By Will Lopez
Several years ago, when I was starting my career in customer success, a client called me unexpectedly to let me know that she would not be renewing the contract. I was surprised and embarrassed. How did I not see this coming? I had a good relationship with the client, she was using the product. What went wrong? I called her back and asked for candid feedback, and she told me that it was not her decision. It was up to her boss.
Since then, I have believed strongly in calculating a rigid, comprehensive customer health score.
In this case, my client was the only person in her organization with a license and she used the product, but not enough. There was no stickiness. So instead of being a must-have, our product was not essential. I had vision into the relationship, but there were elements that I missed. I learned that calculating a health score is not enough. You have to calculate the score well.
The first step is identifying the metrics you want to measure. I always start with questions. Is the customer logging in for 15 minutes or for 2 hours? Once a day or once a week? Are they using some features more than others? Who else should be trained and given a license? Has the client paid on time? Do I have a relationship with others in the organization? Has the client provided feedback on features? Then I organize these questions into categories and I work the process backward to see if I missed anything.
The next step is to enter these metrics into a customer success tool. There are several options in the market, such as Gainsight, Strikedeck, Totango and Planhat. You can also use a CRM like Salesforce or Hubspot (although it will take a little more work). I chose ChurnZero. The advantage of a customer success management tool is that you can pair your scores with customer journeys and alerts, and then create a communications cadence. This allows you to identify accounts at risk of churn before renewal time so you can take action and change that path.
I believe that customer success starts in the sales process, but the quality of the onboarding will influence the health of the partnership. I have created customer journeys that start at the first onboarding. Journeys help me set clear expectations and goals, both for customers and my team. The alerts help me monitor each customer’s experience, and if a client gets stuck I am able to jump in and get them back on track.
Like the phrase suggests, a Customer Health Score is a comprehensive assessment of overall client satisfaction and happiness with your product. It measures not just one factor but everything that is important. It’s like an ongoing checkup. You would never go to the doctor just to check on your kidneys, right? How about your heart, your blood and your lungs? Our health is the overall state of our body. The same applies to the health of customers and our accounts.
Calculating comprehensively a Customer Health Score does not only help you in predicting churn but it can highlight expansion opportunities and inform product development. Most importantly, a comprehensive customer health assessment helps you turn your detractors into champions who see you as a facilitator of their success.
Taking a rigorous look at this helped me never be surprised again.
Do you need help developing a score that aligns with what customer health really means for your organization? The Success League is a customer success consulting firm that can help you identify the right health score components, and report on the overall health and risk levels of your customer base. For more information please visit our website – TheSuccessLeague.io
Will Lopez - Will brings 10 years of experience to Phone2Action. His focus on delivering customers' goals and outcomes has created relationships with senior executives from organizations, such as American Heart Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, to Fortune-500 companies, such as Walmart and JP Morgan Chase. Will’s dedication to the customer experience has led to improved retention and revenue growth.