#25: How to start with Digital Customer Success

Digital Customer Success is a strategy, not a segment.

Traditionally we think about digital CS as "low-touch" and "reactive".

But we've got to change that perception.

Nurturing customers towards outcomes at scale is how we win.

Even if your customers are Fortune 500 companies that you serve with a white glove model, how do you enable their thousands of users effectively?

Your CSMs cannot be everywhere, all the time. But technology can! 

Starting a digital program doesn't need to be a mammoth, expensive and daunting task.

In this edition, I'll share a super low-effort experiment you can start to help you demonstrate the ROI of digital CS.

🚀 Launch A Growth Campaign Based On Customer Behaviour

If you want to launch a growth campaign at scale, you will need to follow 3 steps:

1. Profile Customers that are a good fit for a growth offer you have
2. Cluster customers using the data points that match the ICP 
3. Create a trigger-based action using relevant content

Let's dive into each step!

Step 1: Profiling

Most CS and Sales teams have expansion playbooks. Those playbooks often detail what a good fit customer looks like and the value proposition of the growth offer.

With this simple information you can start profiling customers programmatically. 

Let's say you have a product add-on that is a great fit for a customer in a specific industry or use case because it helps them solve a more complex use case. 

You might start by mapping all customers in that industry that fit that profile.

You can also invest in regression analysis here if you have the resource. Start this by asking "What do customers that buy X have in common about how they use our product?".

Step 2: Clustering

Ideally, the firmographic data (ie. industry, region, use-case, outcomes etc) is in your CRM already.  But if it's not, it's not the end of the world.

You can enrich the data by plugging it into external data sources or asking your CS and Sales team to jump in and help.

This is a great clue for needing to improve your data collection for the future.

For in-product behaviour data, work with your product team or CS Ops team to bring the specific actions you want to identify into a database.

The challenge here is usually knowing what data you want. So make sure you invest time in the previous step before you go to the product team with an ask.

The more clarity you have the better. But you can start small, with one or two indicators, and build from there.

Step 3: Creating a Trigger-Based Action

Once you have the data, you need to create a trigger-based action.

What you want to achieve is that every time a customer matches the criteria, they get enrolled in your play automatically. Analysts like to call this an "if this, then that" action.

If the customer matches criteria A, B and C, then enrol them in Marketing Campaign A.

You can achieve this by using simple automation tools like Zapier and Workato. 

But if you can't get the resources to build a trigger-based program, creating a simple list in the CRM every month and enrolling manual is still a good option to test the waters!

And don't forget to define a leading and lagging metric of success for your program.

Having tangible goals helps you to assess and communicate the impact of this experiment to the leadership team in a way that will help you secure more resources in the future!

To summarise:

• Digital CS is not a segment, it's a strategy
• You don't need a huge budget to start. You can experiment in small ways with what you have.
• If you are looking for a simple experiment, start by converting the growth playbooks you have into a trigger-based campaign!

See you next week!