In the 90s or 2000s, when customers were a dime a dozen, if you lost them, you lost them. Now if we lose them, they're not just gone, they've like taken their money to another competitor; they didn't just leave us, they joined someone else.

While you have to have your customers’ best interest in mind, the reality is that you are working towards your organization’s objectives as well. How to balance those two occasionally opposing goals is the perpetual question Customer Success Managers try to answer – and one Jaclyn, Professional Services Consultant at Heap, has gathered much wisdom around through her years at well-loved SaaS brands.

Jaclyn sagely reminds us that making sure the needs of the customers are met, ultimately ensures the accomplishment of company objectives – the real key to the balance:

1.Customer Success requires you to balance intentions for the customer and your company

Customer Success involves an internal intention because while we are looking to help [customers] with the goal that they want, we also have a goal for that customer as well. 

Our goal is for them to grow, to stay, to love, to become a cheerleader, whatever it may be. Our goal with Success is to make them successful in their goals and in ours. Customer Success can be more of a collaboration. For me, the Customer Experience team is incredibly intentional on whether we're giving or getting from the customer.

2.SaaS makes it easy to come and go, so the focus on retention is paramount…

Subscription services changed everything in a lot of ways because the ability for customers to come and go got a lot easier. I think it'll only get easier. Think of all of the products that we have today that allow us to cancel or start a subscription with the click of our phone. I don't have to put in my credit card. I could sign up for a subscription today on an app and cancel it tomorrow and it'd take me under five clicks for the whole thing. 

Not even the focus on the sale, but the focus on retention is going to be scaled up and heightened. 

Before, all you had to do was get them and then once you got them, you got them. [Now] It's going to be “oh, people will try us out. But once they try us out, how do we make sure they stay?” 

3.… because a loss for you is a win for your competition

I do believe there has been a big shift towards realizing the importance behind your customers as competition. There's a new startup on the block every frickin’ week! The need to retain customers now is way more important than it was in the 90s or 2000s, where customers were a dime a dozen and if you lost them, you lost them.

Now if we lose them, they're not just gone, they've like taken their money to another competitor; they didn't just leave us, they joined someone else. 

I think the customer function is getting some good, well-deserved credit and focus on how we make our users want to stay with us no matter what that product is.

Thanks to Jaclyn for helping us find intentional balance in the world of Customer Success!

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