Shh…Customer Experience: The Best Kept Revenue Secret

The one thing I’ve noticed from my recent conversations with early stage founders and C-suiters across Sales, Marketing and Customer Success is a consistent desire for stronger customer growth but an uncertainty on how to achieve that growth at scale.?

As the recognized post-sale partner for customers, Customer Success (CS) is critical in helping customers onboard, adopt and achieve value. They do this on a 1:1 basis with customers to assure renewal. However, CS is not typically set up to drive growth.

The secret is the combination of the 1:1 CS-customer relationship with the 1: many Customer Experience programs that allows companies to maximize value for BOTH the customer and the company to achieve growth…at scale.

But wait. Before I share these 3 strategies, let’s address some confusion that persists in this space - the naming of these post-sale programs.?

Labels & Names Mean Different Things To Different Companies

Forrester defines Customer Experience as the customers’ perceptions of their interactions with the brand. It’s the entire continuum, pre- to post-sale.?

They define the post-sale Customer Engagement as the proactive, coordinated, cross-functional effort to maximize value for the customer AND the company across the postsale continuum.?

Even with this clarity, the companies hiring for these roles are using a variety of titles, using Customer Experience, Customer Engagement and Customer Marketing interchangeably. So, for the purpose of this post, I’m going to use the title I’ve seen most frequently in job descriptions that are responsible for all post-sale customer programs - Customer Experience (CX). (My apologies to the Forrester team.)

Now, let’s get to it.

3 Strategies that Drive Customer Growth with Customer Experience Programs

1. Turbo Boost Customer Success, When the Clock Starts
2. Expanded Customers Must be Engaged Customers
3. Your Customers = Your Best Sales Force for Growth

Turbo Boost Customer Success, When the Clock Starts?

Once Sales passes the baton to the Customer Success team for newly acquired customers, the clock starts for those customer to realize value with the product and your organization.?

By combining the high-touch 1:1 partnership led by CS with the 1:many CX programs, onboarding and product adoption can be accelerated while scaling value for BOTH the customer and your organization.

Some examples of these CX 1: many programs include:

?? Customer communications and strategy keeps customers informed of the latest product enhancements, best practices and peer successes so you can avoid the dreaded, “I didn’t know you did that.”

?? Onboarding and adoption campaigns, integrated with digital and webinars, augments the 1:1 efforts of CS to reinforce best practices for that 1-2 punch

?? Digital engagement and strategy (Community) creates peer-to-peer engagement opportunities across customers, makes self-service more accessible, serves as a venue for product ideation AND generates advocates among the user and champion personas

That’s your turbo boost.

Expanded Customers Must be Engaged Customers

One mistake companies often make is combining customers with prospects into their Demand Generation campaigns to drive both land and expand in a single effort. Customers and prospects are two very different audiences and “top of funnel” (for those still using this language) for customers requires a different type of content AND tone.

To drive expansion, create an integrated customer journey with multiple touch points to generate engagement and activate awareness.

Keep these five (5) important strategies in mind when creating persona-based, omni-channel expansion campaigns:

?? Be DATA-driven - Leverage product usage and account health data to inform when adoption campaigns can pivot to cross-sell/upsell messaging, creating greater awareness among customers on how else your company can support their needs and when they are ready for that information

?? Consider a customer newsletter as prime real estate in your customer campaign architecture to keep customers informed of latest product updates, best practices and peer spotlights…LEAD with your customer’s voice

?? Use How-To documentation and videos for expansion campaigns…these are less-invasive types of content that get to the point on how champions and users can benefit from other products/services

?? Designate Community as the destination for CTAs so customers have the opportunity to interact with other customers who can share their perspective on the product or service

?? Arm the Customer Success team, as the Sales team is, to recognize when a customer is open to other products or services and create the appropriate triggers in the playbook for next steps

Your Customers = Your Best Salesforce for Growth

Customers ARE increasingly becoming the best sales force for companies. As consumers, we rely on reviews that guide our purchasing decisions, from selecting hotels to appliances to cars. This behavior has crossed over to the B2B world.

Executives and leadership down the purchasing supply chain are leaning into the experiences of their peers to validate or disqualify their purchasing decisions around software and other technologies.

Early stage companies lean into their CS and/or Sales teams to identify customer stories and references. But, many companies wait too long before implementing advocacy programs, often only after friction has been experienced, such as over-use of a few willing customers or a limited number of referenceable customers to satisfy the needs of Sales and Marketing.

An early coordinated advocacy program includes:

?? Cross-functional coordination to identify and create stories that represent the broadest set of use cases to support Sales and Marketing needs

?? Qualified customer advocates, ready to participate in activities, product management beta programs, advisory boards, etc. AND the elimination of overusing a few customers for these activities

?? Integrated third-party review programs that create valuable assets and generate buying intent data

An advocacy program is only as good as its partnership with Sales and CS. So, enablement on how to nominate new customer advocates to continually feed a pipeline of assets and speakers is key!

What’s the value in investing in these post-sale customer programs?

?? Acquiring a new customer can cost FIVE TIMES more than retaining an existing customer. ??

And, with the added pressure of the changing economic climate, companies should consider their investment in Customer Experience programs to create revenue growth closer to home.

Now that you have the secrets, ready to stand up a Customer Experience function to drive revenue?

Stay tuned for the next article.?

What post-sale customer growth strategies is your company using to drive revenue?