Checking the pulse of Customer Success

I recently attended Pulse Europe 2015, the first European version of the increasingly successful Pulse conference normally hosted in San Francisco. It is sponsored by Gainsight who provide a Customer Success solution and much thought leadership around the growing trend of Customer Success.

Having the opportunity to network with other people that have similar enthusiasm and passion for what is a relatively new concept was fantastic.

At Avecto I am always looking for ways to take our customer satisfaction to the next level. Our customer success team work throughout a customer’s journey, from saying hello on day one, checking in through the implementation, regular account review meetings, through the support renewal period and beyond. Our mission is simple. Help customers to make a success of investing in Avecto’s software, help them solve the security issues they once had, and build a relationship that sets Avecto apart from other software vendors.

It’s safe to say that I am a Customer Success geek. So when I arrived at London’s Park Lane Hilton and sat down in the glamorous chandelier clad ballroom surrounded by 400 other Customer Success veterans, advocates, and geeks, I felt like I was home.

The guest speakers were relevant and distinguished. I learnt about how best to survey a customer base and build a true NPS (Net Promoter Score) from Customer Success at SurveyMonkey:

Top Tip: Keep it simple: Customers today are flooded with surveys – in all parts of their lives. To maximise the value of the responses to your questions keep surveys between 10-20 questions and never have them take longer than 15 minutes to complete.

In addition to the speaker slots, I found myself enthralled with the opening and closing speeches from Gainsight’s CEO Nick Mehta. He evangelised the mission of Customer Success:

Top Tip: Deliver outcomes not products: At a time when customers are used to low friction sign ups to services there is also a higher trend for churn due to the low friction to leave. A Customer Success department will not only cover risk management and churn reduction for the business but also deliver an experience to customers that builds loyalty to the brand.

For me, the whole conference was probably only one yoga session short of being a cathartic retreat for the soul of a Customer Success Manager.

So what did I take away from the first European Customer Success conference? Here’s my top five things:

1. A revitalized belief in Customer Success – there are others out there striving to achieve the same thing as me, with the same genuine passion as me, where the customer is king.
2. Ideas about how Avecto can scale our Customer Success team as our business grows and our loyal customer base continues to expand.
3. New insight on surveying best practice and defining NPS.
4. New connections and an expanded support network for all things Customer Success on social media.
5. An Austin Powers fancy dress outfit (don’t ask)

If you want to stay in touch with what Avecto are doing around Customer Success do check in on my posts on the Avecto blog site and follow me on Twitter.