Achieving Customer Success by Reducing Churn | #customersupport #supporticket

In Part 1 of this blog series we introduced the new imperative for customer support and customer success—achieving success for your customers…and for your bottom line. The first way to do so is to ensure product adoption and use. The second way is to use B2B customer support tools to proactively strengthen your customer relationships and reduce churn. That’s what we explore in Part 2. 

Reduce Churn and Prove Value

Overall support demand grew by 10.6% in 2020. The largest drivers were new customers, higher user adoption of product features, and more proactive outreach by Support.¹ That’s according to research by the Service Excellence Group (ServieXRG).

Most customer support interactions today are reactive, but proactive support is on the rise. Proactive customer engagement accounts for more than a quarter (28%) of Support interactions and grew by 14% from 2019 to 2020. Yet only 28% of companies have proactive engagement efforts in place.

Why?

Reducing churn is no longer about stepping in and trying to “save” a customer once they have already made the decision to leave. Support is partnering with Success to make the transition from a reactive transactional model to a more proactive and preventive posture.  

Research is a crucial part of customer retention that can help reduce turnover dramatically. With the right online support software, businesses have access to valuable information about where customer relationships faltered and patterns that lead to attrition. For example, if multiple clients contacted customer support about a capability, a tool, or feature the product didn’t offer, businesses can use this insight to improve their offering and maintain lasting relationships.

It’s not always about researching negative trends. Companies should also conduct research to determine the strong points of their customer experiences that lead to retention.

According to ServiceXRG, while most companies have formalized methods for capturing customer feedback, when customer dissatisfaction is identified, only 57% of companies have formal procedures to act on reported dissatisfaction.²

In Part 3 of this series, we’ll address how to analyze and use data to ensure success and drive recurring revenue.

^1-2Sweeney, Tom, Customer Support Transformation: The Guide to Essential Practices and Metrics, Dec 2020, Service Excellence Group, LLC. Download the report.

With increasing revenue as its primary focus, TeamSuccess boldly repositions the role of B2B customer success software in the industry. TeamSuccess allows customer success teams to easily monitor, automate, and streamline the customer lifecycle, creating more upsell opportunities, reducing the risk of churn, and ensuring that as customer relation­ships grow, so do contributions to the bottom line. Learn more at TeamSuccess.com.