Customer Success in a Product Led Model

Esben Friis-Jensen

Hi all, I am one of the founders and previously Chief Customer Officer of Cobalt.io and now founder of Userflow.com. 

More and more SaaS businesses are moving to a product-led model especially for their smaller customer segments, but also for the later stages for their larger segments. -  How do you see Customer Success fitting into this process?

Dan Balcauski

Hi Esben,

That's a good question. Often, when other functions hear about the term Product-Led Growth, they assume it somehow diminishes their role or organization. However, this is a misunderstanding. PLG rests on the fundamental truth that Product is your only scalable differentiator. Therefore, the organization's philosophy should be that the Product leads the customer experience and human interactions come after. Note this does not mean that the human touch doesn't come at all, but rather the organization should drive the customer experience first through the product. 

In short, what this means is a continuous drive to look for automation opportunities through the product so that humans can focus on what they do best and the areas that the product cannot lead the customer experience. 

Does that help?

-Dan

Lane Holt

Great question! Customer Success compliments the PLG process. You have to have a firm grasp on the core components of CS to also be successful in PLG.

For example, a core component of Customer Success is understanding what your customers are trying to accomplish and their desired outcomes. If you don't build your PLG model without this in mind, you can easily build what you think is the desired path only to find out later you might not be supporting your customers towards their goals.