Far too many customer success organizations know they need to start implementing digital customer success, but just don’t know where or how to start. And that’s understandable. It’s a new endeavor, and there aren’t currently many resources that explain how to begin implementing effective digital CS programs. However, the outcomes of having these programs in place are exciting, which is why many organizations want to start diving into digital CS. These outcomes include: Roadmaps for designing and developing future CS programs. Reduced costs across the board. Internal efficiency gains, driven by ..read more

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Just as customer success is always evolving, so is ChurnZero’s customer success software. Catch up on what’s new from Q1 2024, and see how it makes a difference, in our quarterly roundup of ChurnZero product release notes. Feature Update : Chart and table enhancements for Customer Journeys What’s new: Your Journey Milestones and Tasks just got a facelift! We’ve cleaned up your Gantt chart and table views and added different color selection for Milestones. How it makes a difference: Manage progress and stay on top of where every customer is on their journey, whether it’s events, logins, or comp ..read more

Every CSM has faced a day or two that felt like a minefield of tough conversations and tricky interpersonal situations. From tense renewal negotiations to rivalry with other departments to frustrated customers, there’s no shortage of conflict in customer success. It can be tricky to deal with, says customer success trainer and coach Ryan Johansen, but avoiding conflict or getting it wrong will only lead to more stress—not to mention missed growth opportunities and damaged relationships. The good news is that handling tough conversations is a skill you can—and should—develop like any other. Thi ..read more

Discover how to assess customer health and drive business growth Understanding the health of your customer base is crucial for minimizing churn and identifying opportunities for expansion. “The Customer Health Score Handbook” provides a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to building a customer health scoring program, helping you predict customer health, prevent surprise churn, and grow your accounts. What’s inside Customer health scores in a nutshell A customer health score is a metric that evaluates a customer’s engagement and satisfaction with your company. These scores help identify at-risk ..read more

This is a guest article by Swati Garg, founder and CEO, Melo Associates, and Lindsay Lynch, senior recruitment consultant, Melo Associates, a recruitment firm focused on customer success hiring for SaaS and tech companies nationwide. Hiring the right talent for your company’s customer success team determines its success. A clear, detailed, and well-written customer success job description is essential to attract the right candidate while providing important information about the company, necessary qualifications and skills for the role, company culture, benefits and more. H ..read more

Nothing in customer success causes CSMs to catch “feelings”, as Naomi Aiken puts it, as reliably as losing a customer. Churn often brings feelings of shame, blame, and frustration in its wake, making it hard to analyze and learn from the loss. But what if you could break the cycle? A former ChurnZero CSM and team leader, and now the founder of Techtonic Lift, Naomi has developed the Outcomes Club format for learning from churn. Collaborative, analytical, and team-focused, it works because it focuses on preventable churn, and keeps blame to a minimum. This month, Naomi shared how to do it in a ..read more

The SaaS industry was hit hard in late 2022 through 2024. Shifts in market dynamics led investors to favor financial stability and profitability over “growth at all costs,” putting retention at the center of most businesses. The metrics of retention (gross revenue retention or net revenue retention) are now cemented as the qualifying metrics when investors and boards ask about a company’s health . Per the 2024 Customer Success Leadership Study, 51% of CS teams are responsible for renewal revenue and 41% for expansion revenue. As drivers of recurring revenue, CS teams are critical to the health ..read more

For most CX teams in SaaS, the implementation process is a one-way street. Your team directs their attention outward to focus on the customer, their needs, their data, their stakeholders, and their timetable. And, really, that’s how it should be—with one exception. To the customer, implementation handoffs are almost a formality. An introduction from their sales rep to the implementation team starts the process, and a handoff from implementation to their CSM concludes it. For your CX team, however, each handoff point is an opportunity to build and transfer customer knowledge to benefit your cus ..read more

When 2023’s Customer Success Leadership Study suggested that 77% of CS teams meet with their customers in person, the finding was met with some skepticism. Yet, 2024’s results reiterate the trend, indicating that in-person customer meetings are here to stay, and that they make a difference. This year, 82% of customer success leaders say they’re investing in in-person customer meetings. What’s more, those who do report bigger deals, better NRR, higher team growth, and lower CSM load. Of course, companies that sell larger deals can invest more in relationships. At the same time, better NRR and h ..read more