How companies monetize customer success

In this episode of CS Connect, our host and Microsoft’s own Customer Success Strategist, Vish Walia, is joined by Swati Chopra, Senior Director of Customer Success & Support at DocuSign. DocuSign is a SaaS company that helps organizations connect and automate how they prepare, sign, act on and manage agreements.

The topic on Vish and Swati’s mind is a super interesting one: monetizing CS. How can you do it? Can everyone do it? What processes should CS leaders bear in mind when pursuing this revenue route? According to Swati, “companies need to stop thinking of customer success as a cost function, and instead, start thinking of it as a revenue function.”

Tune in to this episode for Swati to reveal all. 👇

Takeaway #1

Think of yourself as a trusted adviser for the customer, and be there when the customer starts onboarding, all the way through to implementation and product adoption. If they're facing any escalations or issues during the business reviews, when you’re discussing renewals, show them how you can enhance their portfolio of your product or services through upselling or cross-selling.

Takeaway #2

You have to adapt your CS strategy to your client’s persona. Large, enterprise customers (top-tier customers like large banks, technology companies) require the ‘white-glove’ treatment. What that means is freebie models don't work for these types of clients because their persona of your customer is different. And it’s at this point where you can begin to monetize CS because these customers don't mind paying extra services, but ultimately they want to derive a high level of value from your product and service.

Takeaway #3

Monetizing CS doesn’t work all that well for startups, but is absolutely something to consider implementing down the line. For mature companies, the first step is always this: segment your customers. By segmenting you can find out the spend and size of your customer base, and then categorize them.

A little bit about our guest

Swati’s been working in the post-sales process of business for nearly 17 years of her career, her current position amalgamating customer success, support, and renewals. Having worked in, and built up, organizations in all different scales and sizes has given her a very good in-depth experience in different flavors of tech, as well as SaaS. From her experience, Swati knows a thing or two about monetizing the CS function.

Be on the series!

Do you have a thing or two to say about customer success? Or maybe you want to share your thoughts on the industry, your own career journey, and the tips and tactics that have brought you success?

Whatever it is, we’re always looking to elevate new stories and tidbits of wisdom on CS Connect and encourage you to get involved!