5 Customer Success principles to create lifelong customers in any business
By: Fawn Mulholland
Tags: Small Business Marketing, Customer Service, Customer Success, Small Business

Credit: SuperOffice.com

Customer success is a new buzzword often associated with high-tech companies. Many companies offering software as a service (SaaS) have adopted a specific customer success department. There is no uniform approach to customer success, yet there are some common objectives. Some customer success departments are tasked with renewing and upselling, others take on the educational piece of an onboarding and others take an all-encompassing set of tasks including technical support and troubleshooting. The top cited reason for deploying Customer Success strategies is to reduce churn i.e. create lifelong customers. The cost (monetary and time) to acquire a new customer is far higher (think Sales, Marketing, Advertising, growing brand awareness etc.) than to retain or continue selling to somebody who has already bought in to what you do.

The concept of customer success is considered somewhat revolutionary versus traditional models of Customer Service. Customer success embodies several different layers that often includes collaboration with customers, building relationships and having an ongoing dialogue that we have not typically seen before. Many of the principles employed in customer success are common with former principles that organizations working with a client would use. It is absolutely possible to apply these principles in any organization or business setting to form lifelong relationships with customers or stakeholders.

Do not be fooled, customer success is for everyone regardless of organization size, mission or vision. Even those delivering in a brick and mortar setting can utilize these principles to secure lifelong advocates:

1. Transparency

The best life lesson I learned early. Transparency is fundamental to any strong relationship, regardless of the connection, the reasoning for the relationship or any other factor. Transparency is necessary to make the relationship legitimate. Throughout my youth, I was certainly a people pleaser. After leaving University, I had to grow a thicker skin and although sometimes sugarcoating things would make it easier (in the short term) to deliver some difficult messages, it did not make for a strong, long-term relationship.

People have emotional intelligence and can often deduce whenever we are not being 100% authentic. In a customer-centric environment, being transparent implies that you are giving the most amount of relevant information to an individual for their betterment. We sometimes have dissatisfaction on a technology front today – meaning the product is subpar. This can make it difficult to deliver an exceptional experience. However, that does not mean we should sacrifice the truth and cover up something that may provide ongoing annoyance. Customers and humans in general will appreciate honesty. They may not convey their appreciation upfront, but over time they understand that they can trust you and you are putting their best interests at forefront of your mind. What is more powerful for a long term relationship than trust? It is not a nice-to-have, but a requirement.

2. Commitment

The concept of commitment is often something we can imagine when thinking of a wedding. I am not suggesting you have to marry your customers to keep them around. Merely, you must demonstrate your commitment to the relationship with the stakeholder or customer. It is human nature that we want to feel appreciated and needed. For a business or organization of any size, it is important to express this appreciation and the magnitude of that individual’s impact on your business or organization.

To express our commitment, we should speak with actions. We must understand that each interaction we have with a customer can leave the customer feeling elated or perhaps they feel slightly deflated. Sometimes elation can be more dangerous to a business or organization than deflation in the interaction. If you leave a customer elated and fail to act upon what you’ve discussed, the customer doesn’t get that sense of commitment from you.

Imagine a friendship in which one friend gives and the other friend only takes. The taking friend in this scenario is the company or organization that fails to act on their commitments. Their giving friend will only give for so long before they feel resentful and go to find another friend that will give. This idea is similar in business. If you are a service provider and regularly talk with your customers about the quality of service but do not act to improve the service, the conversation begins to lose meaning. If you sell products and perhaps your customer has identified a specific niche they would purchase, if you commit to ordering in the specific niche, you have to execute in order to maintain the integrity of this relationship.

3. Active Listening

Active listening is a concept I am highly familiar with as a coach. Listening is wonderful, but imagine active listening in which you are engaging and expressing you understand what an individual is communicating. I have had many conversations in which I have been listened to. However, I have not necessarily felt understood. Just because you are quiet and intently focussed on the communicator does not mean you are truly listening or understanding. It is important to express when you understand and perhaps when you need more clarification whilst listening to an individual. Make them feel heard.

Credit: ccl.org

The communicator is trusting us and is in a vulnerable position. In this instance, imagine a comedian on stage. The comedian is doing a standup gig. Unfortunately, the audience is completely unresponsive and although they find the jokes funny, they are not audibly laughing nor showing emotion through their body language or facial expressions. Obviously this is an exaggerated version of merely listening but not actively so. In any interaction with a customer or stakeholder, you should create an emotional connection through your body language, through your inquisitive questions and create a sense of understanding.

4. Advocacy & Understanding

Tied to the former idea of active listening, your understanding and subsequent advocacy for ideas shows that you are taking action. You are fighting for the customer’s best interests, as well as benefitting your own relationship and business. As the customer is the person purchasing or using your service, they will ultimately provide the deepest insights into what additional offerings you can provide. This should not be taken lightly, and each conversation that leads to a greater understanding of your product offerings as seen by the customer should be treated with care.

I have been in many organizations where the leadership believed to know everything that the customer would want. There are assumptions and preconceived notion‘s that often last from business inception all the way to current day. If there is some success in selling a product or service, the leadership can often be satisfied that they are offering what’s best for the customer. This is somewhat negligent and fails to consider what today’s customer or stakeholder would like to see. It is free to discuss what might improve a customer experience, but we are sometimes reluctant to open the kimono. I would encourage professionals committed to lifelong customer relationships to seek out opportunities in which they can discuss new initiatives and collaboration opportunities which give a first-hand experience of advocacy and can really make the customer feel part of your organization by default.

This ideal is true for both service providers who may be able to diversify and product providers who also may be able to diversify or actually get a little more niche. It is important to recognize that in today’s day and age, we humans can directly impact things more than we have formerly been able to. Many opportunities or a tap of a touchscreen away. With this same instant gratification mindset and ability to take control of so much in our lives, we too can take advantage of the opportunity to empower our customers.

5. Relationship-centric

Humans have Internet connection to those things which evoke emotions in them. Humans feel a sense of loyalty to positive figures or experiences. With the digitization of many things in our world, we are losing touch with some of the personal human experiences we grew so used to having. Lots of us spend the majority of our day in front of a screen of some kind. Even more so in the face of a pandemic, the world has gone fairly remote. During such a time, it is more important than ever to remain engaged had an emotional level with your customer or stakeholder.

The idea of loyalty should not be underestimated. Loyalty keeps us in marriages, and friendships, in workplaces, supporting particular sports teams and more. We grow used to the way some thing makes us feel. As business or organization leaders, we can tap in to this potential to make our customers or stakeholders feel positive and loyal to our brand. This starts at the one to one level. As an individual, you must nurture the relationship using the principles we have mentioned already. Be authentic, be yourself, learn, understand and commit.

Many of the principles mentioned in this article or applied for any business or organization to use. Consider the customer your friend. What will you do to ensure they are a lifelong friend? How can you make sure your friend is happy? Are they healthy? Do they need extra support? Is there something you can do that will stand out and be remembered?

Approach these principles as you would when forming any lasting relationship. Remember, we are all human.