Your sales team just closed a client. What comes next? Whether it’s your everyday customer or your largest customer to date, it’s important to treat every customer as the most important customer to your business. In comes the Customer Success team.
This is the team responsible for ensuring your customers are utilizing your product to its fullest potential.
There are four things we think are necessary for a Customer Success team to be able to do their job successfully:
- Develop a positive handoff from Sales to Customer Success;
- Create and maintain an organized CRM system;
- Encourage an open line of communication between the Product and Customer Success teams; and
- Outline clear expectations to share with the customers
Sales to Customer Success: Creating a Positive Handoff
Up until the point of purchase, it’s likely that the only interaction this new customer has had with your company has been through their sales representative.
The customer has built a relationship with your sales rep, they trust your sales rep, and now they have to leave your sales rep.
You want the handoff from sales representative to customer success to be as seamless as possible. By having a direct introduction to the new customer from your sales representative, you will be able to build upon the rapport that sales has already developed with that customer.
Organized CRM System
A CRM system is key in the handoff between sales to customer success and then throughout the clients life cycle.
Your sales representative should be logging their conversations with the customer before they even sign on. This will give you background to the customers needs and desires for the product so you can go into your first meeting with them prepared.
Throughout their lifecycle, you want to make sure you’re logging all of your calls with the customer and leaving notes. This allows you to refer back to past conversations. You can also set reminders to reach out to the customers at various touch points to ensure no customer gets left behind.
Open Line of Communication Between the Product Team and Customer Success
Part of your role on the Customer Success team is to hear your customers ideas and feedback and bring this back to your product team. You serve as a liaison by having deep insights into both your customers and the product.
While you may not be able to make the technical changes yourself, it’s important to bring this customer feedback to the product team who can. You will need to be sure to keep this line of communication open and gain an understanding of which features are highest priority.
Clear Expectations to Share with the Customers
You want to make sure your customers have clear expectations about your product. You don’t want to over promise and not be able to deliver. It’s important to be upfront with the customer about what they can expect from the product, and be sure to keep the customer updated as specific as you can.
When a customer success team is equipped with these four things, they will have the tools to be able to thrive.
