
Many larger companies today have dedicated customer success departments. While our customer success department may only consist of ourselves, that doesn’t let us off the hook! We still want to help our people find success and stick with us for a long time.
Customer success is a little bit like magic: you anticipate problems your customer will have before they even have them.
This makes them happy because their needs are being met, and it makes you happy because you aren’t inundated with support requests.
I recently put out a podcast episode about customer support for small business owners. After publishing it and attempting to promote it, I realized something: it’s really hard to make “customer support” a topic that is sexy and exciting.
I find that’s the case surrounding some of the most necessary, beneficial topics in business.
A business plan? Generally considered necessary to plan and grow your business. But not too many people are champing at the bit to sit down and write one.
Workflow analysis? This can help your business run more efficiently – but, it kinda sounds like a snoozefest, right?
While perfecting your customer support isn’t necessarily the “fun” part of running a business, don’t ignore it!
Helping your customers better use your product or service is what it’s all about. And that’s basically where “customer success” comes in.
Customer Success vs Customer Support
Customer support is reactive. Its job is to answer questions customers have when they encounter a problem.
Customer success, on the other hand, is more proactive, striving to help customers have fewer problems in the first place. It’s all about anticipating what the customer will need before they reach out.
If you haven’t heard of the term “customer success” before, it may be because the term has only really taken off in the past decade or so. It seems to be most common in medium to large scale businesses that offer tech services, like software or apps.
What Is Customer Success?
Helpscout has a great definition:
“Customer success is an effort a business undertakes to help its customers be more successful…it is no longer sufficient to assume that the company as a whole will take on customer success management; for your customers to really shine, you’ll need someone, or a team, to be wholly focused on it.”
Customer Success For Small Businesses
In the world of solopreneurship and micro-sized businesses, we likely aren’t going to be able to have a whole team focused only on customer success. Even having a single individual focused on this may be unlikely for a lot of us.
But, I don’t think that means we neglect customer success altogether!
There are still valuable lessons we can take from what customer success departments are doing in larger companies, a lot of “food for thought,” if you will.
Retaining Existing Customers Is Just As Important As Attracting New Ones
For most companies, it’s cheaper to retain existing customers than it is to attract new ones.
In subscription-based businesses, this retention is even more crucial. Just think of Netflix: if a high percentage of people paid for one month’s worth of the service and then cancelled, Netflix would have a heck of a time staying afloat. (I love my stats, so here’s one for you: a study from Antenna estimates Netflix has a retention rate of over 97%. We should all strive to be like Netflix!)
In non-subscription-based businesses, giving customers the support they need and increasing their likelihood of success with your product/service can lead to repeat purchases, word-of-mouth referrals, and so on.
In other words: the more successful your customers are, the more likely you are to be successful, too! It’s a win-win.
How Do You Define Customer Success For Your Business?
You! Yeah, you!
How do you define customer success for your business?
If your customers were able to squeeze 110% out of your product or service, what would that look like?
Now, assume that a significant percentage of your customers are not squeezing that 110% out. Maybe they’re not even squeezing out 90% or 75% out of your product or service.
Knowing that – how can WE help lead our customers to have more success?
4 Customer Success Areas To Focus On
Customer success is going to look a little different for every business. Let’s discuss 4 areas to focus on.
#1: A Well-Constructed Onboarding Process
“Onboarding” is something you may not be that familiar with if you are a traditional product-based business, like you sell a product that you ship out.
Others may be well versed in onboarding processes, especially if you have a service-based business.
If you are a traditional product-based business, challenge yourself to think critical here: you may want to adopt a mini-onboarding process to better help your customers.
Utilize Automation & One-On-One Onboarding
Some businesses opt for a more automated onboarding strategy in the form of an email campaign or a video series. Others are more hands-on and schedule a one-on-one kick-off call with every new customer. Some may use a combo.
The approach you take is going to be very dependent on the amount of new customers you attract, your resources, and also on the cost of your product or service. If your thing costs $50, you can’t really afford to do one-on-one calls; if your thing costs $5000, then it’s much more justifiable!
An onboarding process should help your customers learn what they need to do to fully leverage your product/service. You can use onboarding to show them what they need to do to be successful.
#2: Sticking Points
When we are creating our product or service, we assume our customers are going to stick with us from start to finish, using our goods to their fullest capacity.
In reality, very often is that the case.
Digital worksheets get glanced at, then buried with a bunch of other files.
Videos get paused and may not be returned to again.
Courses get started and never finished.
By tuning your “customer success” ears, you can listen to sticking points that your customers often face when they are using your product/service. If you’re in direct communication with your customers post-purchase, take note of what they’re telling you. Where are they struggling? Where are they getting stuck?
Sometimes, you can get some insights that something is up by looking a metrics, too. For example: if you have a subscription-based business but notice a lot of customers cancel their subscription after the first month, or even the free trial – this may indicate that your thing fails to provide ongoing value to them.
Similarly, if you send out an onboarding email series and notice the open rates significantly drop off – either you’re doing an OUTSTANDING job in the first part of your onboarding process and the customer no longer needs any help, OR customers may be frustrated and end up ditching the entire thing before finishing.
Sticking Points Can Apply To Just About Any Type Of Product or Service!
And remember, this applies to you even if you have a physical product you mail out. For example: maybe you sell jewelry. A sticking point a customer may have after they purchase and receive their product is “it’s so pretty, but I don’t know what to style with, so it sits in a drawer in my jewelry box.” In that case, may I suggest sending them an automated email through your email marketing platform a bit after their purchase with some styling suggestions? (This may even be a good opportunity to recommend another product and make another sale! Only if it feels natural, though!)
#3: Communication & Asking For Feedback
I really like the way the HelpScout article mentioned above puts it: “creating a loop that continuously brings in honest customer feedback is the best way to…ensure you can remain proactive for the long term.”
Instead of being afraid to ask for feedback, create an open door where customers feel comfortable coming to you with their questions and thoughts. When people are honest with you, you can help them better. Honesty also lets you improve your overall customer success process – and possibly your product/service as a whole.
#4: Extra Help For Those Who Need It
In the world of tech and software, which is basically where this whole “customer success” thing grew, there’s a term called “churn.” The “churn rate” is the rate at which customers stop doing business with a company. Churn is most common in subscription-based businesses.
Know How To Identify “At-Risk” Customers
Customer support departments can identify customers or behaviors that are “at risk” for churning. Then, they can take steps to preserve the relationship.
Although a lot of us probably don’t describe our customers or clients as “at risk,” we are probably familiar with signs that they aren’t as engaged as we want them to be. Or, we can see when they are struggling more than others that we have worked with.
When we notice that, we can jump in and offer extra assistance to the customers that need it. This may be something as simple as providing a couple of additional resources to help them. Or, it may be as involved as an extra call.
“Extra Help” Could Be A Cross-Sell Or Up-Sell
This could also be a good time to promote another product or service that you already offer, in which case you can push a cross-sell or up-sell. Of course, only do this IF the cross-sell or up-sell actually helps. We’re all about integrity here, not shady marketing/selling practices.
Churn Is Inevitable – But They May Recommend A Friend!
This extra support is something most humans are going to appreciate and remember. Even if your product or service ends up not being the right for them – aka they end up churning – they may be more likely to refer a friend to you or even come back to you when they are in a better position to utilize your product or service. Plus, it just makes you feel good, too!
Let Your Customers Tell You Want THEY Need
It’s important to listen to your customers and understand what success looks like to THEM.
Understand what THEIR expectations are, not what YOUR expectations are for THEM.
Before I jump on virtually any client call anymore, I ask them a question similar to “what will make you feel like our time together is successful?” Asking your customers how THEY will define their success up front makes expectations easier to manage, and it lets everyone get on the same page.
If your client’s expectations don’t line up with what you can offer them, it’s important to nip that in the bud as early as possible, even if that means ending the relationship with the customer. Sometimes, you may just not be the right fit. That’s okay!
Wrapping It Up
Even though your business may be super small, consisting only of yourself, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take a customer-centric approach. The whole “if you build it, they will come” isn’t 100% true in the online business world. In reality, there’s a lot more besides just BUILDING it, including making sure your customer feels cared for, seen, and heard.