Whether you’re not using a customer success platform yet or you’re using an aging CS tool, there comes a time when you need to upgrade CS software. How do you tell when it’s time to ditch your current system and invest in a CS upgrade? There are some common symptoms that your current system is no longer up to the task of managing your customer’s success needs. Here we’ll look at six of the most common signs you need a new CS tool. We’ll consider the symptoms themselves as well as their underlying causes and what type of features your CS upgrade would need to solve them.
Your CRM Can’t Handle Your Workload Anymore
If you’re using your customer relationship management tool as a customer success platform instead of using a dedicated CS tool, you’ll eventually reach a point where your workload exceeds what your CRM can handle. This is because CRM tools are designed to manage customer relationship data, not customer success outcomes.
CRM tools are great at what they’re designed for. They can store customer contact data, identify sales opportunities, schedule sales appointments, record notes from sales meetings and manage sales teams. However, these are primarily sales functions, not customer success functions.
Customer success tools can help you with sales, but they go beyond sales management. They help you track data on where customers are in their customer journey and lifecycle, not just where they are in the sales cycle. They help you manage and optimize customer experience by delivering outcomes customers want. They serve to promote customer satisfaction, retention and brand advocacy, not just sales per se.
If your CRM tool can’t handle your CS needs anymore, look for a CS platform that lets you track customer data through all stages of the customer journey and optimize your workflow for each stage. However, just because you upgrade CS software doesn’t mean you should ditch your CRM tool. Look for a CS platform that lets you integrate your CRM data for a smooth upgrade transition.
You’re Not Collecting Enough Data to Manage Customer Interactions
Another sign you need to upgrade CS software is when your current system isn’t providing enough data to make informed decisions about customer success actions. For example, if you don’t know that a new customer is experiencing onboarding issues, you can’t reach out to help them. Similar problems can occur if you’re not receiving data about freemium users who want to upgrade, premium users who are experiencing adoption challenges, escalation issues or renewal issues.
These issues can be addressed by using a CS platform that collects data from all stages of your customer journey and displays them through user-friendly dashboards and reports. Look for a CS tool that can integrate data from other apps you use to interact with customers, including your CRM tool, email autoresponder and customer support software.
You Can’t Evaluate Customer Health
How can you tell if your customers are satisfied or dissatisfied? If you don’t know, you’ll have a hard time predicting whether customers are leaning toward subscription renewal or churn. This, in turn, makes it difficult to intervene with customers who are at risk of churn, as well as challenging to spot upsell opportunities.
A solution to this issue is customer health score. These color-coded scores are based on an aggregate of various factors reflecting customer satisfaction. To lend the score practical value, results can be displayed in two ways – an early warning which allows you to set measurement categories and define values for what is good, bad, or poor, quickly pinpointing issues or multi-dimensional which lets you set and customize the scoring of subcategories or dimensions to track operational priorities or KPIs specific to your business.
You’re Having Challenges Collecting Customer Feedback
Customer feedback provides another important indicator of satisfaction and can offer an early warning of customers at risk of churn. If your current system doesn’t allow you to collect feedback efficiently, you’re missing out on important data.
The most efficient way to collect customer feedback is to use automation to monitor customer interactions proactively. Look for CS features that include tools to help you collect feedback. These can include Net Promoter Score surveys and escalation monitoring tools.
Your Upsells Are Going Down
Customers who experience successful outcomes from using your product are more likely to expand their usage of your product line. On the other hand, if upsells are going down, it may reflect dissatisfaction over unsuccessful outcomes, or it may reflect a failure to capitalize on upsell opportunities.
An optimized upsell strategy uses customer data to monitor when customers are in the market for upsell offers, as well as when customers are dissatisfied and in need of attention before they’ll be in the market for an upsell. Look for a CS platform that lets you spot emerging upsell opportunities as well as customers at risk of churn.
Your Escalations Are Going Up
Escalations of customer support issues indicate that customers are running into barriers inhibiting successful outcomes. The more often this occurs, the more obstacles you face implementing your CS strategy.
While a number of variables can increase your escalations, your CS technology can be a contributing factor. If you’re not effectively using automation to provide customers with proactive solutions before support issues arise, your escalations are going to go up.
Look for a CS platform that allows you to intercept escalations before they occur, manage them efficiently when they arise, and analyze escalation patterns so you can make adjustments and improvements. For example, if you monitor your support tickets to identify snags in your onboarding process, you can develop automated procedures for reaching out to customers who are experiencing common onboarding issues. This will reduce your escalation rate and promote higher rates of successful outcomes.
Is It Time for You to Upgrade CS Software?
Knowing when it’s time to upgrade CS software can save you time, customers and revenue potentially lost to inefficiency. An overloaded CRM workload, lack of actionable data on customers, challenges monitoring account health and customer feedback, shrinking upsells and rising escalations are all possible signs that you need a CS upgrade. If you detect these early warning signs, the time to consider upgrading your CS software is now rather than later. The sooner you invest in a CS software upgrade, the sooner you can begin enjoying a return on investment in the form of more successful customer outcomes, higher retention and referral rates and higher revenue.
Upgrading to Totango’s platform provides you with all the tools you need to monitor customer data and trigger automated workflows which promote successful, satisfying outcomes for your customers and your company. Try it free to see for yourself how upgrading your CS software can make your customer success strategy more successful and more profitable.
