June’s Customer Success monthly round-up includes top articles from industry experts on a range of interesting topics, including the process of hiring and choosing the right CSM, what it takes to win back a customer that’s left, and examples of companies that invested in customer success and got a huge ROI.
3 Ways to Engage Executives Early to Drive Customer Success and Value in the Long Run
According to Jason Lemkin, Founder of SaaStr, contracts that are $100,000 or larger in Annual Contract Value (ACV) will take 3-6 months to finalize. Bigger enterprise transactions, however, can take much longer. Sales cycles in the SaaS and technology world can be long and exhaustive, sometimes taking months or years. The important question this article answers is what happens at the end of the sales cycle when the executive is brought in for final approval. This is a topic that is sometimes overlooked, despite the fact that it has tremendous implications.
Hey, how are your churn rates?
10 Companies Mastering Customer Success
Here’s a fantastic list written by Jonathan Hackworth, of 10 companies that took customer success to the next level by implementing a fitting strategy for their audience. The idea expressed in this article is that the company’s success is largely determined by earning the customer’s trust and confidence.
Bring Your “Dead” Customers Back To Life
Just lost a customer? Fear not. This Insightly article takes a look at those customers who jumped ship and offers creative solutions for how to win them back and keep them for the long-run.
7 Reasons Why You’re Not Ready For Customer Success…Yet
According to the research discussed in this article, the top-three factors for investing in CSM are: improving customer retention (42%), improving customer satisfaction (33%), and increasing cross-selling and up-selling (32%). The article goes on to share 7 tips that will help you implement the right strategy to take advantage of these 3 factors.
How To Fix Your Failing ‘Customer Success’ Team
Please mind the gap. In this article, Greg Hopkins takes advantage of recent research and identifies 3 massive gaps between firms and their audiences that not only hinder customer success, but also lead to churn. Hopkins then goes on to provide a list of fixes that will help you overcome this gap.
What To Look For When Hiring A Customer Success Manager
This one is for all the HR people out there who struggle with the hiring process of a CSM. This article not only acknowledges that the importance of customer success positions is increasing rapidly for both startups and enterprises, it also offers a list of key skills one should look for when searching for a CSM.
How To Tell If Your Customer Success Manager is the One
Seguing from the last article, this piece is a lot more technical. Kevin Garcia takes the time to write down the actual experience and capabilities required to thrive in a CSM position. The great thing about this article is that it offers pros and cons for every previous work experience.
The Customer Success Conferences You Can’t Afford to Miss
2016 is halfway over, but there are plenty of customer success conferences throughout the summer and fall for those businesses looking to take their Customer and User Experience quality to the next level.