THE CASE for INVESTING IN CUSTOMER SUCCESS EDUCATION
By Emilia D’Anzica and Sarah Medrano.
According to 2020 Forrester Research, over 72% of the businesses say that improving customer success would be their top priority. Is your company investing in their customer success enablement?
Many professionals assume they understand customer success and immediately think “Customer Service,” but if given more thought, Customer Success is not the same as customer service; the former is proactive, and the latter is reactive. The two teams work together to eliminate and reduce customer frustration, lack of adoption, and churn.
So how do we bring these two teams together to speak a common language, agree to work together to enable customers, and to feel more confident with their customer conversations? By going through customer education to grow as individuals and as a team of professionals. For many who have been in customer success for awhile, breaking into the profession did not include customer success education…it didn’t exist! Luckily today, Customer Success Managers (CSMs) can sign up for courses on their own or are part of a company who understands that improving customer success metrics starts with customer success foundations such as investing in people, process and systems.
Shannon Gibbs, of Growth Molecules, teaching Customer Success Professionals.
“Customer education teams who do it right, are always thinking about how to help a customer use software to accomplishing something beyond just using certain feature” – Bill Cushard, General Manager, Service Rocket.
Bill mentions in the quote above that companies are investing in educating their customers about the impact a product can have on a business beyond a feature value. Now company leaders are putting themselves in the customer’s shoes to understand what led to dissatisfaction—then turning what they learned into lessons for the entire company. These experiences are not one-time lessons – they have to become part of the company culture. Learning takes repetition. If you build a strong customer education program but don’t teach your employees about the impact of a strong customer experience, your company is missing out on missed opportunities. Creating a coaching culture is where CSM education becomes a powerful force in your organization.
Image of Sabina Pons, of Growth Molecules, teaching Customer Success Professionals.
If you want to have a successful business, you need to invest in educating your Customer Success team. Why?
Education helps drive retention, increase revenue, and improve your customer satisfaction.
Why does your company need Customer Success education for your team? Here are three more reasons why if we haven’t convinced you already:
1. Fewer Service Costs and More Sales
According to McKinsey and Company, brands that focus on Customer Success improve their revenue by 10 to 15% while lowering the cost to serve 15 to 20%. So how do you improve the customer journey? By identifying the friction points and addresses them with the product and with customer success communication. Best practices can be taught and refined through team education.
2. Inspire Customer Loyalty and Retention
Continuous impact on a business leads to retention, stronger relationships, and revenue. Yes, all companies want to attract more or customers and depend on Marketing and Sales for growth. The word-of-mouth referrals to attract new customers are often neglected as a marketing engine. Yes, customer advocacy is one of the best ways to grow your customer base. Again by educating your CSMs on building customer loyalty, you can create a natural groundswell of raving fans. Statistics by Qualtrics confirm that a loyal customer will be coming back despite the minor issues or challenges your product or service has.
3. Reduce Churn
A 5% increase in customer retention can boost profits by 25% to 95%.
A key role of a CSM is to reduce Churn. But how do you do this? That’s when customer success education comes into play. Leaders are spread thin in many directions – strategically, putting out fires, hiring, building, and coaching; they don’t have time to train the team weekly on essential customer success and support skills. And nor should they. Why should leaders be responsible for everything? Why not outsource it to professionals like the Growth Molecules Team, Customer Success Association Accredited, to teach the courses?
A sample of courses include:
Difficult Conversations | The Power of Emotional Intelligence in Success Planning | Your Expansion Plan | The Power of ‘Nojitsu’
Ready to learn about how you can equip your team with engaging and high-impact customer success education? Growth Molecules is proud to offer CSA Accredited Courses to enable your team. We offer 12 courses for Customer Success Foundations and Advanced. We also offer customized workshops. All courses and workshops are offered in person and via Zoom.
Contact The Growth Molecules Education Team here to get started on your team education program. Your team will not only grow together, you will have fun and try new ways of learning as a team.
“Customer Success isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it’s becoming one of the most important factors across all types of business—the difference between a company going broke and achieving mega-growth”. – Nick Mehta.
