About the Research
In October 2015, Natero conducted an online survey on Customer Success Performance Metrics to look into what Customer Success teams were responsible for, the metrics used to evaluate their performance, and the use of tools in the performance review process. Over one hundred customer success professionals across a variety of organizations took part in the survey.
The Growing Responsibilities of Customer Success Teams
The responses to the first question of their survey underscore a trend that has been growing stronger over the past five years, where the CS team has been taking on responsibility for more functional roles in the typical organizational chart. Customer Support, for example, — over 54% of the respondents said that their CS team were also responsible for Support. 66% said that they have Training or Education as part of their organization. Over half are also responsible for On-boarding. This reflects the growing awareness that the traditional organizational structure no longer fits in the era of subscription customer relationships.
Customer Success Performance Metrics
The data from the questions regarding performance metrics: which do you use, which do you not use, which would you like to use? — is likewise no surprise. Metrics have been a constant discussion topic in The Customer Success Forum on LinkedIn for years. There are no standards, and in all likelihood, there won’t be, for the definition of what is Customer Success remains extremely variable across companies. The same words are used, but the meaning of the terms are in practice often very different.
The Use of Tools in Customer Success Performance Review
The final question was about the use of tools for measuring CSM performance, and just over 20% claimed to be using a customer success management solution for this purpose. That seems very high to me, as my conversations with CS execs all across the community indicate that few teams have actually installed CS-specific tools. This is good news for Natero and other manufacturers of CS technology.
The results of the survey may be viewed/downloaded by members of The Customer Success Association. (The basic membership is free. If you don’t see a link below for the Survey Results, you’ll need to log in and then return to this page. Not a member yet? Use the link in the right-side footer menu to join. )
