In recent years, new terminology is sweeping across the business world- ‘Customer Success’. However, as compared to others, many experts feel that customer success is not going anywhere. Some customer success software on the market is simply customer relationship tools masquerading as Customer Success. Let us look at what customer success means-
“Customer Success is a business philosophy or process, which aims at ensuring that the customers of your brand or product are satisfied with the working and experience of the same.”
It should be noted that customer success is related to being focused on the client and aligning your businesses’ core expectations, productivity, and revenues from the same. In other words, if your customer is happy, your business will grow.
Challenges to Customer Success
The above-mentioned definition might appear to be relatively straightforward and simple. However, a closer examination of the same reveals that the process is confusing, involves multiple verticals and can easily morph into mismanagement.
This is because of the best form of customer success traces and maps the customer’s journey across the following cycles-
- Consideration Cycle
- Purchase Cycle
- Post Sale Cycle
- Reconsideration Cycle
Customer success is not only about leaving your customers after engaging with them and encouraging them to buy your product or service. It goes beyond that in a major way. One major challenge faced by brands is to align all their teams and trace the footsteps of the customer through it all.
Most brands are using automated SaaS Customer Success Software to stay on top of their game. However, it is important to find out whether the subscriptions aligns with your company’s expectations of what is customer success. What are you hear the dreaded words from your software provider- “this feature cannot be integrated?”
How to choose the perfect Customer Success Software?
There are a number of Customer Success Software in the market that claim to offer brands innumerable benefits. Some of the leading ones are Gainsight, G2, Custify, Client Success, Customer Success, and others.
All of them are subscription-based and offer a host of features and functionalities. If you want to go for customer success software, you should pay attention to the following points-
1. Does the Software align with all your teams?
As I mentioned before, it is important to engage with your customers at all stages of their interaction with the brand. Some customer success software on the market is simply customer relationship tools masquerading as Customer Success. Please do a thorough investigation of the product and ask for a demo from the brand before choosing the product.
2. Does the software help in taking proactive decisions for your business?
It is important to remember that the end goal of any customer success software is satisfying customers and growing revenues. This means that the software has to help your business grow by pointing out loopholes, identifying opportunities and streamlining processes. If your software is not doing this, you should not renew the subscription.
3. What is the role of Data in your Customer Success Story?
A good CS software helps in informed decision-making. It does this through data management, analytics, and reporting. This is very important, especially for businesses in the B2B field. Decisions drawn from data and analytics can help prevent wastages, offer course correction opportunities and improve productivity.
Conclusion
A good approach to take when it comes to customer success is to focus on whether the customer is making the most out of your tool and succeeding. If he is succeeding using the customer success software, then your software is succeeding. Even though terms like customer experience, service and management are closely related to customer success, there are marked differences between the concepts.
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