Top 5 Activities of a Great SaaS Customer Success Manager

Author

Michael Williamson
April 16, 2024

TOP 5 ACTIVITIES OF A GREAT SAAS CUSTOMER SUCCESS MANAGER

Introduction

Today, I want to share the top 5 activities that define a great SaaS customer success manager. Mastering these activities can have a profound impact on your B2B tech company's growth, retention, and differentiation. I'll also provide real-world examples of firms that have successfully leveraged these activities to achieve remarkable results.

The 5 Key Activities

1. One-on-One Onboarding

2. Assisting Most Valuable Customers

3. Proactive Outreach

4. Monitoring Metrics

5. Improving Onboarding

Bonus: Ensuring Company-wide Customer Success Focus

Real-World Examples

1. One-on-One Onboarding: Asana

Asana, the leading work management platform, offers dedicated one-on-one onboarding support for its Enterprise tier customers. Their Customer Success Manager explains:

"By walking senior leaders at client firms through tailored onboarding checklists and providing white-glove migration assistance, we accelerate time-to-value and boost adoption right out the gates. In just the first month post-launch, our Enterprise accounts now average 85%+ employee activation rates."

2. Assisting Most Valuable Customers: Vectorly

When Vectorly, a SaaS analytics tool, noticed one of their top healthcare clients had suddenly stopped using the product, their Customer Success team sprang into action:

"Within an hour of detecting no platform logins, we gave the client a call, discussed the issues they were facing, provided technical support, and had them happily using Vectorly once again by the end of the day. That healthcare company has now doubled in size and remains one of our most vocal advocates."

3. Proactive Outreach: BrightCove

The customer success team at BrightCove, a leading online video platform, sets up quarterly business review meetings with all clients spending over $50k in annual contract value. The results speak for themselves:

"This consistent engagement outside of troubleshooting or putting-out-fires support has skyrocketed net revenue retention - last quarter it hit 136%, far above industry benchmarks."

4. Monitoring Metrics: Aprimo

Aprimo, a leading marketing operations platform, has a dedicated customer success analytics team monitoring product usage metrics across their client base. Their VP of Customer Success explains:

"By combining in-app behavioral data with billing and NPS metrics, we can detect potential churn risks early and proactively intervene to get accounts back on track. This has improved our net revenue retention rate to over 120%."

5. Improving Onboarding: SalesLoft

When SalesLoft, a leading sales engagement platform, noticed high early stage churn, their customer success team doubled down on enhancing onboarding. Their Customer Success Manager shares:

"We optimised our onboarding playbooks with additional in-app guidance, compelling educational content, and auto-triggered support emails when users seemed stuck. This drove a 4x increase in activation rates for new customers in just 6 months."

Bonus: Company-wide Focus: Calendly

At Calendly, the market-leading scheduling and appointments platform, every team lives and breathes customer success - not just the Customer Success organisation. Their CEO explains:

"By having our product, engineering, and marketing teams continually talking to and engaging customers, we ensure all our efforts ladder back to delighting users. This fanatical customer focus allows us to maintain industry-leading retention and growth at scale."

Why Customer Success Matters

The examples and metrics above showcase the immense power of customer success. When done right, it delights clients, drives growth, and boosts profitability.

In SaaS, churn is the number one killer. Customer success keeps clients engaged, provides white-glove service for top accounts, and maximises retention. This recurring revenue is the cheat code for growth, but only if you continue delighting customers month after month.

Every B2B tech company must have customer success woven into its DNA. The firms we profiled that execute superbly on these 5 activities have industry-leading net revenue retention, expansion revenue, and customer satisfaction. They are outpacing the market and their closest competitors.

Conclusion

I hope this article has demonstrated the immense opportunity of leveraging customer success, especially by focusing on these 5 high-impact activities. This can fundamentally transform a SaaS business.

At TechGrowth Insights, we live and breathe customer success through our deep customer intimacy and market intelligence. To learn more about our research and advisory services for tech firms, visit the main video on our profile page.

Now, I'd love to hear from you - what are one or two key takeaways you'll implement from this article? Share your biggest aha moments in the comments below.

#CustomerSuccess #SaaS #B2BTech #GrowthStrategy/