Why Customer Success Is More Important Now Than Ever

While a lot of attention and focus is given to Marketing and Sales teams, Customer Success teams are just as important to your company. That’s because Customer Success teams can significantly drive revenue at a fraction of the cost when compared to investments in Marketing and Sales. Customer Success Managers (CSMs) help retain existing revenue and make sure customers are satisfied so they are more likely to purchase further products and services.

Coming out of the global pandemic, customer retention is critical because companies are slower to make new purchases. An estimated 40% of companies failed to meet their 2020 sales goals because of the pandemic, and while things are definitely going better in 2021, there is still a lot of uncertainty. This means that holding onto the clients you have and ensuring they are happy is a more reliable way of hitting revenue goals. Your customers are already comfortable and satisfied with the product, and they have established (hopefully a very positive) relationship with the Customer Success team.

By leveraging existing relationships, Customer Success teams can really shine at a time when Sales and Marketing teams are still looking for the best way forward in a changing world.

The Unique Relationship Between Customer Success and Their Clients

Customer Success teams enjoy a real advantage—they regularly interact with customers. CSMs learn what customers love about your products and services, how they use what they have purchased, and what they would like to see changed. As a result, Customer Success Managers are in the enviable position of actively addressing customer concerns and driving product usage.

Customer Success provides a liaison position that ensures customers enjoy what your company has to offer. This means that customers tend to have a positive reaction to them. When a member of Customer Success contacts a team, the exchange is usually a lot more personable and sociable. It is easier to develop a positive relationship.

But consider when people tend to reach out to Customer Success teams. Customers connect with your CSMs when they need help getting the most out of your offerings or addressing specific problems. These are reactive situations in which the CSM must respond to the issue.

Then there is proactive engagement, in which CSMs monitor a customer account and provide advice on how to use their products or services to reap greater benefits. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done due to capacity limitations facing Customer Success teams.

The Challenge Facing Customer Success Teams

Customer Success teams face a wide range of challenges. Often members of these teams have far more accounts than Sales and Marketing teams. A single Customer Success Manager may have between 50 and 100 customer accounts. That’s a lot to handle at one time, and clearly, they can’t give every client adequate attention.

Due to these capacity constraints, two things typically happen. The first is that a small number of high-value accounts take the lion’s share of the CSM’s time while a much longer tail of customers are relegated to impersonal tech touches. This creates discrepancies in customer experiences and leaves a large percentage of customers open to dissatisfaction or even churn. The second occurrence is known as the squeaky-wheel syndrome in which the most difficult or least satisfied customers will consume the most time. Regrettably, this means customers are discovering their own issues and your CSMs are responding retroactively.

The challenge is clear: Customer Success teams need a scalable way to personally and proactively engage all their customers. There’s a lot of value in keeping customers happy and spending. But what’s the solution?

Implementing Conversational AI to Fill the Gaps

It is unrealistic to think that Customer Success teams with such heavy account loads can contact everyone—at least not manually. Instead of leaving customers out in the cold, Conversational AI provides a way of automating personalized communications on a large scale. AI Assistants for Customer Success help make all of your customers feel like you care or can act as a way of reminding them that you are there if they need further assistance for new issues.

AI Assistants are your best employees—promptly engaging customers when they have requests and passing them along to a CSM, persistently touching customers when product usage is low, and proactively driving upsell and cross-selling opportunities.

Now is the time for Customer Success teams to really shine. Give them an AI Assistant that enhances their ability to impress existing customers, boost your company’s retention, and grow existing engagements.