In just a few short weeks, I’ll be taking the stage alongside Chief Listening Officer Bob London at ChurnZero’s ZERO-IN 2024 conference to talk about how to automate customer success without sacrificing customer intimacy. Bob is an expert in customer discovery and listening skills. My expertise, as you know from my articles here, lies in all things automation and digital customer experience.
On the surface, these concepts may seem like polar opposites. But Bob and I are ready to convince ZERO-IN attendees that they’re the perfect pair.
We’ll explore how to create an effective digital strategy that removes repetitive work, frees up time for more strategic customer conversations, and makes those customer conversations better and more effective. Let’s look into how this applies to three key touchpoints in the customer journey: onboarding, quarterly business reviews (QBRs), and renewal.
How to automate onboarding the right way.
As Lincoln Murphy says, “the seeds of churn are planted early,” so onboarding new customers effectively and efficiently is absolutely critical to long-term success. This isn’t news to CS professionals, yet onboarding is still a common problem area for many companies and a frustration point for many customers. Too often, it’s clunky, takes too long, and doesn’t inspire a lot of customer confidence in what’s to come.
First, we automate, to streamline the process and free up customer success manager (CSM) time. The KPIs you’re looking to impact here are faster time to onboard (TTO) and time to value (TTV). Here are some of the specific digital CS tactics I recommend implementing during onboarding:
1: Automate the handoff email from the sales rep to the CSM.
Be sure to include both a customer-facing email and an internal email. The customer-facing email is intended to introduce the customer to their new CSM (after you’ve already explained the CSM’s role earlier in the sales process). The internal email, on the other hand, should be used to share information learned in the sales process, like the customer’s goals, biggest pain points, and any other must-know information.
2: Automate the new customer welcome email, with online scheduling for kickoff call.
This email should be triggered after the handoff email and should come “from” the newly assigned CSM, not a generic inbox.
3: Deploy in-app guides and walkthroughs.
In-app is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal for new customers. These guides and walkthroughs can be used to seamlessly show users around your platform after their first login, take them step-by-step any required setup that can be done directly in your product, and guide them through their first use of key features.
4: Consider grouping your implementation calls for technical setup.
Rather than hosting dedicated sessions for each new customer to walk them through any required technical setup, consider opting for group sessions where a small cohort of new customers can go through the process all together (bonus – this can help build an early sense of connection and become a great lead-in to office hours sessions or your customer community)
Now, implementing these automated engagement points shouldn’t mean that your CSMs are uninvolved during onboarding – in fact, it’s just the opposite. With a big chunk of repetitive, manual work off of their plates, CSMs will be able to spend their time making an even bigger impact at the beginning of a new customer’s relationship with your company. According to Bob, building trust and alignment with customers during onboarding should be their focus, rather than simply checking a bunch of boxes.
Related: Why SaaS implementations fail, with 11 mistakes to avoid.
CSMs should let the automation do the box-checking for them, and instead use their valuable time with customers to dig deep into their broader business and goals. To accomplish this, Bob suggests starting the conversation with a quiet mind and an open aperture. This deep listening technique will set the tone to ask ‘truth-seeking’ questions during the early days of the new customer relationship, like “if I could sneak into your next board or executive leadership meeting, what do you think is the top priority or challenge they’re working on for the next year or so?” By asking high-level questions like this early on, CSMs will be able to connect the value of your product to these broader initiatives down the road.
How to automate QBRs the right way.
Quarterly business reviews (QBRs), or executive business reviews (EBRs), are a constant throughout a customer’s journey. It’s right in the name – they’re quarterly! If they’re happening four times a year, they need to provide value to your customer. Period. Long gone are the days where you can use a QBR as a “check-in” or a pulse check on their customer health.
As Bob often says, “customers have QBR fatigue.” You’re not the only vendor in their tech stack, which add up to a lot of meetings that almost always feel like they’re all about you – the vendor, rather than the customer. And let’s face it, most QBRs are way too one-sided, with you talking a lot and the customer talking just a little. So, how do we solve this? You guessed it, automation first! Here’s what I recommend:
1: Automate your current QBR content.
This can take shape in a couple different ways. It can look like an auto-populated PDF document, or even better, a video recorded by your CSM or created using AI.
2: Send this automated content to your customer at least one week before your scheduled meeting.
By sharing in advance, your customer has time to review and process the information on their own time and in their own way.
3: When the meeting comes around, use the time to talk about more important things.
By sharing relevant information with your customers in a way they want to receive it, you’re much more likely to be able to craft QBR sessions your customers actually want to attend. With the information already in their hands ahead of time, they’re more likely to engage by asking you questions about what you’ve shared once they’ve had time to digest it. And more importantly, the time can be spent asking them questions. About their business, about their priorities, about their challenges.
Related: Learn to speak your customers’ love languages – a ChurnZero Q&A with Bob London.
Bob’s favorite ‘truth-seeking’ question to ask customers during QBRs is “what’s the biggest thing that surprised you since you started using our solution?” This could reveal an opportunity to close their expectation gap, or their answer may in fact be a pleasant surprise for you. For further engagement and alignment, use Bob’s deep listening technique of hitting your “mute” button as soon as you’ve asked the question. This will help you avoid the temptation to “suggest” an answer for them. The combination of this focused question and true listening puts the focus on the customer, their experience, and their needs, rather than on you as the vendor.
How to automate renewals the right way.
Before I get into the details on using automation to create more time for strategic customer conversations around renewal, I want to preface the entire topic with something critical that Bob and I vehemently agree on: your renewal process must start way before the contract end date. When I say way before, I mean six or more months in advance (yes, at or before the halfway point of a year-long contract). That being said, here are some of the best ways to incorporate automation into those (early) renewal processes:
1: Digitally gather desired customer outcomes and/or renewal intention 6+ months before renewal.
You may be thinking “my CSMs already ask their customers these questions.” If that’s the case, that’s great! But what about your customers that don’t have a dedicated CSM? Or those that the CSM can’t get on the phone? And is it really scalable to have individual CSMs asking every customer every time anyway? (Hint: the answer is no.)
Enter asking these questions at scale. You can either do this through a survey or by asking your customers to reply to an automated (but personalized, relevant, and “from” a person) email. Either way, I recommend using a version of the same question(s) your CSMs are already asking enterprise customers. I also advise avoiding asking completely open-ended questions where customers have to come up with an answer from scratch. Instead, give examples and/or options for them to select or use as a starting point for their response.
2: Create automated renewal notifications.
Especially if you’re planning for renewals far in advance, it becomes a challenge to keep track of whose renewal is when. Use automation to create both internal notifications (for when human intervention is required), and customer-facing messages to keep the renewal front of mind for your customer as well.
Related: ChurnZero’s Renewal and Forecast Hub makes it easy to keep track of renewals. See how in this video.
When planning and preparing for renewals, your focus should be all about insights. What can you learn from the customer? How can that inform your renewal conversations with that customer? How does that, in turn, inform your renewal forecast? Didn’t hear back from a group of customers on that survey or automated email about their desired outcomes and/or renewal intention? Bring it up on your next QBR! Bob suggests asking in an unexpected way, like “if you got an outreach from one of our competitors tomorrow, how would you react on a scale of 1 (ignore) to 5 (probably get back to them to learn more)?” This question may take them by surprise, so embrace the silence. Bob suggests listening for customers’ “verbal ellipses,” which may indicate they have more to share! He also explains that their answer to this question can reveal an area where you need to provide best practices or more insights, so it’s worth the wait.
I’m sure you noticed a clear theme at all three points in the customer journey, so I’ll cut right to the chase. Strategic and intentional automation should be used to streamline processes and remove repetitive manual work. Once that time is freed from your calendar, use it to have deeper and more revealing customer conversations to uncover hidden opportunities, risks, and insights.
Marley Wagner is a freelance Digital Customer Success Consultant and Fractional Chief Marketing Officer. Her work centers on helping B2B tech companies increase revenue and accelerate growth with both prospective and existing clients through organic channels that emphasize brand reputation and trust.
