#26: Minimising The Cost Of Customer Transfers

Are customer transfers costing you valuable retention dollars?

Transferring customers between CSMs is an inevitable part of managing a dedicated Customer Success team. 

But a poorly executed customer transfer can be the straw that breaks the camel's back and leads the customer to churn.

In fact, research by PwC found that 32% of customers would stop doing business with a brand they loved after just one bad experience.

To help you minimise the cost of customer transfers, I've put together:

1.  a checklist every CSM in your organisation can use
2.  a risk assessment framework you can use to monitor the impact of these transfers

 Let's dive into them!

✅ Customer Transfer Checklist: Ensuring Smooth Handovers

At any given time, you will have multiple accounts transferring between CSMs so it's crucial to have a standardised process to ensure quality across the board.

Here's a checklist that departing CSMs should complete for each account:

• Document the customer use case and their goals in the CRM to provide the new CSM with a clear understanding of their needs.
• Indicate the customer's risk sentiment to help assess their likelihood of renewal and prioritize engagement efforts using the current risk process.
• Summarize any roadblocks the customer is currently facing to ensure a swift resolution and prevent any gaps in addressing their challenges.
• Create follow-up tasks in the CRM for the new CSM, outlining any necessary roadblock follow-ups.
• Verify that all main points of contact (POCs) for the account are listed in the CRM system.
• Attach an existing Success Plan to the CRM system to provide the new CSM with a strategic roadmap for customer success.
• Facilitate a handover event, such as a meeting for "Tier 1" accounts or videos for "Tier 2," to introduce the customer to their new CSM.

This checklist will enable the new CSM to hit the ground running, understand the customer's context, and build trust quickly. 

If there are missing items in there, the new CSM can prepare questions and next steps to bring to the handover call.

🚀 Transfer Risk Assessment: Monitoring Customer Experience

While gathering sentiment from the previous CSM is helpful, it's essential to go beyond that. The transfer itself can introduce issues that threaten the customer experience, and it may also uncover unresolved concerns.

Monitoring the usual adoption and experience KPIs post survey is particularly important. 

But another idea is to implement a post-transfer survey. Similar to a C-Sat survey, the goals is to collect feedback on the transfer process. Ask customers to rate their satisfaction with the transfer and provide an opportunity to share any concerns or suggestions.

This feedback will help you address any immediate issues and continuously improve the transfer experience.

To summarise:

We can't avoid customer transfers in 1:few CSM models, but we can:

1. Standardise the transfer process using a Customer Transfer Checklist.
2. Monitor risk and gather feedback using customer experience indicators.

That's all for this week!

See you next Friday :D