Category: Customer Success
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What is customer success?
I’m a fan of short-form video as an ideal way of teaching concepts to customers. Some SaaS companies such as Salesforce and Toutapp do a great job of developing this high-impact content. It’s not easy or cheap to build for a YouTube channel or a platform like Udemy, but your customers will get hooked and […]
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Low-Hanging Fruit
What is the low hanging fruit when implementing or evaluating a customer success program? Can you deliver value to difficult customers without extraordinary effort or expense? Some customers are very engaged. They provide constructive feedback to improve your features. They love hand-holding. They fully use your support capabilities and maintain continuous communication with your support […]
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Customer Success Analytics
Salesforce pioneered the concept of Customer Success. It grew into the ‘Customers for Life’ program and today employs hundreds of Customer Success professionals. Loyalty marketing guru Bryan Pearson shares more about this pioneering effort: Link_SFDC Customers-for-life Today, Customer Success is an industry which keeps the SaaS world afloat. It needs the right doses of people, process […]
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Customer Success 101
I often get asked what is customer success. The slides below highlight CS in simplest terms. There is substantial effort which goes into building a program and running a customer success operation post-sales. Moving forward, I will cover CS in more detail as it pertains to people, process, technology and business strategy.
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Do you have a playbook?
There are cloud-based tools for nearly every business use case. Many claim to be Do-it-Yourself. One of my colleagues often likes to say, “Self-service does not equal No service.” It takes trouble-shooting and a “solution” mindset to run these tools efficiently. The on-demand world needs better productivity hacks for SaaS tool adoption, especially if your customers […]
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Culture & Customer experience: India vs Japan (has Apple figured it out?)
I often get asked about two places, especially Japan and India. Texas is the only place I know since I grew up there. Texas is like the third wheel and matters more these days. India is my home base when I think about my ancestral roots. Japan would be my home if I stayed true […]
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What is customer success?
Customer success has many meanings. Here are some ideas which have worked for me. 1. Managing Self – Customer success begins internally with one global team. It is a consolidation of process, training and product playbooks, so that your teams are aligned to engage with customers. 2. Voice of the Customer – Customer Success Managers (CSMs) are given leeway to […]
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Family as a core value
The customer is the boss. This is what everyone hears. The focus is on creating a happy customer experience. In a working environment, rarely do you hear “family” is the reason behind work, or “wife is the boss”. The new world of getting things done is firm-centric. An employee is coached into behavior which results […]
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Customer Success
This the most under-rated skill in the high tech world. You are fortunate if you have good customer-facing people. I’m a fan of DIY and self-service but face2face consulting should never go away.
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CX
What is customer experience? Not software or just a survey. CX is about taking a step back and thinking about the big picture from a customer perspective. Learn more about it.
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The Evolution of CRM
Adding one of my old blog posts here. The CRM industry is over 20 years old. We’ve come a long way. CRM is about delivering customer happiness and helping people. …….. Evolution of CRM raj.padmanabhan on Sep 18, 2013 Sometimes I daydream. I think too much about the environment. In order to keep the boat […]
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Automation vs. Sharing Economy
I was reading this article posted by a friend on Linkedin. Yeah, artificial intelligence, APIs and automation will reduce administrative tasks and maybe some layers of management. But, this will not reduce employment in the manner described. http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2015/02/04/google-cabs-and-uber-bots-will-challenge-jobs-below-the-api/ I don’t think we have scratched the surface of customer experience and the benefits of the “sharing […]
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Hunger Strike
The times are good. Just a reminder that much of the world isn’t enjoying the ride. Give back as much as you can. Old favorite from Temple of the Dog which broke up and brought us Pearl Jam, Sound Garden, Audio Slave and other bands still humming along.. “I don’t mind stealing bread From the […]
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Education = Entrepreneurship
There’s always a better way to get things done. Recently I discovered an app called Finish, “the to-do list for procrastrinators.” The tool is great and has become popular. Of course, apps happen all the time in Silicon Valley, except Finish was created by Ryan Orbuch, a high school student in Colorado. Ryan was the youngest entrepreneur in […]
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Best Marketing video of all time?
The founder of this company returned in September 1997. He was 42 years old and trying to rescue a sinking ship. The stock price was around $22 (or $5.50 today adjusted for splits). Dell stock closed at $86.69. Very few people get a second act in life. It became the greatest comeback in the history of […]
Connecting Good People 