When you speak of software management solutions, you can find focus and solutions with SaaS business software. Specifically, look for software that helps ensure Customer Success Management.

More and more companies are purchasing software as a subscription that is deployed from the cloud. They are no longer willing to spend large amounts of money upfront for on-premise solutions. Thus, your profit as an SaaS vendor is largely derived by keeping your customers around.

What Is Customer Success?

Your SaaS customers are successful when they derive continuous value from your product. Furthermore, it’s important to note that your customer’s success is your success too. The purpose of your software is to first find the right customers. You want them to successfully use your software. You can teach your customers in a way which they can expand the use of your software to increase value. You can do this informative onboarding, effective training, and proactive tech support.

The purpose of your software is to first find the right customers. You want them to successfully use your software.

It may come as no surprise that the account manager’s role has changed into that of being a customer success manager.

SaaS business management solutions are best described as those that help increase customer retention. A perfect example would be to track customer usage and how well customers are adapting to your product.

Can you presently identify at-risk customers? Do you presently have the ability to set up automated responses, or to set up specific alerts?  Consider the benefits of software that can manage customer success:

Net Promoter Score Surveys (NPS)

NPS measure the loyalty between a provider and their customer. These include:

Customer Health Scoring
Customer Profiles
Rule-Based Automatic Workflow
Email Marketing

SaaS Customer Service Software Solutions

By using the right type of software you can address customers who need attention. You can prioritize when and how you will respond. You can also identify up-sell and cross-sell opportunities. You can also discover those customers who can advocate your cause. There are more examples, but we’d like to highlight the following.

Gainsight

Get to a point where you understand your customer’s health by how they interact with your product. Using big data has never been easier. Businesses have been using data to drive customer acquisition incentives for a long time.

Now SaaS businesses can address customers that are at-risk while helping deliver lifetime value for healthy customers. This recognizes a complete customer service platform that helps identify and manage churn.

Totango

Totango boasts that it’s one of the only customer success platform providers that can offer solutions for companies that sell into, or that have multiple products, channel partners, and hierarchies. It lets you know when, where, and why to reach out to customers.

Now you can keep track of every customer who uses your product. When they are happy, it opens the door to new opportunities. The days in which an understanding of customers through support tickets, check-ins, and surveys may be numbered. You need smarter ways to engage and understand your customers. Totango can be a solution.

ClientSuccess

This could be the software of choice if you’re actively interested in growing your customer base. It can also help you manage and retain loyal ones. It’s now all about creating lifetime value. The only way to do that is with access to rich customer insights and solutions for best practices. It happens to be a simple, yet sophisticated, solution that both customers and SaaS customer will find relevant and useful.

Single Customer View

Pitney Bowes entered the game by launching their new software in March of 2016. The software helps organizations deepen their understanding of customers. It provides the ability to design, deliver, and evolve relevant customer views in real-time across every possible channel of engagement.

Kapta

If you’re looking to work with an account that matters the most, this could be your software. Theoretically, every account matters. It’s just that some accounts will always perform better than others. For the most valuable accounts, this software helps ensure that your company is delivering as promised. Since these accounts are vital, you can’t risk losing track of them.

Pendo

Founded in 2013 by Google, Rally, Red Hat and Cisco alumni. A group of smart people got together and built something phenomenal. A lot happens when brilliant minds come together.

This software sounds like an NFL playbook. Businesses can monitor customers on whole new level of visibility with built-in playbooks. It provides an early warning system that lets you know if a customer is happy or dissatisfied with your service or product. The only way to transform an account is to connect with your users on a whole new level.

Blue Nose Analytics

Here’s another customer service platform that can empower your business to proactively manage customers. Your visibility will be complete. You’ll be able to connect with customers like never before.

Ptero

Digs deep into customer behavioral patterns and lets businesses stay focused on what really matters. Learn about the patterns and events that influence how your customers buy your products. Certain behaviors signal when a customer is ready to convert. You’ll know what these signals are and consequently, will be able to coax your users into becoming customers.

Amity

Every customer has a rhythm of how they interact with your product. You will receive an alert when there is the slightest change in your customer’s interactions.  Then you’ll have the right recommendations to take action and follow up with a measurement of your success.

Defining Customer Success Management

All across the SaaS landscape, a new role is establishing and is always developing: customer success manager. It’s only a label, but it’s all about managing the customer relationship and making sure you satisfy your customers and keep them happy.

The long-range vision of customer service management integrates sales, marketing, training, support, and professional services.

The choices are clear. If you don’t manage the relationship, your business will experience churn. When SaaS customers leave, they won’t be back. You lose them to the competition. Consequently, acquiring customers is only the first step in a long-term relationship that you should be engineering for success.

Managing in a customer services capacity is all about finding solutions to core issues. You could be developing your portfolio to offer ever-increasing value. Your goal is to keep customers and expand your business. The long-range vision of customer service management integrates sales, marketing, training, support, and professional services.

The day of software that stands alone is a thing of the past. In today’s SaaS world, it’s all about growth and remaining profitable. If your customers are productive with your product, as a result, you have solved the profitability challenge.

What to Expect from Your Customer Success Team

Building value for your customers has to be your mission. Building value for your own company as well is proving your worth in both directions. Therefore, the value of software management solution is to move your company out of “reactive” mode into one that is far more proactive. Stop the churn before it even approaches that level.

Exact communication will allow your company to listen to your customers and create the tools they need to remain competitive.  In addition, effective onboarding and training can help ensure that your customers are engaged at every point.

Effective onboarding and training can help ensure that your customers are engaged at every point.

A loss of engagement is where churn begins, and business with that customer usually ends. Your team will collect data at every point to analyze and make sure the customer’s experience goes off without a hitch.

Startups believe that you shouldn’t be spending fistfuls of money acquiring new customers. Instead, that money should be spent in keeping existing customer’s happy. That’s partly true. Money should always be spent acquiring new customers. Otherwise, there would be no existing customers to keep happy.

Managing Customer Success Is the Key

By now you’re aware that startups no longer need vast amounts of money to get off the ground. But, you must have a product that works and a system that brings in and manages new clients in ways that bring value to their business.

Great examples of SaaS companies setting high standards include Zuora, Twilio, Intercom, Vend, Dropbox, Hubspot, Slack, Zenefits, and Salesforce. They’re always on the cutting edge with relevant products and services. Study these companies and you’ll gain insights about why they were able to branch out so quickly.

In conclusion, your team will be the reason that you thrive or fail in the marketplace. Keep listening to your customers, and make sure you have the software solutions in place to track their level of satisfaction.

You simply can’t afford to acquire then lose valuable customers in today’s competitive world. There is no such thing as getting them back.