Customer Success

The Bones Of Business

Last week I spoke about the importance of sales in the success of a business. I referred to sales as the heart of a company. Keeping with that anatomical theme, I like to think of customer success as the skeleton of a business. While sales keeps monetary gain constantly flowing throughout the economy, customer success is the frame that holds a solid business together. Customer success is what upholds a company's relationship with their clientele, and the most important thing to having a successful business is a healthy and happy client base that believes in your product. Without a customer success representative, that client base can easily fall apart, thus destroying the life force of a business. As Jamie Swensgard (customer success rep. for Flexitouch Medical) put it in an interview about the importance of customer success, “my role is the last impression that the client has regarding the company.” Keeping that in mind, we can see how this role is responsible for maintaining a good relationship with customers, and how without it a company can begin to lose its clientele.

Customer success is a very important role that absolutely needs to be filled, but like many important job roles, it's not an easy one. People in these roles may have to handle hundreds of client accounts at once and be ready to assist clients with their questions or concerns. They may need to be ready to aid new customers in proper use of their product, and to make things even harder, they often have to deal with customers who had a negative experience and are upset with the company so that they can set things right to maintain positive business rapport. For these reasons, this role takes hardworking and diligent people. Employees who know how to manage their time very well and keep track of everything they have going on at once. Because in some cases this job can seem like a balancing act, it takes a lot of focus to do well. Making it a more difficult but important employment opportunity.

Similar to a role in sales, people in customer success have to have faith in their company and product. Because these representatives provide a final impression of the business, it is imperative that they make their company shine among its competitors. Without faith in what you represent, you won’t give off a confident vibe, and without that, and if you can't be confident in your product then why should the customer be. However this role takes it a step further. In sales it's a one and done deal, you go in, demonstrate the product, close a sale, and you’re done. Customer success is an ongoing process that involves being there for your clientele whenever they need you to be, and upholding your company’s reputation. Without a good customer success team, your reputation can be easily diminished, your client base can shrink, and you lose the foundation of your business which ultimately leads to it’s demise. This is why this role is so important in the business arena. Without it, our economy couldn't function the way it does

-Braden Schmidt 10/13/2019