The ideal time for investing in a customer success platform for your SaaS business is when you already have a growing customer base, and customer your support team is overwhelmed with management tasks.
A SaaS company runs on customer satisfaction, who will remain with the company with the great service and products they offer. If that is not so, it is common to see a sudden decline in their retention and high churn rates. Plus, without an effective strategy to address underlying issues and solve them, you will risk losing customers faster and affecting your overall investment.
So go through this guide to the end and identify the earlier signs that tell you it is the perfect fit to have a successful CS platform.
Why Does Your SaaS Company Need A Customer Success Platform?
A SaaS company needs a customer success platform to maximize customer lifetime value, gain valuable customer insights, improve onboarding, and ensure sustainable revenue growth with reduced churn. Get the details below:
- Lack Of Scalability And Efficiency
With the increasing customer base, it would be quite challenging for the company to ensure every customer receives the same level of support and attention. It results in losing track of customer interactions, potential upsells, and at-risk accounts who are going to leave the company soon.
So, you can invest in the SaaS customer success platform through which you will automate the overall process with advanced tools and result-driven strategies. You will not only have a 360-degree view of each customer, but you can also streamline tasks such as onboarding, follow-ups, and renewals.
- Complex Product Or Service
If you are running a business with complex products or services where customers need proper guidance to understand them, you can take advantage of the CS platform. If the customer fails to learn, implement, and fully utilize, it easily results in frustration, low adoption rate, and eventual churn.
The CRM platform will help you SaaS companies to support the customers through the complexities of their product. You can automate the complete system, track customer usage, and provide prompt assistance as a strong advisor for your company.
- Your CRM Is Not Fulfilling Your CS Needs
Customer relationship management systems are designed to manage the sales and marketing interactions. However, when they fall short of tracking the specific needs and queries of the customer over the service or product, be sure you need a strong customer success platform.
For that, it may lack the needed tools and specialized workflows that can effectively manage the entire lifecycle. Plus, CRMs are used to respond to customer inquiries rather than actively track and solve product issues. This is where a CS platform can be a good option to measure the effectiveness of customer success and take the necessary initiatives.
- Your Teams Are Working In Separately
If you are running a business with a team who are working with silos, it can be challenging for you to ensure consistent customer satisfaction. The teams may have different processes and communication styles, which results in an inconsistent experience for the customer.
In severe cases, they often miss the early signs of customer churn. Let’s say your sales team closes a deal, but sometimes they forget to share it with the onboarding team. It easily leads to delays or a less effective onboarding process. So, it’s better to invest in a CS platform where you can standardize processes and communication and ensure a positive experience for your customers.
- Reactive Customer Support
Reactive customer support is one of the major signs that your SaaS company needs a Customer Success Platform. It is a reactive approach where companies assist customers who reach out with their issues, questions, and concerns about the service or products. It is largely focused on customer-initiated contact, which often leads to negative experiences.
By that time, customers may become frustrated and leave the company. This is where you must think about investing in a CS platform. Through this, you can ensure a proactive approach for the customers and address their issues before any churn happens.
- Decreased Up-sells and Cross-sells
When you are seeing a decrease in the upselling and cross-selling areas of your business, choose the CS platform to sell more to your current customers. The decline is a clear sign that your customer is no longer interested in purchasing a more expensive version or an upgrade of a product or service they have already bought.
It easily leads to less revenue. So, to save yourself from these hassles, a CS platform can help you by improving customer engagement and ensuring they get maximum value from your product and service.
When Should You Buy A Customer Success Platform for Your SaaS Company?
If your SaaS company is in the growth stage with already 50-100+ customers and you need to proactively manage customer relationships to ensure recurring revenue, be sure it’s the perfect time to think about getting a CS platform.
Let’s say you have a SaaS company called “ProjectZen,” where you offer project management software. You have successfully tackled the initial startup phase and now you have around 75 regular customers. In case you see a large number of customers churning after just a few months and your support team is failing to retain them with just reactive approaches, a CS platform will be the lifesaver for you in this instance.
With the advanced tools and data-driven processes to understand customer behavior, you can use an effective CS to improve customer retention. Through this, you can identify the at-risk customers and take action to keep them re-engaged.
How To Choose The Right CS Solution For Your SaaS Company?
To choose the effective CS platform for your SaaS company, identify the necessary features such as automation, customer tracking, personalized support, and integration capabilities to meet your customer needs. Here is more you need to know about:
- First off, track how well your team is responding. You need to choose the CS platform that matters to your team’s size and capabilities.
- Focus on the CS platform, which helps you with product adoption and customer implementation. Your customer support team will play a support role.
- Choose a solution that ensures in-depth insights into your customer base, no matter if it’s small or large. Make sure it includes automated workflows and dashboards to handle large volumes of customers.
- You can go for a trial period before committing for long terms. It will help you choose the right platform that scales with your business.
- While doing all the above, check and ensure the platform is easy to set up without the need for any extensive custom development.
In Closing
Knowing when to invest in the right customer success platform is truly important. If you are doing it too early, you might not get the full benefits. Plus, taking action too late means it is already a red flag for your company. You are at risk of losing valuable customers and hindering growth. However, if several of the above positions create hurdles in your current situation, so be sure you are ready to buy a customer success platform.
