What does a good customer success strategy actually look like? It depends on who you ask.
At marketing technology company Movable Ink, the customer success strategy involves regular one-on-one meetings with clients, internal cross-functional meetings and staying up to date on clients’ latest news.
As part of its customer success strategy, representatives at DigitalOcean take diligent notes on key opportunities in order to identify and enable the best business outcomes.
And at AB Tasty, onboarding, surveys and Q&A sessions with clients ensure needs are being met.
Although customer success strategies differ from company to company, the end goal is always the same: to create meaningful relationships that boost customer engagement with the business. We talked with Movable Ink’s Director of Client Strategy Julio Lopez, DigitalOcean’s Business Development Manager Robert Sheber and AB Tasty’s Customer Success Manager Ashley Thorpe to dig deeper into their respective customer success strategies and what it takes to win over clients.
Movable Ink is a marketing technology company that creates visual experiences for clients to share across email and other channels. As part of its customer success strategy, Movable Ink holds regular one-on-one meetings with clients and internal cross-functional meetings to ensure everyone is up to date on the latest news, Director of Client Strategy Julio Lopez said.
How has your team developed specific benchmarks for customer success or satisfaction?
In addition to traditional Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys, which are important but also very impersonal, we regularly temperature check the customer’s satisfaction across all levels of the relationship. Our executive team will have regular one-on-ones with clients’ leadership teams to openly discuss opportunities for improvement and highlight successes. We also hold director-level sessions with clients where we get more tactical about what needs to be done to continuously push the envelope of innovation.
To ensure internal alignment across all teams, we also hold regularly scheduled cross-functional meetings to discuss where else we can provide value for the client and create roadmaps to meet those goals. This all-in approach means that the client is always at the center of our discussions and has led to high satisfaction rates across our customer base.
What’s one thing you do regularly to go above and beyond for your clients?
To sum it up in one word, research. Oftentimes customer experience (CX) teams get bogged down by the day-to-day work and are really dependent on the client to provide information around their business priorities. By attending all investor relations presentations where organizational objectives are shared, creating Google alerts for key executives’ names (such as CEO and CMO), and watching executive interviews, we can stay on top of what’s really important at the senior leadership level.
This allows us to better service the day-to-day teams since we’re hyper-aware of what their leadership is focusing on. In a similar vein, industry research is very important. By staying on top of what is happening in the industry overall, we are able to tie back all recommendations to the broader macro-climate, which our clients really appreciate.
Our all-in approach means that the client is always at the center of our discussions.”
What’s one piece of advice you have for people in customer-facing roles who are looking to really dazzle their clients?
Use project trackers and stick to them. With so many competing priorities, it’s easy for certain initiatives to fall by the wayside. As CX leaders, we keep our clients satisfied by getting results. If projects aren’t completed and there is no documentation of what occurred, you may find yourself in an uncomfortable situation. On a positive note, project trackers keep every stakeholder accountable and that will mean more successfully launched initiatives keeping clients happy and engaged.
As part of its customer success strategy, DigitalOcean Business Development Manager Robert Sheber said that his team is required to take diligent notes and update key opportunity details in its customer relationship management (CRM) in order to identify and enable the best business outcomes.
How has your team developed specific benchmarks for customer success or satisfaction?
When working with new customers, helping them have a successful deployment to our platform is essential. Our team is very familiar with the steps customers need to take to ensure a successful deployment. One functional benchmark that we use to make sure customers don’t miss any of the critical steps in the process is to diligently notate and update key opportunity details in our CRM. This enables our customers to achieve their desired business outcomes and helps identify any remaining gaps that our team may need to address to accomplish the customer’s goals.
What’s one thing you do regularly to go above and beyond for your clients?
Following through on our commitments, while a seemingly small gesture, drives massive business results. Timely follow-up and attention to detail in customer correspondence also builds confidence with our customers. It communicates to the customer that we are familiar with their specific situation and that we are invested in addressing their needs. “Do what you say you are going to do” is a common mantra on our team.
Following through on our commitments, while a seemingly small gesture, drives massive business results.”
What’s one piece of advice you have for people in customer-facing roles who are looking to really dazzle their clients?
Dive deeper into your probing questions. Deep knowledge into fewer customer decision points can be more valuable than bouncing across the surface with many scattered high-level questions. Successful reps are the reps that are able to drive towards the real crux of their customer’s needs.
From a paid landing page to mobile checkout, AB Tasty’s platform aims to optimize the customer experience. Customer Success Manager Ashley Thorpe relies on several strategies — from NPS surveys to simply asking questions and receiving feedback — to ensure customers are satisfied.
How has your team developed specific benchmarks for customer success or satisfaction?
We use NPS surveys as one way to gauge customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Scores are published to a Slack channel that the entire company has access to. Depending on the survey response, there are specific processes and next steps.
We also have a post-onboarding survey. Successful onboarding leads to faster time-to-value for our clients, and this feedback allows us to address any concerns early on and continuously improve onboarding to make it the most efficient and effective for new customers.
Product usage is also tracked. To be a satisfied client, it’s essential to use the platform. Identifying users or accounts who are not utilizing the platform allows customer success managers (CSMs) to proactively reach out and/or provide relevant resources.
And arguably the most important way to exceed expectations is to ask questions and listen. Onboarding begins with a kick-off call where we talk to the client about their business, goals and expectations and form what we call a “mutual success plan.” Then, goals are broken down into smaller pieces (strategies, tactics and metrics) that help us tailor the training sessions and advise on which features and actions will enable them to achieve their goals
What’s one thing you do regularly to go above and beyond for your clients? What impact has that had on your client relationships?
Providing personalized test hypothesis is one way the team goes above and beyond to help our clients maximize their ROI.
I regularly advise clients on test and personalization ideas that are unique to their specific goals. This includes researching the company, competitors, performing heuristic evaluations, UX audits and analyzing session recordings to form the “best” test hypotheses for the customer.
A strong hypothesis is key to a successful CRO program. Irrelevant, incomplete or poorly formulated hypotheses are a root cause of many neutral or negative tests. Data-driven test hypotheses result in more positive (revenue-generating) tests and actionable insights.
Arguably the most important way to exceed expectations is to ask questions and listen.”
What’s one piece of advice you have for people in customer-facing roles who are looking to really dazzle their clients?
As a customer success manager, it’s our job to help the customer achieve their goals. One piece of advice I would share, especially for new customer success managers or those transitioning from a support role, is to be proactive. It can be easy to spend time being reactive in responding to immediate needs, questions or issues. Customers may appreciate this in the short term but to help them be successful (and really dazzle them), remember to carve out time for activities that allow you to be proactive with customers.
Start by talking and, more importantly, listening to your customers. Understand their goals, needs and challenges so you can offer relevant strategic advice and identify potential challenges even before they arise.
It can be helpful to block time in your calendar for key projects or activities like reviewing customer health scores, checking product adoption stats and reaching out to customers each month to help be a more proactive CSM. The most successful CSMs have the most successful customers, which makes this time non-negotiable.
