This week:
Download the Free eBook: 23 Ways to Reduce Churn in 2023
23 Ways To Reduce Churn: #10 Identify Every Customer's Key Results
Quote of the Week: Focusing on competitors leads to mediocrity...
QBRs DON'T WORK! We all know it. Here's why they are ineffective and what to do instead →
People frequently ask me how they can make their QBRs effective. They know they aren't working, but they don't know why.
Perhaps the clearest indicator that QBRs are a waste of time is that...
❗️It's extremely difficult to get the key business leader(s) to attend❗️
BUT, think about it from the customer's perspective:
⦿ According to a recent OKTA study, enterprises license an average of 187 software applications! Even if your key business leader only uses a small portion of those, it still means they are getting potentially dozens QBR invitations! That's not going to work.
⦿ Even if they are unusually interested in your QBR, they have to set aside an hour in their busy schedule, which can be difficult to find.
⦿ And even when they DO attend, they are presented with a lot of information that is not specifically for THEM! Most of it is really for the people below them who run the day-to-day.
⦿ But the worst part is how much of the QBR presentation isn't about the CUSTOMER at all! Do you really imagine your key business leader is eager to spend their precious time hearing about your company's progress or product roadmap?
📈 I spoke to a CS leader recently who analyzed their QBR success rate and found that not only are they getting very low customer interest in QBRs, but that QBRs are actually associated with HIGHER CHURN!
✅ WHAT'S THE SOLUTION?
If you want to engage key business leaders, you have to:
⓵ Offer to show them what they are most interested in: their MEASURED RESULTS!
⓶ Tell them you will share tips on how they can IMPROVE their results.
⓷ Promise to take very little of their TIME.
► That's all. Nothing else.
⓸ Finally, back up your promises by sending them the deck in advance, which should have no more than 2-3 slides.
This is what I call an EXECUTIVE BUSINESS REVIEW (EBR), and it's astonishingly effective at re-engaging business leaders.
❗️In fact, why not follow this practice right from the beginning to never lose their engagement in the first place?
But it also has a powerful impact on aligning customers to create behavior change, drive better results, and ultimately lead to consistent customer expansion!
This does not need to replace your standing meetings with your day-to-day contacts for which some version of a QBR may be useful.
The EBR exists to achieve the most important objective: maintaining engagement and alignment with the key decision-maker(s)!
Download the Free eBook: 23 Ways to Reduce Churn in 2023
Proven Methods for Rapidly Increasing Customer Retention Backed by Real-World Data
By: Greg Daines, CEO ChurnRX
23 Ways to Reduce Churn: #10 How to Identify Every Customer's Key Results; plus A SURPRISING FACT, and A HUGE UNEXPECTED BENEFIT
Our research consistently shows that, by far, the strongest predictor of long-term customer retention is whether the customer achieved measurable results.
📈 Customers with measurable results stay six times longer on average than customers who don't measure their results! 📈
Therefore the most foundational solution to churn starts with identifying every customer's results.
HOWEVER... A common reaction I get to this from CS reps and leaders is,
💬 "But many of my customers don't have good results!"
😲 HERE'S THE SURPRISING FACT →
Our research reveals that even when you show your customer BAD results, they actually stay more than TWICE AS LONG!
WHY?
► Remember that customers stay to get results. If you don't measure their results, they have no reason to stick around to see if results ever arrive.
► When you show them measured results - even if they are BAD - they can see a way forward and are motivated to start improving.
BUT UNFORTUNATELY...
👉 The biggest reason most customers will never see measured results is that WE DON'T IDENTIFY WHAT THEY ARE in the first place! 👈
✅ HERE'S HOW TO SOLVE THIS PROBLEM:
⓵ Identify and capture each customer's measurable business results during the sale. If not in the sale, then right at the start - in the kickoff.
⓶ Hand off the key results to Customer Success to make them the central element of the customer process.
⓷ Systematically measure and present results regularly to customers. Do this INSTEAD of the traditional QBR (which doesn't work)!
🤗 HERE'S THE HUGE UNEXPECTED BENEFIT →
After you've done this with a bunch of customers, you'll inevitably start to see a pattern.
The same results will start to show up repeatedly, with just a few dominating.
And one result will invariably rise to the top as the most common and important result for your customers.
This is extremely valuable insight that you can leverage to build alignment with every other team in your company:
⦿ MARKETING can leverage this info to significantly improve the messaging that attracts your best 'bullseye' customers.
⦿ SALES can use it to help customers more quickly identify which results they care about most and motivate them to purchase.
⦿ ONBOARDING can use it to build the most effective pathways to driving customers' first results.
⦿ PRODUCT can use it to evaluate and design the product road map to produce more of the kinds of results your customers actually stay for.
⦿ SUPPORT can leverage it to ensure they are helping customers achieve results rather than just solve isolated issues.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
Focusing on your competitors' results leads to mediocrity. Focusing on your customers' results leads to loyalty.
