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What is a SaaS Customer Success Person’s Responsibilities?

The key role of a SaaS Customer Success Manager is to manage accounts, enhance customer usage of the productand support customers whenever necessary. These tasks may sound simple – but they can also leave you runningaround like a headless chicken with too many things to do. If you are a customer success manager for a web-basedor mobile SaaS company, chances are you need to:

1. Be available when customers need you

2. Find where customers get stuck and intervene

3. Increase Usage (Renewals, Raising Retention, Reducing Churn)

4. Fix Customer Hand-Offs’ from Sales

5. Encourage usage of underutilized features

6. Figure out the metrics

7. Experiment with best practices

What is In-App Messaging and how can it be your best friend?

In-App messaging is a powerful new way to talk to customers . It is a service that lets any online business startconversations with visitors or customers on their website/app. Visitors to a website can also start talking to a businesson their messenger. This engaging new form of two-way communication can be used for support and marketing.Localytics reports that apps that send in-app messages show 2-3.5x higher user retention and 27% more applaunches than apps that do not. I took a look at how an In-App messaging platform can address every customersuccess manager’s pain points, and how an integrated messaging platform can help at every step of a customerengagement plan. You can automate your work to a point where you aren’t stressing about the nitty gritty. Instead,you can reach out to customers, look at the bigger picture, analyse your data to see what’s working best and stay ontop of things. If you really want to strengthen customer relationships and use less tools, in-app messaging is your newbest friend.

Be available when customers need you

If you’re a customer success specialist, chances are the first thing you do at work is check who has messaged youand how to respond best. An in-app messaging tool can go a long way to help you start your day faster. At the frontend, it may look like a simple messaging interface, but in-app messengers have a powerful back-end that gives newmessage notifications, the ability to have concurrent chats, contextual customer data, the option to track and triggeractivity based messages etc. These help you sift through customer interactions and understand your customersbetter. Here are some of the features a comprehensive in-app messenger will help you with.

Shared Inbox

A shared inbox is where all the visitor/customer interactions get stored. It gives you the ability to have concurrentchats with visitors/customers and allows you to solve queries/issues quickly. In addition to that, you can find everyoneon your team in one place inside the shared inbox. This allows you to collaborate with team members and respond tocustomer/visitor conversations at ease. All-in-all, a shared inbox is a great way for you to give customers the attentionthey deserve without spending a whole lot of time.

Assign Tasks and Conversations

If you are stuck and aren’t sure how to answer or handle the task at hand, worry not. You can quickly assign theconversation to your teammate who can ensure it is resolved. In addition to that you can also bring in your teammateson customer/visitor conversation threads, which is a much more quicker way to solve queries or issues.

Build Context

Unlike live chat, you aren’t stuck without context about who you are talking to. With an in-app messenger tool, you canbuild rich customer profiles by mapping user profile with on-site activities and conversation history. This way, you canfollow a customer’s journey from the time they are a visitor to when they sign up and use your product and itsfeatures. You can also you use this data to build an anti-churn funnel, which I talk about a little later in the post.

Conversation History

With traditional live chats, once a conversation ends, it is resolved and the next support chat begins. With an in-appmessenger, you always have a history of conversations to go back and look at. Paired with the rich customer profiles,this is a great way to learn from different types of user interactions.

Be available on the go

Imagine having all the features of an in-app messaging platform on your mobile? With a configured iOS or Androidapplication, you can use the messenger to answer questions and support customers/visitors on-the-go. Once youhave the mobile app it lets you interact with your website visitors/customers from anywhere. This means thatcustomer support is no longer a boring desk job – it can now be flexible, mobile and fun.

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Find Where Customers Are Stuck and Intervene To Create Success

Customers Don’t Have Time

Time is now one of the most valued commodities, and just like you can never seem to find enough of it – neither canyour customers. This is important to remember. In the past, we had travel agents to plan our travels and book ourtickets and telephone operators to connect out calls. Now, we do these things, and a lot more ourselves – and if theyaren’t easy to do, we lose patience. Using an in-app messaging tool to communicate with a customer saves the timespent on phone calls and raising tickets – directly solving issues to get work done.

Preemptive Messaging

Imagine a scenario where your product has been receiving complaints about a particular issue. Rather than lettingyour users stumble upon it, which might lead to more tickets or frustrated users, you can quickly set up a triggermessage based on an activity or behaviour that preemptively informs your users about the issue and therefore avoidadditional tickets or frustration. Preemptive messages can be a good way for you to save time both for yourself andyour users.This is a great way to proactively tell your users that you are on top of your game and reassure them that afix is coming.

You don’t find out why your users churn

Just like an ‘exit interview’ for a job, some of the best feedback you could get on your product is from a customer whohas stopped using it. As long as they have the time, you can trigger an offline notification via browser/mobile push oremail to the ‘cancelled’ segment. Offer to call them to understand why they did not feel your product was valuableenough to pay for anymore.

Baremetrics App

If it was a lack of features, then you can take note and let them know if and when a feature they need is developed.Baremetrics has a great example of a churn email in their article on the 17 lifecycle emails they send to theircustomers.

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Increase Usage

Raising retention and reducing churn are two areas a customer success manager may struggle without the rightamount of experimentation and understanding of metrics. One thing you can do is make sure you are sending the rightcommunication. This goes a long way in changing user perceptions and improving your metrics.

Raising Retention

Strategies to raise retention are a big buzz today. The fact is that as your business scales, it is easier to retain existingcustomers than get new ones to sign up. Some retention solutions point you to email marketing campaigns or pushnotifications. My opinion? You should use triggered and broadcast in-app messaging.

Reaching out to customers proactively

The greatest part about a two way messenger within an in-app messaging platform is that you can reach out tocustomers proactively. This means, you can initiate a conversation with a targeted group of your customers, based ontheir interest and behaviours. By using an in-app messenger you can trigger messages to customers when:

They browse your higher end plans

They visit your FAQ section multiple times in a day.

They click on your support docs multiple times.

With a simple in-app message like

Hey I noticed you have been browsing our FAQ page. Is there anything we missed? Do let me know ifthere is anything I can answer for you.

You become more approachable and show that you are genuinely concerned about helping your users.

Timing Triggers

Getting the right message to users is critical, but getting the timing right is even more critical. You need to wait for theright amount of time before triggering a message to a customer who is on a certain page. You can do this based onthe content of the page and by preemptively guessing the questions they may have after reading it. Good examples ofwhen to time and trigger messages are:

When a user looks at your pricing page for over 20 seconds, you can send:

Hey, I see you have been checking out our pricing plans. Can I tell you more about them? Let me knowif you have any questions

And when a user leaves your blog within 30 seconds of arriving on it, you can send:

Hey! Looks like our blog isn’t your cup of tea. Is there anything you’d like to read about that wemissed? Let us know!

By sending highly personalized, contextual and relevant messages using an in-app messenger like these, youimprove the customer’s overall experience on your site or app. This goes a long way in increasing the likelihood ofretaining a customer.

Message Analytics

Make sure your messages pass the bar in terms of covering the most essential bases. Each message becomes acampaign when you use an in-app messaging platform. Factors such as timing, CTA and personalisation are allessential to sending an engaging message. You can measure the performance of these campaigns via open/clickrates and determine a messaging practice that works best for you.

Reducing Churn

You can’t get back a customer who has decided your product or service isn’t of any use, but what you can do is trackusers by characteristics that contribute to churn. Don’t wait for a user to fall into the slipping away segment beforeengaging with him/her. Using an in-app messaging platform, you can identify users who exhibit churn characteristicsand create an anti-churn funnel. You can then use predictive triggered messages to engage with such users and keepthem from falling into this funnel. Automating this process reduces your workload and increases engagement withyour users. Simple activities and behaviors that you can track and trigger messages for are:

Not used product in X days

Not used key features in X days

Does not open email communication

Does not click on churn prevention offer.

Customers who cancel on average in a month (measure every month)

Renewals

When its account renewal time, everything gets a little crazy. Often, customer success managers don’t engage withcustomers or look at their user statistics until then. Big mistake. You don’t want to face that awkward moment whenyou call your customer to hurriedly ask them for feedback and casually pop the question about renewing theiraccount. The good news is, you don’t have to. With an in-app messaging platform you can trigger messages to yourusers – all along their engagement curve (or lack of it) – and intervene to get results. You can see how a customeruses the product and suggesting the right package to suit their needs. This saves you from the stress of a last-minuteaccount renewal and helps you stick to your targets.

Reward

Tracking your highly active users (or nudging your extremely inactive users with the promise of a reward) is somethingto start experimenting with more once you have a good customer base. Everyone likes to get free things, and mostpeople like to brag about it as well. Segment users based on account and feature usage and trigger communicationwith the kind of offers that they can’t refuse.

Reward highly active users with upgrade

Offer users with average engagement discounts to upgrade

Give away limited use of features from a premium plan.

One free month of premium plan

Encourage upsells

Sometimes when a user is getting great value out of a product and loving the experience, they won’t hesitate to followa nudge to upgrade. What you may often get wrong as a customer success manager is to reach out to someone whoisn’t using the product regularly. By understanding which users are getting the most out of your product, you cantrigger specific in app messages (ex: when they are stuck at a certain feature) telling them how much easier it wouldbe if they upgraded. Superbeam takes this one stepfurther – confident folks that they are – they encourage you toupgrade to ‘pro’ in their app before you even start your free trial! Dropbox slides down an in-app notification while youare on their web or mobile app encouraging you to learn more about their paid plans.

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Fix Customer Hand-Offs’ from Sales

Often, sales teams track a number of metrics using a tool like salesforce. Trouble occurs when a bunch of customersare dumped onto customer success from the sales team. Usually, this is accompanied by a request to “fix a metric”like churn rate or the onboarding success rate. This means, as a customer success person you are stuck with little tono context about the customers who you need to be helping. Dave Blake questions the gap between Sales teams andCSMs in his LinkedIn piece ‘Can Customer Success Managers & Sales Reps be BFFs? ’. An in-app messagingplatform can plug this gap well since all your user data will sit in one single system.

Context and Collaboration

To fix metrics you need more than just data. The sales team already has a knowledge and understanding about thecustomer’s context. Customers now have to place their trust in you to help them get the most value out of the product.The best way to reach out to these customers who you barely know is by sending an in-app message (or offline emailnotification) to build a rapport. With a Salesforce integration in your in-app messaging platform – this becomes a new,collaborative way for customer success teams and sales teams to achieve their combined goals.

Salesforce with Intercom Integration

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Encourage Feature Usage

When you are a new user, exploring all the features of a product gets overwhelming. As a customer success manager,your role is to make sure people understand features and are enthusiastic to explore new ones as well. An in-appmessaging platform can help you trigger:

‘Tool Tip’ style introductory messages to your users as they explore different parts of your product

A Pop up video guide to using a certain feature

Screenshots or GIFs to explain how to use the product.

A message when a user begins to use a feature but is then stuck for X amount of time.

Seeing a triggered guide on how to analyse message performance data immediately after they send out a messagewill nudge users to explore this new feature and move up the learning curve

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Figure Out The Metrics

Without metrics to learn from and experiment with, SaaS customer success would be impossible. However, once youstart collecting metrics, be prepared for a deluge of information that grows and changes just as you get the hang ofseeing it one way. David Skok discusses many of these in his elaborate and resourceful post on SaaS metrics.Having your SaaS customer success metrics in a shared dashboard that is accessible across teams makes it easierto generate reports and create new strategies for growth. Apart from your user and engagement stats, you shouldtrack areas related to:

Quality

Responsiveness

User Engagement

Using an in-app messaging platform, it is possible to get feedback from customers in a non-intrusive way – usingsmall bits of information to piece together data along with mapping of behaviours.

Quality

NPS (Net Promoter Score)

Phillip Klien, who heads Growth at Twitter in Brazil recommends using a NPS (Net Promoter Scheme) system.Introducing NPS on an in-app messaging platform is a great first step to fixing customer success woes. Here, you cancategorize and track every single response (ex. on a scale of 1-10) after which reaching out to theunhappy/happy/just satisfied users becomes more relevant and contextual. On an in-app messaging tool, you canalso set the timing of this survey or trigger it to pop up after certain user activities, so the user is primed to answerrather than ignore.

Clarabridge

NPS Visualised. Source: LinkedIn Pulse

Customer health or happiness (Conversation Tone/Mood)

Installing a sentiment analysis tool like Clarabridge is a great way to analyse the conversations you have on yourwebsite or app using an in-app messenger. Sentiment analysis tools integrated into your in-app messenger will giveyou a way to see where your support team’s strengths and weaknesses are. You can also gamefy this process andincrease competition in your customer success/support team using the statistics from the tool.

Responsiveness

How long does it take (on average) for your team torespond to a customer? This is a great way tomotivate a team and a great metric to learn fromand work on to improve your customer successteam.

User Engagement

Analyse your ability to engage users with in-appmessages, mobile and browser push notificationsand emails by tracking the performance of everycampaign. This is a basic metric and it goes withoutsaying that you must analyse it. The analytics herecan act as a base to create separate segments andSaaS customer success campaigns based on whohas (or hasn’t) viewed and interacted with yourcampaign.

Delivery

Customer goals achieved

What do your customers want to do with your platform? That is the first questions to ask them to understand how wellthey can use your product. Once you know this, you can help them run campaigns and set the right goals. Whether itis conversions or an engagement plan – looking at how your customers achieve their goals will help you understandhow much value they get from your product.

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Best Practices to Experiment With

Gamify your SaaS

Experiment with triggered, in-app gamified messages to motivate users. Doing this can improve the number of timescertain features are used, reward a user when they achieve a certain target or learning. Sales Screen experimentswith in-app notifications to motivate sales team members and help them achieve their goals.

Welcome MessageBe interesting and useful by triggering an in-app message whenever you have to welcome a user to your product or

event. Remember to keep the tone friendly and informative.

Headsup App

Don’t ask for too much

The first time you interact with your users you want them to realise how useful you are, not give them a list of tasks tobe completed and make their interaction with you a chore. Encourage them to do a few small, simple things like signin to your app so that you can take over and help them explore it.

Building a rapport through chat

Be human, be friendly. It’s okay to make mistakes or typos when you are talking to a customer. In fact, customers aremore likely to trust you when you sound genuine and willing to help – not when you are robotic

Help improve their statistics

Run regular queries to find out information like who has uploaded contact lists, who hasn’t, who has used a certainfeature and who hasn’t etc. Just like LinkedIn tells you about how updating certain parts of your profile improvesreach, you can make suggestions to improve customer statistics via an in-app messenger – you can even triggerthese to pop up when a user is looking at his or her analytics. In-App messages triggered from an in-app event are 4xmore effective.

Ask for preferences

Ask customers when they would want to be reached and on what medium and ensure that you do not disturb them atother hours. Their time is valuable. You can send in-app messages with these basic messages or provide options tounderstand customers better. Ask questions on what do they like to work on and read about, where their pain pointsare, and talk to them accordingly.

Ask for Feedback

Whether you are releasing a new feature or trying out a new pricing plan, feedback is essential. You can send an in-app form as part of an NPS campaign or keep it simple with a thumbs up/thumbs down (like/dislike) option. Once youhave enough responses, you can reach out to those who responded and learn more from them to improve theirexperience. The team at Twoodo used an in-app message to trigger a message after you complete their product walk-through.

Twodoo App

Trigger in-app messages when users reach dead ends

No one likes seeing an ‘error page.’ Websites and Apps are constantly experimenting with messaging for their errorpages that leaves the customer amused rather than annoyed. You can take this a step further by triggering amessage to a user when they reach a 404 page, or can’t complete a form etc. You can also redirect them to get helpin this message.

Encourage Customers to Set Goals

Once you answer the question of what you want your users to do, you can deploy call to actions, offers and requestratings using an in-app message while your users are on using your product or visiting your website.

Phew, that was a long list. But we’ve barely scratched the surface of how in-app messaging can help SaaS customersuccess. We’ll be writing more on this soon, and we’d love to hear how you created your customer engagement planand improved your metrics. Write to us and let us know!