I speak to CS leaders every day about retaining customers.
And growing customers.
Here are some basics that many leaders miss.
1️⃣ YOU NEED TO EARN THE RIGHT TO SELL MORE TO CUSTOMERS
If you’re trying to upsell customers that aren’t already getting 10Xs ROI on their investment, you’re not only wasting your time – you’re risking serious relationship damage.
When your customers are getting the outcomes you promised, upsell just happens.
2️⃣ GROWTH IS YOUR BEST RETENTION STRATEGY
We spend so much time arguing over how to split retention and upsell between Sales and CS, we forget that growing customers is the best way to keep them.
CS needs to always be looking to expand value with new users and use cases – whether the customer pays more or not.
If all your focus is what you sold yesterday, there is nowhere to go but down.
3️⃣ GRR IS JUST AS IMPORTANT AS NRR
A focus on Net Revenue Retention can hide serious churn problems.
A couple of large upsells with big customers masks churn problems in other parts of the customer base.
When those big upsells dry up, NRR plummets.
Pay attention to Gross Revenue Retention to avoid nasty surprises.
I learned all 3 of these lessons the hard way.
And I wish I could tell you I only learned them once.
So be smarter than me.
