The right data is a canary in a coal mine for customer success teams — a vital warning signal when something is going wrong.
While customer success teams are not facing life-or-death situations like explosions in coal mines, the right data can keep the team alert.
What constitutes the “right” data varies by team. Some might prioritize renewal rates over product adoption. Others may find customer engagement the key to preventing churn, while still others rely on usage data to spot when a customer needs extra support.
Built In spoke with two Austin tech leaders who shared what data they use to stay attuned to their customers and a changing environment.
Aviation software company ForeFlight builds high-performing flight planning and flight bag apps for pilots.
What are the key metrics you track when it comes to your customers? Are there any “outside-the-box” metrics you track?
First and foremost, we want to ensure that all of our ForeFlight customers are engaged and have fully adopted all the products they’ve purchased from us. That’s job one. This is important because customers who have fully adopted what they bought and are using it to derive value are fundamentally happy and engaged customers. We are actually getting data streams and dashboards to give us real-time telemetry on this adoption metric!
Traditionally, customer success organizations track gross and net retention on the platform, and we’re no different. These are super important SaaS metrics, as the business model is fundamentally built on the idea that you’re retaining customers year after year. If it’s the sales team’s job to sell our products, it’s up to customer success to resell them to them year after year at renewal time.
Which metrics do you prioritize when identifying accounts that might be in danger of churning?
When adoption drops off, or we sense that customer sentiment has taken a turn for the worse, we will provision a Red Account. A Red Account is an account in peril or at risk of attrition. When this happens, we have a particular process of identifying the underlying issues, creating a remediation plan, assigning accountable individuals and then setting out to manage the account out of Red status.
I wish we didn’t need a Red Account process, but it’s been material in saving some substantial accounts and strategic customers from leaving us.
How did you use this data to tailor your reengagement strategy or nurture customer relationships?
If adoption, support or sentiment data surfaces and indicates the need for a Red Account, we immediately jump to action and create one. The context and data within a Red Account help us define responsibilities and establish exit criteria for the Red status. This has been highly successful for us and helps us focus resources and attention on the issues that matter most.
Invoice Home is a billing and invoicing service for small businesses and freelancers.
What are the key metrics you track when it comes to your customers? Are there any “outside-the-box” metrics you track?
We use the following metrics to track our customer satisfaction: First Response Time, Average Resolution Time, First Contact Resolution, Customer Ticket Request Volume, Average Handle Time and Backlog. We use these metrics not only to track customer satisfaction but to provide us with the tools to improve our service.
Which metrics do you prioritize when identifying accounts that might be in danger of churning?
We put an emphasis on ART and FRT. We pride ourselves on having a responsive customer support channel that not only answers in a timely manner but with a holistic and helpful answer.
How did you use this data to tailor your reengagement strategy or nurture customer relationships?
We use this data to prioritize customer-centric improvements. ART and FRT are key indicators of customer satisfaction. When response and resolution times are quick, customers feel valued and satisfied. By tracking these metrics, we can prioritize which aspects of our service require attention.
Every inquiry that comes through our customer support channel is handled personally by one of our team members, and each response is quick and carefully thought out. At Invoice Home, satisfying our customers is our top priority.
