Why Customer Success Is Important?

With so much distraction and information out there, businesses often forget the very basic and foundational principle that leads to a win: Customer Success. 

As a business, the best way to make potential customers and prospects visualize their experience and the difference your product(s) or service(s) will bring to their lives is by highlighting previous customer success stories. 

There are many reasons why customer success is important, but the most important is that it’s the first domino that makes the other ones fall. Meaning that success leads to more success.

Hence, it’s important to work towards customer success, and it’s just as important to highlight them via testimonials, reviews, blog posts, case studies, content posting, etc., to build more credibility, brand reputation, and growth. 

This article will discuss why businesses must showcase customer success and use it as a tool to get more customers and conversions. 

What is Customer Success? 

Before any purchase or transaction, a customer may have a certain goal in mind. There’s also a value that you aim to add as a business or a problem you set to solve. When that value is added, or the problem is solved, and that enables the customer to achieve the goal they had set, you get a customer success story.

Now, depending on your niche and market, customer success for you may be different. For an influencer promoting a brand, just posting about the brand isn’t a success. Success is when that brand achieves its goals, whether it’s brand positioning, purchase, subscriptions, or simply awareness. 

What Does Customer Success Do and Why You Must Highlight It? 

Customer success helps you learn and implement the best strategies to help your customers, and is responsible for onboarding, educating, and supporting customers, helping them optimize the use of a product or service to reach their business goals. 

It goes beyond addressing problems, focusing instead on proactive measures that anticipate customer needs and prevent issues before they arise. By highlighting customer success, businesses illustrate their commitment to their clients' achievements and satisfaction, not just their bottom lines. 

Driving Revenue Growth: Why Is Customer Success Important for Revenue & Profits

Customer Success contributes to revenue growth by boosting the customer lifetime value (CLV). As customers derive continuous value from a product or service, they are more likely to remain loyal, sustain recurring revenue, and opt for longer subscription terms or higher-tier plans, positively impacting CLV.

Think of products and services that you buy regularly or are subscribed to, and remember your first experience with them. There’s a reason why you were compelled to experience that again. 

Whether it’s a shampoo brand or a YouTube premium subscription, you not only achieve your goal with it but also advocate to others about how that product/service may make your life easier in some way. 

Hence, you become direct advocates of that. Moreover, upselling and cross-selling are integral components of the Customer Success strategy. Satisfied customers who achieve their goals with a company's product are more open to considering additional features or services that can bring them even greater success. 

Once customer trust is established through successful usage, they're typically more receptive to recommendations for upgrades or additional offerings, leading to increased revenue per customer.

For example, Linktree offers a freemium subscription model, wherein you get basic features of the application for free, but to get additional features, like analytics, conversion tracking, affiliate marketing, etc., you must subscribe to its Pro or Premium models. 

As a user, when you find the free model valuable and have further needs, you most likely will subscribe. That automatically leads to more revenue and business. 

Further, you must document the experience of your successful customers nicely to highlight that to prospective customers. That builds social proof around your brand, leading to more conversions and eventually more revenue. 

Documentation can be done in the form of content, reviews, testimonials, blog posts, and other similar sources, that you can display on your website, emails/newsletters, social media, etc. 

Fostering Customer Loyalty and Retention as a Customer Success Function

When you, as a business, are dedicated and sincere towards leading your customers towards success, that shows and helps solidify the bond between a business and its customers. 

By consistently meeting and exceeding customer expectations, and offering support tailored to their specific needs and objectives, companies can build a strong rapport leading to increased loyalty. Customers are more likely to stay with a service that has a proven track record of helping them achieve their goals.

When a company repeatedly exceeds expectations, not only in the product itself but through customer service and support, customers develop trust in the brand. This trust is crucial for cultivating a sense of loyalty; customers believe that the company has their best interests at heart and is a partner in their success, not just a provider.

The biggest reason why companies lose customers is because of weak and non-customized customer support. According to a Zendesk study, 78 percent of consumers have abandoned a transaction or have yet to make an intended purchase due to a subpar customer service experience.

While automated chatbots can be useful for the first interaction, you need more dedicated customer support for deeper interactions and a more personalized approach. 

Other strategies include regular check-ins, personalized support, tailored engagement plans, and offering additional resources or training to help customers fully utilize the product. 

By identifying and addressing potential issues before they become problems, Customer Success teams can help ensure customer satisfaction and prevent customers from seeking alternative solutions.

A good example is a brand called Defenage that launched loyalty programs and more personalized purchases with its Loyalty Rewards Program.

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Differentiating From Competitors

Building customer success is the best way to set you apart from your competitors. In a world where most businesses today are profit-driven, businesses that are more driven by customer success stand out. Some prime examples of customer-centric companies are Best Buy, Netflix, Glossier, Slack, and Apple, amongst many others 

When every competitor offers similar features or pricing, the quality and personalization of the support and service can tip the scales. Providing a customer success experience that is demonstrably superior fosters loyalty, motivates referrals, and can even justify a premium price point.

Notable examples include Salesforce and Amazon Web Services (AWS). Salesforce’s customer success program helps clients successfully implement their solutions, ensuring businesses of all sizes can effectively use their CRM. 

AWS differentiates through its extensive customer success programs, providing a vast array of resources and direct support to help customers leverage their cloud computing services effectively.

Standing out in marketing should be convincing enough to help you understand why is customer success important to you. Codeacademy is a great brand to learn from when it comes to highlighting customer success stories. 

It has a blog dedicated to thousands of detailed and comprehensive success stories that make it stand out in the online tech education market. Further, it also has a community of students who help each other become better coders. 

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Cultivating Brand Advocacy

Brand advocacy is another reason why customer success is so important. It is the phenomenon where satisfied customers become vocal proponents of a company or product, often driven by exceptional experiences. A satisfied and happy customer is your best brand advocate. 

Nothing is better than word-of-mouth marketing. Businesses can harness the power of customer success stories and glowing testimonials as tools to transform happy customers into advocates. 

When customers share their positive experiences, it acts as an endorsement and can be more persuasive than traditional advertising. These narratives can also humanize the brand, adding credibility that prospective customers find relatable and trustworthy.

With the rise of social media and online review platforms, these customer stories and testimonials can reach audiences on an unprecedented scale. When shared online, they can rapidly gather momentum, influence buying decisions, and foster community around a brand.

According to a study by the Nielsen Company, 92% of consumers around the world say they trust earned media, such as word-of-mouth and recommendations from friends and family, above all other forms of advertising (Nielsen, "Global Trust in Advertising" report).

Testimonials and reviews are a great way to integrate the voices of your brand advocates into your website and social media. You can use tools like Testimonial Donut to collect and manage testimonials from satisfied customers. It costs nothing and makes your website look great. Testimonial Donut is one of the best tools for video testimonials and Google reviews collection and integration, and the best part is that it is free of cost. 

Enhancing Employee Satisfaction and Engagement

The nexus between employee satisfaction and customer success is undeniable. Satisfied employees lead to satisfied customers, and vice versa. 

Engaged employees who are content with their work environment tend to be more invested in the company's mission, and this is often reflected in the quality of customer interactions they deliver. 

Similarly, when they work towards customer success and can achieve that, they feel more content and purposeful about the work they do.  A workforce that is satisfied and motivated will typically go the extra mile to ensure customer satisfaction and success.

This dynamic is backed by several studies, including Gallup's finding that companies with highly engaged workforces are 21% more profitable than those with poor engagement, inevitably due to their ability to provide better customer service (Gallup, "State of the American Workplace" report).

Moreover, to attract the best talent, you need a great work culture and a brand for which the customers speak. It’s also a good idea to utilize employee testimonials and highlight the employee experience with your brand. 

Enhancing employee satisfaction, therefore, isn’t just about creating a better workplace culture; it's a strategic move that can positively impact customer retention, satisfaction, and overall business success.

Ensuring Long-Term Business Sustainability - Why is Customer Success Important to a Business?

Customer success is the only way to business success, at least in the long term. By investing in customer success, businesses can develop deeper relationships with their customers, fostering loyalty and reducing churn, which contributes to a steady revenue stream over time. 

This strategic focus aligns with the Service Profit Chain framework, which suggests that higher levels of customer satisfaction lead to increased customer loyalty and, ultimately, higher profitability and growth.

Moreover, organizations that prioritize customer success demonstrate greater resilience during economic downturns and market fluctuations. During challenging times, customers are more likely to continue investing in products and services that have consistently delivered value and support. 

We will explain further with examples. Blockbuster, the video rental giant. Despite a strong market presence, Blockbuster failed to adapt to the changing needs and technologies impacting consumers. 

It ignored the demand for online streaming and convenient home delivery services, leading to widespread customer dissatisfaction. 

This neglect and the inability to pivot according to customer expectations contributed significantly to its ultimate downfall, allowing Netflix, which prioritized customer convenience and evolving media consumption habits, to capture the market.

On the flip side, Zappos, the online shoe and clothing retailer, is often hailed for its commitment to customer success. Zappos’ dedication to the best possible service — epitomized by its 365-day return policy and a highly praised customer service team — has engendered deep customer trust and loyalty, leading to long-term sustainability. 

A study by Bain & Company emphasizes this, stating that increasing customer retention rates by just 5% increases profits by 25% to 95% (Bain & Company, "The Value of Online Customer Loyalty").

Final Thoughts

The idea and strategy of customer success, no matter how basic it sounds, is often what businesses may overlook while building a brand. Making a customer succeed is a different game, and highlighting that success using marketing materials to attract more customers is a different game. 

We have discussed why customer success is important in great detail but to sustain that success over a long period, you need a great testimonials and reviews strategy that builds social proof around that customer success and establishes your brand as a credible and reliable one. 

To implement your testimonial and reviews strategy, you can use Testimonial Donut, a free tool that streamlines your testimonial collection and management process, whether you’re collecting video testimonials, Google reviews, or testimonials in any other form. 

Hope this article was helpful and valuable. Thank you for reading.

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