All businesses seek to deliver value to customers. The main point is to keep promises and empower customers to meet goals. Customer success is a long-term requirement that drives value across operations. Customer success strategies are now made compulsory for improving the customer relationships. For a service company, the focus is on being open and true with customers, renewals, upsells, keeping communication safe, and looking out for churn. Software is an asset that needs to meet the needs currently to stay relevant. The focus is on keeping customers happy with the new language and properties. Service companies need to work like SaaS companies by keeping customer success at the core.
Need for Customer Success in Service Companies
Customer success is made of value both monetized and non-monetized. Monetized value is when you deliver more than the client expects. Non-monetized value is when the client is not only happy with the product but also the customer experience. It is calculated by the CES Index which measures value by asking customers to vote how easy it was to work or be associated with you. This metric is an evaluation of all your departments. Ensuring customer success will mean that the entire company should be tuned to be customer centric. This type of a mindset shift will cause customer retention and long-term relationships.
The need for customer success in service companies-
- Helps make onboarding of customers easy
- Makes gaining feedback easier real-time
- Builds loyal relationships
- Helps gauge customer needs
- Increases revenue
Like what you are reading?
Sign up for our newsletter
Customer Success Approach for Service Companies
Every service company needs to be customer-focused. Since the goal is long term success, we need to keep some key highlights in mind to thrive. Remember that if the customer is profitable, the company is profitable. This is why customer success works in the long run.
Onboarding Process
The onboarding process for customers must be easy. You need to reach out to them once they start working with you. This leaves a lasting impression as it is the first interaction with the company formally. Only necessary information needs to be taken to avoid making the process cumbersome.
Gather Requirements
Contact the customer via phone and have an understanding of the problems they are trying to solve. Take for example: You own a digital marketing consultancy. Try to understand what they are trying to achieve. Is it boosting their social media engagement? Or boosting SEO? Identify the needs and propose solutions that compliment the client’s business direction, challenges, goals, and more. You can find out the solutions that will help them scale operations and grow.
Workshops
First learn how customer is currently solving the problem. Once that is known, offer workshops that engage them on your service. Help them learn what is required to offer the service or use the service. Walk them through your process. Send educational content across to help them get the most from the software. This may include customer-focused content such as blogs, videos, self-help guides, webinars and more. This includes offering additional solutions that help achieve goals. For example, continuing the digital marketing agency scenario- you can share case studies of what worked for clients who are similar to them with tangible facts.
Offer Your Services
The next step in the approach must be to offer services as honestly as you can. This is the key in any relationship. Keep a note of the targets you have promised and offer that to customers. They need to receive what they signed up for. Keep the communication clear and let there be no doubt or roadblocks. Proactively offer customer support.
Customer Experience Evaluation
Focus on augmenting the customer’s experience with you as much as possible. Promote collaboration and transparency as much as possible. This will help you reduce time spent, finish open tasks faster, improve customer satisfaction and establish trust. You can make it easier, cost effective, and improve customer experience. Once this is done, you can evaluate customer experience. The key ways to evaluate customer experience include-
Keep checking with the client to ensure they are getting the best of the software. Let them know that you care through elements of personalization. This will help build a long-lasting healthy relationship with customers.
Feedback
You need to follow-up with customers to get an idea of how they feel about the product. You need to promote transparency or conduct a survey on how the customer is enjoying your product or service. This will establish a good relationship and drive mutual value. Customer success surveys, feedback forms will help understand customer sentiment towards the company. You can drive better satisfaction, partnerships, and higher profits.
You can measure the success of your customers by estimating the health of accounts. Find out the following-
- Is the customer dedicating appropriate time and resources to the project?
- Is the client engaged and invested in the project?
- Will the client refer you? Do you think that will happen?
- Is the customer ready to give you a testimonial for your services?
- Can you quantify the growth in the customer’s company from your service association?
The best way is to automate your customer success processes with a customer success tool that is designed for corporates. Streamline your account planning and keep your customers as a priority. With a tech-touch model, you can be invested in your customer relationships in a transparent manner.
Bottom Line
Along with SaaS companies, even service companies are looking to increase customer value. This is why a joint effort between the service company and your company will lead to better results. You must be customer-friendly. Putting CS as a priority is a requirement many service companies are coming to realize. CSM teams can develop drafts as per the company’s service model. So by focusing on customer engagement, customer education, and managing client goals will help achieve customer success. Making customers your advocates will help with customer retention in the long run.
Kruthan Appanna is a Customer Success Analyst with 5 years of experience. Passionate about leveraging data-driven insights to drive customer satisfaction and retention. Skilled in building strong client relationships and providing strategic solutions.
Published May 28, 2021, Updated June 07, 2023
