Customer success: how to use it to increase customer retention?

The term customer success is widely applied within the companies as it serves a fundamental role in, customer acquisition and retention . This is because, in today’s market, providing a quality service or product cannot guarantee the satisfaction of the consumer.

Customers are becoming more demanding, and the shopping experience counts for a lot when choosing a company or brand. In most cases, quality of service outweighs low prices, as people are willing to pay more as long as they receive good service.

A company that invests in customer support can have an efficient after-sales department, capable of anticipating potential problems and keeping consumers satisfied.

But what is customer success? How important is it and what benefits does it provide to the business? These and other questions are what we will answer throughout this post. Enjoy reading!

What is customer success?

Customer success, or simply  customer success , is the area responsible for offering solutions that improve the customer experience in their relationship with the company. We can say that it is the old after-sales sector, which is responsible for listening to criticism, suggestions and compliments from customers, as well as identifying patterns and proposing improvements to offer the best possible service.

The after-sales department was only responsible for monitoring the customer’s process after they made a purchase. The team in this area must collect information about consumer satisfaction with the service, the purchase and the product. However, this work is only done with customers who have already made a purchase.

Unlike after-sales, customer success must cover the entire experience with the brand, from the moment the customer becomes a lead until the closing of a transaction.

This is because there may be cases in which a consumer is satisfied with the service, but the after-sales service does not motivate the person to continue buying. If there is monitoring from the beginning of the purchasing journey, it will be possible to identify the customer’s profile and anticipate problems.

What is its importance?

Nowadays, customer experience contributes a lot toward what purchase is made or not. The customers have to be captured when they first establish contact with an organization either over the phone or through a capture page.

After all, when a customer searches for a product or service, he or she is actually searching for an answer to a problem. Thus, when a purchase is made, the expectation is that it would be able to provide an answer to their queries. Still, there should be follow-through in order to determine how the business’s offerings can help the consumer.

This way, it is possible to keep the consumer’s expectations and reality in relation to the company, its products and services closer. In fact, this type of  relationship with customers  offers several advantages. We will discuss this subject below.

What are the benefits of customer success for your business?

In the previous topic, we already mentioned some advantages that this sector provides. However, the benefits don’t stop there, as customer success is very useful in helping to create other, more effective strategies for the marketing and sales sectors. Below, we will mention some that the company will have by investing in this. Check it out!

CAC reduction

One of the biggest challenges for companies is reducing their Customer Acquisition Cost. CAC is directly linked to business profits — the less you need to invest to acquire new customers, the greater your profits. However, achieving this goal is not easy, as many organizations still need to invest heavily to attract consumers.

When there is an efficient customer success department, the Customer Acquisition Cost can be reduced. This is because satisfied customers tend to recommend the business — the well-known “word of mouth” — to people they know, in addition to becoming repeat buyers.

Acquiring customers who promote the brand

Have you ever heard of brand advocates? These are consumers who have had such a good experience that they become fans of the business and advertise it for free. With the increasing use of social media, a simple post praising the company’s approach to solving a problem or the quality of its products or services can go viral in just a few hours.

This way, thousands and even millions of people see the message and get a good image of the brand. But of course, achieving this goal becomes easier when you invest in knowing the right customer profile that is interested in the solutions that are offered.

Improvement in internal processes

When all stages of the sales funnel are monitored, it becomes easier for the company to promote improvements to its business. This is because it is possible to identify processes that do not generate value for the customer or for the company.

Increased customer retention

For a company to make good profits, it is not enough to just catch the attention of any consumer: it is necessary to attract and  win over the right customers . But what would that be? The person who can afford to pay for your product? That’s right. However, having purchasing power is not enough.

The right customer is one who has problems that can be solved by what the company offers. This factor helps to build loyalty, because when a person is satisfied with the service and the purchase, there is a high probability that they will make more purchases.

The customer success sector is responsible for taking care of the  health of customers , that is, identifying whether the public that consumes from the company and has a service contract intends to continue the advice provided by the business.

Improved customer relationships

Customer relationships are   very important for any type of business. Loyalty only occurs when there is a close relationship between the consumer and the brand, which needs to know its target audience in depth in order to offer products and services that are suited to their needs.

Furthermore, good relationships with the public help to  reduce defaults  in cases of service contracts, for example. In an educational institution, such as a college or university, default rates are very high.

In this scenario, when the customer success department creates effective actions to improve customer relations, it will help to offer solutions so that students can pay their tuition fees on time. This factor improves the student’s view of the school and also helps the college avoid going into the red.

Improvement in the quality of products or services

When there is a close relationship between customers and the company, it is easier to know what the levels of dissatisfaction are. For example: if consumers of a food distributor always complain about the prices of some products, solutions can be sought to alleviate this problem.

The company has the possibility of offering promotions or simply other options of similar products. This way, you can improve the brand image in front of the public and also the service.

It is worth remembering that customer service is a factor that counts for many points in the purchasing decision. People are willing to pay more, as long as they receive good service and have their problems solved.

If you have any doubts about this, take a look at establishments that charge a high price for their products and services and are always full. This happens because they sell positive experiences, which stay in the consumer’s mind and motivate them to continue visiting that business.

Increased sales

The main role of the customer success department is to make the customer experience unique. This factor is important to generate satisfaction and, consequently, repeat business. When a customer doesn’t go to your competitors, you should take the opportunity to extend the contract period and offer new possibilities.

When this work is done well, the consequence is obvious: there is a considerable increase in revenue. Therefore, it is only a matter of time before the business grows and opens other branches.

How to implement customer success in your company?

To implement customer success, it is necessary to have a qualified manager. Furthermore, it is essential that the entire methodology is intrinsic to the company’s culture and that everyone involved in the process is aware of this fact.

If you are a manager who does not have much knowledge about this philosophy, you may have difficulty implementing it. This is normal, as it is not as simple as it seems. Below, we will give you some tips on how to do this and be successful! Let’s get started!

Improve prospecting and sales

An efficient customer success department will not help your company achieve good results if it has a sales department that does not meet targets and a marketing department that fails to attract customers.

Therefore, before implementing this philosophy in your business, you need to improve your customer prospecting and sales. The ideal is to map all the actions that are carried out in order to identify which of them are generating better results and which ones need to be improved.

Creating landing pages, social media profiles, sending email marketing, and creating Facebook, Instagram, and Google Ads campaigns are essential to attracting new consumers. In addition, the company must invest in promotions and take advantage of seasonal periods to replenish stock and increase sales.

Dates like Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, Christmas and Black Friday are great opportunities to increase your sales and make good profits. Only with a good lead base and a satisfactory number of sales can the customer success sector do its job efficiently and provide the benefits already mentioned.

Rethink your collections process

For customer success to achieve positive results, there must be a well-defined collections process. After all, if the customer does not pay, the business does not receive any income, has no profits and may go bankrupt. Therefore, the collections department must operate efficiently.

To achieve this, the processes in this area must be monitored frequently so that the company understands its financial situation and default levels. Some of the indicators that must be monitored are:

  • late payments;
  • payments not completed;
  • customer billing.

Choosing just one payment method is not a good idea, as the company may lose sales, customers and, consequently, profitability. Ideally, you should offer payment options that are compatible with the way customers prefer to pay. Credit cards are the most widely used method for all types of transactions, both those made in physical stores and online.

However, credit cards should not be the only payment option, because despite the ease of obtaining one, not everyone uses them. Therefore, offer debit cards, bank slips and direct debits. Having a variety of options will make life easier for the customer and reduce the chances of them giving up on the purchase.

Create and apply onboarding

When a customer makes a purchase, it doesn’t mean they’re using the product they purchased. Therefore, right after the sale, the company needs to find ways to encourage the consumer to use what they purchased — this is the process we call onboarding .

This step is important so that the customer success sector has information about the customer’s experience with the product, whether it met expectations and whether it was sufficient to resolve the problem.

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