2013 customer success benchmark
TRANSCRIPT
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7/28/2019 2013 Customer Success Benchmark
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2013 STATE OF
THE PROFESSION:CUSTOMER SUCCESS
PRESENTS
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WHO ARE YOU,
CUSTOMER SUCCESSPROFESSIONAL?3
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THE AVERAGE CUSTOMER SUCCESS
PROFESSIONAL PROFILETitle: Customer Success Manager
Experience: 6.5 years in Customer Success or
working directly with customers
Background in: Sales/Customer Support
Compensation Structure: Base salary + commission/bonus
Reports to: VP Customer Success
Team Size: 14 people
Weve had Customer Success for: 1-3 years
Biggest challenges:
1. Lack of direction2. Lack of tools/info to manage customer info
Vertical: Computer software
Education: Graduated with bachelors degree
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MEET OUR SURVEYPARTICIPANTS5
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Our survey base spanned across
multiple industry verticals such
as: SaaS, analytics, broadcast,
technology, email marketing
services, call centers, projectmanagement, building systems,
finance, automotive, and much
more.
We had a nice mix of participants
from all levels ranging from
Associate to Director to VPs of
Customer Success.
BREAKDOWN OF PARTICIPANT BY TITLES
19%1%
9%
71%
Director
Associate
VP
Manager
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True to its infiltrating nature, the Customer
Success function has touched every
department of an organization. This also
makes it difficult to pinpoint who would be
responsible for such a function.
Many companies (47.1%) have dedicated a new
organization to Customer Success, with 15.7%
reporting directly to the CEO.
Its important that Customer Success
professionals are able to represent the
customers at the executive level.For some companies, Customer Success is a
fairly new introduction to their business
processes; but there is a growing need for
benchmarks and best practices to help instill
this growth.
Customer Success47%
CEO16%
COO3%
Sales10%
Marketing3%
CTO1%
Chief Customer Officer6%
Client Services3%
Other11%
WHERE DOES THEIR CUSTOMER SUCCESSFUNCTION REPORT TO?
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HOW LONG HAS THEIR CUSTOMER SUCCESS
FUNCTION BEEN AROUND?
37%
36%
26%
1%
More than 3 years
Between 1-3 years
Under 1 year
Just started
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TOP 10 COMMON CUSTOMER
SUCCESS CHALLENGESMost of the Customer Success professionals share similar issues - here the most 10
frequent ones (in order of urgency):
1. Need direction/Lack of information/tools to manage customer info2. External communication (with customers)3. Adoption4. Onboarding5. Unclear definition or understanding of CSM role/customer culture6. Internal communication (sales and other departments)7. Product training8. Measuring and acting on engagement9. Lack of personnel in team10. Identifying at-risk customers
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Balancing time between selling/retention/relationships Retention/Renewals Customer employee turnover Accurate measurement/Analytics Technical Support issues Prioritize leads Budget Predict customer behavior Measurement usage/adoption Customer software usage
WHERE ELSE ARE CUSTOMER SUCCESS
PROFESSIONALS FACING CHALLENGES?
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37% of our survey population shared that Customer
Success has been in their organization for more than
3 years, but still, as seen in the top 10 challenges,
13% complain that there is unclear definition/
understanding of the CSM role. In general, the
Customer Success function is pretty new. Most of the
Customer Success professionals have only been in
this field between 0-2 years. (41%).
About a quarter (24%) of Customer Success
professionals come from a Sales background and
therefore may need direction or new tools on how to
approach the customer from a different point of
view, which is not pushing for a deal but
understanding customer needs and leveraging their
success.
Most frequently, these professionals ask:
When does my role between firefighter andcustomer advocate begin or end?
My team is overwhelmed. The customer to CSMratio is too high, how can I manage this effectively?
What can I do when I feel like I have no authorityor influence on product decision or priorities?
How can I convince our executives of the value ofour work and not just another extra department?
How can I improve communication with otherdepartments like sales or support to solidify our
customer understanding?
Even though these professionals ultimately want to
help the customer be successful, it helps to empower
them with the right training and tools. Its important
to help these professionals achieve the goal of being
the customers advisor and advocate. A good place to
start is to create a company-wide understanding of
customer success: what does it mean? What isconsidered a successful customer? How can we bring
the customers voice into the boardroom? It would
be a good idea to introduce structured training for
their customer success teams.
ANALYSIS OF CUSTOMER SUCCESS CHALLENGES
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LOOKING INTO THE CUSTOMER
SUCCESS TOOLBOX
5.2%
5.5%
6.2%
7.7%
11.9%
21.1%
21.7%
26.3%
Office Suite
Customer Engagement Management
Helpdesk
Proprietary (homegrown)
Analytics Tools
Communications
Other (social media, soft skills, etc)
CRM
TOP TOOLS USED DAILY IN CUSTOMER SUCCESS
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Salesforce was the big winner among our participants as CRM of choice, followed by
social media and communications tools. Following close behind was the need forcustomer analytics.
In order to better manage the customer journey, key data for Customer Success
professionals comes from these customer intelligence tools to identify growth
opportunities and at-risk accounts.
One repeated comment from the surveyed participants who had to manually analyze
their customer data was the need to have amazing Excel kung fu. Our Customer
Success professionals made it a point to touch base with their accounts while also
providing added value via video conferencing, personal emails, and monitoring usage.
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ANATOMY OF CUSTOMER SUCCESS
COMPENSATIONFactor in experience and how established the customer success function is, and youll find
theres a great range of how Customer Success professionals are being compensated.
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CUSTOMER SUCCESS COMPENSATIONSTRUCTUREAn interesting find was that a majority of customer success professionals are
compensated first with a base salary then with added perks like commission and
bonuses from the success of their accounts.
76%
17%
7%
Base+Commission/Bonus
Base Only
Commission Only
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CUSTOMER SUCCESS COMPENSATION TRENDS
Altogether, 91% of our survey participants received a base salary. From that number, 64%also received a bonus in addition to the base salary, while 33% received commission for
upsells/renewals in addition to their base salary.
91%$
64%$
33%$
Base Salary Receive bonus in additionto base salary
Receive commission inaddition to base salary
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THINGS TO NEGOTIATE FOR COMPENSATION
Heres the breakdown on how Customer Success executives are being compensated for
commission and/or bonuses:
! % of sales! % of renewal revenue, quarterly! % of upsell revenue! % of project value! % of target met in relation to available bonus
! Reverse % of churn! Team performance! Personal performance! Company performance! Set percentage
In some cases, a certain threshold must be met before commissions/bonuses are activated.
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CONCLUSIONThe Customer Success function is starting to emerge at all organization levels, includingexecutive ones. Customer success professionals come from varying experience andbackgrounds, but their goals are the same: reduce churn and earn customer loyalty.
Here is the 2013 State of the Customer Success Profession:
1. Customer Success is still emerging (and growing).Businesses are in the process of trying to understand how to organize customer success andmanage compensation.
2. Businesses are missing the Customer Success Playbook.They are figuring out how to define the role of Customer Success. What are their goals? How istheir performance measured? How can this role be more integrated in other aspects of thebusiness? More importantly, they need internal buy-in by upper management for moresuccessful adoption.
3. There is a need for the right technologies and tools.Being able to narrow down the wide array of homegrown or scattered tools will help streamlinecustomer success processes. Customer Success professionals are looking for better ways toprioritize accounts, monitor and analyze, as well as improve communications both internallyand externally.
Learn more about being aPro-Customer Company atwww.totango.com
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ABOUT TOTANGO
Were a full-service Customer Engagement Management platform for online businesses.
Totangos Customer Engagement platform helps online services create an active and engaged
user base. Totango combines big data analytics with powerful segmentation and engagement tools
to allow online services to take the right actions with each customer, in real time. End-users
become happier and more successful driving usage and adoption, increasing conversions, sales
and lifetime value while reducing churn.
In the Customer Era, the whole dynamic and interaction model between vendors and users have
changed. Whether its for Customer Success or any function in your business, Totango was built
from the ground up to help businesses deliver more value and drive more active and engaged
users the foundation for business success.
Find out more or start your free trial at www.totango.com.20
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