Keeping customers happy is the secret to making any business thrive. It sounds so simple, but the more customers grow, the more complex the task of all-round customer success gets. A functioning sales and marketing team will bring in customers, but what happens after prospects become paying customers? This is where Customer Success Managers (CSMs) come in.
Customer success managers (CSMs) play a crucial role in ensuring customers achieve their goals and remain loyal to the brand. Managing a large portfolio of customers can be daunting, but it can be highly rewarding with the right strategies. This article will explore ways for customer success managers to handle a large portfolio effectively.
What is the Role of Customer Success Managers (CSM)?
CSMs serve as a vital link between customers, products, and companies. Their responsibilities include:
- Providing onboarding assistance to new customers to help them reach their “aha moment” faster.
- Understanding customer needs through market research, interviews, and audience listening.
- Providing product knowledge in-app through UX modals and in-app resource centers.
- Offering training to customers to teach them how to get the most value from advanced features.
- Addressing support issues promptly to keep customers happy.
- Advocating for the company both offline and online
- Monitoring customer health scores to spot customers about to churn and resolve it.
- Managing subscription renewals to ensure a smooth payment process. CSMs also reach out to customers when there are payment issues.
- Facilitating a feedback loop by collecting customer feedback, acting on it, and informing customers afterward.
- Ensuring customer retention and identifying opportunities for upselling and cross-selling.
- Foster long-lasting relationships by ensuring customers consistently derive value from their purchases.
What a Customer Success Manager’s Typical Day looks like?
Let’s go right into what a Customer Success Manager’s Typical Day looks like!
Team Huddle
The first thing CSMs may do is come together in a huddle with their team to prepare for the day. This is an important time to share any news and discuss the most pressing priorities. Any good CSM knows how to lean on their team to share tasks and get advice on difficult customers. They may want to delegate work to ensure that every member is working to full capacity.
Check Emails
While you’ve been away, your inbox has likely been filling up. You’ll want to check for any urgent messages and work out your daily priorities. Customers appreciate it when they receive a quick response from your team because it shows that they are valued. You may also have communications from your colleagues, so it’s best to get your responses sent to pave the way for a smoother day.
Check Your Customer Success Platform
Any CS platform can be used to keep track of customers and any upcoming tasks. Your personalized dashboard can tell you about upcoming tasks, calendars, emails from their customers, and support tickets. When customers have reached certain stages in the customer journey, CSMs can be prompted to take follow-up actions.
With Churn360 for example, you can even use the platform to organize your customer emails. You can also schedule action items or meetings with customers. As soon as you log in, you are presented with vital customer information. This helps you stay on top of all priorities and tasks.
Onboarding New Customers
Customer Success Managers play a pivotal role in customer onboarding. After your sales team has successfully won a customer, they will hand them off to the customer success team. CSMs will want to familiarize themselves with new customers and ensure they are engaging with your product training materials.
CSMs may take it upon themselves to schedule phone calls with new customers to introduce themselves. Customers need to know they have direct contact in the business to come to with any questions, as customer success provides an important supplement to customer support.
Follow up with Customers
CSMs must regularly check in with new customers to ensure they are progressing nicely with learning the product. Your customer success tool can tell you which customers are getting stuck in the customer journey and show that you need to take action. Don’t wait for an email from your customers before offering your services.
Some CSMs might develop a plan for their new customers that helps them meet their objectives for the product and follow a strategy. CSMs may get an update on how customers are progressing with the plan and organize a phone call to go through it.
Check-in with the Manager
CSMs need to let their managers know how they are getting on and pick up any further tasks for the day. Managers can help their CSMs with tricky customers and help them to prioritize their workload.
Solve Customer Tickets
Customers may have open tickets with CSMs over various channels, which they need to take time to respond to. These tickets may be spread across email, social media, phone and live chat. So CSMs should take time to check every platform. CSMs spend a large portion of their day communicating with customers and helping them to use the product.
It could be as simple as firing off a message or may require scheduling a more in-depth call to work through issues. A CSM’s first priority should be their customers so the biggest portion of their day will be devoted to helping them.
Identify Cross-sells and Upsells
Many CSMs are responsible for cross-selling and upselling to customers, which is crucial in increasing revenue. In any Customer Success Manager’s typical day, they have to identify opportunities for customers with unmet needs and recommend additional products and services. Such customers may have reached their usage limit for their current plan or have enquired about a feature that isn’t supported on their pricing tier.
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CSMs should devote some portion of their day to listing and contacting those customers who are good candidates for a cross-sell or upsell. CSMs may set up sales calls or hand the customer back to the sales team.
Inter-departmental Meetings
Customer success teams must work closely with other departments to provide the best experience possible for customers. For example, they can work with customer support to look at tickets for customers experiencing ongoing problems and work with them to find a permanent solution.
CSMs can give feedback to the product team about which features are working well and pass on customer requests. They are so closely connected with customers actually using the product that they are best placed to give feedback to the teams that can make changes.
They must also have close contact with the sales team to gain insight into new customers coming into the business, helping them organize their schedules. The hand-off between sales and success should be seamless, providing a consistent experience from customers even after the sale.
Importance of Effectively Managing a Large Portfolio
Managing a large customer portfolio can be challenging, but it’s also a testament to the trust your company has built with its customers over time. Effectively managing a large portfolio is essential for various reasons:
- Maximizing Customer Retention:
Satisfied customers are more likely to renew their subscriptions or make repeat purchases. Customers are less likely to leave a brand when they find value and have excellent customer support. This reduces customer churn, thereby increasing customer retention.
- Scaling Business Growth:
Your revenue potential grows as your customer base expands. Happy customers become natural advocates for your brand and spread your name through word of mouth. For businesses, this cuts down the cost of customer acquisition and increases the company’s profit gain.
- Optimizing Resources:
Efficient portfolio management allows you to allocate resources where needed most. This cuts back on wastage and leads to improved ROI (return on investment) in the long run.
1. Prioritize and Segment Your Customers
All customers are not the same. They have different needs, pain points and goals, hence the need to group them into segments. Segment customers based on similar characteristics like their in-app activity, demographics, industry etc.
Prioritize each segment based on needs, potential value, and engagement level. This allows you to allocate your resources more efficiently and understand customer goals, challenges, and feedback, which is essential for effective engagement.
You can then monitor the customer’s journey stage to identify customers at risk of churning and expansion opportunities. CSMs should be proactive in addressing churn risks and respecting customer communication preferences. Analyzing product usage allows for targeted support.
These strategies can aid in implementing customer segmentation:
- Interaction level:
Divide customers into high-touch and low-touch segments. High-touch customers may require frequent, personalized interactions, while low-touch customers can benefit from automated outreach.
- Churn Risk Assessment:
Identify customers at risk of churning and prioritize efforts to retain them. Early intervention can make a significant difference.
- Value Potential:
Assess the potential value of each customer. High-value customers may require more attention to maximize their lifetime value.
2. Automate Your Processes
Managing a large portfolio can be overwhelming without the right tools and processes. Customer success software and automation tools can help streamline your workflow, simplify your customer success processes and allow you to focus on more pressing matters. Key automation areas can include:
- Leveraging customer success software for data tracking:
Leverage customer success platforms to monitor customer health and gather actionable insights on customer needs.
- Task Management:
Automate task assignments and reminders to ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
- Collecting customer feedback:
Automate customer feedback collection at different touchpoints to gather every feedback in real-time and act on it accordingly.
3. Develop a Proactive Communication Strategy
Proactive communication is vital to maintaining strong customer relationships. Cultivating a habit of regular check-ins and personalized communication ensures that customers feel valued and supported.
Develop a proactive strategy to keep customers engaged and informed. This strategy should include:
- Regular check-ins at different touchpoints:
Schedule calls or emails to ensure customers get the most value from your product and are satisfied. Use this call to gather feedback or ask for features they’d love to see in your product.
- Use customer success software to track customer data:
Collect data from your customer success to recognize each customer’s unique needs and tailor communication accordingly.
- Address customer needs:
Be attentive to customer inquiries, issues, and feedback and proactively address short-term or long-term.
4. Make Onboarding Easy
The onboarding process is a critical phase for new customers. It’s your chance to make a good first impression on customers by immediately demonstrating the value of your product. Creating a smooth onboarding experience sets the stage for long-term success but can also make or break the relationship.
Here are some best practices for onboarding new users:
- Clear Documentation:
Provide comprehensive, easy-to-understand instructions to help customers get started. Opt for images that represent an action to elevate the onboarding UX. For example, Canva’s onboarding provides users with a series of infographics and step-by-step instructions on how to use the platform.
- Personalized interactive tutorials:
Offer personalized interactive tutorials for each customer type to walk users through the basic function of your product and help them learn on the go.
- Use UX tools to drive product experience:
Use UX tools like progress bars, checklists and tooltips to help users complete the onboarding process.Collect user data and personalize their experience as they progress down the customer journey.
5. Utilize Technology and Automation Tools
Technology and automation tools are needed to manage a large customer portfolio as a Customer Success Manager (CSM). These tools can help streamline complex processes and address challenges such as data management, routine task automation, proactive customer monitoring, personalized communication, analytics and reporting, feedback analysis, scalability, system integration, customer onboarding, and predictive analytics.
- Customer Success Software:
Centralize customer data and monitor their progress through CRM systems, health scoring, and automated alerts.
- Customer Communication Tools:
Use email campaigns and in-app messaging for personalized and real-time assistance. An example is Miro’s in-app messaging.
- Task and workflow automation:
Use task management and workflow automation for the all-around efficiency of the customer success team. For example, with automation, CS teams can schedule emails that would be sent to inactive customers.
- Survey and Feedback Tools:
Collect customer feedback through automated surveys and analyze feedback to measure customer satisfaction. Here’s an example of Dribble’s feedback collection form.
- Use product analytics:
Monitor product usage data and track feature adoption with product analytic tools. These tools can help you spot trends and patterns in your data to see what’s working and what’s not.
6. Build Strong Relationships
Building solid customer relationships is needed to drive effective customer success management. To achieve this, personalize customer interactions by understanding their needs and providing tailored solutions. Foster trust and rapport through transparency, reliability, and consistent branding.
Here are some strategies that contribute to long-lasting, mutually beneficial relationships for customer success:
- Actively listen to customers through social listening:
Show empathy and reply as best as you can to
- Personalize customer interactions:
Tailor your communication to each customer’s needs and preferences. Use familiar language and tone to sound trustworthy and genuine.
- Foster Trust and Rapport:
Transparency, honesty, and reliability are bridges to trust. Be consistent in your interactions and timely.
- Listen actively to customer feedback:
Customer feedback is invaluable. Act on their suggestions and continuously improve your services. Keep customers informed: Provide regular and proactive updates on progress.
To gain deeper insights into Churn360, we recommend setting up a demo with one of our experts for a detailed walkthrough
Book a demo7. Continuously Measure and Improve Customer Satisfaction
Measuring and enhancing customer satisfaction is a perpetual process for Customer Success Managers. It ensures that customers remain content, loyal, and successful. Here are the key steps to effectively measure and enhance customer satisfaction: Success is an ongoing process, and it’s essential to continuously monitor and improve customer satisfaction. Here’s how:
- Define Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):
Identify KPIs that matter most to your customer success strategy, such as Net Promoter Score (NPS) or Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT).
- Regularly Assess and Report on Customer Health:
Track and report on the health of your customer accounts. Identify areas that need improvement. Adjust Strategies Based on Performance Data: Use the data you gather to refine your customer success strategy and adapt to changing customer needs.
Conclusion
Effective customer portfolio management is critical for long-term success. Customer Success Managers should prioritize, automate, and nurture strong customer relationships. By leveraging technology, actively listening to feedback, and continuously improving, CSMs can help their organizations thrive in today’s competitive business environment.
Remember that every customer is unique, and the key to success lies in personalized and proactive support. With these tips, Customer Success Managers can confidently navigate the challenges of managing a large customer portfolio and drive customer success.
