Customer Success as a Service Archives

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CSM Specialization: Balancing Relationships and Knowledge

While we may agree that it takes a certain set of characteristics that make an awesome CSM, your definition of the role of a Customer Success Manager (CSM) likely looks slightly different than the definition that your competitors, vendors, and customers use in their own businesses. The set of customers each CSM interacts with will […]

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Implementing Customer Success in non-SaaS Businesses

You’ve likely heard that Customer Success was born out of the subscription economy, and new market needs of subscription customers. This is 100% true. This also means that CS is primarily referenced with some level of connection to SaaS. But just because CS originated within SaaS does not mean that it only applies to businesses […]

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Scaling with Digital Customer Success

One of the biggest challenges facing Customer Success leaders is how to effectively scale. This is nearly impossible without incorporating Digital Customer Success into your overall CS strategy. By thoughtfully layering digital on top of the one-to-one interactions that CSMs are already having with customers, you can reduce your cost to serve and remove tedious […]

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The 5 Stages Of The Customer Lifecycle

When your customers decide to begin a relationship with your business, you are both embarking on a path in which you are responsible for delivering on the promises that your marketing and sales teams made. Guiding your customers at the right pace, with the right understanding of their business, and providing the right tools are […]

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Applying MVP to CS: The Why

Since its 2009 introduction by Eric Ries in his NY Times bestseller, The Lean Startup, the concept of Minimum Viable Product (MVP) has been applied by numerous startups to engage in new product and service offering developments. Well-known companies such as Groupon, Zappos, Dropbox, and Uber have used MVPs to not only determine and modify […]

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Customer Experience: What B2B Can Learn from B2C

In the B2B world, your roster of customers may appear as just a list of company names – a long list of logos won by your sales team. And kudos to sales – they worked hard for those wins! But behind every Corp., Inc., and Ltd. on that list is a living, breathing human being […]

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The Crisis of Confidence in Customer Success: Presentation Recap

Since 2013, the Customer Success Association has been hosting Customer SuccessCon, a conference designed to look at the current state of the profession and into its future. It brings together some of the most experienced and forward-thinking minds in the Customer Success community. ESG was proud to sponsor and present at all of this year’s […]

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Revenue Optimization and Customer Success

One of the biggest business lessons of the last decade has been that keeping your current customers is just as important as acquiring new customers. In the age of SaaS, this is an indisputable fact. But there’s more to the success of your business than just retaining customers. You also have to think long-term, ensuring […]

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Account Management vs Customer Success: 4 Major Differences

As the gospel of Customer Success is spreading like wildfire in the corporate world, executives are realizing that they need to act fast to incorporate it into their organizational structure. But to their own detriment, some of these executives aren’t fully committing to the importance of Customer Success. Instead, they’re simply “rebranding” their Account Managers […]

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More than a Buzzword: Why Committing to Customer Success Is Essential

In 1975, Kodak engineer Steve Sasson built the first ever digital camera, but Kodak’s management just didn’t see the appeal. After all, profit margins were far higher on film than on the cameras themselves, and this was filmless photography. In Sasson’s words, “management’s reaction was, ‘that’s cute, but don’t tell anyone about it.’” This was […]