Perhaps the most effective way to retain customers is to let them achieve success by using your product. When your business depends solely upon your customer’s success, you will have to manage your customers like assets. You will have to take care of client relationships effectively because your organization depends upon it.
Acquiring a customer becomes your first step in a long journey that will ultimately benefit your company in course of time. As a marketer you will be aware that this is known as customer success management.
So, what is it?
It is an emerging aspect which intends to solve core issues of a customer’s portfolio development from retention to expansion. The ultimate goal of customer success is to sustain profits and growth. The long-range vision that is an essential feature of customer success management is a result of latest technology integrated successfully in the marketing and sales departments. Along with that proper training and after-sales support nourishes the customer and propels them forward to a successful journey.
Marketing automation technology is extremely versatile in nature. A lot of marketers around the world have already adopting marketing automation to steer their organization towards ultimate success. You might be wondering how, right? After all, automation is a platform meant for marketing and sales to generate and qualify more leads. How can that possibly be applied to customer success?
Well, we want you to know the three rules for applying marketing automation to customer success:
Rule #1: Customer and User Onboarding and Initial Engagement
The first thing that we have done is to divide the rules as per the segments of a customer’s journey. The first part of the journey involves onboarding and initial engagement. Using marketing automation, you can set up drip email campaigns for your customers. A drip campaign generally will consist of emails that have been created beforehand. These emails will be mailed at regular intervals or depending upon an action taken by a customer.
With marketing automation, each of these emails can be customized for better results. For example, when a customer first signs up, they receive a warm welcome message in their inbox from your company. After a few days you can encourage them to further explore your brand. In the mean time you can send them emails that will educate them further about your brand as well as your offerings.
Drip emails are effective and with marketing automation by its side, your first step of engaging your customer will be nothing short of successful. It is a thoughtful tool, but be wary of misusing your drip marketing. That might lead to annoyed customers!
Rule #2: Ongoing engagement and Support
Once you have successfully engaged your customer initially, you have to retain them. There is very little meaning in your efforts if you cannot retain the customers you attract. With marketing automation’s nurturing support, you can keep your customers engaged.
You can create custom email campaigns that will keep your customers informed. The information in these emails can be anything from company news to new product offerings. Anything that will be relevant to a certain customer will be excellent for keeping them engaged. At this point of a customer’s journey, your aim should be to provide them a reliable support to lean on. This will ensure that they will not leave your brand.
You have to be loyal to them, so that they can be loyal to you in the long run. Provide them support whenever they need it. Create FAQs to answer their questions and craft smart emails with marketing automation to keep them in the loop.
Rule #3: Customer Success
The final part of a customer’s journey is a never-ending one if you play your cards right. This would mean that a customer would become an integral part of your organization because of your product’s success and your support. The only way you can ensure that is to make sure that your customer tastes success by using your product. You have to make sure that your product is top-notch. But after that you have to make sure that you can provide support to buyers at any given point of time.
The faster you can solve their after-sales issues the more chances you will have to retain that customer. In order to increase your chances of customer success, you should constantly tweak your product depending on customer feedback. Use marketing automation to keep in touch with your customers. See what they have to say about your brand and your product on social media. Interact with them across all channels. Make sure that your audience is aware of your customers' success by using your product.
Customer success management is an integral part of modern tech companies specially ones in the SaaS industry. In such an industry, it is vital that you retain customers. Acquiring customers is good, but make sure to retain the ones you already have. Your focus should be on the customers that are using your product more than customers who will or might use your product in the future.
We are keen to know if you already use marketing automation for customer success management. Drop us a line at info@esanosys.com if you need guidance in configuring your marketing tool for managing customer success.
