The Full-Stack for Customer Success
Something that makes me throw money at products and services, is the experience I have with them. Over the past decade, I have noticed the little things companies do for their customers, and their own employees, to increase satisfaction via experience.
What most people don’t understand are the platforms used to provide the service and experience. A great example of this is the ‘legacy’ US banking technology (which I could rant your ear off about as much as architectural facts of buildings along the Chicago river) that manages your account. This system graciously provides the ‘awkward phone silence’ when a rep is waiting to access your account, going through level upon level of access to view your details. Over time, they have learned to fill this void with trivial conversation/up-sells, to make you feel comfortable, and feel like a person who is valued.
How to pick the right platform for your organization?
Whether it’s to replace a system you’ve outgrown or discover a new solution to streamline an ineffective process. Creating a structured approach is important to evaluate your options so you can fully invest in each customer. Some important items to consider are…
Value in Achieving Results
Evaluate & Seek Feedback from Your Team
Longevity/Scalability
Security/Compliance
Integration Capacity
Budget
How does the platform help achieve your top metrics?
Whatever solutions you select, they should help you measure and manage the metrics that matter most to your business. An example of metrics that I focus on are…
Customer Lifetime Value
Account Health
Retention Rate
Churn Rate
Customer Success Software Stack Breakdown
Building a smooth customer experience is not easy, so I’m going through the important factors of what a non-technical calls their ‘full stack’ to provide great customer experience & service.
Keep in mind that many of the platforms mentions below are in multiple sections since customer success software had grown to be a platform.
Analytics
When you’re scaling, you’re gaining lots and lots of users from your targeted funnels, and then some. Product managers are important in making sure you’re exceeding customer needs and continuing to build the envisioned features, versions, etc. Marketing managers need a way to identify the best funnels of customer conversion and best ‘cost per acquisition’ price. Having an analytics management product allows them to find the sweet spots and make your user base grow, and stick, like crazy. Customer Success pulls these analytics to further monitor and segment users.
Platforms: Gainsight, Mixpanel, Heap, Looker, Fullstory, Pendo, Amplitude
Adoption / Monitor
Implementing Analytics gives you access to building a systematic approach towards monitoring usage helps you to better understand your customer's habits, preferences and pain points, resulting in more personalized customer management. By identifying specific user behaviors, you can tailor your engagement strategies and optimize opportunities for upselling/cross-selling. This data-driven approach not only enhances customer satisfaction but also acts as a preventive measure against the dreaded churn. Moreover, it offers valuable insights into how improvements in service delivery could potentially increase user adoption/satisfaction rates.
*Most Analytics platforms have this functionality included.
Platforms: Gainsight, Mixpanel, Heap, Looker, Fullstory, Pendo, Amplitude
CRM
A good CRM (Customer Relationship Manager) makes all the difference in keeping customers engaged and happy as well as managing a team of account managers. This also keeps Sales and Account Managers from asking too many questions, creating breaks in service, on-boarding, experience, and team happiness (you know what I’m talking about).
*Get ready to see these platforms in the following sections as their functionalities expand across the customer journey.
Platforms: Salesforce, Zoho, HubSpot, Close.io, ClientSuccess, ChurnZero, Vitally, Gainsight
Engagement / Voice
Engaging customers keeps them happy while on your app, makes them a sticky user or what I learned as a “Happy Prisoner”. This starts with the welcome, goes through on-boarding, and continues as the ‘Voice’; providing valuable content from specific triggers, advising on product/industry specific news, and providing education through knowledge base, blog, surveys, and more.
Platforms: Intercom, Gainsight, Salesforce, HubSpot
Customer Management / Service
Customer service software is a vital component of modern businesses, enabling them to effectively handle incident management and customer management. The tools provide seamless support across various communication channels such as phone, chat, and email. With customer service software, businesses can efficiently collect and analyze customer support requests, ensuring prompt assistance and resolution. Additionally,
These platforms offer valuable reporting capabilities to track cases and measure the effectiveness of customer support efforts. By integrating with different communication channels, customer service software enables businesses to streamline their operations and deliver exceptional customer experiences.
Platforms: Intercom, Zendesk, Zoho, Drift, Freshdesk, Salesforce, HubSpot
Knowledge / Education / Learning Management
The tools to help scale and educate, and even more is to create advocates and emerge as an industry leader (more on this in Advocacy). You want to have something that provides easy searching, great UI, syncs really easy to your app, and is super simple to maintain (non-devs will manage this).
A knowledge base is designed to be an incredibly user-friendly LMS (Learning Management System), allowing for seamless self-serve education. It offers a simple, intuitive UI and easy syncing with your application, making it effortless to maintain even for non-devs. The goal is not just to educate but also to foster customer advocacy, turning users into champions of your brand. This strategic approach positions you as leaders in our industry, demonstrating your commitment to empowering users through accessible information and tools.
Platforms: Intercom, Skilljar, ReadMe, Seismic Learning, Salesforce, HubSpot, Gainsight
Advocacy / Marketing
Promoting advocacy and integrating it into our marketing strategy has been a game-changer for transforming a startup with a loyal customer base to an established industry expert. Customer advocacy has emerged as a critical strategy for reducing churn and driving sales. It allows you to leverage current customers who are you Ideal Customer Profile and cheaply market to other.
Platforms: Intercom, Zendesk, Zoho, Drift, Freshdesk, Salesforce, HubSpot
Project Management
Project management tools, particularly for internal project management, serve as the backbone of successful customer onboarding. They create a seamlessly coordinated workflow that leaves no room for oversights or missed steps. Besides maintaining order, these tools introduce an element of visibility and transparency, enabling all team members to monitor progress in real time. This clear view of operations fosters accountability and promotes efficient achievement of your OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). With each task completed and every milestone reached, there's a palpable sense of accomplishment that boosts team morale. In essence, when properly utilized, project management tools can transform your customer onboarding process into a well-oiled machine.
Platforms: ClickUp, Asana, Monday.com, Trello, Confluence, Smartsheet
Product Feedback
To create a customer-centric product organization, it is crucial to establish a continuous feedback loop with customers. By actively seeking feedback, product managers can gain valuable insights into what customers truly care about and value. This information can then be used to make informed decisions that prioritize customer needs and improve the overall customer experience. By leveraging this feedback loop, product organizations can consistently deliver products that align with customer expectations and continuously increase customer value.
Platforms: Productboard, Canny, UserVoice, Aha!
ROADMAPPING
Through Product Feedback, roadmapping software paves the way for product led growth. It serves as a compass, steering the product evolution towards directions that resonate with clients' demands and market trends. Moreover, it enables success teams to craft solutions that are not just innovative but also relevant and user-friendly. By establishing robust feedback loops, it ensures continuous improvement of the product based on consumer insights and experiences. This continuous process of feedback and enhancements ultimately fosters a product ecosystem that is adaptive, responsive, and customer-centric.
Platforms: Productboard, ProductPlan, Confluence, Canny, UserVoice, Aha!
SALES ENABLEMENT
The same software to bring in new customers can also play a pivotal role in fostering customer renewal. Furthermore, sales enablement tools are instrumental in identifying potential upsell and cross-sell opportunities.
Platforms: Salesforce, Zoho, HubSpot, Close.io, ClientSuccess, ChurnZero, Vitally, Gainsight
DATA MANAGEMENT
From the initial phase of data warehousing to the intricate process of systems integration, the goal is a unified and accurate view of your customer data management. A robust admin tool plays a key role in navigating this vast sea of information, ensuring that data is accessible, manageable, and meaningful. It's more than just managing numbers—it's about understanding customer behaviors, identifying patterns, and predicting trends. By leveraging these insights, businesses can foster stronger relationships with their customers and drive growth.
Platforms: AWS, Snowflake, Databrick, Cloudrea, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, SysAdmin Tool, Retool, OutSystems, Appian
FORECASTING
Forecasting tools utilize the data collated in your Customer Management and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems to anticipate the trajectory of your business metrics. This predictive capability is particularly useful for planning future strategies and preparing for anticipated challenges. With accurate forecasting, you can strategize renewals, ensuring a steady revenue stream and customer satisfaction. Furthermore, forecasting can provide insights into areas requiring team growth, helping you allocate resources more effectively. Many larger, enterprise CRMs may have this already built in but could be good to look at stand-alone products.
Platforms: Gainsight, Clari, Salesforce, Outreach, People.ai
Over time, you can expect to change a few platforms, build internal tools, and condense the amount of 3rd party applications you use to keep customers happy. Over ten years ago when I started building customer success organizations, a secret sauce for a non-technical operator was/is Zapier (saved this for the readers who actually made it this far into my ‘essay’) which helped me scale processes like never before.
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