The most successful Enterprise SaaS companies know that growing revenue only through new customer acquisition is the less efficient way to scale. Rather, they understand that growing revenue within your existing customer base - through up-sells, cross-sells, and expanded use - is the most profitable way to scale.
In fact, Enterprise SaaS companies that grow revenue - and company valuation - by expanding revenue within their existing customer base also know the key to making this work is to focus on - and operationalize - Customer Success.
This presentation - How to use Customer Success to Predict and Drive Up-Sell - is from Pulse 2014, the biggest Customer Success industry event ever and included panelists from Dell Boomi, Tableau, Marketo
How to use Customer Success to Predict and Drive Up-Sell
1. How to Predict Customer Risk
and Upsell
Kimberly Gress, Dell Boomi Mike Stocker, Marketo
Tracy Bush, Tableau
2. Kimberly Gress
Dell Boomi
• Founded - March 2000
• Acquired by Dell – November 2010
• Industry‟s first and leading Integration Cloud
• A leader in Gartner‟s 1st Magic Quadrant for iPaaS
• 2000+ named customers
• 70+ ISV and SI partners
• 500+ million integration processes per month
• Patent for Predictive Assistance, an innovation for improving customer success
Director, Dell Boomi
3. “Can you predict churn?“.....“Yes we can!“
What we found….intially
• Valuable customer usage data in the platform
• Rules that indicated non-active customers and
potential churn
• 68% of customers = Green
What we did ….initially
• Categorized customers
• Green = active
• Yellow = "at risk"
• Red = churn
• Developed predictive report indicating "at risk" customers
• Developed Customer Success Team to focus on
proactive outreach to "at risk" customers
• Evolved predictive report into automated Predictive
Assistance
4. Predictive Assistance
• Integrates near-real-time customer usage
metrics with Dell Boomi‟s CRM
• Customer success cases are created
• Customer success advisors proactively reach
out to customers to optimize their use of the
platform
Predictive
Analytics
Customer
Success Case
Creation
Customer
Engagement &
Outreach
Successful
Outcome
Automated
Efficient outreach
5. Results & Lessons Learned
Results
• 83% of customers are Green
• Dell Boomi renewal rate 94%
• 41% increase upsell QoQ
Lessons Learned
• Proactive outreach improved customer experience, provided
valuable insights and upsell opportunities
• Evolve Predictive Assistance to include valuable data that exists
outside the platform; CRM and Social Networks
• Investment in Customer Success Programs are a requirement for
a subscription business
• Generates growth
• Reduces churn
• Earn customers business every day!
6. Mike Stocker
Marketo
Marketo (NASDAQ: MKTO) provides the leading marketing software for companies of all sizes to
build and sustain engaging customer relationships. Spanning today‟s digital, social, mobile and
offline channels, Marketo‟s® customer engagement platform powers a set of breakthrough
applications to help marketers tackle all aspects of digital marketing from the planning and
orchestration of marketing activities to the delivery of personalized interactions that can be
optimized in real-time. Marketo‟s applications are known for their ease-of-use, and are
complemented by the Marketing Nation™, a thriving network of more than 250 third-party solutions
through our LaunchPoint™ ecosystem and over 40,000 marketers who share and learn from each
other to grow their collective marketing expertise. The result for modern marketers is
unprecedented agility and superior results. Headquartered in San Mateo, CA with offices in
Europe, Australia and a joint-venture in Japan, Marketo serves as a strategic marketing partner to
more than 3,000 large enterprises and fast-growing small companies across a wide variety of
industries. For more information, visit www.marketo.com.
Sr. Consumer Marketing Strategist,
Marketo
7. Usage Data isn„t Everything!
• “The more you engage with
customers the clearer things
become and the easier it is to
determine what you should be
doing.”
-John Russell, President, Harley
Davidson
What does Harley Davidson
have to do with Customer
Success?
8. 6 Practical “Early Warning” Signs of Customer Risk/Churn
1. Survey Responses (NPS, CSAT etc.)
• Low Score
• Comments
• No Response
2. Support Cases/Issues
• High Velocity
• Long term/Outstanding
3. Marketing
• Customer stops being “reference”
• Customer frustration on forums,
social channels.
4. Relationship
• Main contact leaves
• New exec arrives
5. Slow Adoption
• Customer not ramping on trajectory
of success (slow starter)
• Customer requiring extensive hand-
holding
6. “Zombie” Customer
• Usage continues but customer goes
completely unresponsive
*Not ordered by importance
9.
10. Identifying Upsell/Cross-sell Opportunities through common questions
1. Pro-Services
• “Can you do this for me?”
• “Can you advise me”
2. Support Upgrades
• “I need faster responses from
support”
• “Didn‟t fully resolve my issue”
3. Install Base/Sales (New Product)
• “I‟m interested in new product X”
• “Do you have capability Y?”
4. Account Management/CSM
• “I‟m planning rapid growth…”
• “Our renewal is coming soon…”
5. Training/Education
• “How to ?”
• “I‟m new to your product”
• “I want to learn more…”
6. Partners (Services or Application Partners)
• “I don‟t have enough resources…”
• “Do you recommend a XYZ application
for use case?”
TABLEAUHow many of you here have heard of Tableau Software? I’m sure everyone here has heard about BIG DATA. The world we live in generate massive amounts of data, and it’s overwhelming. We need a way to see and understand our data. That’s what Tableau does.We are very proud at Tableau that we have carved a niche for ourselves as a powerful force in the BI industry. Tableau is listed on the top of the Gartner Magic quadrant and doubling in size year over year. We empower customers through the insights and intelligence of data.This is ironic given Tableau has a traditional license model. We are different than a SaaS company in that we do not have the luxury of customer usage data to help us gain visibility into customer activity. = This is what makes Tableau different when it comes to Customer Success. At Tableau the Customer Success Team is more of a personal advisor to our customers. We are constantly touching base through an engagement model and building personal relationships.
= FIRST IMPRESSIONS: Little over three years ago when I first interviewed at Tableau, I walked into the office and I’ll never forget my first impressions. The first thing I noticed was the massive positive energy. It was like a generator putting out a huge electrical surge. The second thing I noticed was a culture of contribution. If there was a hint of an issue with a customer it was like an Emergency Room, where all doctors and nurses run to a patient to take care of their needs.The third thing I noticed was out of the box thinking. These extremely smart people got together and with great passion, worked to solve whatever issue came up. This is when I knew I wanted to be a part of the phenomenon called Tableau. I wanted the opportunity to build something unique. CHRISTIAN: When I first started at Tableau, I was shocked to find out that our customers had Christian Chabot’s (the CEO and co-founder of Tableau’s) direct email address and they didn’t think twice about reaching out to him like an old friend would….and he responded! There is no one that embodies this connection quality more than Christian. Christian established a relationship driven culture within Tableau. I started thinking, how do we bring the ideals that Christian embodies to our customers? From the time our customers are exposed to Tableau, how do we build that same type of relationship? And, within our Customer Success model at Tableau, a customer centric culture was born from the top down.
= CHALLENGES: Let’s talk about the toughest part of our job….mitigating risk. All of us face challenges and just like everyone else, we worry about customers who are At Risk of moving away from Tableau.Because Tableau is perpetually licensed, our customers have the option to renew in year 2 and beyond. If a customer choses to not renew, they can still use the software at the last installed version. This makes risk identification tricky and a customer driven culture critical. To address this challenge we have implemented customer care throughout the organization…..we have executive sponsorship for our largest customers, customer advocates that are dedicated to strategic customers along with the Customer Success Team. If we see customers that:- Haven’t registered licenses- Aren’t responsive to onboarding or engaging in a conversation- Haven’t taken advantage of training/services or technical supportWe define these customers At Risk. So what happens if we don’t pay attention to those risk areas? Customers will walk away because they never received the value of the software…we didn’t make them feel known and help them reach productivity. We have to constantly search for customer input and engagement.
ENGAGEMENT MODEL: (onboard)I’m going to quickly walk you through the engagement model we have established at Tableau. Now, imagine you are a Tableau customer. You have just purchased the software and you think…..”how am I going to get a handle on this quickly”? You receive a call from your Tableau Customer Success Manager and they start asking you questions like:Would you mind sharing with me the business challenge you want to solve using Tableau?Let me introduce to you the Tableau Team and resources that are here to help you solve that very problem.This is how we “onboard” our customers.ENGAGEMENT MODEL: (First 90 Day Program)If you’re timeline to implement is short or you need help, we have an option to provide an Implementation Advisor to help you configure the software with Tableau’s best practices and that align to your business goals.We call this the “First 90 Day” program. (Health Check) After you’ve been working with the software for a while, we’ll call and have a conversation that might go like this:- When we spoke last, you purchased Tableau for “business challenge”. Have you been able to achieve your goals? - Have you been able to gain insights to your business? I’d love to hear about that.We ask strategic questions that come from a place of general curiosity and the drive to really understand what benefits customers are receiving from the software. This makes sure we know our customers, that they are really using the software and receiving value. This touch point is called a “Heath Check”. About 120 days prior to maintenance expiration, the Customer Success Team engages to start the maintenance sales cycle. If we’ve done our job right, the maintenance renewal happens without a second thought from the customer. When you think about it….who are the companies you like to deal with most? Are they those companies where you feel known?
Wrap Up:The biggest challenge I am faced with today is “how do we continue to provide a personal connection with our customers, provide the same high level of customer care during explosive growth, when our customer base is doubling every year? How can we help our customers expand and shorten the time to adopt?Here is what I do know….When we manage a customer’s journey effectively, we have proven that when we are constantly engaged, the contract renewals and upsell opportunities come naturally. It is then that we know a relationship is well underway. Thank you.