CUSTOMER
CUSTOMER SUCCESS
SUCCESS
STRATEGY
STRATEGY
Rincon Company
John Pittman, VP Customer Success
January 20, 2015
HIGH-LEVEL CUSTOMER SUCCESS STRATEGY
1. Maximize CLV
2. Segment & treat
customers by lifecycle
and persona
3. Build crossdepartment customer
engagement plan
Tip
Keep your goals clear
and simple. In this
example, #1 Your eye is
on the bottom line via
CLV, #2 Your focused
retention efforts, #3 Your
broad strategy.
CUSTOMER SUCCESS LENS
We will focus on the latter stages of the customer lifecycle.
And exert influence over the early stages.
Influence
Expansion
Renewal
Customer
Feedback
Target
Customer
Tip
Customer success can’t
solve every contributor to
churn. Begin by dividing
the customer lifecycle
into what you can control
and what you can
influence.
Adoption
Acquisition
Engagement
Free Trial
Pipeline
Onboarding
Direct Impact
CUSTOMER CHURN LEVERS
We are focused on improvements to our onboarding, ongoing
engagement and renewal process.
Q2 Focus
Expansion
Renewal
Customer
Feedback
Adoption
Tip
You can’t focus on
everything. You
highlighted the broad role
of customer success on
the previous slide. Show
your areas of focus on this
one.
Engagement
Onboarding
GOING BEYOND ONBOARDING
Onboarding
Adoption
Onboarding has been our focus.
Shift focus to deeper in the customer lifecycle.
Customer ROI more than onboarding time and
technical deployment.
What happens after onboarding (adoption) really
matters.
Historically sales has “owned” renewal.
Renewal
Customer success will now run renewals.
New process initiates renewals 90 days out
Tip
Provide high level
summary of key focus
areas. Audience is the
leadership team. Ideally,
details won’t be discussed
in this strategic
presentation.
ADOPTION METRIC = HEALTH SCORE
Customer Health scores measure effectiveness of our
adoption efforts at the portfolio and individual CSM level.
HIGH ACTIVITY
Health vs. Activity
Make sure you have a
near-term proxy for
retention efforts.
Customer Health Scores
are a good measuring
stick. Quadrant charts
provide a helpful way to
visualize them.
LOW ACTIVITY
Tip
Decrease unhealthy
customer count from
34% to 25%.
POOR HEALTH
GOOD HEALTH
STRATEGIC METRICS
Many CLV & Churn calculation methods exist. The ones below
best fit our business model. We will standardize on these.
Our CLV Calculation
75% x $500 / 1% = $37,500
Gross
Margin %
Average
MRR per
account
Monthly
churn %
We Measure “Eligible Churn”
$20,000 / $2,000,000 = 1%
Revenue Lost
During Period
Total Revenue Due For
Renewal During Period
Tip
There are multiple ways to
measure CLV and churn
depending on your
business model. Define
these up front to avoid
“multiple versions of the
truth” popping up.
CAC & CRC MODEL
Customer success will spend 12% of ACV to retain
existing customers.
Tip
Define the amount you’ll
spend to retain
customers. Compare this
to cost of customer
acquisition. This helps
position your team as a
“revenue protector”
rather than cost center.
Customer Acquisition Cost
Customer Retention Cost
(CAC)
(CRC)
$1.00 to get $1.15
$0.12 to retain $1.00
Spend
New ACV
Spend
ACV
CUSTOMER SEGMENTS
We have two distinct customer segments. We will develop
tailored customer success playbooks for each.
Professional
Services
Self-service
Professional
Edition
Tip
Self-service customers will
solve their own adoption
and ROI challenges. For
higher touch customers
we will offer (paid)
professional services.
Enterprise
Edition
NEEDS ANALYSIS – PROFESSIONAL EDITION
Smaller professional edition customers need UI to drive
adoption, self-serve customer portal and marketing for
nurture.
Product Experience
Customer
Success
Product
1.
2.
Customer Success & Product jointly
to interpret usage analytics for selfserve. Product to implement UI
changes.
Customer Portal
Customer Success to refresh selfserve content in customer portal.
3.
Customer
Marketing
Tip
Automated Customer Nurture
Customer Success to drive content,
Marketing to own execution.
Customer Success is a
“unicorn profession” that
reaches across disciplines
to accomplish it’s mission.
Lay out your plan and
include what is required of
other groups.
NEEDS
ANALYSIS
– PROFESSIONAL
EDITION
NEEDS
ANALYSIS
– ENTERPRISE EDITION
Enterprise customers need high-touch treatment from
Customer Success and additional product features to fill gaps.
Product Customization
Customer
Success
2.
Product
Product team to dedicate share of
each 2-week sprint to enterprise
customer customizations.
1.
Professional Services
Scale professional services staffing
levels to match targeted new
customer and up-sell volume.
Customer
Marketing
Tip
By splitting your needs
analysis by customer
segment you put a finer
point on what it’s going to
take to maximize
adoption and drive ROI
for customers.
CUSTOMERS’ SHOES – CRITICAL PATH
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Technical Set-up
“Oriented”
“Active”
[week 1]
[week 2]
[week 4]
Blog migrated
CRM integrated
Website code deployed
•
•
•
Understand functionality
Comfortable with interface
Internal plan composed
•
•
•
New leads flowing
1st workflow live
1st blog post live
“Full Speed”
“Initial Value”
“Progress”
[week 10]
[week 8]
[week 6]
Email campaign sent
Lead nurture active
Social monitoring active
•
•
Build attribution report
Complete month of stats
“Achievement”
Renewal
[weeks 12-52]
[week 52]
% lead goal achieved
% new sales goal achieved
Level of effort required
•
•
•
% increase in visitors
% increase in leads
Lead-to-sales % increase
Tip
Map your customer’s
success based on their
perspective, rather than
on the tasks your CSM
team needs to perform.
Define the relevant
waypoints.
BARRIERS TO CUSTOMER SUCCESS
Technical Set-up
“Oriented”
“Active”
Customer Challenges
• Subdomain takes time
Customer Challenges
• None
Customer Challenges
• Website Form tech skills
Our Issues
• Blog migration is slow
Our Issues
• Confusing reports module
Our Issues
• None
“Full Speed”
“Initial Value”
“Progress”
Customer Challenges
• Create enough content
Customer Challenges
• Alignment on attribution
Customer Challenges
• Showing slow growth
Our Issues
• None
Our Issues
• None
Our Issues
• None
“Achievement”
Renewal
Customer Challenges
• Missed quarterly lead goal
Customer Challenges
• None
Our Issues
• None
Our Issues
• Waiting too long to renew
Tip
Make note of the issues
that stand in the way of
your customers achieving
success You’ll find many
challenges are on the
customer’s side. But at the
end of the day, they are
still your problems.
CUSTOMER SUCCESS TEAM
Chief Customer Officer
VP
Client Services
Director,
Customer Support
VP
Customer Success
Sr. Consultant
Sr. Consultant
Sr. Consultant
Sr. Support Manager
Support Manager
Director, Customer Success
Customer Success Manager
Customer Success Manager
Customer Advocate
Customer Advocate
Assoc. Consultant
Assoc. Consultant
•
•
•
Focus on enterprise
customers
Make feature/integration
requests of Product team
Onboarding focus
•
•
Handle all inbound product
support requests
Interact with Client Services or
Customer Success as needed
Customer Success Engineer
•
•
•
•
Monitor & take action on
customer health
Manage customer portal
Work with marketing on nurture
programs
Work with Product on self-serve
features