Yesterday, I spoke at the Churn Zero Big Ryg customer success conference in a session titled, “When customer success is a second-class citizen”. Throughout my time as an entrepreneur and working in startups, I’ve always been responsible for customer-facing functions—sales, support, and customer success. And now, as an outside advisor to growing startups, I am […]
SaaS Customer Success Best Practices
Read, listen and watch SaaS customer success best practices for founders and leaders of growing technology companies at SaaSX.com — Execute Better. Grow Faster. — SaaS Business Best Practices. Join SaaS co-founders and operators for guidance on sales, marketing, customer success, culture, and institutional readiness.
Can Professional Services and SaaS Coexist?
My SaaS and startup DNA includes a lot of experience in running professional services organizations. But knowing how professional services revenue is valued in the market (not as much as you would think), and how hard it can be to maintain high margins, I can never recommend a SaaS launch a professional service offering. But […]
Who owns SaaS customer revenue?
In the past, I’ve shared some perspective about whether sales or customer success should own SaaS customer expansion and renewals, and the answer was a resounding, “it depends”. “It depends” is one of my least favorite responses to a question. But in this case, it’s true. Ultimately both sales and customer success can be equally […]
A Beginner’s Guide to Customer Churn Analysis
Tracking customer churn rate is one of the most important metrics for your SaaS business. And for obvious reasons, because lost customers equal a direct loss of revenue. However, customer attrition can actually cost you even more than just their individual worth. Studies have shown that that the customer acquisition cost (CAC) of earning a […]
The Importance of Customer Success in SaaS—and How to Help Your Customers Succeed
Customer success in SaaS is fast becoming the first line of attack to boost conversions, raise customer happiness, and reduce churn. Every day, a strong customer success strategy is becoming more and more essential for SaaS companies. So what exactly is customer success, how does it work, and are you “doing it right”? Don’t worry, […]
Do Product-Led Growth Companies Need Customer Success?
Um…Yes, they do. In this article, I’ll provide some basic concepts about product-led growth and customer success, and then I will circle back with a follow-up article about how to specifically leverage customer success in a product-led growth SaaS company. So let’s jump in… The term product-led growth (PLG) has a pretty broad definition, but […]
Sample SaaS Customer Onboarding Cadence
SaaS customer onboarding is so critical—it’s really where the customer relationship is won or lost. There is a ton of great customer success information out there—but nothing that’s “block and tackle” specific, like an actual onboarding cadence example. The customer success organization has the responsibility to deliver an exceptional onboarding experience, from the first email […]
Customer success IS product.
Customer success is your product. Your product is customer success. Period, end of story. It’s time to change the culture of expectation for customer success. Having worked with products that had incredible product-market fit (PMF) and products that didn’t, I can tell you that perfectly executed customer success plays do not make or break a […]
The SaaS Customer Retention Roundup
Merely satisfying customers will not be enough to earn their loyalty. Instead, they must experience exceptional service worthy of their repeat business and referral. Understand the factors that drive this customer revolution. – Rick Tate Last week, we shared some of our favorite articles discussing the numerous complexities of SaaS customer success. For this week’s roundup, […]
The SaaS Customer Success Roundup
One of the most important things to understand about customer success is what it is not. It is not taking your sales or tech support team and renaming it “customer success.” – Kate Harvey For this week’s SaaS roundup, we thought we’d try something a little different. With SaaS Customer Success gradually going from nothing more […]
