With their customer success, you might think that SaaS companies are managing subscription renewals. But the implementation of customer success strategies is not just specific to SaaS. It is now an essential growth strategy for every business, including retail, healthcare, manufacturing, finance, and more.
Customer success in non-SaaS businesses refers to helping the customer achieve their desired outcomes with your company’s products and services. It drives loyalty, increases repeat business, boosts referrals, and strengthens your brand in ways traditional marketing and customer service alone can’t match.
In this guide, we will discuss exactly what customer success looks like for non-SaaS businesses, its importance, and how it differs from the SaaS world. Keep on reading.
What is Customer Success in Non-SaaS Companies?
Customer success in non-SaaS companies is a business’s method when customers get the needed guidance to achieve the desired outcomes with a product or service. Through proper implementation, it results in high satisfaction levels among customers, builds trust, and ensures long-term growth, even without a subscription model.
SaaS businesses that focus on customer engagement, but non-SaaS companies guide customers at key steps. This occurs after completing the purchase, during the service delivery, or throughout the longer partnership. The goal is to ensure that the customer can get the full value of what they’ve bought.
Now, let’s have a quick of the simple examples of customer success outside SaaS:
- Retail: With the customer success platform, retail businesses can offer rewards programs to provide customers with discounts and ensure repeat purchases. Such incentives help build long-term brand loyalty.
- Healthcare: In healthcare, customer success ensures the patient fully understands their treatment plans. It often includes explaining medical procedures, medications, and follow-up care, and builds trust.
- Manufacturing: Manufacturing businesses can offer proactive support to ensure that equipment runs smoothly. You can provide active maintenance support and enhance customer satisfaction levels.
Why Customer Success Matters for Non-SaaS Businesses
Customer success is equally important for non-SaaS businesses to drive long-term customer loyalty, repeat business, and ultimately higher revenue growth.
Here is more you should know about:
1. Retaining Customers Costs Less Than Finding New Ones
Typically, the cost of customer acquisition is much higher than retaining them and keeping them satisfied. Research shows that companies with frequently acquire customers need to consider up to five to twenty-five times more cost than retaining the existing ones.
With a focus on helping customers succeed, businesses can easily build trust and loyalty, making customers more likely to return again and again. To succeed, you need to ensure proactive support throughout their customer journey and assist them in the right ways.
2. Customer Expectations Are Higher Than Ever
With technological advances, customers are expecting more than just a product and support. They expect a full customer support journey with positive outcomes and personalized care.
Non-SaaS companies that only focus on initial sales are at high risk of losing customers. They are likely to lose customers to competitors who invest in proactive success strategies.
Therefore, it is essential for businesses to consistently guide customers toward success, build trust, and stand out in crowded markets.
3. Repeat Business and Referrals Fuel Growth
Businesses outside of SaaS heavily rely on repeat purchases, contract renewals, or customer referrals. When the customer base feels supported throughout their journey and achieves success, they are likely to return and recommend the brand to others. Satisfied customers are like the engine that drives new prospects to the customer base. All the way, you can easily turn your customer interactions into a success strategy to achieve growth.
4. Stronger Customer Relationships Build Brand Resilience
Long-term customer relationships help businesses stay loyal to the customer even when the current market is going well. When the customer finds the company as their trusted partner, they remain loyal through ups and downs. In this way, customer success helps in building an emotional connection and ensures they feel valued.
Experience Insight:
Companies that invest in structured customer success programs — even outside SaaS — often have higher lifetime value with improved customer satisfaction scores. They can also more accurately predict the revenue streams over time.
So overall, the CS strategy is no longer an optional add-on now. Moreover, it is a must-have tool that every business should integrate to witness sustainable business growth.
How to Implement a Customer Success Strategy (Step-by-Step)
To implement a customer success strategy, all you need to do is first define customer goals, align with your team, and ensure a proactive support system with feedback surveys to ensure success.
Step 1: Understand Your Customer’s End Goal
To start, you can ask yourself:
“What outcome are my customers truly buying?”
For instance, when a customer buys insurance, they’re not just getting paperwork. They demand financial security. With the understanding of your goals, you can adjust your approach to ensure they are achieved.
Step 2: Map the Full Customer Journey
At the next steps, break down the entire customer journey:
It is likely awareness → purchase → onboarding → usage → follow-up.
With the clear understanding of each phase, you can identify that exact moment when customers may need additional support or encouragement. Then you can guide them through steps or educational resources.
Step 3: Identify Critical Success Milestones
Now, find out the key milestones that tell you your customer is progressing toward their goals. You can check it through various aspects. Like, look for reviews after a successful product setup, and after making their first service renewal. Check also after enrolling in a loyalty program.
Step 4: Design Proactive Communication Touchpoints
Now, at this step, create a communication plan that meets the milestones you’ve identified. Some common examples you can code here like:
➔ Send a welcome email right after purchase.
➔ Check in with the customer shortly after product delivery.
➔ You can offer a loyalty discount or offer six months after the service.
➔ Or simply send a satisfaction survey after any major service interaction.
Step 5: Train Teams Around Customer Outcomes, Not Just Transactions
Now ensure your team, whether it’s sales, support, or service, has a full understanding of their roles.
Instead of asking, “Did we close the deal?” they should ask, “How is this helping the customer achieve their goals?”
It helps to focus on the customer outcomes and ensure a supportive experience that builds lasting relationships.
Step 6: Track Key Success Metrics
Choose any of the simple yet powerful KPIs below and measure focus on how your customer success program is running.
➔ Customer satisfaction (CSAT)
➔ Repeat purchase rates
➔ Net Promoter Score (NPS)
➔ Lifetime value growth
Step 7: Start with a Small One, Then Grow Smartly
Instead of overhauling everything at once, it is better if you can start with a small, manageable group of customers. Like the closer base who are buying or your top-tier accounts.
With this focus on small groups, you can test your strategy, gather feedback, and optimize it. Once you see success, the time is right to gradually expand it to other customer segments.
Key Differences: SaaS vs. Non-SaaS Customer Success
SaaS customer success works on subscription retention and product adoption, while the non-SaaS customer success strategy helps to build long-term relationships and repeat purchases.
Customer Journey
- For SaaS:
SaaS success map depends on the ongoing engagement. Customers interact through the product itself with the monthly renewals. Through such repeat purchases, businesses can build longer loyalty with them.
- For Non-SaaS:
For the non-SaaS business, success is measured based on some key moments. Something is often related to the purchase or service experience. For this, companies can create planned touchpoints and keep the consumer engaged through their journey.
Success Metrics
- For SaaS:
For your SaaS business, you need some metrics such as churn rate, renewal rates, Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR), and product adoption rate. You can know how successful your customer success strategy is.
- For SaaS:
- For Non-SaaS:
On the contrary, non-SaaS business focuses more on customer satisfaction (CSAT), Net Promoter Score (NPS), and how often people come back to buy again. It helps to define the long-term value each customer brings.
Engagement Style
- For SaaS:
SaaS companies utilize automated and real-time touchpoints such as onboarding emails, health score alerts, and usage-based messages. Through these, you can keep customers engaged all the time.
- For Non-SaaS:
To engage customers in the non-SaaS business, non-SaaS companies need a more personal and event-driven approach. This includes regular check-ins, loyalty rewards, service follow-ups, and proactive customer care.
Support Model
- For SaaS:
For the SaaS business, you can provide customer support through various digital tools like chatbots, help centers, and in-app support. These are designed to handle thousands of users quickly and efficiently.
- For Non-SaaS:
On the contrary, non-SaaS companies rely more on a personal touch. This includes conversations, follow-ups, and service quality based on real human experiences.
Contract Nature
- For SaaS:
SaaS contracts are based on flexible subscription models. With easy renewals or cancellations anytime, you can ensure customers are kept engaged and retain them
- For SaaS:
- For Non-SaaS:
Whereas the non-SaaS business contracts tend to be one-time purchases, service agreements, or long-term deals. Businesses can proactively manage relationships and offer repeat purchases or renewals.
Customer Success Metrics to Measure for Non-SaaS
Some of the common metrics that help measure the non-SaaS business CS performance include customer retention rate, lifetime value, Net Promoter Score, customer satisfaction, and so on.
Here are the complete details:
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
NPS measures how likely users are to recommend your software to others. A higher NPS rate means your customers are satisfied and willing to advocate for your product. It results in increased customer loyalty and reduced churn.
Customer Retention Rate
Customer retention rate tracks how many customers are likely to stay with your company for the long term. With a high retention rate, you can ensure that your customers are getting high value from the product and service. The lower rate means you need to identify pain points and take corrective actions to improve satisfaction
Customer Lifetime Value or CLV
CLV in non-SaaS tracks how much revenue a customer will bring over their subscription period. A rising CLV means your customers are finding increasing value in the service, and it results in a higher retention rate.
Customer Satisfaction Score or CSAT
In a non-SaaS business, CSAT helps to measure how satisfied users are with specific features or the overall product experience. Through the quick surveys after product updates, customer support interactions, or usage milestones, you can measure immediate satisfaction.
Repeat Purchase Rate
Repeat Purchase Rate or RPR measures how frequently customers return to buy from your business again. In non-SaaS industries like retail, services, and manufacturing, repeat purchases are equally important as in the SaaS business.
Engagement Metrics
Engagement metrics help non-SaaS businesses track customer involvement with your business beyond just making a purchase. Businesses can track engagement through loyalty programs, event attendance, surveys, and product registrations. Strong engagement is a sign that you have a loyal and committed customer base.
In Closing
Customer success is no longer just for SaaS companies. It is a strategy to implement in every type of business. Even if it is the goal to optimize for non-SaaS businesses to drive loyalty and increase customer satisfaction levels.
When businesses can ensure that customers achieve their goals, they can build lasting relationships based on trust and satisfaction. So, whether you’re in retail, healthcare, manufacturing, or any service industry, customer success defines everything beyond just sales.
