Every customer success team is different. It is essential to ensure that customer success teams can handle difficult situations despite how varied in size and type they can be. Customer success teams can’t devote equal time to every customer account. This can lead to problems, especially when the customer might be looking to churn.
Knowing and estimating when a customer might churn is important. If a customer success manager can identify and watch out for customers who might churn, it can help enhance efforts. Saving your customers before they choose to leave is crucial for any B2B SaaS company.
But how to know which customers are at risk and ensure they stay with the company? Is it possible to save every customer who is at risk?
While it is impossible to save every customer, it is possible to save at-risk customers if they are proactively identified.
Who are the at-risk customers?
- Those customers who are visibly unhappy with your brand and company
- Those customers who do not explicitly mention any best features or services
- Customers who want to share feedback but are not able to
- The customers who feel they can manage without the product or are looking to switch to competitors or become self-reliant
- Customers who have had bad experiences with customer support or contact center representatives
How to Identify at-risk Customers?
To identify at-risk customers, it is important to look at why they might leave. Here are a few ways to identify these customers at-risk.
Track customer journey and evaluate who renewed
In order to identify at-risk customers, you need to track the customer journey. Know what an ideal customer journey looks like and map it accordingly. This way, you will understand how to engage with customers at all stages. You can check customers who have renewed and see why they continued with the business over others who are looking to leave. Checking metrics like product usage can help understand the customer journey better.
Keep an eye on the online community
Sometimes if a customer is unhappy with the service or product, they will not inform the business directly. You need to keep track of their online behavior and call out any difficult aspects they face. This can be a negative comment or problem.
Check if there is an increase in support tickets
When the number of support tickets increases suddenly, there can be a problem. Understanding that helps discuss and solve specific situations and issues.
Review customer milestones periodically
Keep reviewing your customer milestones periodically. Channelize teams to know where customers are in reaching important milestones and assess their performance. Set realistic customer milestones across the journey. Keep small goals for customers to reach their journey. It needs to be reviewed and renewed after 1 year or 2 years. Customers expect to be addressed frequently regarding their interactions with the company.
Direct negative reviews
See how many customers are directly leaving negative reviews. Take these negative reviews seriously. Reach out to these customers personally and try to resolve all issues. Another indication of the customer’s risk status is the number and type of social media complaints and online reviews. You need to reach out to these customers since they are affected by the product and social publicity might lead to a reduced reputation.
Discuss contract modifications
If customers are visibly unsatisfied, ask them if any changes to the contract would help. Find out if contract modifications would encourage them to stay with the company long-term. Offer rebated terms and conditions so that a strong relationship can be built. Discuss modifications, discounts, or deals which can ensure they stay with the company.
How to Manage and Save at-risk customers?
Once you identify why customers might churn and who is at risk, it is important to take steps to save them.
Trace the customer journey
Deep dive into the customer journey and associate different points to specific outcomes. It should be mandated that customers need to be engaged across the journey with multiple content formats and product updates. The best customers use the product more than others. This is crucial to proactively assess the best features in the product and the ones that need more improvement.
Try to understand what happens when they choose to leave
Once customers decide to leave, they might be going elsewhere. Try to ask them why, do customer interviews, and discover what makes them leave. This data will help save at-risk customers.
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Set up custom alerts and touchpoints
Use customer success tools to set up an alerts and touchpoints system. This system will help you know if there are any new aspects of customer behavior. You can save customers from churning and ensure they stick with your business. Customer touchpoints can engage with customers periodically to ensure there is no lack of communication.
Take customer feedback seriously
The best way to save customers is by taking their feedback seriously. You need to ensure that what customers say is heard and given importance. This feedback can be on social media, tickets, support queries, or more. Some of these questions can even be elementary questions that require training and education.
Build individual relationships
Save at-risk customers by building individual relationships. Maintaining contact with multiple stakeholders in a company and ensuring individual relationships are built is important. You can send specific messages and create offers to keep in touch and ensure they are with the system. Show them you care and meet their expectations.
Bottom Line
The premise is to engage and keep in touch with customers as much as possible. Spot at-risk customers and identify their issues. With this, you can ensure early warning systems and reduce churn. You can keep more customers and increase opportunities by proactively identifying customer churn. This is key to improving customer experience and customer retention.
Remember that at-risk customers are still very much customers. You must learn from them, follow up on the mistakes, and ensure they stick with you.
