Building Your Customer Function: Your Revenue-Driving Dream Team

The Scoop

Welcome back to "Customer Champions" -- your weekly pit stop in the exhilarating world of Customer Success across Europe and Asia Pacific.

You're out there every day, fine-tuning the engines of customer satisfaction and business growth. That's why this week, we're popping the hood to examine the "Key Components of a Customer Function" and how they power the modern business machine.

What's revving up in this week's edition?

• Featured: We're breaking down the essential components of a modern Customer Function, with real-world examples from companies that have turbocharged their CS departments.

• Quick Tips: Actionable strategies to optimise each component of your Customer Function.

• Industry Spotlight: We're shining a light on a CS leader who's engineered a high-performance Customer Function.

• Tool Spotlight: Discover a CS tool that helps integrate all components of your Customer Function.

Whether you're a solo CS mechanic in a startup garage or managing a fleet of CS specialists in a corporate hangar, we've got insights to help you tune up your Customer Function. Our mission? To make this newsletter your go-to manual for building a CS powerhouse.

So, grab your favourite customer-centric fuel,(ours is black coffee) and let's dive into the engine room of modern Customer Success!

Keep those customer engines purring,people!

Cheers

Tomas- Chief CS Enthusiast, Customer Champions

P.S. How's your Customer Function running? Smooth sailing or need a tune-up? We want to hear your story! Drop us a line anytime at info@thecustomerchampion

Assembling the Dream Team: Key Components of a Modern Customer Function.

Remember when "customer service" was just a complaint hotline? Well, buckle up, because we're about to take a high-speed tour of the modern Customer Function and its crucial components. It's time to transform your CS department from a reactive repair shop to a proactive performance lab.

But first, let's define what we mean by a "Customer Function" in 2024:

A modern Customer Function is more than just a department – it's the heart of your business, pumping customer-centric values through every artery of your organisation.

Let's break down the key components with some real-world examples that'll make your CS strategy purr like a finely-tuned engine:

• Customer Success Management: The driving force behind proactive customer engagement and long-term value creation. Real-world example: Salesforce's "Customer for Life" program assigns dedicated success managers to accounts, resulting in a 34% increase in customer retention.

• Customer Support: The rapid response team, solving issues and maintaining customer satisfaction. Real-world example: Zendesk's tiered support system, which resolved 73% of customer issues on first contact, boosting their NPS score by 25 points.

• Customer Experience (CX) Design: The architects of seamless, delightful customer journeys across all touchpoints. Real-world example: Airbnb's experience design team created a host onboarding flow that increased listing completion rates by 40%.

• Voice of Customer (VoC) Program: The ears of your organisation, capturing and analysing customer feedback to drive improvements. Real-world example: Uber's in-app feedback system processes over 1 million pieces of feedback daily, leading to continuous service improvements.

• Customer Education and Enablement: The knowledge hub, empowering customers to maximise value from your product or service. Real-world example: HubSpot Academy offers free certifications, resulting in a 22% higher customer retention rate for certified users.

• Customer Analytics and Insights: The data wizards, translating customer behaviour into actionable insights. Real-world example: Netflix's analytics team uses viewing data to personalise content recommendations, contributing to a 93% customer retention rate.

• Product Feedback Loop: The bridge between customers and product development, ensuring customer-driven innovation. Real-world example: Slack's feedback-driven development led to over 90% of product updates coming directly from user suggestions.

• Customer Marketing and Advocacy: The amplifiers of customer success stories and nurturers of brand champions. Real-world example: Dropbox's referral program, inspired by customer advocacy, led to a 3900% growth in signups over 15 months.

• Customer Success Operations: The efficiency experts, optimising processes and tools across the Customer Function. Real-world example: DocuSign's CS Ops team implemented an AI-driven health score, reducing churn by 23% in high-risk accounts.

From pit crew to racing team

As businesses evolve, so does the Customer Function. Let's look at how these components come together:

• Startup Stage: You're a one-person pit crew, juggling support, success, and everything in between. Focus on building personal relationships and gathering feedback.

• Growth Stage: Your pit crew is expanding. Start specialising roles and implementing basic systems for support, success management, and analytics.

• Expansion Stage: You're now managing a full racing team. Establish dedicated departments for each component, with clear processes and advanced tools.

• Maturity Stage: You're running multiple racing leagues. Focus on integration, innovation, and continuous optimization across all components.

The future is customer-powered

The Customer Function isn't just supporting the business; it's driving it. In Europe, companies with highly integrated Customer Functions are seeing 2.3x faster revenue growth. Over in APAC, businesses with mature VoC programs are 9.5x more likely to outperform their competitors.

The bottom line

Building a robust Customer Function isn't just about having all the components – it's about how well they work together. Like a world-class racing team, each part must be optimised individually and in harmony with the others.

As we accelerate into the future, the Customer Function will become even more central to business success. It will evolve from a department that ensures customer satisfaction to a predictive, proactive, and deeply integrated force that drives innovation, sustainability, and growth.

Remember, in the high-speed world of modern business, Customer Success isn't just the pit crew – it's the engine, the driver, and the navigator all in one. And by 2034, it might just be the AI co-pilot that helps your business break the sound barrier of customer expectations!

After all, as the new CS mantra goes, "In the race for business success, the customer function is both the vehicle and the fuel." Okay, we just coined that, but you get the drift!

Stay tuned for our next sections, where we'll dive into Quick Tips, spotlight a CS leader who's mastered the art of building a Customer Function, and much more!

Optimizing Your Customer Function Components

1. Customer Success Management:

   • Implement a customer health scoring system to prioritise accounts

   • Set up regular business reviews with key accounts Do this first: Create a template for quarterly business reviews

2. Customer Support:

   • Use chatbots for initial triage to reduce response times

   • Implement a knowledge base for self-service support Do this first: Analyse your top 10 most common support tickets and create FAQ articles for them

3. Customer Experience (CX) Design:

   • Map your customer journey to identify pain points

   • Conduct regular usability testing on your product or service Do this first: Create a simple survey to gather feedback on your onboarding process

4. Voice of Customer (VoC) Program:

   • Set up automated NPS surveys at key touchpoints

   • Create a closed-loop feedback system to act on customer insights Do this first: Implement a quick post-interaction survey for support tickets

5. Customer Education and Enablement:

   • Develop a series of onboarding webinars for new customers

   • Create a customer community for peer-to-peer learning Do this first: Write a "Getting Started" guide for your product or service

Kristi Faltorusso - From Front-Line CSM to Industry Leader

Background

Currently serving as VP of Customer Success at ClientSuccess, Kristi Faltorusso represents a unique perspective in the CS industry, having risen through the ranks from front-line CSM to executive leadership. Her journey provides valuable insights into building and scaling successful CS operations. ¹²³

Key career journey

• Started as a front-line Customer Success Manager

• Advanced to VP of Customer Success at IntelliShift

• Currently leading CS initiatives at ClientSuccess

• Recognized as one of the top influencers in customer success

Front-line experience foundation

Kristi emphasises that her experience as a front-line CSM provided crucial insights that inform her leadership approach today. This background has given her unique empathy and understanding of both customer and team member needs.

Key leadership principles

• Building teams with the right skill sets

• Developing scalable CS processes

• Focusing on proactive customer engagement

• Integrating CS with other business functions

CS team development

• Kristi advocates for a balanced approach to CS team building that includes:

  • Identifying needed skills before hiring

  • Training for specific competencies

  • Developing grit and tenacity in team members

  • Fostering both technical expertise and soft skills

Impact & innovation

• Her approach to CS leadership focuses on:

  • Creating repeatable, scalable processes

  • Developing comprehensive training programs

  • Building customer-centric team cultures

  • Implementing effective metrics and KPIs

Professional philosophy

Notable contributions

• Pioneered CS training methodologies

  • Developed frameworks for CS team scaling

  • Created approaches for measuring CS effectiveness

  • Champions the importance of both tactical and strategic CS skills

Cognigy - Transforming Customer Service Through Conversational AI

Cognigy is revolutionising how enterprises handle customer interactions by perfectly combining Generative and Conversational AI to create intelligent virtual agents. The platform stands out for its ability to deliver exceptional service that's instant, personalised, and available in any language across all channels.

Key features

• Omnichannel AI agents (voice & chat)

• Enterprise system integration

• Natural Language Understanding

• Real-time analytics

• Live agent handover capabilities

Proven impact

• Lufthansa manages 1M+ conversations annually

• Mobily reduced response times from 20 min to 6 seconds

• E.ON deployed 30+ solutions covering 70% of customer demand

• Toyota implemented proactive customer care notifications

Why customer success teams choose Cognigy

"Cognigy has proven to be the perfect fit for our enterprise needs and has enabled us to deliver a truly exceptional customer experience." - Darryl Hoover, CTO at Direct Travel

The platform is trusted by more than 1000 brands worldwide, making it an ideal solution for organisations looking to scale their customer success operations while maintaining personalised service levels.

What We're Reading

📚 The Customer Success Economy: Why Every Aspect of Your Business Model Needs A Paradigm Shift by Nick Mehta and Allison Pickens

🔄 Customer Success: How Innovative Companies Are Reducing Churn and Growing Recurring Revenue by Nick Mehta, Dan Steinman, and Lincoln Murphy

🔮 The Customer of the Future: 10 Guiding Principles for Winning Tomorrow's Business by Blake Morgan

Your Questions Answered

Got a burning CS question? Send it our way, and we might feature it in our next issue. Email your questions to info@thecustomerchampion with the subject line "CS Insights Q&A".