CUSTOMER

CUSTOMER SUCCESS
SUCCESS
STRATEGY
STRATEGY

Rincon Company
John Pittman, VP Customer Success
January 20, 2015
HIGH-LEVEL CUSTOMER SUCCESS STRATEGY

1. Maximize CLV 2. Segment & treat 3. Build cross-

customers by lifecycle department customer
and persona engagement plan

Tip
Keep your goals clear
and simple. In this
example, #1 Your eye is
on the bottom line via
CLV, #2 Your focused
retention efforts, #3 Your
broad strategy.
 CUSTOMER SUCCESS LENS

We will focus on the latter stages of the customer lifecycle.

And exert influence over the early stages.

Influence Expansion

Renewal

Customer
Feedback
Target
Customer Adoption

Acquisition Engagement
Tip
Free Trial Onboarding
Customer success can’t Pipeline
solve every contributor to

Direct Impact
churn. Begin by dividing
the customer lifecycle
into what you can control
and what you can
influence.
 CUSTOMER CHURN LEVERS

We are focused on improvements to our onboarding, ongoing

engagement and renewal process.

Q2 Focus Expansion

Renewal

Customer
Feedback

Adoption

Engagement
Tip
Onboarding
You can’t focus on
everything. You
highlighted the broad role
of customer success on
the previous slide. Show
your areas of focus on this
one.
 GOING BEYOND ONBOARDING

Onboarding has been our focus.

Onboarding
Shift focus to deeper in the customer lifecycle.

Customer ROI more than onboarding time and

technical deployment.
Adoption
What happens after onboarding (adoption) really
matters.

Historically sales has “owned” renewal.

Tip
Renewal Customer success will now run renewals. Provide high level
summary of key focus
areas. Audience is the
New process initiates renewals 90 days out leadership team. Ideally,
details won’t be discussed
in this strategic
presentation.
 ADOPTION METRIC = HEALTH SCORE

Customer Health scores measure effectiveness of our

adoption efforts at the portfolio and individual CSM level.

HIGH ACTIVITY Health vs. Activity

Decrease unhealthy
customer count from
LOW ACTIVITY

Tip 34% to 25%.

Make sure you have a
near-term proxy for
retention efforts.
Customer Health Scores
are a good measuring
stick. Quadrant charts
provide a helpful way to POOR HEALTH GOOD HEALTH
visualize them.
 STRATEGIC METRICS

Many CLV & Churn calculation methods exist. The ones below
best fit our business model. We will standardize on these.

Our CLV Calculation

75% x $500 / 1% = $37,500

Gross Average Monthly
Margin % MRR per churn %
account

We Measure “Eligible Churn”

Tip

$20,000 / $2,000,000 = 1% There are multiple ways to

measure CLV and churn
depending on your
business model. Define
Revenue Lost Total Revenue Due For these up front to avoid
“multiple versions of the
During Period Renewal During Period truth” popping up.
 CAC & CRC MODEL

Customer success will spend 12% of ACV to retain

existing customers. Tip
Define the amount you’ll
spend to retain
customers. Compare this
to cost of customer
acquisition. This helps
position your team as a
“revenue protector”
rather than cost center.

Customer Acquisition Cost Customer Retention Cost

(CAC) (CRC)

$1.00 to get $1.15 $0.12 to retain $1.00

Spend New ACV Spend ACV
 CUSTOMER SEGMENTS

We have two distinct customer segments. We will develop

tailored customer success playbooks for each.

Professional
Self-service
Services
Professional Enterprise
Edition Edition

Tip
Self-service customers will
solve their own adoption
and ROI challenges. For
higher touch customers
we will offer (paid)
professional services.
NEEDS ANALYSIS – PROFESSIONAL EDITION

Smaller professional edition customers need UI to drive

adoption, self-serve customer portal and marketing for
nurture.
Product Experience
Customer Success & Product jointly
to interpret usage analytics for self-
Customer Product
serve. Product to implement UI
Success changes.
1.
2. Customer Portal
Customer Success to refresh self-
3. serve content in customer portal.

Customer
Marketing
Automated Customer Nurture
Customer Success to drive content,
Marketing to own execution.
Tip
Customer Success is a
“unicorn profession” that
reaches across disciplines
to accomplish it’s mission.
Lay out your plan and
include what is required of
other groups.
NEEDS ANALYSIS
NEEDS – PROFESSIONAL
ANALYSIS EDITION
– ENTERPRISE EDITION

Enterprise customers need high-touch treatment from

Customer Success and additional product features to fill gaps.

Product Customization
Product team to dedicate share of
each 2-week sprint to enterprise
Customer Product
customer customizations.
Success
1.
2. Professional Services
Scale professional services staffing
levels to match targeted new
customer and up-sell volume.

Customer
Marketing Tip
By splitting your needs
analysis by customer
segment you put a finer
point on what it’s going to
take to maximize
adoption and drive ROI
for customers.
CUSTOMERS’ SHOES – CRITICAL PATH
Technical Set-up “Oriented” “Active”
[week 1] [week 2] [week 4]

• Blog migrated • Understand functionality • New leads flowing

• CRM integrated • Comfortable with interface • 1st workflow live
• Website code deployed • Internal plan composed • 1st blog post live

“Full Speed” “Initial Value” “Progress”

[week 10] [week 8] [week 6]

• Email campaign sent • Build attribution report • % increase in visitors

• Lead nurture active • Complete month of stats • % increase in leads
• Social monitoring active • Lead-to-sales % increase

“Achievement” Renewal
Tip
[weeks 12-52] [week 52]
Map your customer’s
success based on their
• % lead goal achieved perspective, rather than
on the tasks your CSM
• % new sales goal achieved team needs to perform.
• Level of effort required Define the relevant
waypoints.
 BARRIERS TO CUSTOMER SUCCESS
Technical Set-up “Oriented” “Active”
Customer Challenges Customer Challenges Customer Challenges
• Subdomain takes time • None • Website Form tech skills

Our Issues Our Issues Our Issues

• Blog migration is slow • Confusing reports module • None

“Full Speed” “Initial Value” “Progress”

Customer Challenges Customer Challenges Customer Challenges
• Create enough content • Alignment on attribution • Showing slow growth

Our Issues Our Issues Our Issues

• None • None • None

“Achievement” Renewal
Tip
Customer Challenges Customer Challenges Make note of the issues
• Missed quarterly lead goal • None that stand in the way of
your customers achieving
success You’ll find many
Our Issues Our Issues challenges are on the
customer’s side. But at the
• None • Waiting too long to renew end of the day, they are
still your problems.
 CUSTOMER SUCCESS TEAM

Chief Customer Officer

VP Director, VP
Client Services Customer Support Customer Success

Sr. Consultant Sr. Support Manager Director, Customer Success

Sr. Consultant Support Manager Customer Success Manager
Sr. Consultant Customer Success Manager
Customer Advocate
Assoc. Consultant Customer Advocate Customer Success Engineer
Assoc. Consultant

• Focus on enterprise
customers
• Make feature/integration
requests of Product team
• Onboarding focus
• Handle all inbound product
support requests
• Interact with Client Services or
Customer Success as needed
• Monitor & take action on
customer health
• Manage customer portal
• Work with marketing on nurture
programs
• Work with Product on self-serve
features