Software Customer Success Case Study

This global services company was not growing as fast as the competition due to high churn rates; resulting in revenue loss in 2016 and revenue contracting. The company was spending more on customer care than the pursuit of new revenue, without yielding the desired results.

SBI produced a Customer Success Assessment which identified several areas of opportunity with the Customer Success organization and its key cross-functional interlocks with Sales, Operations, Pricing and Marketing. SBI also performed Account Segmentation to understand which opportunities would drive retention and growth.

Through the account segmentation, SBI collaborated with the company to produce an Account Prioritization. SBI’s account prioritization identified 350 accounts with sufficient revenue and potential to achieve the company’s 2018 growth targets. The analysis demonstrated that through focusing on over-serving the critical few vs. the trivial many, they could return to organic growth and ultimately grow faster than their industry and competitors. This also allowed the company to deploy a new, flatter organization.

The assessment uncovered the following recommendations and outcomes:

• SBI identified two individuals to promote and 10 to replace after assessing 27 Customer Success Leaders and Individual Contributors
• Produced a Customer Lifecycle Process to proactively manage renewals, cross-sell, and up-sell opportunities, which identified roles and responsibilities to increase efficiency and effectiveness
• Recommended targeted compensation plan investments to better align with the market
• Provided Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the Customer Success team

Revenue growth from customer retention grew by $500K with the additional benefit of $400K savings in 2017 for a more efficient organizational design.