By Linda Ruffenach
“Customer service is what you and your organization provide. Customer loyalty is the result of the service.” – Shep Hyken
Congratulations you have new customers joining every day. They have chosen you over the competition. You have already done something right. Did you know (you probably did) the costs of acquiring new customers is generally 5 times more expensive that keeping the ones you already have? Many SaaS or subscription-based companies in the heavy growth stages, focus almost all their energy on acquiring new customers versus retaining the ones they already have. I recall speaking with one entrepreneur who was so excited about his company’s customer acquisition numbers he failed to see that customers were not using the product. After a few months, customer churn began to increase with many of his early adopters cancelling their agreements.
What could they have done better? Applying the acronym WIN, it is all about…
- Welcoming new customers
- Informing & educating
- Noticing and measuring engagement
“Your website is not the center of the universe. Your Facebook page is not the center of the universe. Your mobile app is not the center of the universe. Your customer is the center of the universe.” – Bruce Ernst
Welcoming New Customers – Everyone wants to feel special. One of the simplest ways to welcome a new customer on board is through proactive outreach. It can be as simple as a personalized email or for a more personal touch through a phone call. Keep in mind when crafting your message or developing a welcome campaign, at this stage it needs to be all about the customer. This is not the time to be upselling or cross selling. It is about expressing a genuine greeting that demonstrates how important they are to you and your company.
Begin with a welcoming statement that is true to brand and expresses the business personality. A few examples include:
- “I want to be the first to officially welcome you as a customer of ABC Technologies. We want each and every one of our customers to feel like they are part of our overall mission.”
- “On behalf of the entire team at XYZ Supplies, it is my honor and privilege to welcome you as a new customer.”
- “Hello, thank you for joining us on our mission to make the world a more beautiful place.”
Follow up with statements that reinforce the features and benefits of your product and service. Remind them why they chose your company in the first place. Consider creating customized graphics that fit your brand including the selection of brand colors and fonts. Given trends in technology, ensure your message is mobile app ready.
Inform and Educate – This very important step in the customer lifecycle begins at presale. Create a user experience that walks the customer through how to use your product or service. A great example is Canva, a design tool for non-designers. They have simplified the sign-up process and demonstrate right out of the gate how easy it is to use their product.
Even after purchase, additional proactive outreach should be done to get customers engaged. Identify the most important features and benefits that lead to long term retention and then begin to highlight those through different channels. This can be done through a call to action in an email, or proactive interaction with your customer such as a phone call or SMS message (make sure they opted in for contact). If it is the first time the customer is logging on, consider a proactive chat session guiding them through the best way to utilize your service.
Make it easy for the customer to engage and use your product or service.
This can be done through simple video tutorials or a series of messages that introduce or remind the customer of the key benefits and features. Include a link to schedule an onboarding appointment or an invitation to a webinar. If it fits into your budget and the desired customer experience, a proactive phone call could be made to verify they have everything to get started using your services. The important thing to remember, do not make it complicated or overwhelming. Keep it simple and straight forward.
Notice and Measure Engagement – From the moment the sale is made, look for ways to measure customer engagement. Start by first measuring frequency. Frequency is the number of times a customer logs in to your site. Determine the right pattern for your business. Should it be once a day, once a week, once a month? Identify the preferred frequency and begin to measure it. Stratify your customers into buckets and monitor associated churn rates over time. You will begin to see milestones of when and how the most valuable customers engage with your product.
Next look at amount of time on the site and patterns of usage. Identify and measure the leading indicators for engagement or potential churn. If a customer is looking for ways to cancel the service, it is a pretty strong sign they are getting ready to churn. On the flipside, if they are consistently using the technology the way you intended, they are probably more engaged and more likely to continue using your service.
Using customer engagement surveys is another option for measuring engagement. Look for points in time that make sense to send a survey. Maybe after a live interaction such as a phone call, chat session or email correspondence. Ask them about the service provided and if they would recommend your service. This simple question can be one of the best ways of measuring engagement. If the response is negative take the opportunity to reach back out to the customer to see if there is anything you can do to help satisfy their concerns.
The Customer Success Movement
The Customer Success movement ultimately boils down to active focus on W-I-N, including the ability for SaaS business to recognize customer usage patterns and proactively engage to improve customer lifetime value. While the line between customer support and customer success is a blurry one, and where it gets drawn depends on who you are talking to, we believe that whatever you call your team, the goal is the same – successful, engaged customers that feel valued and get value from the products and services you deliver. We’ve previously blogged about the Popular SaaS Companies Offering Live Chat Software, if you are interested in a view of across the Customer Success software ecosystem, we suggest checking out G2Crowd.
In the end, you are in business to resolve a problem for the customer and we suggest you stay focused on that.
