August 01, 2019 at 02:17AM
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
_underside_Macedonia.jpg)
_underside_Macedonia.jpg)
5 Ways SaaS Providers Can Prevent Customer Churn
As the axiom goes: “Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, the other gold.”
We all know new customers are important but retention is paramount to profitability. In fact, it costs more to acquire new customers than it does to upsell satisfied customers. So, why do customers leave?
Research shows that only one in 26 unhappy customers complain. And, a recent survey from Gartner revealed 81% of respondents said they expect to be competing mostly or completely on the basis of customer experience in less than two years.
Here are five ways a focus on customer experience can help you increase retention and perpetually improve SaaS revenues.
1. Communicate And Connect
With SaaS, it’s easy for a customer to walk away and subscribe to another provider, which makes consistent communication important. And, communication is a two-way street.
Many times customers don’t disclose their full business needs from the start. When they suddenly bring up new expectations to a provider, that can present difficulties. Other times, a sales or service person may miss a crucial point in terms of customer needs. Both of these scenarios can be the reason for churn.
While communication is key, it’s essential to take it a step further and connect with customers. The more personalized relationship you develop, the more indispensable your service becomes. Cooler heads prevail and resolving issues is actually a chance to further the bond. Your customer wants to feel they are listened to—make sure your team proves they do.
2. Onboard To Increase Success
The best time to establish a relationship and demonstrate you want a customer to succeed is the onboarding call. People buy from people, rarely from companies, so making it personal makes a difference. For instance, ensure the customer has the name and contact information of the rep assigned to them. A high level of commitment from the outset sets the tone for a long-term relationship.
Determine a new customer path including as many phases as you can that positively affect their success. As examples, onboarding can encompass various types of training—tutorials, videos, and hands-on proof of concepts (POCs). Consider virtual instructor-led training for simultaneously onboarding multiple users, especially when they’re in different locations.
As noted by Geraldo A. Dada, VP of product marketing and strategy at SolarWinds: “Product-centric customer education is a powerful tool to increase satisfaction and retention, as customers learn to get more value out of the products they buy from you.”
3. Understand Customer Success And “The Experience”
There’s a difference between customer service and customer success. Service is resolving an immediate inbound customer issue. Customer success is about using such “touches” to grow a relationship. With the often complex nature of SaaS, focusing on customer success is particularly effective for avoiding churn and generating opportunities.
In addition, successful teams regularly contact customers to determine how their product is used and which systems and procedures can be improved to faster achieve goals. Further, if your team uncovers a strategy that speeds workflow, consider writing the customer’s story and—if they’re amenable—name them. Send an email to your list with the tip and consider offering a webinar to show everybody how it’s done.
4. Ensure Resources Help, Not Hinder
How thorough are your FAQ pages? Do you update them? Are the “help” sections written for users or filled with unfamiliar technical jargon? When a customer is looking for help, they may already feel frustrated. To go to the trouble of trying to figure out a solution, only to be further confused, can push them over the edge.
Be sure resources are easily understood and regularly updated. Additionally, the minimum standard is to provide help in whatever way the customer wants: chat, phone, and email.
5. Act On Analytics
Some sophisticated solutions collect data on customer usage, made available via a dashboard. If you have this insight, put those analytics work.
With such visibility, you can better understand what piqued a customer’s interest, identify pain points, direct them to overlooked features, see if they’re stalled, or worse, not using a solution at all.
This will allow you to take action to ensure they experience full value and don’t have “buyer’s remorse.” It’ll also could offer more details on personas to strengthen future sales efforts.
The difference between happy customers and canceling customers is ensuring they appreciate the value of your solution. Merely assuming your customers are satisfied is a path to more cancellations. Maintain your customers’ loyalty by making sure your value is heard and seen clearly, loudly and often.
The post 5 Ways SaaS Providers Can Prevent Customer Churn appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.
from https://adobe.ly/2SV6Vvn
via IFTTT
Tuesday, July 30, 2019
B2B Vendors Need To Play Catch Up In A “B2E” World
Adobe recently published a report detailing the findings of a survey we conducted of 1,215 marketers and B2B buyers in the U.K., France, and Germany. The findings reveal that European business buyers expect vendors to display traits traditionally associated with consumer brands, demonstrating B2B and B2C landscapes are no longer distinct.
The “Creating Epic Customer Experiences” report shows how the B2B buying experience is more similar to B2C, giving rise to a “Business To Everyone,” or “B2E” world. With 70% of B2B marketers saying they can’t differentiate, B2E poses a new challenge for all business in an already competitive environment.
The report highlights three areas of convergence:
Desire For Security, Protection, And Transparency Align B2B And B2C
It’s safe to assume that all buyers—both B2C and B2B—are looking for a great product at a reasonable price. Other buyer must haves are security, protection, and ease of business, are important to both consumers and business buyers. Marketers won’t be surprised to learn that the vast majority of buyers say it’s vital a supplier is serious about protecting both their organization’s and their own personal data. 85% want to be treated fairly as a customer, and 78% want a brand to be transparent about how they work.
The Rise Of Altruistic Brand Purpose In B2B
B2B buyers are increasingly motivated by other factors. Sustainability is an essential area of consideration, with 67% of buyers seeking to work with companies that are striving to lower their impact on the environment. Of course, a focus on green credentials is hardly a nascent trend. Being eco-friendly has been a hot topic for years, and marketers are well aware of the value of this. What’s interesting is the emerging importance of brands showing their stance on people, ethics, and the “big social issues” of the day. In short: altruistic purpose and brand values.
B2C and B2B buyer sentiments are converging. For example, just as many consumers will no longer shop with retailers whose ethics they disagree with, 30% of B2B buyers will disengage from a brand whose values don’t match their own. 68% of B2B buyers place a high importance on how a company treats its employees. A similar amount (64%) seek to do business with brands that ensure their operations are fair to people throughout the supply chain—and 63% expect suppliers to demonstrate authentic ethical values. Meanwhile, three in five want the brands they work with to take real action to support human rights at home and abroad.
These are big changes that stand to drastically alter the way marketers work, the campaigns they create, and the messages they deliver. In fact, many have already been impacted, with almost half (48%) of marketers agreeing they have lost sales in the last two years because they haven’t demonstrated a strong enough sense of brand purpose. So, for B2B organizations, purpose might not only be thing that sets your brand apart—a lack of it could even stop you from winning new customers.
All Buyers Crave A Personal Experience
Consumer brands are increasingly turning to technology to help deliver personal experiences across all digital touchpoints, and solve business challenges like driving first to second purchase, notifying visitors when products are back-in-stock and deploying relevant messaging based on behavioral data. This report indicates personalization is crucial to keep B2B buyers too, with 49% saying tailored offers and communications will encourage them to stick with a provider.
Accounting For The Generational Divide
B2B marketers face an additional challenge in that not all buyers feel the same way. The study shows, younger buyers are more likely to feel passionately about working with a company whose brand purpose aligns with their own values and beliefs. But for older buyers and board members, the landscape changes significantly.
Just 42% of board members are looking for suppliers to stand up for something bigger than their own product and services, in comparison to 64% at the sub-board levels. Meanwhile, only 34% of board members expect a brand to invest in and engage with cultural issues, next to 57% of sub-board employees. Finally, the board is 20% less likely to think it’s important that a company shows genuine engagement with diversity and inclusion for employees. However, board-level buyers are more likely to be concerned about being treated fairly as a customer and having both their organization’s and their personal data protected.
It’s a complex situation. There’s no point pushing this messaging on a big-ticket investment that will require board approval, when factors like security, privacy, and the promise of efficiency savings are more likely to be appealing. But if they don’t include brand purpose in “top of the funnel” marketing sent to younger/sub-board buyers, they may risk being passed over for RFPs. Marketers must have a nuanced understanding of when to bring out purpose-based messaging—and they have to find a way to create a customer experience that factors all of this in.
CXM And The Importance Of Lifecycle Engagement
39% of B2B buyers won’t switch providers if they’re doing a good job, so vendors need to adopt a robust full lifecycle engagement strategy and focus on customer experience, not just in marketing but across an organization. Whether it’s analyzing data to provide funnel-tailored messages, creating engaging experiences across different platforms, or delivering multichannel customer communications, marketers need to ensure they’re providing the end-to-end experiences that customers seek.
With all these challenges, it’s little wonder that marketers are finding their task harder across the funnel. To survive and thrive, all businesses should be looking at creating the same engaging emotional connections already prevalent in B2C because in a B2E world vendors can’t afford not to. Marketers in all arenas must adopt a robust CXM strategy and focus on engagement and experience to build trusted, long-lasting relationships.
The post B2B Vendors Need To Play Catch Up In A “B2E” World appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.
from https://adobe.ly/2MpsIdp
via IFTTT
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)