Maintaining a high level of customer satisfaction is hard work. No wonder, many businesses struggle to retain their hard-won customers even as the cost of customer acquisition is steadily increasing. With the coronavirus pandemic profoundly altering customer behavior, many e-commerce business owners are desperate for answers.  However, a small number of businesses are confident of weathering the proverbial storm, having put in place a long term strategy to keep customers coming back for more: customer success.

What is Customer Success?

Customer Success is a relatively new addition to the e-commerce lexicon. Though it is sometimes confused with customer support, it holds important distinctions. For one, Customer Success comes much earlier than customer support during a typical customer journey. It aims to proactively anticipate customer needs rather than troubleshooting problems after a customer has reported them.

Customer Success is key to ensuring that the customer gets the most value out of your product. Over a period of time, it can enhance average order size and create customer loyalty. However, Customer Success does not work in silos. In fact, this team collaborates continuously with marketing, sales, and customer service to drive a positive and engaging customer experience.

If you do not currently have a customer success team or are considering building one, create a compelling business case for management. You are almost certain to be asked a pointed question: how will we know that our customer support program is really working? In other words, senior leaders will likely want to know what kind of tangible outcomes can be expected after about 6 months to 1 year of setting up a customer success team.

5 Signs That Your Customer Success Strategies Are Working

Here are a few key signs that your customer success efforts are bearing fruit:

1. Better customer reviews

If a growing number of customers are leaving negative reviews on social media about your store, you have work to do. It is a fact that 8 out of 10 products fail to meet customer expectations for one reason or another. If it isn’t the product itself, it could well be your returns policy or even lack of multilingual customer support that may be a problem for international customers. While your customer service team can serve as a sounding board to find out what customers are saying about your product, it can still negatively impact customer experience. Customer success can help you streamline your customer outreach efforts. Based on your customer support team’s data, gradual improvements can boost 5-star ratings, leading to increased conversions over time.

Customer success engages customers in meaningful conversations from purchase, ensuring they attain the expected value. By studying factors like conversion and return rate, profit margin, and percentage of repeat customers, the customer success team can help you find process gaps faster, improving ROI and customer satisfaction.

2. Faster ticket resolution

In general, instruct customer service agents to adhere to the standard script regarding customer queries about turnaround times. However, if a ticket remains unresolved for an extended period, customers are likely to express dissatisfaction due to the delay. The customer success team can avert a potential escalation by proactively flagging any underlying issues and expediting the case. This can be crucial in case a customer is a high spender. If you notice an appreciable drop in “problem tickets”, you have your customer success team to thank!

Over a period of time, you may even notice a progressive reduction in the issues that caused customers to log tickets in the first place.

3. Better social media engagement and average order size

Users commonly devise unique ways to use a product beyond brand intentions. This information is valuable; widely share it to elevate your sales and engagement, potentially reaching a new level of success. A customer success team can help your marketing team identify interesting new use cases and create useful content in the form of case studies, testimonials, and best practices.

You may soon find that your online social media community is abuzz with comments, shares, and suggestions from users- a sign that they are getting more value from it.

If your customers are buying, on average, more often or spending more money with you, your customer success team certainly deserves its share of the credit.

4. Higher retention

Research shows that a 5% increase in retention can boost profits by 75%. As marketing budgets tighten, focusing solely on top-of-funnel activities is no longer feasible; a holistic approach is essential for sustainability. It is important to engage with existing customers, ensuring their needs are continually met. Even if your prices remain unchanged, customers may express concerns about returns, warranty, or data security policies. If not addressed, unresolved issues may lead competitors to attract customers.

Thankfully, your customer success team can help take action before it is too late. By analyzing customer support data – first call resolution, CSAT and NPS, response time, and call transfer rate-  customer success can identify the friction points and serve as a customer advocate, ensuring a better experience.

5. Smoother order fulfillment and returns:

E-commerce has emerged largely unscathed from the COVID-19 pandemic. However, most businesses have faced several problems with order fulfillment and managing returns. Customer success teams have worked around the clock to resolve supply bottlenecks and reduce customer impact across the industry. If your average fulfillment time has improved since the pandemic began, your investment in customer success has undoubtedly paid off.

Last Words:

Now more than ever, an effective customer support team is essential for customer success. If your in-house team is currently unable to cope with customer demands, partnering with an outsourced customer support provider like Helplama can help you bridge the gap. Our customer support specialists quickly master your product and brand voice, delivering exceptional service.

What’s more, our plans are flexible and can be customized to suit any budget or need. Lastly, our Zero-Risk Guarantee covers you, providing complete freedom if expectations are not met.

Also, you can try Saufter – the customer service software that can help you automate and scale your customer support.