If there’s one thing that’s most neglected in GTM it’s CS. We all know that retaining and growing existing customers is critical to the future of the business and the easiest, cheapest way to grow revenue. Unfortunately the pressure and budgets to grow new business often supersede that of CS.

As a result, the metrics we have to track retention and expansion are often lacking as well. We know our retention isn’t great but we don’t know exactly why. Our gut tells us we could be expanding customers more, but we can’t see when, where, and how.

We can’t get visibility into CS because we don’t have our processes well defined and/or our team doesn’t execute those processes consistently. In this newsletter, we’re going to share how to change this, how we can rapidly turn CS into a data-driven, process-driven machine to deliver and grow customer value through tangible, actionable daily steps.

This then gives us the visibility we need to not only track NRR, retention, and expansion, but to identify where we can improve them. By extension, this enables us to improve higher level GTM Metrics like GTM Efficiency Ratio, Rule of 40, etc. and also to set achievable revenue targets and plan headcount and budgets accurately.

(This newsletter is a part of our new Framework, The GTM Process Index, which is a supplement to our GTM Metrics & Index Framework.)

ICP & Buyer Persona Definitions

Everything starts with the customer, specifically in identifying what types of companies are in our ICP and what individuals are in our Buyer Personas for each product we sell.

If we sell to the wrong companies and people, by definition…

1. They will end up churning
2. And cost us more to serve them than we make

That’s literally HOW we define our ICP/Personas, by asking which customers are profitable for us to attract and serve. If we don’t do this well, CS is set up to fail. Costs will be too high, margins too low, churn too high, NRR too low, and our overall GTM Efficiency will suffer.

And this doesn’t even factor the unmeasurable impact on our brand via negative Word of Mouth.

Sales Handoff & Onboarding Process

If we’ve sold the right customers, retaining them and expanding them starts by delivering value as quickly as possible after the sale. This starts with a smooth handoff from sales to CS and an effective onboarding/implementation process.

To optimize this we need to define how sales shares information with CS and the steps they will take to introduce the customer and set up the kickoff call. For simple products this may be quite streamlined. For complex products like Salesforce, this often requires bringing CS/implementations in BEFORE signing and outlining a detailed implementation plan.

That onboarding/implementation then needs to have specific tangible steps to maximize the success of customers adopting and using the product to ensure renewal rates are high. Since our team implements Salesforce and so many other complex tools, we’ve literally spent years perfecting our step by step process to do this.

Customer Success Process

Once the customer has completed onboarding/implementation, they need to adopt the product to justify a renewal. This adoption process may need to be baked into the onboarding/implementation process, or it may be easy enough for your customers to do on their own, depending on the product. Either way, it’s important to map out exactly what CS will do to help them drive that adoption.

What do your customers need to accomplish for their experience to be successful? What do our CS reps need to do to get them there? How will we track this progress?

Account Health Monitoring

In order to drive success we need to be able to measure it. We need to access data on usage to identify at-risk accounts in need of attention. What data can we access, how do we analyze that data, and what do we do with it?

As an AE at Salesforce, I had access to our “Early Warning System,” a dashboard in my instance of Salesforce showing me how each of my customers was using Salesforce. In minutes I could identify every at-risk account in my name and then go deeper to understand how and why they were struggling.

On the flip side, this can and should also be used to identify healthy accounts for potential expansion. Sometimes these were both the same thing.

Whether we have robust data on product usage or limited visibility, we need to map out how we will identify at-risk accounts and healthy accounts for potential upsell.

Expansion & Upsell Process

Expansion and Upsell is more similar to our new business sales process. We have to identify step by step how we create pipeline via sales and marketing to existing customers, and how we manage that pipeline.

Who do we prospect into within existing accounts and what’s the step by step process to do this? DO we market to our customers and if so how? When does sales take a customer engaged with marketing and reach out to them? And what sales methodology and process do we use for existing customers? Is this the same as for new business? And who owns expansions? Will the CSM, AM, and/or AE be involved in that process?

Answering these questions will inform how we measure expansion pipeline generation, expansion pipeline management, and forecasting. Improving these metrics will impact everything from NRR to LTV to GTM Efficiency Ratio.

Renewals Process

Assuming our accounts are healthy, what is our process to ensure renewal goes off without a hitch? When and how do we reach out about an upcoming renewal? What else do we need to do to maximize renewals?

It’s so common it’s almost a cliche to send an automated email 30 days before the renewal. At this point, the customer has already decided and it’s too late to do anything to change their minds. That at-risk account should have been caught earlier and addressed according to our Customer Success Process.

The whole point of a Renewals Process is getting ahead of it. Doing so will impact every CS metric we have from NRR and GRR to NPS, CSAT, LTV, and our overall GTM Metrics like GTM Efficiency Ratio.

NRR Targets & Optimization

Just like with our sales/pipeline targets and quotas, this isn’t so much of a process as it is a compass for where we’d like our team to focus, which will affect the results we see is our CS metrics.

With the above processes in place we can look at past metrics to set realistic NRR targets and work throughout the year to optimize each step in the customer journey to reach that target.

More on This Topic:

• Newsletter #25 – Make Customer Success Your Golden Goose
• Newsletter #24 – The SaaS Expansion Method
• Podcast – How to Generate More Expansion Pipeline
• Podcast – Using RevOps to Improve Customer Experience on Converge Coffee
• More on this topic in upcoming newsletters – subscribe here to get it in your inbox