Customer Success practices in the SaaS business. Most of them are relevant not only for cloud technology. We were fortunate enough to learn from SaaS companies and invest in them with excellent customer retention and high sales. Below is some key knowledge on how to ensure SaaS customer success.
1. Customer Success Team is not the only group responsible for customer success
Outflow prevention is everyone's business. Your engineers should communicate with customer engineers, the CEO should welcome as many customers as possible and have direct contact with the largest customers (each client must know the address of the general director), sellers who have signed a contract must monthly check how things are going, and the head of the support service should monitor the base so that customers do not need to update the product.
2 You must make your de facto customers "product manager"
Customer reviews should determine the direction of the product. Make sure your customers know their feedback is important and make them feel like they own it.
3 Important contract structure
All contracts must be auto-renewed with a slight increase in price when renewing. In addition, instead of paid pilots, give customers 90 days after registration. This will lower the barrier to attracting customers.
4 Give adaptation
You should always try to get an advance payment for logging in, but if the client does not want to pay, give him a free registration. Customers are often lost during registration, so it is important to make sure that they understand how to use the product. 40% of customers who did not receive adaptation, refused services within 6 months.
5 The first 3 months predict the next 9
Your team should be especially sensitive in the first 3 months. The customer experience at the stage when they pay the most attention to the product should be good. Be especially attentive and active.
6 Touch, touch, touch
Each client should be contacted at least once a month. To large customers - 1 time per week, and to the most important - 2 times a week. By the way, "touch" is not an auto-link. This is a sincere e-mail, but rather a call.
7 Poor use or reluctance to accept features may be a warning
If a client does not use your product, does not ask you questions (if customers turn to you for help, that's good!), You need to sound the alarm. If the client does not use the new features, contact him, and make sure that everything is in order.
8 Rule
Typically, for a SaaS company with corporate clients, customer success is that for every 40 customers one customer success representative is required. Do not overload the team with a ratio far from 40 to 1.
9 Train the customer
Make your customers better in using your product, constantly training them, tell how other customers use this tool.
10 New features are great, but not critical
Adding new features, albeit great, is not a way to retain a customer. It is more important to make sure that the client understands how to properly use the current functions and is aware of the value that they provide.
11 Your customers are your best new customers.
You should always look for ways to resell the product (new features) to current customers. This is the cheapest source of new customers. Make sure you maximize their interest in your product.
12 Make Sure You Sell the Right Customers
Not all revenues are equal. Do not let your sales team sign everyone and everyone. The sales team must ensure that the customers to whom they sign the contract are well suited for this product. Earning income just for growth does not create value, but simply absorbs resources.
