There is a new kind of economy in the marketplace—the “subscription economy.” Subscription models, like those used by Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies, create a much lower barrier for entry for customers and allow for much higher adoption rates of new and innovative services.
On the flipside, the barrier for exit has also been reduced. Customers are much more likely to leave if their experience isn’t consistently stellar.
However, delivering an amazing customer experience shouldn’t fall entirely on the shoulders of your customer success team. Your marketing team’s efforts should be aligned with your customer success strategy to create a better experience throughout the entire customer lifecycle. Creating long-term relationships with your customers— and turning them into successful advocates for your brand—is much easier when these teams work together.
That’s why Influitive paired up with the customer success specialists at Gainsight to explain how this can be done. In our latest eBook, Customer Success and Marketing Alignment: The Key to Unlocking Customer Advocacy, you’ll learn how to leverage the strengths of your customer success and marketing teams to develop loyal and dedicated advocates among your customer base. Visit our VIP Community to download the eBook and ask questions about the content.
Here are five points in the customer’s lifecycle where marketing and customer success can align to enrich the customer experience:
- Buyer’s Journey. Surrounding your buyers with social proof generated by advocates reinforces the wisdom of their decision to sign on with you. Advocates can be found by your marketing team via discussions on social networks and communities across the web, or identified by your customer success team when they’re looking for customer case studies or testimonials.
- Closed Deal. Introducing members from both the customer success and marketing teams during your first kickoff meeting provides a “soft intro” so marketing can reach out later. Marketing may also have the budget to send a card and a small token of appreciation to welcome your newest customer to the family.
- Onboarding. Customers are most excited about your project when they first sign up. Take advantage of that by ask them to join your advocate marketing program as soon as they start the onboarding process. Ensure that both of these experiences are engaging them in unique and valuable ways.
- Implementation. Once your new customer has experienced their first taste of real value from your product, this is the time for marketing and customer success to lay the foundation for advocacy. Celebrate the win, both internally and externally with the customer, and start building their success story.
- Adoption and expansion. Have your customer success team identify other users and customer executives who can be converted into advocates by the marketing team. Make these new contacts feel valued and provide them with content and programs tailored specifically for their relative positions and roles.
Download the full eBook for more advice on how aligning your marketing and customer success strategies can bring your customer’s experience to the next level.
