Customer success is the modern age business strategy that helps companies strive together with the best possible outcomes. The business plans have gone beyond just catering to customer satisfaction. The goals are more focused on unique customer needs. Accordingly a company in any kind of B2B business needs to have a solid plan in place if they want to succeed in bringing out the best from customer relations.
Before we go into the technical aspects of the plan building, the companies need to have a shift in the traditional methods of workflow management. Without the proper data and use of advanced technologies, it is difficult to make this shift happen. The innovation officers and other top management officials should be ready to make this transition.
The following steps articulate the general customer success plan building. The details might change according to the needs of the specific company. But first the basic framework should be in place. Read on to know more.
Step 1: Know the Goal:
The customers for the same product will have different expectations as far as outcomes are concerned. The first step towards a building a good customer success plan is to know,which are the key points that the customer considers as “success”. They are unique for different customers. Each of them must be dealt separately and noted down to have your end goal in perspective. Effective communication is the only way to know the customer’s desired outcomes. Once you know where you are headed, you can start working on the path to that destination.
Step 2: Align the Customer’s Goal with Yours:
This is another basic step that you must follow. When devising a plan, always remember the true meaning of the customer success plan. The steps should be designed in way that satisfies both the needs of the customers and your company. Once you get to know about the customer’s goals in details, start looking into your own. They should align with each other in such a way that it will mutually benefit the two. However, you must practice caution during this part so that the customer can trust you as long term player.
Step 3: Set Small Milestones:
You have to take small steps steadily to reach your destined place. There might be situations where you will have to work from scratch. But it is important to set small goals at a time since the needs and requirements of the customers can keep on evolving. Once you reach a small milestone, you can again go through the plan to see if it’s still viable or not. You can also take into account the issues faced in the previous phase. You can rectify the mistakes committed before and improvise the plan in place accordingly. It is also important to reward the team working in close association with the customer and the client to keep the morale high.
Step 4:Construct Customer Success Metrics:
Data analysis is a very crucial part of customer success plans. You need to have a sound system in place that can collect data and analyze them according to the levels set by you. Again, it is a very unique concept. The metrics will be different for different kinds of customers. As the parent company, here are few metrics that you must go through regularly to improve your systems:
- Resolution rate
- Retention rate
- Status of individual customer accounts
- Status of the highest paying customer account
- Status of the overall accounts
This data should be reported and analyzed in a daily, weekly or monthly manner as and when needed. Getting real time data helps the company officials to work faster towards the plan.
Step 5: Team Building:
The team members in a customer success management must be highly professional. They should also have the aptitude to work in close association with different departments within the company as well as with the customer. Apart from having great communication skills, they must know how to reduce the turnaround time. Make sure you train your staff accordingly.
If you find it difficult to manage it all on your own, you can outsource the staff training to the leading outsourcing companies. They have teams of experts who know the professional way to deal with the issue. Get in contact with them to get a tailor made affordable plan.
Step 6: Use Data Tools:
Data tools like customer feedback management tools can help the customer success in many ways. You can choose one according to your needs. Data collection and analysis form a great part of the customer success plan building. So make sure that you are using the right tools. You also need to build a common platform where two teams- one from the product side and the other from the customer’s side- can work together. Taking help of the data from the two sides and analyzing them properly will give you the correct outlook towards the next steps of your plan.
Step 7: Feedback Collection:
Only when you get the right feedback from the customers, you can work towards your next steps. Once your customer success plan starts to run with the help of all the data tools and expert professionals, you should start collecting the customer’s feedback. Remember to improvise the methods when collecting this feedback. That will set you apart from your other competitors. Make sure that you are not over burdening the customers with too many questions. Try to get the most out of these valuable comments. If you have identified certain issues that you think need attention, try to pin point those issues in the feedback questions to get the maximum benefits.
Step 8: Keep Evolving:
Customer success domain is a very dynamic forum. Once you have completed all these steps and put them into action, do not forget that the goals you are working for might change anytime. So you need to be always careful about the growing changes in the industry. Make sure you keep a good rapport with the customers. That way you can get to know any changes they might want to do. Your service will enhance their efforts. This in turn will help you to grow a long-term loyal customer base.
Hope this blog helped you understand the steps to devise the perfect customer success plan. For any queries, write them below and we will get back to you if they are relevant. For more updates, subscribe to our blog.