Hi, Markus here. Welcome to a new episode of the Customer-Value-Led-Growth Newsletter.

I share strategies and guides to help you become a proactive Customer Success Manager (CSM), deliver more value to your customers, and turn that value into revenue for your company every week.

Want to excel in CSM? Check out these resources 👇️ 

• The Customer Retention Blueprint *NEW*

• Enterprise CSM Guide *NEW*

• CSM Operating System 

• Free Resources 

I’m skipping the intro for today as it would be similar to the previous episode on CSM mistakes and jumping straight into action.

1. Don’t turn Onboarding into a Product Demo

You are madly in love with your product. You believe it’s an absolute game-changer for your customers. You can’t wait to show them everything it has to offer.

But there are 3 problems:

• Your customers don’t care about its features and functions. They want to see results - fast and easy. Your product is just a vehicle for them.

• There’s only so much information your customers can process at once. They will certainly not remember the 47 customization options of feature X. They will be overwhelmed and lost.

• Not everything might be relevant for your customers (at this point). Showing them features they don’t need (now) is wasted space in your customers’ memory.

Always remember the ultimate goal of your onboarding: Giving customers quick wins to get their buy-in for the long game. A visible proof of value.

Therefore, introduce them to one feature at a time. Show them how to use it to create the (partial) outcome they want to see. Then show them more step-by-step, following a logical (chronological) order

2. Don’t turn QBRs into presentations

They have been pronounced dead more times than I can count. The truth is that they are alive and well - if done the right way. More than that. QBRs that follow the right recipe are a powerful asset to practically ensure customer success.

What’s dead are QBRs where CSMs are throwing slide decks with 50 pages at customers. Not to mention that they don’t care about most of its contents. Most prominently, product usage statistics and company news.

Here’s what you need to get to do them right: QBRs are periodic evaluations of whether customers are on course toward their desired outcome. It’s an assessment you are doing with your customers together. It’s a conversation, not a presentation.

Featuring

• actual vs. projected results based on the metrics customers care about

• analyzing what worked, what did not, and why

• deriving changes to the success plan and/or program if necessary

If you are following this recipe, you’ll turn your QBRs into time well spent for both sides.

3. Don’t settle for proxy churn reasons 

Your customers are leaving again and again. You need to find out why. What most of them tell you are things like:

• the product was too expensive

• important features were missing

• company X (your competitor) has a better offer

What’s that going to tell you? What measures can you derive? Lower prices? Build more features? Copy your competitor? None of those makes any sense. None. They are merely proxy reasons customers give you.

It’s not that your customers are lying to you. They are simply sharing it from their perspective. If you want to eliminate churn, you need to go deeper and get actionable answers.

• If the product were too expensive, customers would not have purchased it initially. What they are saying is that they did not get enough value for what they are paying.

• If important features were missing, customers would not have purchased your product. The only exception is when they did not conduct some basic research. What’s more likely is that they feel like there’s something missing because they are not able to use what already exists properly.

• If a competitor has a better offer, your customers would never have come to you. What they are saying is that you did not live up to their expectations. As a result, they are now trying their luck with the next best alternative. It’s a value delivery problem again.

In the end, all these reasons come down to a lack of customer value. You need to find out where and why things are going south.

4. Don’t reduce CS plans to use case documentations

It would be exaggerating if I said that it’s giving me nightmares. However, it’s something that deeply concerns me. When I’m looking for CS plan examples and templates, most of what I find are merely use case documentations.

They feature customer objectives, challenges, and KPIs, but there’s not a single clue how customers are supposed to accomplish their goals. But that’s why you are supposed to make success plans in the first place.

To outline the steps customers need to take. To create visibility and accountability. To enable proactive CSM work. If you don’t know the journey customers have ahead, you are reduced to reactive work by design.

Customer Success happens bottom up. Your job is customer enablement. Providing them with the education, training, and advising they need to

1. Build the necessary skills and knowledge to

2. Complete the critical tasks that

3. Solve their problems and ultimately

4. Accomplish their goals

5. Don’t rely on customers recognizing value

Renewal date comes up, and turns into a nail-biter in many companies. Are they signing up for another year or departing? Who could tell what happens? Ok, this might be a bit exaggerated, but 99% of the time, the outcome should be clear.

Customers don’t make their decision on renewal day. It’s building up over the past months. To avoid unpleasant surprises, you need to make sure that customers are aware of the value they receive from working with you and your product.

Even when they are supposedly measuring it. You need to seize every opportunity to demonstrate it to every single stakeholder. Users, buyers, and sponsors. Without them having to ask for it.

Start your strategic meeting with a value recap. Make your QBRs/EBRs all about your customers’ gains and finding opportunities to further grow them. Send the stakeholders whom you are never going to meet in person a report that shows the ROI.

Deliver more value, create more revenue, and boost your career.