Computer success teams: getting the most out of yours

image of women talking

SaaS companies have been discussing the importance of building and maintaining a strong sales team to the success of organizations for years. However, it’s only recently that sales leaders have begun to truly understand the value of customer success to revenue retention and generation.

Churn is an inevitable part of the industry, but it is every SaaS leader’s objective to keep churn as low as possible and generate repeat revenue from loyal customers. Research revealed that only 20% of software features are actually used, while 50% are never used, and 30% are used infrequently. If businesses are not continuously demonstrating the functionality and value of the product, especially during the early days of the engagement, it is unlikely that customer lifetime value targets will be hit, and customers will be retained.

What is customer success?

The fundamentals of customer success are ensuring that customers have a great experience with the SaaS solution, and they are getting the most value possible. A customer success team begins by onboarding the client and making sure they know how to use the product properly. Ideally, these team members are delivering on the promises made during the sales process and ensuring that the software solves the pain points that led to the purchase.

Often customer success teams are confused with customer support teams. However, customer support teams are reactive in that they only respond to customers once they have raised concerns. Customer success teams on the other hand are proactive in that they anticipate any needs of customers before they raise a concern.

Salespeople are the face of the brand because they serve as the first representation of the company. But, after the sales process ends, their position changes. The customer success team becomes the face of the software after-sale and will interact with the customers for months. or hopefully years to come. It
is therefore critically important to invest in the training of team members to ensure they are armed with the tools and skills they need to impress customers and address issues.

The importance of customer success in the SaaS industry

In the SaaS industry, net retention is a critical metric that determines whether businesses sink or swim. When dealing with contracts that are predicated on monthly or annual recurring revenue, it’s not just about acquiring customers, it’s about keeping them. Maximizing the lifetime value of a customer is very important, and although some churn is inevitable, businesses need to maintain a strong and loyal customer base.

Customer success representatives are tasked with not only keeping customers happy, but also ensuring they renew and even upgrade in order to continue generating revenue from the same company. An important aspect of customer retention is encouraging a high level of adoption and engagement to keep building a use case in the customer’s mind, particularly when the contract is coming up for renewal.
Beyond revenue retention, most effective customer success teams are compensated for their ability to upsell and cross-sell. Most SaaS organizations have a modular solution that benefits from a ‘land and expand’ approach and are therefore dependent on customer success for its prosperity.

How to build the best customer success team

Most organizations put customer success teams through feature only training to make team members well prepared to answer product-specific questions. While this training is certainly necessary, few organisations invest in sales training for their customer success teams. This can be problematic
for representatives as they are responsible for continually selling the value of solution and extracting more money from customers.

Evidenced by only 20% of software features actually being used, proper onboarding and succession planning is a rarity. If people aren’t seeing the true value of the software solution, this will inevitably lead to high churn levels and missed opportunities. Representatives need to be trained correctly on onboarding customers, frequent and meaningful interactions, and approaching renewal conversations.
Representatives must also be able to discuss potential cross-sell and upsell opportunities, how to re-engage disengaged users, and how to generate additional business through referrals.

The best customer success teams are constantly monitoring for disengagement, and multithreading the account to establish relationships beyond the main point of contact. There are all soft and tactical sales skills that organizations cannot expect customer success representatives to develop on their own. If SaaS businesses are to improve churn rates and retain revenue, investment into customer success teams is vital. Businesses should be investing in a customer success training program upon onboarding that provides representatives with the foundations they need to confidently approach customer interactions.
To learn more about how to effectively train sales teams please visit: salesworks.io

BY: By Shabri Lakhani, CEO of SalesWorks

How E-commerce Marketers Can Win Black Friday

Sue Azari • 11th November 2024

As new global eCommerce players expand their influence across both European and US markets, traditional brands are navigating a rapidly shifting landscape. These fast-growing Asian platforms have gained traction by offering ultra-low prices, rapid product turnarounds, heavy investment in paid user acquisition, and leveraging viral social media trends to create demand almost in real-time. This...

Why microgrids are big news

Craig Tropea • 31st October 2024

As the world continues its march towards a greener future, businesses, communities, and individuals alike are all increasingly turning towards renewable energy sources to power their operations. What is most interesting, though, is how many of them are taking the pro-active position of researching, selecting, and implementing their preferred solutions without the assistance of traditional...

Is automation the silver bullet for customer retention?

Carter Busse • 22nd October 2024

CX innovation has accelerated rapidly since 2020, as business and consumer expectations evolved dramatically during the Covid-19 pandemic. Now, finding the best way to engage and respond to customers has become a top business priority and a key business challenge. Not only do customers expect the highest standard, but companies are prioritising superb CX to...

Automated Testing Tools and Their Impact on Software Quality

Natalia Yanchii • 09th October 2024

Test automation refers to using specialized software tools and frameworks to automate the execution of test cases, thereby reducing the time and effort required for manual testing. This approach ensures that automation tests run quickly and consistently, allowing development teams to identify and resolve defects more effectively. Test automation provides greater accuracy by eliminating human...

Custom Software Development

Natalia Yanchii • 04th October 2024

There is a wide performance gap between industry-leading companies and other market players. What helps these top businesses outperform their competitors? McKinsey & Company researchers are confident that these are digital technologies and custom software solutions. Nearly 70% of the top performers develop their proprietary products to differentiate themselves from competitors and drive growth. As...

The Impact of Test Automation on Software Quality

Natalia Yanchii • 04th October 2024

Software systems have become highly complex now, with multiple interconnected components, diverse user interfaces, and business logic. To ensure quality, QA engineers thoroughly test these systems through either automated or manual testing. At Testlum, we met many software development teams who were pressured to deliver new features and updates at a faster pace. The manual...