How to build the best Customer Success team?
Three (3) essential steps to forming a world-class Customer Success team
Customer Success has proven its competency in driving growth for customers and companies. By ensuring that customers attain their expectations, the companies retain these customers- reducing churn and increasing NRR, creating a mutually beneficial relationship.
In the long run, these happy customers are retained by the continued successful implementation of customer success strategies, building brand credibility, and improving customer lifetime value.
However, the best Customer Success team doesn’t stem from anywhere. It’s cultivated, and here are three (3) things you must do to build a world-class Customer Success team.
1. Build a Customer-Centric Culture
To be customer-centric is to put the customer’s opinion first.
Customer Success focuses on the ability of the customers to attain their expected value using your products or services. Hence, a customer success team must grasp what the customers want and their worries.
Make a list of happy and unhappy customers with your company’s product or services. Find out why and develop the customer’s persona to guide the customer success team’s decision-making process.
2. Formulate an Onboarding Process
Your product may not be as easy as you think it is.
You are an expert on what you do, and assuming that customers are the same is a big mistake. Utilizing your company’s product or service may be difficult, especially for new customers.
Lay out an effective onboarding process that your Customer Success team can maximize. The CS team would ensure that customers adapt to your products and services, gradually and easily guiding them to quickly attaining value.
3. Structure the Customer Success Department
Having the right people is already half the journey to success.
Recruit suitable people for your Customer Success team and assign the right roles to them, making sure that each of them is passionate about customers. Gather Customer Success team members with the skill set capable of driving change and growth. But what makes up a Customer Success Team?
Here are seven (7) Customer Success positions and their roles.
1. Chief Customer Officer (CCO)
Also called a Customer Success Director, a CCO is an executive holding the highest position in a customer success department. They are responsible for:
- Drawing the attention of C-suite executives to customer-centric values
- Supervising customer-facing teams
- Enabling cross-functional collaboration
- Training employees
- Building loyalty programs
- Evaluating and improving the overall process
2. Vice President / Head of Customer Success
Reporting to the Chief Revenue Officer and the Chief Customer Officer, the Vice President of Customer Success manages the whole Customer Success department by:
- Strategizing customer-facing activities
- Driving customer lifetime value
- Advocating customers and influencing stakeholders
- Coordinating with other teams to connect with existing and prospective
3. Customer Success Management Team Lead
A customer success management team lead manages and guides the team in overcoming challenges. They are responsible on:
- Working with executives and ensuring the Customer Success team is achieving its goal
- Collaborating with other departments to implement Customer Success at a company level
- Helping customers, commonly larger accounts, and focusing on escalation
4. Customer Success Operations Manager
Working closely with the Customer Success Managers, CS Operations Manager optimizes internal and external processes. They ensure that:
- Pitfalls are uncovered during the onboarding process
- Solutions are developed to resolve issues and prevent mistakes
- Client data are interpreted to improve current service; and
- Emerging issues are identified by listening closely to the Customer Success Managers
5. Customer Success Manager
The heart and foundation of the team, a Customer Success Manager, works directly with the customers helping them attain expected values. Customer Success Managers’ responsibilities include:
- Onboarding and training customers in utilizing products and services
- Proactively tackling problems and forming customized solutions
- Educating customers on the updates and best practices to increase the value of the products and services
6. Technical Customer Success Manager
Closely working with customers and Customer Success Managers, a Technical Customer Success Manager focuses on providing technical guidance on the product or service. They are mostly:
- Involved in onboarding and solution design
- Ensuring that CSMs are provided with the proper technical knowledge
- Gathering feedback and recommendations from customers to further improve the product and services
7. Enablement Manager
Also known as the Customer Education Manager, Enablement Managers ensure that customers understand how to use the product and services appropriately.
- They create content that trains customers on becoming experts
- They develop training programs, online learning courses, and instruction materials
- They lead product training sessions for the customers and the company
Wrapping it up…
A Customer Success team requires the right people for the job. Individuals who have the experience, training, and personal qualities capable of attaining outcomes for the customers and the company.
Building the best Customer Success team isn’t just randomly setting a goal and letting people act on their own. Ensuring that the company puts the customers above all else, customer satisfaction is just one step away.
