silos and haven’t yet seen the benefit to aligning on success together. By having the Account Executive work closely with the Customer Success Manager on defining what success looks like to the customer, and having the Product Manager in-step with how the customer is using the products, you will streamline your customer experience  with everyone working towards a common goal. The customer will feel also more confident that the solution they are purchasing is the right one, and your company will retain your customers more consistently. Be a pioneer and start doing this today.

3) Focus on Customer Outcomes

Your customers are trying to keep up with ever-changing consumer demand. How can your products help them achieve those goals? Defining the features within the product and tying those to actual business results will not only increase adoption, but will also connect real value to your business and make renewals a no-brainer. Remember: there are other products out there that can deliver similar results, so you need to go a step further with focusing on what value is being driven to set your product apart. 

It’s All Connected!

You might have read this far and are thinking, “what does this have to do with being competitive?” The fact is, changes you can make internally will strengthen your commitment to being customer-centric which will help you retain more customers, increase customer loyalty, and securing more market share than the other guys. It has been a challenging year, but you can rise to the occasion by taking a step back and re-aligning your Customer Success strategy to face the changing times head on. 

Want to dig deeper into how your Customer Success strategy can help your company drive customer centricity? Watch our latest webinar for a results-driven action plan.