2023’s Customer Success All-Stars: Top 5 blog posts that helped you increase retention.
Inflation, uncertainty, new tools, and one ChatGPT.
2023, what a year.
As I predicted, this year was all about stepping up and focusing on what matters the most:
Our customers.
As prices continue to increase, customers have become more cautious with their spending.
They want better results, personalized experiences, and cheaper rates.
So if value or personal touch were missing, they churned.
Looking at 2024, I believe two demands will shape the world of CS:
Customers demand hyper-personalized experiences with higher value.
Leadership demands proof of CS’ ROI.
With all that in mind,
I’m not surprised that your favorite CS Spotlight posts covered both trends with one lesson:
CS Professionals need to help their customers and leadership team realize value.
Product value for the former and CS value for the latter.
Let’s have a look at your top 5 blog posts of 2023 and their key takeaways.
Value: The Number One Cure of Churn
we focused on the model that affected me the most in my career:
The Golden Circle Model by Simon Sinek.
Thanks to this model, we know that people don’t buy WHAT we do,
they buy WHY we do it.
For us, CS Professionals, the Golden Circle teaches us to:
Know our customer’s WHY and address it throughout their journey.
Ask ourselves before every customer interaction: “What’s in it for my customer? Why should they care?”
we reviewed two powerful strategies that can boost your customer experience:
1. Empowering customers with the BEST resources.
Customers are begging for better onboarding and self-service resources.
Yet, so many companies choose to ignore it and suffer high churn rates.
If you want to increase retention, start by acing the onboarding stage with these 3 resources:
Host live training webinars.
Include videos in onboarding and help center.
Create a community where customers can ask questions and help one another.
2. Personalize the Experience.
Customer Loyalty starts with the way we treat our customers.
The more we treat them as individuals instead of segments, the higher the loyalty.
Here are 3 things you can do today to personalize the experience at scale:
ALWAYS address them by their first names.
Make the transition from a chatbot to the CSM smooth, easy, and fast.
When talking to customers, be friendly and aware of their previous interactions.
The #1 Way to Long-Term Success: Measure Your Efforts
You’re putting SO much effort into helping customers succeed;
from revising your email campaigns every 6 months to pre-planned Kickoff Meetings and QBRs.
but if you don’t measure your efforts, how do you know if it’s working?
What started in “4 Proven Customer Success Strategies (+ Best Practices)” as 3 must-measure KPIs,
a dedicated blog post about the importance of KPIs, including my top 8 Customer Success KPIs.
All to help you work smarter, not harder.
Here’s the most important advice I can give you about KPIs:
Never count on anyone else to do the measuring for you.
If you want to succeed, you must take ownership and measure your metrics.
Save Time and Energy With These FREE Templates and Resources.
I started CS Spotlight with one goal:
To make Customer Success and Customer Centricity accessible for everyone.
In 2023, I shared lots of free resources and templates with you with the hope that it’ll all push you forward on your journey.
To those of you who reached out to express your gratitude - thank YOU.
Below are the resources that helped you the most:
On a personal note...
I want to thank you all for your continuous support here and on LinkedIn.
Every subscriber, comment, and message means the world to me.