If you are a part of the SaaS world, chances are you’ve heard the term customer success. Maybe you even have an individual or an entire team dedicated to Customer Success Management (CSM). But, why is it so important?

Well, take into consideration that approximately 70-95% of your revenue comes after an initial sale is closed – through renewals, upsells and cross-sells. This means that an effective services department can have a huge impact on future revenue generation. And, these increases in revenue are usually a result of a successful onboarding, ongoing engagement to ensure customers are realizing the value of their investment and delivering a level of service that reduces churn.

So, what tactics can you employ to build lasting relationships with your customers that continue to generate value on both sides? Here are three ways to up your customer success game and secure a bigger piece of the pie.

Reimagine Your Sales Pipeline

A common visualization of the sales journey is a funnel, where prospects are weighted by the probability that the sale will close. The customer success model challenges this notion by suggesting that your sales process be modeled after an hourglass. After the initial sale, your customers become a center of growth by generating more business for you. Leads from your customers are free, and take less time to close. In addition, word-of-mouth truly sells! Your happy customers are the best place to generate a bustling referral business.

Adopt Key Metrics

How are you measuring customer success? If your business operates under a recurring revenue model, then you’re familiar with churn. As your business grows, the cost of churn outpaces the rate at which new revenue comes in. Making sure your customers are happy and getting the most out of the product they’ve purchased from you, is key. The number of support tickets, payment history, user adoption rate, and customer satisfaction are all great examples of metrics that can be used to predict and prevent churn.

Get with the Mindset

Customer success is a mindset that should be adopted by everyone within your company – starting at the very top. Tailoring your sales effort towards the people who actually need what you’re selling is paramount to ensuring that they will be successful in adopting your product. Grow your relationships with your customers beyond the initial sale by conducting periodic value assessments, scheduling on-site visits and providing them with the resources they need to be successful.

For product delivery, use your metrics to craft an evidence-backed onboarding program that increases the likelihood of retention.  In your marketing department, your metrics, case-studies, and testimonials can be used to beef up campaigns and provide prospective customers with insurance that they will be successful.

The Bottom Line

When an initial deal is closed, this does not mean the nurturing of the relationship should stop. In fact, you should think of an initial win as the start of a long and fruitful journey together – beginning with implementation and continuing with ongoing retention and expansion efforts. These efforts can be optimized through the use of an integrated CRM system and marketing automation platform that will keep track of each touchpoint in the relationship and help you serve up valuable resources for ongoing support and nurture.

Interested in additional information on how you can leverage business technologies like CRM and marketing automation to support your customer success strategy? Let’s have a discussion – contact us.