This week's Newsletter:
Article: Most Customers Don't Know What They're Trying to Achieve!
Upcoming Interview: Brainstorm Inc: Data-led Retention
Quote of the Week: Your company is perfectly designed...
MOST CUSTOMERS DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TRYING TO ACHIEVE! Here's why and what to do about it...
Measurable business results are the ultimate driver of short and long-term customer retention.
👉 Customers who achieve measurable results stay *6 times longer* on average! 👈
Great! → So all we have to do is figure out what key business results our customers are trying to achieve and help them do it!
❌ But there's a big problem. You've likely experienced this...
❓What happens when you ask your customers about their business objectives?
Most customers will say something like:
🤷🏻"We want to get the solution installed."
Obviously, that's NOT a business result. Implementation or adoption are not the ultimate predictors of retention.
In the absence of a properly defined business result, we face 2 formidable obstacles blocking the path to customer success:
⓵ First, customers seldom achieve results they're not measuring. The old axiom still holds: "You can't improve what you don't measure."
The journey to good results is paved with key customer behavior changes. But change is hard, especially for organizations, so it's essential to keep the end goal in mind, or customers lose their way.
⓶ Even if they achieve the results, customers won't know it without tracking them.
Our research shows that measuring results is as important as the results themselves. In one study, we found that customers who were measuring but getting poor results stayed more than twice as long as customers who were not measuring (many of whom were getting results)!
HOW TO IDENTIFY KEY RESULTS FOR MOST CUSTOMERS:
✅ Start by TEACHING your customers what results they should expect rather than by asking them.
Once they correctly understand the potential results, they can recognize what's important for them.
Realize most customers have come to your company precisely because they DON'T know what they are doing. They are here to do something better, meaning it's NEW to them in significant ways.
Assume they don't fully understand their potential results and start by teaching them.
✅ The good news is that, even though customers often don't know, we should know what results our product leads to and how to measure them. RIGHT!?!?
Unfortunately, in my experience, many companies "know" their product's measurable results only in vague terms. They haven't been defined and written down CLEARLY.
► What's needed is what I call the "Customer Results Framework": the key business results customers can achieve, how to properly measure them, and what it takes to achieve them.
Without a Customer Results Framework, many customers will focus on implementation or adoption and ultimately experience disappointment and eventually churn.
For most companies, this is the critical missing step that I spend a significant portion of my time helping them create.
Upcoming Interview: Data-led retention: Why happy customers don't stay - and what to do about it
October 4th, 2023 @ 11:30am ET
Hosted by Debra Wilson @ Brainstorm. We will be discussing how customer results data can help Customer Success teams ruthlessly prioritize their client efforts.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
Your company is perfectly designed to produce the churn you are getting.
