Customer Success: A Report from the Front Lines

By Attie Vandermerwe, VP Customer Success Consulting, Mainstay Company

Customer Success programs are now an essential part of selling cloud services across every industry. This idea was abundantly clear from everybody I talked to at this year’s Summit for Customer Engagement (SCE) in Silicon Valley, the world’s premier event for customer reference and advocacy professionals.

The world of customer success management isn’t standing still. Thought leaders at SCE talked about changing customer expectations and new challenges that are emerging in the field. Former “best practices” are being replaced by better practices that drive higher renewal and satisfaction rates.

But a few fundamentals haven’t changed, key players said. More than ever, companies need to articulate the business value and impact of technology solutions to executives and boards. How do you do that? Tried and true communication vehicles like white papers, ROI case studies, TCO calculators, and infographics are still needed to drive the decision-making process.

The fact is, decision-makers crave objective and independent content to inform their technology investments. That basic objective will never change, even if the data sources, communication styles, and delivery mechanisms may evolve.

Driving customer retention lies at the core of the new subscription business model sweeping the modern global economy. Realizing success is what drives customers to renew – and buy new and related products.

If you don’t have a great customer success communications program, you are losing out to competitors that have caught on to this mega trend.

I hope to see you at the next Summit for Customer Engagement, so we can leverage the latest techniques to keep customers coming back for more.

To learn about how Mainstay can help, visit us at www.mainstaycompany.com/.