Barry Devon

Customer satisfaction and retention are intrinsically linked. If you fail to maintain high levels of customer satisfaction, your retention levels will suffer, reducing revenues and profitability and forcing you to invest even more heavily in attracting new business. Conversely, driving up customer satisfaction makes life significantly easier for any SaaS business, with improved revenues, referrals and profitability! 

Below we will look at both Customer Satisfaction and Retention in isolation and how they are linked. We will also review strategies to improve both metrics.

Figuring out the right software stack to help manage your Customer Retention goals can be tricky. It really comes down to what your specific goals are, what type of market you serve, the customer data you retain and where that data resides.

There are some specific types of tools you should consider. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions, Customer Success Platforms (CSPs), Business Intelligence (BI) tools and Helpdesk software could certainly all form part of your stack. 

Introduction

Customer churn is both a phenomenon and a critical metric. It describes the process of customers deciding to stop using or paying for your product or service.

Churn’s impact is felt most keenly in subscription or SaaS companies where there is an imperative to retain customer relationships for as long as possible. How successful you are at churn prevention defines how successful you will be as a SaaS business in the long term.

The following guide explains what customer churn is, its impacts on SaaS business and how you can try to mitigate it to build a more sustainable customer base.

Does taking over 30 thousand steps in 2 days justify eating doughnuts for breakfast?

I hope so … my feet are sore but I’m feeling optimistic after spending 2 days at SaaS Nordic’s Saasiest2023 conference in Malmo, southern Sweden.

I attended to get a live sense of how SaaS companies are feeling about the technology that drives Customer Success in 2023. I had 19 meetings with CEOs, CROs and Heads of CS from Nordic SaaS companies. What is clear is that … everyone is still hyper-focused on growth (no surprise there) but there is a much greater focus on sustainable growth and driving up Net Revenue Retention (NRR) rates than in previous years.

Tldr: skip to the bottom to access a spreadsheet that calculates the Return-on-Investment (ROI) of a Customer Success platform PLUS a quick explainer video on how to use the spreadsheet.

Customer Success Platforms (CSPs) are designed to move the needle on Net Revenue Retention (NRR). Improving your rate of NRR directly impacts your SaaS company’s revenues and profitability. So, why delay? Just invest in one and get on with growing your revenues, right?

As part of a series of short [15-minute] demo/webinars to address some of the key topics in Customer Success. We delivered a session entitled … A Practical Guide to Customer Health Scoring …

In less than 15 minutes, we reviewed:

• What is a Customer Health Score and do you need one?
• What Data should you include and are they associated risks?
• A demonstration of how to practically construct and apply a Customer Health Score.

As part of a series of short [15-minute] demo/webinars to address some of the key topics in Customer Success. We delivered a session focused on … The 360 Customer View …

In less than 15 minutes, we looked at

Join team Akita for a series of 15-minute, no-nonsense, speed demos

Register Below.

We will examine how Customer Success technology can help CSMs move from a complex world of siloed data and manual processes to a place where managing customers is simple.

[TLDR … You can watch a webinar I gave covering the same ground as this post at the bottom of the page ]

It’s a scary time for SaaS. 

With continued pressure from investors to grow in the face of plummeting demand and no real understanding of when or how the economy is likely to rebound, the future is uncertain. As new customers become as rare as hens teeth, finding a way to grow is going to become progressively more difficult.

Unfortunately, there is no magic solution … or is there?

As part of Akita’s recent re-launch, we have been looking at the channels where potential customers (and the CS community in general) can educate themselves about our solution. G2 crowd is a key player in the review/social proof space and forms an important part of most companies evaluation process when shopping for B2B software. It’s clear we need to focus some of our energy on G2.

Before positioning G2 as a core review platform for Akita, we looked at what users were saying about other vendors in our space. It turns out there are 2 reasons for us to be encouraged…

• The vast majority of reviews were positive and demonstrate that CS solutions in general are positioning themselves as core components in the tech stacks of B2B SaaS companies.
• While the feedback is almost universally positive, once you drill down below the ‘stars given’ feature and focus on the ‘What do you dislike?’ section, many limitations with existing platforms become apparent. Often, these are features missing in most platforms but present in Akita!

Below are 20 quotes pulled from the G2.com review site. They relate to [un-named/redacted] Customer Success platforms and identify limitations Akita does not have: