Ray Roth: Scaled facilitation lead
SaaS (Software as a Service), is:
- Cloud-based software
- Subscription based model
- Vendor handles maintenance, updates, and infrastructure
SaaS vs. Traditional Software:
- Traditional is a one time purchase, on premise
- SaaS has an ongoing value, is scalable and accessible anywhere
- Faster innovation cycle, less IT dependency
business model of SaaS companies:
- Recurring Revenue based on MRR/ARR (monthly recurring revenue and annual recurring revenue)
- sell, expand, renew is the main goal.
- customer lifetime value (CLTV) is greater then the acquisition cost
There are 3 Key Metrics for SaaS companies:
- Churn (when clients are leaving) & retention rates
- net revenue retention (NRR)
- product adoption & health scores
pivot from meeting counts to product adoption:
- it is more important to have higher adoption rates, rather than how many meetings we are doing. but meeting counts still matter to keep up with customers
- insufficient adoption can indicate challenges
- during onboarding
- gaps in knowledge
- missed opportunities to leverage new features
Current SaaS market trends
- AI powered experiences
- consolidation of tools
- Product led growth (PLG) on the rise, growing your business through the products that you use
From seats to resolution based pricing
The traditional model is pricing based on number of users (seats) but the emerging model (zendesk model) pricing tied to outcomes, like number of tickets resolved or messages handled
Why shift to the emerging model?
- better alignment with customer value
- Scales with business outcomes, not headcount
- enables customers to justify ROI more clearly
Role of Customer Success in SaaS
- adoption drives retention
- proactive engagement reduces churn
- CS = revenue protector + growth enabler (CSQL - )
Why customer success is failing? We lack focus on implementation and that is where customers want more help.
What does good look like?
- map the real customer journey
- Redefine post sales roles, eliminate overlap
- coordinate the front lines
- rethink AI before you deploy it, don't automate broken processes
- prioritize self service, autonomy
Internal stakeholders & Account teams
What is an account team? 3 main pieces
- Account executive
- primary contact for customer
- Customer Success Manager, success plan
- Account health and value realization
- Own executive business reviews
- support in expansion opportunities and ROI value planning
- Advocacy
- technical support
- troubleshooting
Personas & responsibilities
We have multiple personas and we list them ahead:
- SDR/BDR - Sales development
- Lead qualification and pipeline generation
- involved before CSM
- Review notes from early customer interactions to best understand customer pain points
2. AE - Sales owner, person CSM works more closely to
- Closing new business and expansion opportunities
- focused on revenue and deal strategy
- CSM to ensure that promises made during sales cycle are realistic and can be tied to realized value
3. Renewals Manager - contract owner
- manages the end to end renewal process and timing
-
CSM to ensure the customer is experiencing realized value before renewal conversation begin
4. Professional services (expensive, only when actually our customer can utilize)
- focused on implementation, integrations and technically scoped projects
- Typically involved in onboarding larger more strategic changes
- CSMs maintain clear business goals and align PS when appropriate.
5. Partners
- occasionally handle sales and services depending on the region and account type
- Primary interface with a customer
- CSMs must understand partner roles and customer dynamics to maintain alignment on messaging and delivery with customers
Resources:
Internal Stakeholders presentation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Y7uazm3hYC8_GbSUlHZSsRi6CJuClT6FHzu-oKfLOHg/edit?slide=id.g34d387e7197_0_630#slide=id.g34d387e7197_0_630
Intro to SaaS presentation: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1V96GqexP4UehIzwtxmtjZQR6cv8vMQTeLixa8o508gg/edit?slide=id.g34d387e7197_0_630#slide=id.g34d387e7197_0_630
Zoom recording of internal stakeholders and intro to SaaS presentation (Passcode: FM7^gOrk):
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