Every company loves customers, right. Software-as-a-service companies or SaaS companies, in particular, thrive entirely on customer success. They implement multiple customer success programs to reduce customer churn.
Companies are now starting to look at customer success as a necessity to drive full growth. The need for a synchronisation and alignment between marketing and customer success has been realised. McKinsey called the partnership of customer success and marketing- the new growth engine for the right reasons.
Reasons why Marketing must be Aligned with Customer Success
1. Powerful results
Pairing marketing with customer success can yield powerful results. While marketing efforts are aimed at bringing leads or customers, customer success is aimed at keeping them invested in the company. Through consumer research insights, marketers position the product which then leads to sales. This is what the customers expect even post the sale. So, aligning the two teams will give a clear idea of the results, leading to powerful results.
2. Effective engagement
Marketing and customer success together can drive engagement. Since customers get emails, product descriptions and more from the marketing team, they identify better with the positioning and this causes them to retain with the business. The new customer lifecycle requires constant engagement, and therefore the tie-up is necessary.
3. Customer Education Improves
Customers need to be educated about the product or service they have signed up for. If they are unaware on how to use it, they might be confused on how to navigate across different spectrums and features. This is where marketing knowledge comes handy. Through explainers and multimedia presentations, customers can learn more about the product.
How to align marketing and customer success for high results
• Unified Customer Journey Plans
Restructure the customer journey to aim for a single customer experience. From the top of the funnel stage or awareness stage, it should be unified as an experience. To provide a holistic view to the customer regarding brand experience, a single customer journey plan is important.
• Churn And renewal analysis
Collaboration between marketing and customer success teams is necessary to understand customer churn. Misaligned teams face great problems when it comes to tracking the metrics. Loss of customers or need to renew can be paired according and targeted in the right manner.
• Track KPI’s
Sales and marketing are measured differently. Making sure that the efforts or customers are measured in the same way is important. For marketing, it is leads and for sales, its new accounts, or deals. Measuring key performance indicators is a great way to analyse weak areas, fix parts of the funnel and improve customer experience.
• Customer Feedback
Using customer feedback, customer success and marketing can be aligned. Using feedback or VOC (Voice of Customer), you can discover motivations, pain points, or aspects to purchase services or products. With these insights, you can refine marketing messages to make sure customers understand the product well.
Bottom Line: Boosts Customer Loyalty
Customer success and marketing together will not only attract new leads, but also help with customer retention. Shifting the communication for customers will boost loyalty and improve prospects.
Author Bio: Niyathi Rao
Niyathi Rao is a content creating specialist at Smartkarrot Inc., a customer success software. She worked for Univariety and OpenText previously. She majorly writes for SaaS tech products. She is a bibliophile and listens to podcasts and music when she isn’t doing any of these.
