Customer Success Management

Customer success management has evolved greatly over the last few years, from a nuisance and luxury expenditure to business owners to a cornerstone of the modern business model. Profit maximisation as the ultimate goal of a firm has steadily evolved into a value creation based mindset, where it has become apparent that maximising value for the customer will lead to greater value for the firm itself. 

Both empyrical evidence and academic research has shown that prioritization customer success and quality account management, beyond being a major purchasing and procurement criteria, is essential for success in the modern competitive business environment. Going beyond simply creating a customer success department and aligning business models and entire organizations, beyond only tech and product, is one evolution in the value and customer centric business approach that is recommended by advocates of CSM (Customer Success Management). A high level overview of some of the priorities of such organizations, combining an academic and practical perspective are: 

Understanding customer needs and goals: The success of any business is attached to a deep understanding of customer needs and goals at every stage of their journey. This understanding is crucial for delivering value and ensuring that offerings are truly aligned with customer desires. Businesses must adopt a customer-centric approach, where all strategies are informed by a thorough understanding of customer needs across their journey. 

Aligning business offerings with customer values: Aligning products and services with the values of customers not only enhances satisfaction but also builds long-term loyalty. This alignment is essential for sustaining business success, as it connects the brand's offerings with what customers find meaningful. For sustained success, businesses should continually assess and align their offerings with evolving customer values. This alignment should be reflected across marketing, product development, and customer service strategies, ensuring that customers feel understood and valued.

Organisation around the customer: Successful customer success is not the responsibility of a single department but requires the involvement of the entire organization. Collaboration across all functions ensures that customer needs are met comprehensively and effectively. Organizations should foster a culture where every department, from product development to customer support, prioritizes the customer. This collective focus enhances the overall customer experience and drives long-term business success.

Customer experience management: Understanding and managing the customer experience across all stages - pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase - is critical for creating positive and memorable customer interactions. This type of management is essential in today’s complex, multi-channel environment. Effective customer experience management requires integration across all business functions. Each touchpoint must be optimized to deliver consistent and valuable experiences, which are crucial for customer retention and advocacy.

Complex customer behaviour: With the digital expansion and social media channels, customer behavior has become increasingly complex. This complexity necessitates a more integrated approach to managing customer experiences, where all departments collaborate seamlessly to meet customer expectations. To manage the complexity of modern customer behavior, businesses must adopt integrated strategies that unify marketing, sales and customer service efforts. This ensures that customer interactions are consistent, relevant, and supportive of their needs at all stages.

Source:

•  Lemon, K. N., & Verhoef, P. C. (2016). Understanding Customer Experience Throughout the Customer Journey. Journal of Marketing, 80(6), 69-96.

• Customer Success Best Practices: The Ultimate Playbook (hubspot.com) 

Considering the above, how could we define customer success? While there are many potential ways to arrive at a definition, one that combines the recent relevant aspects could be: customer success is a strategic approach that focuses on ensuring customers achieve their desired outcomes, delivering value, through the use of a company's products or services aligned behind serving customer needs.

Aligning an organization behind the idea of customer success is no easy feat. Beyond requiring specific tooling and personnel, where often times executives fail is understanding some of the main guiding principles, understanding the customer journey and the definition of a sound strategy. This page contains deep dives on all the most relevant aspects today as well as a forward looking element, in hopes of generating some food for thought.