Customer Success: Not Just for Farmers Anymore

At the end of the day it doesn’t matter what we call our efforts to sustain happy and loyal customers; our customers simply want to accomplish things. I call these things jobs and if we are able to help them get these done better than our competitors, there will not be enough perceived gap-in-value to switch services. Sounds simple doesn’t it? And because it sounds so simple, the efforts to minimize (or understand) defecting customers has spent far too long within marketing organizations. We need a longer term and more foundational strategy for dealing with this problem as the providers of these services, and it needs to start before we even get that first customer.

Some of what I propose here you will disagree with. Maybe all of it. But keep in mind the facts I share as you make that assessment.

What is Customer Success Management?

In my experience, the concept of customer success was always aligned to efforts to grow existing our existing relationships. The term often bandied about was