10 Laws of Customer Success

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Child-like Joy

The 10 Laws of Customer Success



Child-like Joy


Dan Steinman Chief Customer Officer

[email protected]

Scott Golden Customer Strategy

[email protected]


It’s a top-down, company-wide commitment

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Law #1: It’s a top-down, company-wide commitment Customer Success involves shifting the orientation of your company from your product or your sales to your customers’ success. •  Product: Which feature will truly help our clients achieve their goals with

our solution (versus being demo-ware)? •  Sales: Which clients are really likely to be good fits for our solution (versus

ones that will leave us quickly)? •  Marketing: What messages authentically align with the success and value

we deliver? (versus being buzzwords) •  Finance: Which metrics reflect real success and value for our clients?

(versus just new sales)


Sell to the right customer

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Law #2: Sell to the Right Customer

Customer Success is responsible for the complete customer journey. •  Revenue is important but Product Marketing Fit is equally

important. Product teams need to balance customer needs with product development •  The Right Customers will help mature and your company’s PMF

and innovation. •  The Wrong Customers will put constraints on every aspect of your

company’s go-to-market motion.


The natural tendency for customers is towards churn

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Law #3: Customer’s Natural Tendency is to Churn

Customer’s tendency, uninterrupted, is to drift away from their vendor.

•  Changes in product, people, and business models all attribute to customer churn.

•  Long-term SaaS health is directly tied to churn and retention strategy

•  Churn increases as the size of your customer base increases which makes it incredibly difficult to overcome.


Your customers’ initial desire and expectation is to be wildly successful with your product

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Law #4: Customer’s initial expectation is to be wildly successful with your product.


Law #4: Customer’s initial expectation is to be wildly successful with your product.

•  In order to help your customers be wildly successful, the first

thing you need to understand is what success means to them.

•  ROI isn’t a concept, it’s an equation

•  Get on a cadence and track your progress

•  Success isn’t a destination; it’s a journey


You must relentlessly measure and manage your customers

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Law #5: Relentlessly Measure and Manage your Customers

Relentlessly monitor and manage CUSTOMER HEALTH

Relentlessly monitor and MANAGE customer health

Relentlessly MONITOR and manage customer health

RELENTLESSLY monitor and manage customer health


You can no longer build loyalty through relationship

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Law #6: You can no Longer Build Loyalty through Relationships You have to figure out how to deliver love and value to these customers without much 1:1 interaction. This will bring out the best and the worst in your product and your company as you learn whether customers will be loyal because of the value they get from your product, not the relationship they have with an individual.

•  Segment your customers by a particular metric that works for your business

•  Define a customer coverage model based on segmentation

•  Create customer interaction categories based on your coverage model

•  Establish a cadence for interacting with customers

•  Help connect customers building a strong and loyal community

•  Create a customer feedback loop


Product has to be priority #1

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Law #7: Product has to be Priority #1


Obsessively improve time-to-value

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Law #8: Obsessively improve time-to-conversion

The faster you can convey your customer’s time-to-value, the sooner they will become loyal advocates of your product. The best way to refine your time-to-value strategy:

•  Work with the customer to establish concrete success measures.

•  Implement iteratively, achieving the simplest measure first, and

•  focusing on the others later.

•  Adjust in real time, springing into action the very moment you realize expected value is at risk.


Deeply understand the details of churn and retention

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Law #9: Deeply understand the details of churn In order to successfully run a long-term SaaS business, it is crucial to completely understand the intricacies of churn and retention. The earlier you understand churn and retention, the sooner your company can solve the problem. There are 5 Steps to understanding Churn: Step 1: Define what you are measuring and components of CMRR Step 2: Define period of measurement and frequency Step 3: Determine expected CMRR and categories of churn Step 4: Determine how to identify suspected/at risk churn Step 5: Align with executive leadership to develop a set of standard definitions and reports for churn/retention


Customer Success teams MUST become metrics-driven

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Law #10: CSM Teams must become metrics-driven You’ve delivered an outstanding customer success experience to your customer, but how can you repeat that process time and time again? Tracking metrics and measuring the success of you actions allows to you to have repeatable processes with predictable outcomes. Some key metrics to monitor are: Customer Behavior:

•  Net Promoter Scores •  Logins / Logouts •  Usage of specific product features /platforms (web, mobile, API)

CSM Behavior: •  Frequency of Interaction QBRs, email updates, phone calls) •  Support ticket volume handled by CSMs (rather than your Support team) •  Timeliness of risk identification •  Effectiveness of risk mitigation efforts


Law #10: CSM Teams must become metrics-driven Business Outcomes:

•  Frequency of Interaction QBRs, email updates, phone calls) •  Support ticket volume handled by CSMs (rather than your Support team) •  Timeliness of risk identification •  Effectiveness of risk mitigation efforts


Child-like Joy


Dan Steinman Chief Customer Officer

[email protected]

Scott Golden Customer Strategy

[email protected]

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10 Laws of Customer Success

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