Customer success requires a fundamental shift in the way you conduct business. Dan Steinman, CCO of Gainsight, worked with VPs of Customer Success across the technology industry to develop the 10 Laws of Customer Success. The 10 Laws of Customer Success represent the key focus areas all technology companies should be focusing on as they move towards a customer success model.

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Child-like Joy
The 10 Laws of Customer Success
©2015 Gainsight. All Rights Reserved.

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Child-like Joy
©2015 Gainsight. All Rights Reserved.
Dan Steinman
Chief Customer Officer
dsteinman@gainsight.com
Scott Golden
Customer Strategy
sgolden@gainsight.com

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It’s a top-down,
company-wide
commitment
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Law #1: It’s a top-down, company-wide commitment
Customer Success involves shifting the orientation of your company
from your product or your sales to your customers’ success.
• Product: Which feature will truly help our clients achieve their goals with
our solution (versus being demo-ware)?
• Sales: Which clients are really likely to be good fits for our solution (versus
ones that will leave us quickly)?
• Marketing: What messages authentically align with the success and value
we deliver? (versus being buzzwords)
• Finance: Which metrics reflect real success and value for our clients?
(versus just new sales)

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Sell to the right
customer
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Law #2: Sell to the Right Customer
Customer Success is responsible for the complete customer journey.
• Revenue is important but Product Marketing Fit is equally
important.
Product teams need to balance customer needs with product
development
• The Right Customers will help mature and your company’s PMF
and innovation.
• The Wrong Customers will put constraints on every aspect of your
company’s go-to-market motion.

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The natural
tendency for
customers is
towards churn
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Law #3: Customer’s Natural Tendency is to Churn
Customer’s tendency, uninterrupted, is to drift away from
their vendor.
• Changes in product, people, and business models all attribute
to customer churn.
• Long-term SaaS health is directly tied to churn and
retention strategy
• Churn increases as the size of your customer base
increases which makes it incredibly difficult to
overcome.

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Your customers’
initial desire and
expectation is to be
wildly successful
with your product
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Law #4: Customer’s initial expectation is to be wildly successful with
your product.

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Law #4: Customer’s initial expectation is to be wildly successful with
your product.

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Law #4: Customer’s initial expectation is to be wildly successful with
your product.
• In order to help your customers be wildly successful, the first
thing you need to understand is what success means to them.
• ROI isn’t a concept, it’s an equation
• Get on a cadence and track your progress
• Success isn’t a destination; it’s a journey

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You must
relentlessly
measure and
manage your
customers
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Law #5: Relentlessly Measure and Manage your Customers
Relentlessly monitor and manage CUSTOMER HEALTH
Relentlessly monitor and MANAGE customer health
Relentlessly MONITOR and manage customer health
RELENTLESSLY monitor and manage customer health

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You can no
longer build
loyalty through
relationship
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Law #6: You can no Longer Build Loyalty through Relationships
You have to figure out how to deliver love and value to these customers without much
1:1 interaction. This will bring out the best and the worst in your product and your
company as you learn whether customers will be loyal because of the value they get
from your product, not the relationship they have with an individual.
• Segment your customers by a particular metric that works for your business
• Define a customer coverage model based on segmentation
• Create customer interaction categories based on your coverage model
• Establish a cadence for interacting with customers
• Help connect customers building a strong and loyal community
• Create a customer feedback loop

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Product has
to be priority
#1
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Law #7: Product has to be Priority #1

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Obsessively
improve
time-to-value
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Law #8: Obsessively improve time-to-conversion
The faster you can convey your customer’s time-to-value, the sooner
they will become loyal advocates of your product. The best way to
refine your time-to-value strategy:
• Work with the customer to establish concrete success measures.
• Implement iteratively, achieving the simplest measure first, and
• focusing on the others later.
• Adjust in real time, springing into action the very moment you
realize expected value is at risk.

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Deeply
understand
the details of
churn and
retention
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Law #9: Deeply understand the details of churn
In order to successfully run a long-term SaaS business, it is crucial to
completely understand the intricacies of churn and retention. The earlier you
understand churn and retention, the sooner your company can solve the
problem.
There are 5 Steps to understanding Churn:
Step 1: Define what you are measuring and components of CMRR
Step 2: Define period of measurement and frequency
Step 3: Determine expected CMRR and categories of churn
Step 4: Determine how to identify suspected/at risk churn
Step 5: Align with executive leadership to develop a set of standard definitions
and reports for churn/retention

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Customer
Success teams
MUST become
metrics-driven
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Law #10: CSM Teams must become metrics-driven
You’ve delivered an outstanding customer success experience to your
customer, but how can you repeat that process time and time again? Tracking
metrics and measuring the success of you actions allows to you to have
repeatable processes with predictable outcomes.
Some key metrics to monitor are:
Customer Behavior:
• Net Promoter Scores
• Logins / Logouts
• Usage of specific product features /platforms (web, mobile, API)
CSM Behavior:
• Frequency of Interaction QBRs, email updates, phone calls)
• Support ticket volume handled by CSMs (rather than your Support team)
• Timeliness of risk identification
• Effectiveness of risk mitigation efforts

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Law #10: CSM Teams must become metrics-driven
Business Outcomes:
• Frequency of Interaction QBRs, email updates, phone calls)
• Support ticket volume handled by CSMs (rather than your Support team)
• Timeliness of risk identification
• Effectiveness of risk mitigation efforts

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Child-like Joy
©2015 Gainsight. All Rights Reserved.
Dan Steinman
Chief Customer Officer
dsteinman@gainsight.com
Scott Golden
Customer Strategy
sgolden@gainsight.com
Questions?