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Lessons learned from a week of chatting with entrepreneurs, mentors, and investors about Customer Success.
1. You can't take for granted that people know what Customer Success "is". Fascinating, illuminating, and humbling to realize that ours is still an evolving and emerging profession.
2. The younger the company, the less time and attention they've had to spend on Customer Success. A lot of assumptions, hopes, and deemed higher priorities in the earlier stages.
3. The investors I spoke with cared only about one metric, churn. When discussing all other metrics typically associated with Customer Success, there was no real interest in them.
So what does this all mean from a customer success design perspective? Three things:
1. Customer Success is just that. It's all in the words. Thinking about and assuring your customers are successful with your solution. Those of us in the profession need to continually talk about it more, and always ask if the audience has heard of it before.
2. Customer Success is not a one trick pony. It's an ever evolving matter for your customers and your company. Truly, it's a company philosophy and calling. Adopting the mentality will always help address what comes next for the customers, and never leave growth behind as a result.
3. Customer retention is the bottom line but smart investors will ask for, and monitor, the KPIs that lead into retention (renewal rates, NPS, CSAT, etc.) to truly understand the health and long-term viability of their investment.
