Key Questions
- What are the keys to great customer support and success?
- How can I set realistic expectations for customers?
- How do I resolve tensions between what the customer asks for and what I’m able to deliver?
- Is the customer always right?
- How can I best collect unbiased feedback from customers?
- What are good ways to accurately measure customer satisfaction?
- How should I handle an upset or disappointed customer?
- When – if ever – should I fire a customer?
- When should I hire my first customer support rep? Customer success rep?
Start Here
Dharmesh Shah: 3 Tips to Stay Close to Your Customers as Your Company Grows
(6 min video.) In this video Shah offers three key strategies for founders to stay close to customers as their companies grow. First, he recommends starting all hands meetings with customer interviews, allowing employees to hear real customer stories and feedback. Second, Shah suggests piping real-time customer survey data, such as Net Promoter Scores, into a Slack channel to keep the team informed and engaged with customer sentiments. Finally, he emphasizes the importance of direct customer interaction, encouraging leaders to spend regular time in customer support, responding to social media, or engaging in customer forums to maintain a personal connection with customers.
Dharmesh Shah: Ask for Feedback, and Act On It
(3 min read.) Shah discusses the importance of not only asking for customer feedback but also acting on it, in this article. While HubSpot has numerous channels for collecting feedback, they recognized the challenge in implementing changes based on that feedback. To address this, HubSpot launched the “Sharp Edges” initiative and appointed a global Voice of the Customer lead to centralize, analyze, and prioritize customer feedback. Shah stresses the need for companies to use data to infer customer satisfaction and act proactively. He believes that companies excelling in this will achieve unstoppable growth.
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Jason Lemkin: Getting From $1M – $10M ARR Making Improvements to Drive Customer Success Scores
(7 min video.) Jason addresses common pitfalls that founders encounter as they attempt to accelerate growth in B2B sectors. He emphasizes the importance of resisting the urge to prematurely diversify into new market segments without existing customers in those areas. Specifically, he advises against expanding into verticals where no proven demand exists from the first hundred customers, as this can lead to inefficient resource allocation and little return on investment. Instead, the focus should be on making incremental improvements within the current customer base to naturally tilt growth upwards. He suggests waiting until reaching around $8-10 million in revenue before considering expansion into new segments, at which point the company will likely have the necessary resources and team size to explore new opportunities without significant risk. Additionally, he highlights the critical role of driving up Net Promoter Scores (NPS) and customer satisfaction (CSAT) as a strategy to enhance growth and customer loyalty effectively.
Dharmesh Shah: I Don’t Mind Paying, but I Do Mind Being Played
(3 min read.) Shah discusses the importance of transparent and fair pricing in maintaining customer trust and satisfaction. Initially delayed from launching the Customer Code, Shah highlights how HubSpot addressed customer grievances about complex billing by improving communication around renewals and reducing notice periods for non-renewal. By proactively informing customers about changes in their usage, HubSpot minimized unexpected billing surprises. Shah emphasizes that while customers are willing to pay, they dislike feeling deceived by confusing pricing structures. Transparent and straightforward pricing not only fosters trust but also drives business growth, as evidenced by WashCard’s successful implementation.
Dharmesh Shah: Solve for My Success, Not Your Systems
(4 min read.) Dharmesh discusses prioritizing customer success over internal systems. He recalls HubSpot’s outdated support process in 2013, which was revamped not by upgrading the phone system but by eliminating the tiered call structure and enhancing frontline staff training. This change allowed customers to resolve issues quickly, improving their experience significantly. Shah admits that despite progress, According to Shah, HubSpot still struggles with system-centric practices, like delaying lead follow-ups for data enrichment. He acknowledges the need for continuous improvement to ensure systems serve customer success rather than hinder it.
Dharmesh Shah: Don’t Block the Exit
(4 min read.) Dharmesh discusses the significance of making it easy for customers to cancel or downgrade services. Shah shares a story about a customer who felt trapped due to stringent cancellation policies, highlighting the emotional impact on both the customer and the customer success manager. Shah emphasizes that businesses should not block exits, as this can ruin relationships and deter future business. By making cancellations simple and transparent, companies not only improve customer satisfaction but also leave the door open for customers to return, ultimately fostering better long-term growth.
Dharmesh Shah: 3 Simple Things That Predictably Delight Customers
(5 min video.) Shah emphasizes the importance of word-of-mouth and customer referrals in purchasing decisions across all levels of an organization. To create delighted customers, businesses must engage with them however, whenever, and with whatever they want. Shah shares an anecdote highlighting the frustration of misaligned customer service communication methods, underscoring the need for businesses to be accessible via the customer’s preferred channels, such as messaging apps. He points out the increasing importance of real-time engagement, noting the higher conversion rates associated with chat features on websites. Shah advocates for flexibility in customer interactions to enhance satisfaction and success.
Dharmesh Shah: Own Your Screw-Ups
(4 min read.) Shah underscores that acknowledging and addressing mistakes is crucial, as it fosters trust and loyalty among customers, leading to better growth. He recounts how HubSpot’s INBOUND 2015 event faced significant issues due to overcrowded sessions. The team, led by Kim Darling, took immediate action to mitigate the problem by adding encore sessions and enhancing communication. Post-event, the focus shifted to long-term improvements, including strategic pricing, pre-registration, and capping attendance to prioritize customer experience over rapid growth.
Dharmesh Shah: Treat Me Like a Person, Not a Persona
(4 min read.) Shah emphasizes the importance of treating customers as unique individuals rather than just personas. While personas help align business strategies, real engagement comes from addressing individual needs and goals. Shah highlights HubSpot’s success in improving email clickthrough rates by directly asking customers what they want to learn about, rather than inferring from previous interactions. Similarly, HubSpot’s sales approach focuses on individual goals rather than traditional metrics. Shah acknowledges progress in customer communication but aims for personalized onboarding experiences to maintain high customer satisfaction, even for additional users within the same company.
Dharmesh Shah: The Hubspot Customer Code
(128 slide presentation.) Shah outlines principles for creating a customer-centric company in this article. He emphasizes earning customer attention, treating customers as individuals, and solving for their success rather than the company’s processes. Shah advocates for using customer data responsibly, seeking and acting on feedback, and owning mistakes to build trust. He stresses helping customers help themselves, maintaining transparent pricing, and making it easy to leave if necessary. The code promotes doing the right thing, especially when difficult, to build lasting relationships and ensure long-term success. HubSpot commits to continuous improvement based on these tenets and Shah encourages businesses to adopt similar practices.
Dee Kapila: The Missing Link Between PLG and SLG
(15 min read.) Dee addresses the longstanding divide between Product-Led Growth (PLG) and Sales-Led Growth (SLG) by introducing a new, integrated approach termed “scaled customer experience (CX).” This strategy synergizes the strengths of both PLG and SLG, emphasizing the importance of a holistic customer journey that reduces friction and enhances engagement without necessitating a large customer success team. Kapila’s strategy involves a detailed audit of existing engagement frameworks, followed by the implementation of a scaled CX model that includes customer education, digital success, and content production, all aimed at automating and enhancing the customer journey at Miro. Kapila talks about how this approach seeks to provide a seamless experience for users, making the company a part of the customer’s daily business operations and decision-making processes, thereby fostering deeper relationships and ensuring sustained growth.
Stewart Butterfield: An Interview With Slack CEO
(Final 6 mins of 28 mins video.) Butterfield shares his entrepreneurial journey during an interview with Ryan Smith, co-founder and CEO of Qualtrics. Butterfield discusses the origins of both Flickr and Slack, highlighting their accidental creation from failed game projects. His initial fascination with internet-based human interaction during his college years at the University of Utah laid the groundwork for his later ventures. Flickr emerged from a failed game as a side project that utilized existing technology, later acquired by Yahoo. Similarly, Slack originated from another failed game, using an internal communication system developed during the game’s creation. Butterfield reflects on the evolution of Slack, emphasizing its growth from an internal tool into a major communication platform with millions of daily active users globally. He underscores the importance of maintaining a customer-focused approach in product development, likening it to being a thoughtful host, anticipating and addressing user needs to create a seamless and respectful user experience.
Alfred Lin: Excellence in Customer Service
(3 min read.) Alfred shares insights from his Zappos experience at the Customer Service Game Changers event, emphasizing a customer-obsessed culture across all service aspects. Zappos treated every interaction as a loyalty-building chance, focusing on empathy over efficiency. Lin highlights their minimal routing approach, empowering employees to handle diverse issues effectively. Instead of standard metrics, Zappos prioritized response time and first-contact resolution, correlating with customer satisfaction. Daily team huddles encouraged continuous improvement, integrating customer feedback into operations. This approach differentiated Zappos, leading to significant service improvements. Lin sees potential in AI redefining customer service further.
Tomasz Tunguz: The Three Types of Customer Success Teams
(3 min read.) In this article, Tunguz discusses how a decade after Gainsight pioneered the customer success category, the sector continues to evolve, segmenting into three distinct team types. Tunguz describes the hybrid CSAM (Customer Success Account Manager) role, fitting for low ACV, self-serve environments like PLG-motions and freemium startups, which combines technical support with account expansion responsibilities. Mid-market companies typically employ a trio for customer engagement: an account executive, a customer success manager (CSM), and a support team, transitioning customer relationships post-sale for retention and expansion. High ACV entities with complex deployments often involve an account executive, sales engineer, support team, and CSM, though modern strategies like Snowflake’s, as reshaped by Frank Slootman, suggest a leaner approach to enhance role ownership and reduce costs, questioning the need for a separate customer success department to ensure other departments remain proactive in customer engagement.
Melissa Kwan: Leveraging Technology to Help Customer Success Scale
(26 min video.) Melissa emphasizes the importance of automating repetitive tasks like onboarding and training, allowing customer success teams to focus on strategic activities rather than routine sessions. Kwan highlights the transformation in content delivery and consumption, urging businesses to adapt to consumer-driven expectations similar to those in B2C markets, enhancing engagement and personalization in the B2B sector.
Jack Altman: Customer Service Isn’t a Department
(2 min read.) In this article, Jack emphasizes the integral role of customer service in shaping a company’s success. At Teespring, he observes that customer service is a priority shared by all employees, drawing parallels to Amazon’s practice where every staff member, including Jeff Bezos, engages in customer service. Jack argues that direct customer interaction fosters a deeper understanding of customer needs, enhancing company growth through increased user retention and advocacy. Despite its accessibility, great customer service requires significant investment and attention, akin to mastering a skill, making it vital for sustained business success.