Digital Customer Success

Automate your Customer Success efforts to reduce churn and increase profits

In Digital Customer Success: The Next Frontier, a team of trailblazing Customer Success professionals and digital entrepreneurs delivers an insightful discussion of the next stage in Customer Success management. In the book, you'll discover how to design and deploy touchless and automated digital interventions that help your software users learn and grow as they use your product and unlock the value trapped within it — without ever needing to reach out to a live Customer Success Manager.

The authors provide a detailed “How-To” guide to Digital Customer Success that explains how you can meet the needs of your customers, investors, and team members. You'll explore the basics of the authors' original Digital Customer Success Maturity Model and the core tenets of how to get started. After that, you'll find:

• Explanations of the ideal organizational structures to enable Digital Customer Success management
• Case studies and examples from real companies blazing new trails in Customer Success
• Critical success measurements and metrics you can use to determine if your company is on the right track or if it needs to reorient

Perfect for managers, executives, directors, founders, entrepreneurs, and other business leaders involved in the sale of digital and software products, Digital Customer Success is also a can't-miss resource for Customer Success professionals, sales leaders, marketers, product development professionals, and anyone else with a stake in reducing customer churn and increasing revenues.

Foreword vii

Chapter 1 The High-Speed Evolution of Customer Success 1

Chapter 2 Durable Business Strategies to Fuel Long-Term Success 19

Chapter 3 Digital Customer Success Is a Strategic Program 35

Chapter 4 The Digital Customer Success Maturity Model 53

Chapter 5 Launching the Proactive Phase of Your Digital CS Program 71

Chapter 6 Evolving to the Personalized Phase 93

Chapter 7 Evolving to the Predictive Phase 111

Chapter 8 Launching Your First Digital Initiative 129

Chapter 9 Company-Wide Digital Program Governance and Cross-Functional Collaboration 155

Chapter 10 Optimizing Your Digital Toolkit 175

Chapter 11 The Ability to Be More Human 197

Acknowledgments 205

About the Authors 207

Notes 209

Index 215

NICK MEHTA is the CEO of Gainsight, a leading customer success company, and the bestselling co-author of Customer Success: How Innovative Companies Are Reducing Churn and Growing Recurring Revenue.

KELLIE CAPOTE is the Chief Customer Officer at Gainsight. She leads the post-sales organization that includes Customer Success Managers, Support, Professional Services, and Customer Success Operations. She has contributed to publications including Forbes, TechCrunch, CMSWire, and others.

Creating a digital product that delivers value is merely the first step in a long path to company success. You must also ensure your customers know how to unlock the value contained within your software.

In Digital Customer Success, a team of world-leading customer success experts delivers a practical and hands-on exploration of the next stage in the evolution of customer success management. In the book, you’ll discover how to design and create digital interventions that help your software users learn and grow as they use your product without needing to schedule a meeting with a live Customer Success Manager.

The authors offer a detailed “how-to” guide to digital customer success that ensures you can meet the needs of your customers, investors, and team members. After you learn the basics of the included Digital Customer Success Maturity model and the core tenets of how to get started, you’ll consider organizational structures, success measurements, and other concepts that will help you take your customers from adopters to evangelists.

Digital Customer Success provides you with key learnings and tips from real organizations paving the way with their groundbreaking digital customer success strategies. It highlights case studies and examples of companies that have found new and exciting ways to help their customers find stunning amounts of value in their offerings via automated, hybrid, and live interventions.

Perfect for customer success professionals and managers, executives, directors, founders, entrepreneurs, and other business leaders, Digital Customer Success is also a can’t-miss resource for salespeople and sales team leaders, marketers, product designers, software engineers, and anyone else with a stake in ensuring customers know how to use digital products.

Praise for DIGITAL CUSTOMER SUCCESS

“ With deep insights and actionable strategies, this book is an invaluable resource for scaling organizations to create delightful customer experiences.”
—Yamini Rangan, CEO of HubSpot

“ Showcasing the transformative power of Digital Customer Success, this book by industry leaders Nick Mehta and Kellie Capote is game changing. It offers practical examples and actionable strategies for B2B teams aiming to improve business efficiency and strengthen customer relationships across all customer touchpoints.”
—Sue Barsamian, SaaS Board Member

“ In the subscription-oriented as-a-service economy, the Customer Success function is no longer just a retention engine—it is a growth engine that needs to scale as your business expands. Digital Customer Success truly is the next frontier, and I can think of no better guides than Kellie and Nick. Do not miss out on this tectonic shift in your world.”
—Geoffrey Moore, Author, Crossing The Chasm and Zone To Win

“ Nick and Kellie have again charted the future of Customer Success. In-product guidance, digital engagement, prescriptive adoption journeys, and moving to predictive engagement with customers are now the ‘must-haves’ for any company hoping to grow and retain customers in today’s market.”
—John Sabino, Chief Customer Experience Officer, VMware