No CSM? No Problem!

Building a full Customer Success department takes a lot of time and resources that many smaller companies can’t afford. Because of this sad truth, those same companies completely push the idea of customer success out of their minds until a later date. This is a tragic mistake that will have serious financial consequences later on down the road. In this post, we’ll discuss how you can start laying the foundation for future customer success processes without applying a ton of your resources. 

‍What do you Want?

In the early stages of a company, many resources will be devoted to closing as much new business as possible, and retention will likely be an afterthought. But in a subscription model, those customers will need to renew at some point, and there are a few things that can be done in the initial conversation that will help when that fateful day arrives. 

‍Win and Loss Reasons

It’s very likely that your present sales process allows account executives to uncover the why behind deals that they’ve won and the deals that they’ve lost. This information should be tracked and recorded in an easily accessible place, because it will pay dividends when you do have the resources to devote to a CSM. Understanding win reasons will help to direct any conversations that happen throughout the customer lifecycle and provide a focal point for discussing value when renewal time arrives. Loss reasons, when properly tracked and aggregated, can provide a clearer picture of your competitive landscape, identify weaknesses in your product or process, and eventually contribute to your product roadmap. Again, it is important that this information is tracked diligently and accurately, as it will be hard to retroactively fill in the gaps. 

‍Contacts

The initial sale provides a great opportunity to start to understand the structure of your customer’s organization. Having your team track decision makers, end users, personnel in charge of implementation, etc. will make it far easier for CSM’s to reach out to the right person at the right time in the future. 

‍Purchasing Process

Again, this is information that new business reps are likely to be aware of, but making sure that it’s stored properly can pay huge dividends in the future. Along with tracking the personnel involved in purchasing, your reps can identify the decision making process, be it a board meeting or a single signature. Understanding how long your customer’s purchasing process takes will also inform future renewal outreach (i.e. if the purchasing decision for a 1 year contract takes 4 months, you’ll probably want to start the renewal conversation 5-6 months out from contract expiration) 

‍Expansion Opportunities

Identifying and tracking the way and reasons that customers expand will help identify and predict future upsell potential. Having this information on hand will make it far easier segment customers and build out SLA’s for your future CSM’s. 

Each of the items mentioned above will take hardly any additional time (if any), and will help to cement your sales process and tracking expectations. Trust me, your future self will be thankful.