How often should customer success meet with customers face-to-face?

There’s an old United Airlines television commercial from 1989 that underscores the importance of meeting customers face-to-face. A boss is telling a roomful of employees that their company’s oldest customer fired them that morning.

Why? Because business had become less personal.

“We used to do business with a handshake; face-to-face,” says the boss in the commercial. “Now it’s a phone call and a fax.”

We’ve come a long way since fax machines with messaging and video conferencing, but relationships still matter in business. Meeting customers face-to-face is a proven way to foster relationships. And most customer success teams are doing this.

More than three-quarters (77%) of the 1,250 participants in our annual Customer Success Leadership Study said they meet with some segment of their customer base face-to-face at least once per year.

Here’s how the numbers break out:

• 22% meet customers face-to-face once per month;
• 29% meet customers face-to-face once per quarter;
• 26% meet customers face-to-face once per year; and
• 23% never meet customers face-to-face.

The survey also segments respondent answers sizes, as measured by revenue. There does appear to be a modest correlation between revenue and meeting frequency. In other words, the larger the company the greater the frequency. Those numbers are broken out by segment below.

Businesses with $500 million or greater in revenue:

• 25% meet customers face-to-face once per month;
• 32% meet customers face-to-face once per quarter;
• 26% meet customers face-to-face once per year; and
• 16% never meet customers face-to-face.

Businesses with $250-$499 million or greater in revenue:

• 29% meet customers face-to-face once per month;
• 43% meet customers face-to-face once per quarter;
• 21% meet customers face-to-face once per year; and
• 7% never meet customers face-to-face.

Businesses with $50-$249 million or greater in revenue:

• 26% meet customers face-to-face once per month;
• 39% meet customers face-to-face once per quarter;
• 20% meet customers face-to-face once per year; and
• 15% never meet customers face-to-face.

Businesses with $5-$49 million or greater in revenue:

• 19% meet customers face-to-face once per month;
• 22% meet customers face-to-face once per quarter;
• 30% meet customers face-to-face once per year; and
• 30% never meet customers face-to-face.

Businesses with less than $5 million in revenue:

• 18% meet customers face-to-face once per month;
• 22% meet customers face-to-face once per quarter;
• 28% meet customers face-to-face once per year; and
• 32% never meet customers face-to-face.

Download the full report—2023 Customer Success Leadership Study—for a more in-depth look at the engagement practices of today’s customer success teams. The report, which is a joint effort by ChurnZero, ESG, SaaStr, and HubSpot, is full of metrics, benchmarks and insights that will help customer success leaders and team members better understand the evolving landscape.