How to Improve your Customer Success and Retention for a SaaS Company

It is no secret that customer success and retention are essential for any business. But, for many SaaS companies, this can be a challenge. With churn rates as high as 50% annually, competition among similar products and services is fierce. So what can a company do to improve its success and retain its customers for more than a cycle or two?

In this article, we will explore those questions and provide some tips for SaaS companies on how you can improve their customer success and retention.

Clearly Define Your KPIs

The first step to improving anything is clearly understanding what you’re trying to accomplish. You need to define your KPIs (key performance indicators) to do this. To define these, it’s essential to take a closer look at each step of the customer journey and what your company can do to make that step better and more valuable.

Onboarding

At what rate do you lose customers during onboarding? Even if you aren’t losing them, how are your finishing rates during onboarding? Are customers confused or run into roadblocks along the way? Focusing on improving your successful onboarding numbers can go a long way toward keeping customers long-term.

Adoption

Similar to onboarding, adoption rates are vital to long-term customer success. What’s currently keeping your customers from adopting your products and services? Is it a lack of understanding and knowledge? Could a well-positioned customer care representative improve onboarding for them? A customer unable or unwilling to adopt well is less likely to stick around or purchase more from you.

Retention

Retention rates are easily trackable. How many stick around when subscriptions or contracts come up versus jumping ship? What insights can you discover to improve retention?

Renewal

When someone renews your business, you can assume they are a fan of whatever you do and the service(s) you provide. These are great candidates for pitching new products or updates to, and they are also an excellent resource for discovering the gaps or holes in other parts of your journey. How can you get more customers to the renewal stage? Use information at this juncture to help you answer that question.

Churn

A SaaS company’s average monthly and annual churn rate is 3-8% and 32-50%, respectively. There’s a lot of room to maneuver within those ranges. While attrition happens to every company, the ones who focus on providing value throughout each stage of the customer journey are the ones closer to the lower numbers. In contrast, companies focusing only on one or two stages of the journey are likely closer to the higher churn averages.

Keep Customers Engaged

In social media, engagement is defined as an action taken on a post. However, for SaaS companies, engagement is less about likes, shares, and clicks and more about the activity users take within your products or through your communications. Touchpoints should be cohesive, monitored, and emphasized to help you stay on top of mind for customers and let them know you’re there anytime they need you.

Below are some simple ways to keep your customers engaged.

Streamline Customer Onboarding

How can you reduce the learning curve of customer onboarding? Maybe it’s by producing informational videos, walkthroughs, or a downloadable guide. Remember, not everyone learns the same way-some are more visual, while others like to read instructions instead.

Streamlining information can provide excellent value to your customers and show that you care about their journey while using your products.

Send Customers Useful Tips

Another great way to keep customers engaged is to send out helpful tips from time to time. Even if it’s something small or seemingly simple, a well-timed message might be exactly what a customer needs to overcome a hurdle or get more out of your products.

Train Your Customers

Training employees makes sense. We want them to be able to provide consistent service to our customers and showcase our products in the perfect light. But, what about training our customers to do the same thing? Maybe we aren’t training them to work for us, but we are certainly training them to work with us. Improving their work with our products will also improve our own work and encourage them to become raving fans and ambassadors.

Demonstrate Your Value Prop

There is fantastic value in showcasing your expertise. Developing content through blogs, emails, videos, and social posts can demonstrate your value proposition to your audience members. Sure, a business needs to gain new customers, but it’s even more essential to maintain your customer base over the long haul.

Upsell Your Services

Demonstrating your value also happens through upselling your services. It shows that you know your customers and that you understand what else could improve their lives or businesses. Finding ways to entrench your customers into your business further and have them rely on what you offer improves overall engagement and helps you earn more profits.

Keep Customers Satisfied

We all know the saying, “Happy wife, happy life.” But what about “Happy customer, happy business accountants?” Okay, maybe it doesn’t have quite the same ring to it. But it’s true nonetheless. No matter the industry, the most successful companies that retain their customer base, are those that focus on keeping their customers and clients happy.

Here are some ways you can ensure yours stay satisfied as well:

Provide Excellent Customer Service

No surprise here. If you want to make your customers happy, you must provide excellent customer service. But it cannot be emphasized enough-especially, considering that 93% of customers are likely to make repeat purchases with companies that offer excellent customer service.

How you provide that service is up to you. But, we suggest making it as easy as possible and putting smart practices in place to do it consistently.

Provide Discounts to Loyal Customers

44% of businesses focus on customer acquisition, while only 18% focus on customer retention. We think that’s backward. Of course, getting new customers is vital to a company’s success. But, you know what’s even more critical? Customer retention. One way to reward current customers is to provide them discounts, especially when you release new products or sunset old ones.

Get Feedback From Customers

Feedback comes in many forms. Sometimes it comes through reviews, emails, or calls, but other times it comes in the form of usage, complaints, and attention. They’re all data points worth collecting. Those data points, over time, can tell your brand story and how effective your company is at keeping customers happy.

There’s also nothing wrong with asking your customers directly for feedback by requesting written reviews and send out questionnaires or surveys. Engage with them directly, and you may be surprised at what you find out.

Routinely Add Upgrades and New Versions

It’s cheaper to keep a customer than to find a new one, and loyal customers are more likely to spend more and refer others. So how can you keep your customers happy and engaged? One key way is to keep your products updated and relevant. Adding new features, upgrading existing ones, and releasing new versions show that you’re invested in providing the best possible experience for your customers. It also helps to keep them from getting bored or frustrated with your product. Of course, you need to strike the right balance – too many changes can be overwhelming, and you don’t want to lose the core of what makes your product great. But by keeping your products fresh and up-to-date, you can give your customers a reason to stick around for the long haul.

Offer a Reward Program or Other Incentives

Many businesses offer reward programs and other incentives to encourage their customers to return. Businesses can show their customers appreciation by offering discounts on future purchases or giving away free merchandise. Additionally, these programs can help to build loyalty among customers, making them more likely to recommend the business to friends and family. In today’s competitive marketplace, anything that a company can do to encourage customer loyalty is worth the investment.

Create and Nurture a Customer Community

Good customer service is essential, but it’s no longer enough to keep customers returning. Many businesses supplement their customer service by creating a sense of community among their customers. This can be done in many ways, such as hosting events, starting loyalty programs, or simply finding ways to engage them through social media. The key is to make customers feel like they are part of something larger and that the company values them. Creating a customer community helps businesses retain customers by fostering a sense of belonging and loyalty. It also provides an opportunity for customers to give feedback and connect with other like-minded individuals. Ultimately, a strong customer community can be a powerful asset for any business.

Do Exit Surveys

Have you ever been frustrated with a company and decided to take your business elsewhere? It’s something we’ve all done at one point or another. But what if that company had reached out to you after your bad experience and asked what they could do to make things right? Chances are, you would have been more forgiving and given them another chance. This is the power of exit surveys. By reaching out to dissatisfied customers, companies can learn what needs to be improved and make changes that will retain customers.

Conclusion

It’s no secret that customer success and retention are key to the success of any SAAS company. To keep your customers happy and engaged, you must provide value through your product and go above and beyond to ensure their needs are met. By using the tips we’ve outlined in this article, you can improve your customer success and retention rates – leading to a more profitable business in the long run. What strategies will you put into place today to improve your customer retention?