CS Data Points to share with C Suite

Brian Hansen

Hello! Our CS team is performing well, so we want to demonstrate that with the senior leaders in our organization. Does anyone have examples of key data points that have resonated with folks in the C-Suite? I know NRR is good for lagging and MAU shows adoption. Anything else jump out? Thanks for any thoughts!

Ed Powers

@Brian Hansen, I've found that it's best to know your audience and what motivates them. Leaders in the C-suite are less concerned about tactical metrics in Customer Success and more concerned with company valuation. This is driven by expectations of the private and institutional investors (VCs and PE firms) funding the company.

As you note, VCs tend to be concerned with rapid revenue growth and NRR. Bessemer Ventures says a 2% improvement in churn increases company valuation by 20%. Best-in-class performance is considered to be less than 5% churn and greater than 120% NRR. Private Equity firms tend to be more concerned about EBITDA, so moderate growth coupled with profitability and productivity improvements tend to dominate the conversations. 

High on your list of priorities should be to clearly and credibly show the connection between what you do and how it impacts company valuation. This means quantifying the causes of customer churn, retention, and growth by analyzing data that comes directly from customers. Then show cause-and-effect relationships between the tasks your team performs and the economic benefits (reducing churn, increasing CLTV, reducing CTS). Pareto analysis, factor analysis, and regression can all be used to build a compelling business case and secure more funding and resources to grow your team. 

Of course, it takes time and expertise to collect and properly analyze the data. In the meantime, I've found sharing customer stories, especially recorded in their own words, helps build the intuitive case. At the end of the day, however, you'll need to do both.

Brian Hansen

This is fantastic, Ed. Thank you for this insight. It's very helpful to have this point of view laid out.

Rick Emery

(Credible) Customer Health and Journey Metrics are also informative to the executive team: Especially as they lead to the key moments that trigger renewals,  cross- and up-sells, and churn

Matt Moody

A breakdown of your customer segments along with the changes (hopefully increase) in each segment's CLV and lifecycle duration will be well received.

Anita Toth

@Brian Hansen  Picking up on the last part of @Ed Powers's reply, the most powerful method to support your statements about how the actions of your team are impacting the company valuations is to use video snippets of your customers. 

Talking about what your team is doing is great but showing a customer talking about the impacts your team is having on them is incredibly powerful.

Nothing like hearing it from the customer directly to really drive home your point. ?

Brian Hansen

Thank you for the comments, Anita. That's where I think Gong can come into play - savings stories by ROI category for easy call back!

Anita Toth

Absolutely @Brian Hansen. Gong, Wingman or even Zoom calls are perfect for supporting the points you're trying to make.

(And you may be surprised by the types of conversations those snippets generate. ??)

Brian Hansen

I really like the idea of customer segmentation, Matt. I'm experiencing that now where that type of breakout can lead to changes in how we communicate with certain customers so showing a plan/result around that strategy sounds impactful. Thank you!