Customer success is more than just a buzzword. Most businesses understand that they need stellar sales and marketing to succeed, but this alone isn’t always enough. Let’s face it: every industry is more competitive than ever before. Your customers have endless options. That means you need to focus on customer success to take your experience to new heights.
What is customer success? This is the practice of anticipating customer challenges before they occur. When you’re proactive about customers’ challenges, you boost your overall customer experience, happiness, and retention. In the long run, this means increasing your revenue and your customer loyalty. However, it’s not always possible to get there on your own. This is when having a customer success consultant pays off.
Customer success consulting is when a professional develops new strategies and practices to support the growth of your business. It’s about more than just making customers happy, it’s about redefining the entire customer experience from the ground up. Because a customer success consultant brings their own skills and expertise to your organization, they streamline growth quickly and effectively.
Ultimately, the statistics don’t lie. The probability of selling to an existing, happy customer is up to 14 times higher than selling to a new customer. This means it’s essential to put existing customers first and focus on customer success. In this guide, we’ll explore the 7 ways customer success consulting pays off so you can understand if it’s right for you.
Long-time problems will be resolved with a fresh perspective.
First, when you invest in customer success consulting, you get a fresh pair of eyes. When you’re grappling with the same problems for a long time, it’s easy to lose clarity. In other words, you’re too close to see the situation clearly. A customer success consultant brings unique experiences and perspectives, often allowing them to approach problems in a new way.
For example, if you’re struggling to re-engage existing customers, you might feel like you’ve already tried everything. A customer success consultant is there to use their data-driven approach to discover what might be going wrong. Because they put your customers first, they’re the most equipped to solve these long-time problems.
For example, Airbnb utilized its customer experience team to bring a new perspective when needed the most. As the COVID19 pandemic threatened to end the travel industry altogether, Airbnb quickly listened to users and hosts to decide its next course of action. This meant focusing on budget excursions, virtual experiences, and adapting to new CDC regulations. Though difficult, this fresh perspective in a time of change saved the company.
Disengaged or disorganized teams will come together.
Additionally, customer success doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Many businesses assume this is only the responsibility of marketing and sales teams. In reality, all company teams need to work together to improve customer success. A consultant educates the entire team across departments about the importance of the customer experience.
Not only do these efforts to become more centralized make it easier for every team to get the support they need, but it also boosts engagement. A reported 85% of employees don’t feel engaged in the workplace. More importantly, this costs U.S. companies an average of $450 billion each year. With numbers like this, it’s time to take engagement seriously.
Consultants develop ongoing policies to build engagement and organization at every level. This means customers have a consistent, noteworthy experience no matter who they’re interacting with. It also means your employees feel more engaged and loyal to their organization. They’re your biggest asset, after all. It’s time to treat them as such!
Existing customers will stick around longer.
Next, it’s important to appreciate the customers you already have. While it’s easy to focus all of your time, energy, and resources on attracting new customers, this isn’t the best use of your efforts. In reality, your new customers are more likely to spend more with you than new prospects. They already know your brand, and they’ve already connected with your products/services.
However, turning them from passive users to engaged superfans isn’t as simple as it might sound. The probability of selling to a new customer is only between 5% and 20%, whereas existing customers are 31% more likely to spend more on their average order vs. a new user. When you invest in a customer success consultant, they optimize your current retention strategy to keep your users interested.
The coffee giant Starbucks understood the power of existing customers. Better yet, they leveraged this with their entire customer experience. Starbucks calculated that the lifetime value of an engaged customer is $14,099. This means it’s important to target your most high-value customers to make sure they feel valued and appreciated.
Existing customers will refer more new customers.
Who said you had to do all of your sales and marketing yourself? When you have a strong system for boosting customer success, your users do the hard work for you. When your existing customers recommend you, this is known as referral marketing. Essentially, your best customers are referring new ones.
In fact, 84% of consumers trust recommendations from family, colleagues, and friends. When you have an audience of superfans, you can make it easier than ever for them to refer you to new prospects. This means you can focus more time and energy on meeting the needs of your existing customers rather than attracting new ones.
Speaking of Starbucks, they also tapped into the power of referral marketing. Though discontinued in 2016, their mobile referral program was hugely successful. Through their rewards program, customers could invite a friend and earn extra rewards points towards their status. Meanwhile, their invited friend scored a free drink. This focus on valuing current customers while encouraging referrals is worth replicating.
Marketing and sales costs will go down.
Because referrals are free marketing, investing in your customers’ success means your marketing costs go down. When you invest in customer success, your customers are likely to invest more in your business—and recommend their friends to do the same. The potential return for putting time and energy into customer success is huge.
Though there’s an upfront cost of focusing on customer success consulting, it’s an investment in the growth of your business. Happy customers spend more money. These are your superfans, and they feel personally connected to your overall success. They become partners in your brand, rooting you on with each new product or service launch.
With a reported 92% of people trusting recommendations from those they know, why rely on traditional, expensive forms of marketing? While these have a time and place, they’re inefficient, outdated, and not as trustworthy. Let your best customers become your biggest supporters both online and offline.
Customer service efforts will be streamlined.
Next, it’s important to have a strategy to streamline your customer service. On a global scale, 54% of consumers have higher customer service expectations than they did just one year ago. Not only does outstanding customer service retain current customers, but it also keeps them engaged in your brand.
With customer success consulting, you know exactly how to tailor your customer service to meet current user expectations. This means you’re not wasting time (and money) reaching out on the wrong platforms. You’re not throwing money away on customer service software that just gets in the way. Instead, you can confidently say you’re available to customers when they need you. This is just another way to be proactive (rather than reactive) towards your customer’s needs.
The sleep-focused brand Casper mattress understands the importance of streamlining customer service. Their customer experience team recognized the need to focus on both self-service and human interactions. Their self-service portal walks customers through common questions, and it’s easy to talk to a real human in just a few clicks. Because Casper knows how their customers like to be serviced, they’re proactively meeting these needs.
You’ll know where you’re succeeding and where you need work.
Last but not least, you know exactly where you’re succeeding and what needs more work. When you’re too close to the problem, it’s hard to identify a solution. More importantly, you might not even recognize your strengths and weaknesses at all. This is where a customer success consultant can truly shine.
To begin, consultants help you identify metrics you should be tracking. From there, they implement tracking mechanisms so you can continue to monitor your success even after they’re gone. Customer success is far from one-and-done. It’s an ongoing, continuous process that takes consistent care.
With the help of a consultant, you can create systems to track your progress long-term with your strengths and weaknesses in mind. As the saying goes, if you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll never get there. It’s important to have a clear roadmap to face the challenges ahead.
Is a Consultant Right for You?
Ultimately, many businesses of all shapes and sizes could benefit from customer success consulting. Boosting your business won’t happen overnight, and sometimes you need an outside perspective to achieve your goals. The unique perspectives and insights these consultants bring to the table streamline the entire process, ensuring you transform passive customers into raving superfans.
Want to learn more about whether a success consultant is right for you? Schedule a call to talk more about your goals. With years of experience working for top brands to improve their customer experience, there’s no understating how beneficial this can be.
