8 Customer Success Strategies You Should Definitely Implement

It's okay. You can exhale that long-stifled sigh of relief. Implementing an effective customer success program company-wide doesnotneed to feel like climbing Mount Everest — an intimidating, nearly impossible feat only the bravest and savviest of client retention experts attempt.

The process also doesn't need to happen all at once.Phew.

Although launching a full-blown program and team will likely require a series of operational changes down the road, you can smoothen the longer-term transition by adhering to the right strategies and formalizing your current activities. Then, come the time when your company is finally ready to go full steam ahead with such a program, you'll have done a lot of the legwork and已经为您的客户和您的公司准备成功。bob全站app

But wait a second. Isn't customer success just aSaaS(Software as a Service) thing?

简短答案：不再了。

尽管客户成功已经出现from the rapidly growing SaaS industry, there's also tremendous opportunity for companies far outside the world of software to build meaningful and powerful customer success programs that drivecustomer retention和recurring revenue. And if you're an avid fan of the inbound marketing methodology, you'll quickly see how the two initiatives work so well together.

No matter your industry, the goal of this post is to highlight how you can build a customer success strategy that will attract more leads to your business. What's more, you'll find that formalizing these activities will:

• 最大化客户与您公司相处的每个接触点的客户体验bob全站app
• Foster better internal communication
• Contribute to customer delight (ring any inbound marketing bells?)

But first, to sensibly structure the ideas in this article, let's discuss customer success in the context of a six-part methodology.

A Customer Success Strategy Framework

Every company's journey with its customers is different, but at Precision Marketing Group, we have a general客户成功methodologythat any business — from any industry — can follow while piecing together an effective customer success program.

Note that the small blue circles indicate some of the strategies you will use during a customer's experiences your brand or business. Yes, expectations will vary among customers, and you must also consideryour对您希望实现的期望。但是知道，理解和主动改善客户体验天生有助于客户成功。

所以让我们分解。

1. Brand Awareness

客户成功方法开始很早就开始了您的买家符号在虚线上。想一想……潜在客户第一次遇到和与您的业务交往通常是一种成败的体验 - 因为57% of the buying decisionis made before a customer even picks up the phone. And let's face it, the majority of B2B first impressions today are formed online, through your company website or perhaps via email or social media.

Yes,design and user experience are critical对fashioning a "hook"— but if a visitor takes the time to check out your brand beyond a quick scan, it's your marketing team's job to provide not only a positive experience but a consistent one. Your company's messaging, aesthetic and content should all be aligned with each other, as an inconsistent or frustrating experience is likely to end the buyer's journey right then and there.

It's during this brand awareness stage that you begin nurturing and qualifying potential customers that you're confident you can help. Therefore, it's imperative that you have a clear definition of what makes a customer a good fit — both for your benefit and theirs.

Now, chances are your website content, branding, imagery, etc. already have a look and feel that makes sense for your business and your industry. If youdo发现您的网站可以被描述为一点点…到处都是, it's time to think back to your trusty inbound marketingtraining(more specifically, theAttract和Convertphases) and consider yourtarget buyer personas。You need to identify:

• Who exactly are you trying to reach?
• 他们重视什么？
• What problems are they trying to solve?
• And what content is going to resonate with them most?

No matter what your business is, no matter what product or service you're selling, establishing your buyer personas is a quintessential first step to constructing a solid base for customer success. Even if you haven't pulled these profiles together yet, the customer success strategy youhave已经en following is publishing and promoting content that focuses on the needs of your audience.

这样，您已经解决了69% of B2B buyerswho agree that the single most influential aspect of any vendor's website is "relevant content that speaks directly to [their] company."

2.产品/服务教育

一些客户可能会喜欢您的内容，但不知道为什么他们需要您的产品或服务。也许您的产品或公司是该行业的新手，并且潜在的潜在bob全站app客户对您的信誉可疑。或者，也许客户甚至都不知道他们遇到的问题，迫使您向他们指出并解释您的公司如何彻底改变他们的生活。bob全站app

These customers are still valuable leads, however, you'll just need to educate them before they'll be motivated to buy your product or service. Your business can do this by offering free content that includes information about your company or industry. This includes blog posts, emails, interviews with employees, etc. The goal of this content is to make your brand appear more credible to your target audience.

At Hubspot, we do a good job of educating users. Aside from the blog you're enjoying at this moment, HubSpot offers free training programs throughHubspot Academy。这些程序包括视频课程，可以通过如何使用HubSpot工具来指导观众。此外，HubSpot解释了如何将这些工具集成到您公司的营销，销售和客户服务策略中。bob全站app

通过教育您的潜在潜在客户以及现有客户，您的企业将创造更具用户友好的客户体验。这样可以确保客户成功，因为它可以最大程度地减少用户使用产品或服务时将面临的潜在障碍数量。

3. Customer Acquisition

When it comes to customer acquisition, it's your sales team who has hold of the reins. While prospects convert into qualified leads and move further along the funnel, their experience and expectations of your business truly begin to take shape. Should they close and become a customer, they'll expect the same level of consistency as the relationship builds. This is why it's so important that:

1. A member of your Sales team builds a strong rapport with the prospect.
2. Each person from your team with whom the prospect has contact is "on the same page."
3. Operations or a member of the customer's future account team is brought into sales discussions early on.

So here's what you're already doing right … During those discovery calls your reps are holding with engaged leads — where they're learning more aboutcustomer needs, talking about pricing, discussing how your company works — Sales inevitably explains the results a customer can expect from your product or service delivery team.

为了支持这些努力，实施正确的技术至关重要。如果你是其中之一91% of B2B companies有11多名员工投资了客户关系管理（CRM）软件，这是客户成功列表中的另一个检查框。bob电竞官方下载此外，制定一份明确的战略声明将是谨慎的，在该声明中，营销，销售和任何其他关键利益相关者都同意。该协议将简洁地定义您的目标受众，您打算如何帮助他们，每个部门的作用以及您的团队（或您的产品）所提供的内容。

It sounds so simple, but you'd be surprised how often prospects are sold a dream that ultimately goes sour once they make the purchase. The key here is that your Marketing, Sales and Operations teams are all working together towards mutual goals. If these departments are not aligned from the very beginning — or they do not have the same working knowledge of the product or service (or access to the same data), you're brewing up a mélange of impending client retention problems.

4.引导入职

Does your business already have a documented onboarding process? If so, you're on the right track to customer success yet again. However, to optimize your onboarding process, it may just be a matter of fine-tuning smaller details.

Onboarding is potentially the most critical stage for any B2B company — in part, because there are so many opportunities for thebest-laid plans to go awry。The smoothest shift from acquisition to onboarding is to have internal operations get involved during the last leg of the sales process, and to have your sales team stay involved during the beginning of the onboarding stage.

Remember, your client has shared a lot of info with sales and they're excited about their decision to work with you. After all, they choseyouover your competitors. The last thing you want is for buyer's remorse to sink in — and you can help avoid this by having one person see that all onboarding activities are carried out in a timely manner by the appropriate departments (including IT, Finance, Engineering, etc.) and that each department is aware of where the customer is in the onboarding process.

特别是对于专业服务和技术公司而言，通常您会花费大量时间与客户讨论任何东西，然后再进行任何活动。尽管您不利用这一点很重要，但是当客户有权充分利用您的产品或服务时，这将是值得的，他们已经与销售人员和客户经理一起度过了很多时间。

5.客户支持

While you can't hold your customers' hands at every step of the customer journey, you can always be there for them with reliable customer support. The more customers use your product or service, the more questions and roadblocks they're bound to encounter. This is normal for any business, but how you assist your customers with overcoming these challenges will play a major role in customer success.

您的客户支持团队应随时可用，以帮助客户卡住。无论问题是简单还是复杂，您的团队都需要提供快速简洁的答案，以解决第一次相遇中客户请求。实际上，67% of customer churncan be avoided if your support team is able to fulfill the customer's needs during the first interaction.

If your customer support team is struggling to resolve customer requests, you may want to consider adoptingcustomer service toolsthat can help. These tools provide your support team with advantages that help them organize and manage incoming service requests. You can also create self-service support options that guide customers to solutions on their own. This way your customers don't have to pick up the phone or wait on hold when they need an immediate answer to their question.

6. Value Realization

这个阶段是您的客户的A-HA时刻实现。他们挑选了你。他们喜欢你。他们从恋爱关系中得到了他们想要的东西。

同样重要的是要注意，价值实现不是一个stage, and more of anongoingpiece of the B2B customer journey. In light of this, it's absolutely essential that you have an in-depth understanding of your customer's expectations and desired outcome.

What value realization looks like for a medical device manufacturer will drastically differ from what it looks like for a marketing firm or a corporate presentation skills training company. Frankly, it's probably going to look quite different foreach of your customers，取决于他们首先遇到的问题。

You likely have a person who checks in with the customer on at least a semi-regular basis to make sure these expectations and outcomes are being met. It's your company's job to ensure the customer understands and receives the entire value of your product or service.

Of course, it's in your best interests that the customer continues to derive value from the engagement over and over. So, use your check-ins wisely; don't be nervous about asking what's going well and what you could do better. Your customers will appreciate the opportunity to provide their insight. It's during this stage that your two companies begin to cement a long-lasting relationship, ultimately leading to customer loyalty.

7. Customer Loyalty

Customer loyaltymeans that the customer can't see themselves doing business with anybody else. You're "the one." Much like in theinbound marketing方法的Delightphase, the customer has become an传教士- 一个乐于代表他或她网络中其他人吹捧您的产品，服务，品牌等的人。

In other words, a loyal customer is a customer primed for a review, a testimonial or even a referral. Once you've firmly established customer loyalty, it's a common strategy to present your happy customer with this type of request. Wouldn't you know, it's还another customer success strategy.

Perhaps you simply haven't documented a timeline, series of events or metrics to help you determine exactly when to reach out. Take the time to sit down with leaders from sales, marketing, and customer service and come up with a consensus for what type of criteria you use to identify appropriate timing. Better yet, it may also be practical to draw upemail templatesyou can recycle that streamline the request process for various types of brand evangelism activities.

8.扩展优惠

Similar to customer loyalty, expansion offers are all about timing. If you've been working with a particular customer for a while, you're well aware of their needs. Your relationship with them can be described as transparent, as you likely already know if they're willing to approach the subject of expanding their financial relationship with you.

For a service provider, this might be tied to a renewal cycle. For a widget producer, it might be an increase in sales volume. In any industry, it may simply be anupsell or a cross-sell, depending on your company's offerings. Whatever environment you're selling in, your salespeople are already on the case. Assess the customer's level of engagement with the collateral being delivered to them, and you'll have greater insight into what that "right time" should be.

看？还不错。当您开始找到客户成功方面的同时，请知道您作为一家盈利和生产性公司已经在做什么bob全站appis客户成功, just under a different name.

作为一个明智的女人(*嗯哼*……my mother) once said,"there is no substitute for paying attention."If you pay good attention to your customers, take the time to fully understand their needs and work with them to achieve their goals, creating a customer success program will come easily to you — and you'll reap the benefits of long-term client relationships.

For more strategies to improve customer success, read about the benefits of combiningmarketing and customer success。