Customer Success Enablement may be a term you’ve never heard of, but you’ve probably heard of sales enablement. Although it’s a crucial idea and job in the Customer Success industry, it still hasn’t fully earned the recognition it deserves.
Customer Success teams have a wide range of duties, from opening new accounts to assisting current clients in achieving their objectives and securing renewals.
It’s not unexpected that leadership teams are increasing investment in tools and resources to better support Customer Success teams given the numerous demands on a CSM’s time.
Out of this requirement, the idea of “Enablement for Customer Success” has emerged.
Customer Success Enablement – Definition
The customer success department of a company aids clients in making the most of their products and services. Customer success managers are constantly thinking of their client’s best interests. Has anyone thought about the Customer Success team, though?
The goal of customer success enablement is to make it possible for your customer success specialists to do their duties in an efficient manner. Customer success enablement makes sure that agents have the knowledge, procedures, and equipment necessary to do their duties effectively.
They can make use of these resources to develop new client onboarding programs, offer continuous customer education training, and assist those who develop a consistent customer experience in various ways.
So How does Customer Success Enablement Better the Customer Experience?
It enhances the success of Sales to CS Handoff
The customer experience is fundamentally dependent on handoffs. Things can go wrong during handoffs and frequently do. Customers will notice if you make handoffs simple. They also highlight when information is lost or the handoff is ineffective.
The transition between marketing and sales is greatly facilitated by sales enablement. The transition from sales to CS will go more smoothly if your customer success team is involved.
Pro tip: The Effective way to Sales, Customer Success, and Implementation Handoff
Consider some of the typical inquiries a CSM might pose to a new client:
- What does success mean to you?
- Please explain your immediate and broader objectives.
- What are the requirements for career success?
- How can you support the success of the people you work with?
- What metrics do you employ to gauge success?
Some of these inquiries already have responses available to salespeople. And your CS staff will improve the handoff process by swiftly relaying such information to them.
Customers no longer need to put up with CSMs asking them questions they have already answered. They can have resources ready in advance that are suitable for the demands of the client.
These small gestures go a long way in making your clients feel valued. And that significantly alters how the handoff process works.
Throughout the customer lifecycle, your CS team may also be involved in various handoffs. They might refer a client to your account management, development, or customer service teams.
Additionally, having access to as much information as you can throughout these handoffs betters the customer experience.
Helps Customer Success Provide More Value
Proactive outreach is one of the fundamental principles of customer success. Offering something of value is one of the best ways to achieve this.
Consider whether you would be more inclined to respond to an email that begins, “Hey, just checking in,” or one that begins, “We just published this research about your industry. I figured you’d want to see it”?
Suggested Read: Top 7 Customer Success Email Templates that your team needs!
The problem with this is that your marketing team typically produces the important resources that your CS team should be disseminating. Additionally, it can be difficult to persuade them to notify your CSMs each time they publish something.
Your CSMs will be more effective if they have access to all the materials your marketing team develops. This helps them build a more valuable customer relationship.
It Builds A Customer Success Content Pipeline More Rapidly
Almost every aspect of your business needs content in some way. Of course, marketing calls for a tonne of material. Likewise, sales. Customer success is similar in this regard.
But as I just said, the marketing division is in charge of creating the majority of content. Without CS enablement, a CSM would have to go to the marketing division to locate someone to write a white paper or a graphic and then follow up to make sure it happened. This is much easier with a platform or method for sales enablement.
At the present, a CSM only needs to log their request with the marketing team in order for it to enter the common content workflow. This provides you with better content more quickly and consistently.
Your customer success team will be more qualified to respond to inquiries and offer assistance. The blog posts that your marketing staff pledged to publish a month ago are not continually bugged about. Additionally, your sales team benefits from having access to even more excellent content.
Everyone benefits from it.
It facilitates cross-selling and up-selling.
Your CS team may engage in up-and cross-selling depending on the size and nature of your business. The customer success agents should be prepared to market your other items, even if account managers typically handle that.
The customer success team might not be familiar with the information that customers need to make the decision because they aren’t always marketing. That issue is resolved by customer success enablement.
Your customer success team can now access all of the resources that your salesmen can. The personnel who probably have the most contact with your customers are now in possession of sales sheets, infographics, scripts, sales workflows, case studies, and every other piece of content that aids in closing sales.
Even if selling isn’t your customer success team’s primary responsibility, this can be quite beneficial. If a consumer inquires about a different product or an upgrade, they will be better prepared.
Best Practices for Customer Success Enablement
Examine your position.
The first step in developing a successful Customer Success enablement program is data collection. Make connections with Customer Success leaders and other knowledgeable team members during this process.
To better determine where they require additional resources and support, learn about the difficulties and pain spots they are experiencing.
Contact your customer support departments as well. The managers of these teams may have knowledge of additional obstacles that may originate from the clients themselves.
Follow the metrics
Any department of your organization should track key performance indicators (KPIs), but are you tracking the appropriate ones for Customer Success enablement? It’s challenging to determine how to best support your Customer Success projects without the appropriate data.
Nearly every firm should be tracking metrics like customer satisfaction score (CSAT) and Net Promoter Score (NPS) when it comes to customer success. A variety of additional customer satisfaction surveys can be helpful metrics to monitor.
Review, tweak, and repeat
Utilize the three “Rs” of review, refinement, and repetition to make your Customer Success enablement program as effective as possible.
Review the opinions of your personnel, clients, and anybody else who can offer insightful comments first. Next, make adjustments to your content and enabling procedures using this feedback. Repeat this cycle on a regular basis once you’ve put these improvements into practice.
Takeaway
In increasingly cutthroat markets, the value of customer success has become abundantly evident. Teams and supervisors focused on customer success are what separate successful companies from those that fail. These professionals require resources, support, training, and efficient tools in order to consistently accomplish client success.
Customer success enablement is in charge of offering everything required and will keep developing as a crucial, extremely beneficial discipline with increasing demand.
P.S.-Photo by Andrea Piacquadio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-wearing-maroon-velvet-plunge-neck-long-sleeved-dress-while-carrying-several-paper-bags-photography-972995/
