How to determine Customer Success Effectiveness in Product Led Growth?

How do we understand the effectiveness of our Customer Success initiatives in driving PLG revenue?

The customer success effectiveness begins the moment a customer interacts with our product and platform, marking the true starting point of customer success in a PLG model. We have to reach out and make sure there's no friction, helping them have a successful adoption. We're aiming to boost the number of customers who activate.

The Foundation: Onboarding and Activation

The effectiveness of customer success in driving revenue is rooted in the initial stages of customer interaction. As customers begin to onboard onto our PLG platform, our focus should be on:

1. Reaching out proactively

2. Eliminating friction

3. Ensuring successful adoption

4. Increasing activation metrics

Our primary goal is to boost the percentage of customers activating on our platform. When we see a high activation rate, we can confidently say we've achieved the first milestone in successful customer success.

Building Trust and Its Correlation to Revenue

We believe there's a strong correlation between effective customer success and positive trust. However, it's important to note that while trust is crucial, it doesn't automatically translate to increased revenue. Instead, trust serves as a powerful indicator for:

• Locking down renewal revenue

• Increasing the likelihood of customer retention

Customer success, therefore, plays a dual role: building trust and ensuring successful onboarding. These factors combined equate to a higher probability of customer retention, renewals, and ultimately, revenue protection.

The PLG Advantage: User Experience and Trust

Our product-led growth strategy gives us a unique edge. By allowing customers to use our platform from day one, we're fostering trust in ways our competitors can't match. This approach offers several benefits:

• Immediate platform access without lengthy sales demos

• Users can adapt to our platform's user experience quickly

• Increased likelihood of continued engagement

The fact that we offer free access, unlike many competitors, further enhances trust. It signals to potential customers that we're confident in our product and willing to let it speak for itself.

When we talk about building trust, we've had customers say, "Hey, I trust you guys. That's why I want to go with your platform and product." A lot of that trust comes from a mix of customer success and the product-led growth approach. We give the product to our customers, to our end users, and they can use it right away. They can learn the platform without going through all these sales demos and pitches from competitors.

From Adoption to Revenue: The Customer Success Sweet Spot

From day one, users can sign up and use our platform. They get adapted to our platform's user experience right off the bat. Because they're so used to our user experience, when they see new features or advanced features behind paywalls, they're more likely to think, "Okay, I've made it this far, might as well continue my investment." This familiarity makes them more receptive to further investment.

The fact that we give them free access, unlike our competitors, also says, "Hey, this is a fantastic deal." It encourages them to take that baby step of trust with our team.

Customer Success “jumps” from trust to revenue protection

The key to driving revenue through customer success lies in striking the right balance. It's not about being a cost center, but about reassuring customers and guiding them through their journey. While there may be a few "jumps" that customer success can make to drive revenue directly, the real power lies in building that foundation of trust and satisfaction.

In conclusion, effective customer success in a PLG model is about more than just support—it's a strategic driver of revenue, built on the pillars of trust, user experience, and continuous value delivery.

Read these other posts about Product Led Growth and Customer Success

• Product-Led Growth Customer Success: Metrics, Upsells, and Data [with examples] 🤔

• Track Churn & At-Risk Customers in Product-Led Growth 📉

• Stop losing customers 🛑

• 5 reasons customers churn 🔍

• What is Customer Engagement 👍🏼
  

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I am Gary Yau Chan. 3x Head of Growth. Product Growth specialist. 26x hackathon winner. I write about #PLG and #BuildInPublic. Please follow me on LinkedIn, or read about what you can hire me for on my Notion page.