User Success

Users are the #1 influencers of churn

User Success

In many industries, the B2B customer only plays the role of "purchaser". The real power in brand loyalty comes from the users. These people far outnumber the customers, and have an entirely different set of criteria. I've led teams to be both empathetic and strategic towards both.

Potential User Success strategies you can apply:

Stronger product onboarding ecosystem

Objective: Users report their time-to-success "feels" faster and/or friction-free.
Key Result: Create better onboarding and tracking, through in-app tutorials, deploying enablement materials, sending new-release onboarding, and increased engagement opportunities through newsletters and Community posts.

Low-touch engagement by Digital CSMs

Like D2C users, many small-to-medium business (SMB) users manage things themselves. They don't always bring large ARR, so they don't often unlock full-scale enterprise CSM workflows. This is where a DCSM Team can shine.

Objective: Reach the highest number of customers/users to apply the most effective risk mitigation possible.
Key Result: Get Data Team to start running reports through Google Looker Studio for customer segmentation. Commence digital reach-out, using email, Community messaging, and texting, with DCSM Teams monitoring specific mailboxes. Employ playbooks that initiate onboarding, intelligently disperse customers requiring support triage, and mitigate churn.

Medium-touch engagements: hybrid handoffs
Mid-sized businesses may get CSMs, but only for purchases. They don't get the full-spread of enterprise-level training and enablement. Here's where a Digital CSM Team can leverage automated adoption for the mid-size client's staff/user base.

Objective: Employ playbooks that act as mid-sized models of QBRs. Brand them as SMB Strategy Sessions.
Key Result: Capture customer information into SMB Strategy Session. Convert data into mid-tier EBR. Deploy to internal product, marketing, sales, and customer teams.

LASER-Focused (When LAER becomes LASER)

LASER-Focus

In LAER, everything is envisioned from the vender's perspective. The Goal Stage is the "R" for Renew. The infinity loop gets triggered by a successful renewal. It's a terrific model for a Customer Success Managers (CSMs) to engage with customers.

But there's an inherent problem...

Each customer has their own threshold for tolerating sales, marketing, and even their CSMs. There's a point where they don't want to be bothered by anyone. They want to be LEFT ALONE.

In LASER, everything is reimagined from the customer's point of view. Everything in LASER is about getting them to the "S" for Success - where they can become a self-sufficient partner on the journey.

Here's the secret:

You can measure this through modernized QBRs, health scores, and internal EBRs. The modernization reimagines them with LASER-Focus.

Customer Advocates

"I want everything to just work. Period."

- Every customer, ever

Nobody should ever need support, right? Whether it's software, kitchen appliances, pet supplies, or high-performance engines, stuff should just work. But it doesn't, so people need help. For this, they want the wisest person in the world, waiting, 24/7, ready to assist them.

This is where burnout or banality creeps in... unless you're a Customer Advocate. That's where the fire lives.

Nobody can champion the needs of a company's user base better than a customer advocate. Building strong relationships between a customer team and the user base is key. Sure, helping D2C or B2B customers find maximum value in each stage of the product journey is important, but that's just industry lingo getting in the way. It is simpler than that. Customers have goals. Leading support teams in these areas requires the ability to help performance-minded individuals to guide customers to achieve those goals.