What is customer success in Software as a Service?
Customer Success is a philosophy, a team, and a process
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Customer success in Software as a Service refers to the idea that a company's success is dependent on its customers' success
Customer Success in Software as a Service is a philosophy, a team, and a process.
First, there’s the philosophy of customer success: it refers to the idea that a company’s success is dependent on its customers’ success.
However, this can mean different things to different people. For example, your business might be successful if your customers are generating large sums of money or using your product frequently. The idea is that you should give customers what they need to realize their own goals.
Second, there’s the team of customer success: this team is responsible for keeping business customers happy by helping them succeed with their product and use cases. They follow up after onboarding to see if customers are meeting their goals and provide training or troubleshooting as needed.
Third, there’s the process of customer success: companies with a dedicated team (or teams) may have established processes for following up with users and checking in to ensure they’re having a good experience and achieving milestones along their user journey.
However, many companies that don’t have this dedicated team still practice “customer success” in an ad hoc way; for example by sending out surveys after an interaction with support or asking users how they’re doing when checking in via email (such as when requesting feedback on new features).
You need to make sure your customers see value in what they're paying you for
At its most basic level, SaaS companies exist to help people and organizations achieve their goals with their software.
However, this is complicated by the fact that not every customer is looking for the same thing.
So, first of all, you need to understand why your customers bought your product.
As a SaaS company, you want your customers to be satisfied with their purchase. This means making sure you understand why they bought your product in the first place so that you can provide them with what they need to succeed.
Provide great service and support.
Once your customers have purchased your product, you have to make sure they know how to use it effectively and have all of the tools they need at their disposal to do so.
If a customer doesn’t know how to achieve value or ROI from your product, those are lost sales opportunities for you and perception of a waste of money for the buyer.
Ask questions like “How would you change our services if you could?” or “If we could solve any problems for you over the next 12 months what would take priority?”
Encourage user feedback and listen to it
Get to know your users. Encourage them to give feedback on their experience.
Listen to the feedback and take it seriously.
Use the feedback you get from your customers to improve your product and customer service.
Offer free trials and demos to your customers
When you schedule a demo, you’ll want to make sure that your product is ready for the show.
As you gather data about what specifically your prospects want from their software, customize the presentation to demonstrate how your product meets those needs.
During and after the demo, track the questions asked by team members. This will help you understand what companies in this vertical need so that you can incorporate that information into future demos with other prospects.
You’ll also want to keep an eye out for feedback on your demo; if customers are consistently asking for certain features or integrations, consider building them into your product.
Offering a free trial is very similar: provide the prospect with a few weeks of uninterrupted access to your service and allow them to see firsthand how it works within their business model.
An excellent way to ensure effective usage of trial periods is by assigning new users a dedicated account manager who can answer any questions they have as they navigate through the program.
Important: Make sure to establish the success criteria beforehand and make sure the customer has enough resources to conduct the trial. During a tender, it is common for companies to invite providers for trials just to use them to put some pressure on the provider of the solution they actually want.
If the customer is not answering your follow-up questions or not dedicating the necessary resources for the project it is probable that they are just using you.
Help them after they've bought the product or service
A traditional way of looking at business is as a funnel.
At the top are prospects, who move through the funnel to become leads and then customers.
But with customer success, you’re always thinking about how to help customers get more value from what they bought. You focus on improving your current product so that it helps them reach their goals.
Customer success does not mean simply giving your customers high quality support and technical assistance when they encounter problems or have questions about your product.
It means helping them get the most out of what they have already bought without trying to sell them more stuff.
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