The SaaS client’s success is not only an important factor but a necessary one. However, if you don’t keep your customers happy then they will go elsewhere.

In the SaaS industry, customers are your bread and butter. For example, losing 10% of them every month becomes 71% lost in just one year.

It would take a lot of work to break even, and not just in the sense that I’m going to have to put some hours into it. For example, if you started the year with 100 customers, by the end of it, there would only be 28 left, which means that for your business to stay afloat and not go bankrupt (lose all profit), you’d have had 72 new customers come into your store business throughout this year.

The concept of SaaS client success is that if sales and marketing are what drive new customers, then the role for this team should be to keep those existing clients. So if we can reduce churn or improve retention rates for our current clients, they will bring in more business.

 

What is SaaS customer success?

SaaS client success is when your customers achieve their desired outcome through interactions with you.

This means that your customers are successful when they use your product.

When you want to grow a SaaS business, it’s important that you focus on acquiring new customers and retaining the ones already there.

SaaS client success is a critical element of the customer lifecycle, which means that it cannot be left out when designing your process.

• Onboarding: For your customers to buy into what you’re selling, they need a smooth onboarding process. Setting up a salesperson with what they need and giving them value from using the service are both great ways to make sure that they stay motivated.
• Renewal: Client success teams are necessary for successful SaaS companies because they work with customers to make sure that they get the most out of your product. In the long run, this should have a positive effect on customer retention and churn rates.
• Customer advocacy: For any SaaS company, client success is about meeting customer needs and helping them succeed with your product. Customers are not just your customers for one transaction. They might be happy with the service they receive and recommend you to their friends, family members or coworkers.

 

SaaS customer success is essential — Here’s why

When you’re trying to grow your SaaS company, the lifeblood of that growth is recurring revenue. So if customers are leaving and not coming back, it will be hard for any other success.

A customer’s success is essential for SaaS companies because it can lead to retention, referral growth, and product usage.

 

Here’s how to win with SaaS client success

The following are seven best practices for SaaS companies to keep customers. They can help grow a company by improving customer retention and satisfaction, turning one-time customers into long-term advocates.

1. Prioritize it

Selling your product is nice, but it won’t last unless people find success and value in what you create (and sell). 

The key to success is the ability of your software to meet an individual’s needs and expectations. If they can achieve what you offer them, then they will keep coming back more often.

If you’re looking to hire a client success manager, do it early on. This person will ensure that your customers are at the forefront of everything you do and every decision is based around them. In addition, hiring someone in an earlier stage means they can start implementing changes right away, making it clear that your business’s focus should be its clients.

It is not just the customer service department that has a responsibility to customers. Every team in an organization should have some sense of empathy for their clients.

2. Know Your Customers

If Lincoln Murphy is to be believed, SaaS client success can be boiled down into “when your customers achieve their desired outcome through interactions with your company.”

Utilize surveys to get feedback from your customers. It’s really important to take surveys because they can help you understand what your strengths are and how you could improve.

To be a successful salesperson, you need to understand what the customer’s goals are and how their aspirations intersect with your product or service. Furthermore, if you are looking to build relationships with customers then having them over for dinner at your office is a great way to get the ball rolling.

You have to network with other people in your industry because it’s the only way you’ll know what everyone else is doing. You can share your experience and get feedback from them about theirs.

Talking to my customers, I’ve realized that their goals and expectations are all different. As a result, you need to keep this in mind when designing your onboarding process.

3. Focus on what your customers need

When your customer success team meets with a new client, the primary goal should be to get them set up and using their product as soon as possible. However, there’s more to it than just getting customers signed up; they also need to see value from day one.

I’ve found that in some cases, it’s helpful to have a dedicated onboarding manager on hand during the installation process. This strategy usually applies to high-value clients or enterprise companies.

One of the more common ways that SaaS companies onboard their new employees is by providing a walkthrough on using their product and some handy tips in emails.

For customers to become loyal, you need a system in place from the very beginning. This way, they can see value early and keep using your service.

4. Those who leave need a system, too

When so many SaaS companies focus on acquiring and retaining customers, they often forget that it is inevitable for some of them to churn.

When it comes to your customer’s experience of being let go, the less they have to say about you, the better. It is important that during this process you do not just focus on what was good but also take note of any areas for improvement. That’s why we recommend asking for a few minutes after they’ve left to say goodbye so that their final thoughts are on how much fun it was working with you.

They are always your customer even if you don’t have them tomorrow when it comes to customers.

As you are about to terminate an employee, a process needs to be followed.

• Cancellation process: When customers are trying to cancel their subscription and they can’t find the button, it’s frustrating. Provide a cancellation link on your website so that customers can easily cancel their orders, or have someone available to answer customer service calls.
• Integrations: It’s always a good idea to mention any partnerships you have with other companies when selling your product. If they cancel, make them aware of what it will do to their service and how much worse things might get.
• Access to data: I once had a salesperson who was still able to access their account for months after they were fired.
• Access to your product: Ahrefs makes it really hard to unsubscribe from their service. When you cancel your paid subscription, they downgrade you to a free version of the product with limited features instead of losing all access.

5. Keep private data safe

Usage data is the best way to tell if your customers use your product. You can take it a step further and track how often they use it, or you could focus on what features they use.

When a customer is not using your product, they are also not successful with it.

6. Get feedback as often as possible

It’s essential to gather feedback from your customers, not just for understanding their needs and priorities but also because it can help you understand what they like or dislike about the product. There are a few ways to do this, but one way is by regularly gathering data from your SaaS clients. You can find all the information you need on our page.

The most important thing that your SaaS client success team can do is to listen and not just collect feedback. When it comes to using data, you need to use the information in your business and share what is happening with employees. You also have a responsibility of understanding how customers perceive you.

Once you have feedback from several different customers, it’s easier to figure out what will work for the business. There is no doubt that data points are a huge part of the puzzle. The more information we have, the better.

The customer journey map is a great way to visualize the steps in your customers’ journeys and figure out how you can improve their experience. You could also use it as input for product development or marketing. It is important for companies to find out where their customers are in the decision-making process and then tailor messages accordingly.

7. 7/24 Good Staff

If you want to be customer-friendly, offer more than one way for customers to contact your company. For example: chat, email or phone.

Provide your customers with a dedicated email address, phone number for customer support, and live chat.

The last thing you want is for your customers to be frustrated or panicked, so make it easy for them to contact SaaS client success.. This way, your CS team can get them to calm down and transfer the call if necessary.