Top 10 Customer Success Takeaways from SaaStock Remote

SaaStock has been helping SaaS businesses gain traction, grow and scale for the last five years with their in-person conferences. After speaking with their community in the wake of the current crisis, they said one thing was clear – the need to connect and share knowledge remains and grows stronger with each passing day.

That’s what led them to bring that value online with their SaaStock Remote event last week. ChurnZero was thrilled to be able to sponsor the event as well as sit in on the sessions ourselves, which might not have been as possible if we were sponsoring and exhibiting at the event in person.

One of the main themes of the 2-day virtual event was customer centricity. Your customers remain your greatest asset and it’s more important than ever to be close to them. How you listen to, respond, and work with them will make the critical difference to your business. If you are not leading with “how can we help?”, then you’re probably getting it wrong.

Sessions talked about how to adapt your customer comms strategies and examine how you can keep your loyal advocates engaged in your product through adopting a customer-centric mindset, even as you’re switching up your strategies.

No worries, if you weren’t able to tune in to the sessions last week. We pulled together the top ten Customer Success takeaways to share with you here.

 

1.) Walk In Your Customers Shoes

“Walk in your customers shoes, we all need constant reminders of this.” <— absolutely spot on from @motoceo #SaaStockRemote

We all know the principle – but it’s easy for it to get lost in the week-to-week.

The only difficulty comes in doing it well consistently.

— Matt Wallace (@wall_ace_m) June 10, 2020

2.) Customers Demand Value

“#SaaS business models are evolving in the performance economy. Customers expect more and want to align value paid with value received,” says @gulatisa at @SaaStock Remote

— Ordway (@ordwaylabs) June 10, 2020

3.) We All Fight The Good Fight Against Churn

These are the difficulties we all face in fighting churn, but data can help! via @carl24k from @Zuora #SaaStockRemote #CustomerSuccess #fightchurn pic.twitter.com/KW9iiQgi1H

— ChurnZero (@churnzero) June 11, 2020

4.) Figure Out Your Payback Period of When A Customer Becomes Profitable

One of my favourite sessions at #saastockremote was the data-packed one by @ttunguz. Some learnings:
• SaaS cos typically spend ~10% of their ARR on Marketing Programs.
• Payback period for cos w/ ACV between $50-150K is typically 10-13 mos. Higher the ACV, longer the payback.

— Karishma Rajaratnam (@KarishmaTweets) June 13, 2020

5.) Annual Recurring Revenue is More Important Than Ever Now

💬“Our budget before was focused on growth, but we amended it to focus on controlling costs, controlling cash, and controlling ARR…” – Rafael Sweary, @WalkMeInc on stage at #SaaStockRemote talking very candidly about how WalkMe adapted during Covid-19 pic.twitter.com/50L8SY0G6H

— SaaStock (@SaaStock) June 11, 2020

6.) What to Do When A Customer Wants to Leave

LIVE on the Scale Stage at #SaaStockRemote right now: @Patticus sharing a fantastic framework to help reduce churn 📉, & sharing growth lessons learned from 18000+ #SaaS companies 👀https://t.co/qPUOK8vAKk pic.twitter.com/1t1Flt0CQq

— SaaStock (@SaaStock) June 11, 2020

7.) Don’t Forget About the Human Touch in Your Customer Communications

Great talk by @triciagellman on re-thinking the sales funnel!
Key takeaways:
1. Bring empathy and innovation together
2. During COVID, find a way to provide high touch experience. It’s not about B2B it’s now H2H – Human to Human.
Amazing insights at @SaaStock #saastockremote pic.twitter.com/6PzQA57FaO

— Napkin Marketing (@napkin_mktg) June 11, 2020

8.) Focus on the Customer Over Short Term Gain

“One of our values is to value the long term over the short term, which leads to really caring about the relationship with the customer over the short term gain.” @betterjason #SaaStockRemote

— Go Nimbly (@gonimbly) June 11, 2020

9.) To Grow First Start With Looking at What Makes You Successful – Your Customers

💡Great recommendation from @coreyhainesco – taking a bottom-up approach to growth: starting from revenue #SaaStockRemote #SaaS #Growth pic.twitter.com/Ta1qFYCKtx

— SaaStock (@SaaStock) June 10, 2020

10.) Most “Peacetime” Churn Advice is Not Appropriate for Q2 2020

The epic @christianbowens of @PaddleHQ crunch through the reality of churn reduction and some quick-tactics you can make at @SaaStock Remote #SaaStockRemote pic.twitter.com/7O6jRZD1Vb

— Cruxy & Company (@CRUXY_CO) June 10, 2020

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Customer Success Around the Web

• 4 New Rules for Customer Retention in 2020– Find out how to keep stressed out, panicked, and preoccupied customers on board.
• How to Score the Health of Your Customers and Accounts– Use these tips to create your own system for scoring customer health. 
• Valuable SaaS Customer Retention Strategies from the Experts– Check out these first-hand tips and strategies for effective customer retention.

Fighting Churn is a newsletter of inspiration, ideas and news on customer success, churn, renewal and other stuff and is curated by ChurnZero.