Customer health score facts you may miss ...

I get it. You are thinking about customer health score and its correlation with renewals, upsells and revenue. I have seen that it is directly correlated. 

Here are customer health score facts you may miss - 

• Sales experience matters more than we all can imagine at the time of contract signing. By the nature of it, the sales process involved emotional ups and downs from both customer as well as partner sides. Multiple teams get involved, negotiations happen, delicate/ show stopper questions always arise when we do not need them, expectations are hard to quantify and measure and more. This may create anxiety and bridges may be built on weaker foundations. 

Here is a suggestion from my experience - welcome new teams, new information and new challenges. Be open to new solutions, be communicative, share what is there and what is not there and trust the process. When customers use the product, in hindsight, they will remember this part of the exciting journey. It will bring smiles on their faces. Better the sales experience, higher the customer health score … 💥   

• Do not leave the aspects such as privacy, security, legal and compliance for the end. Most of the deals are driven in a time bound fashion. It is advisable to start these conversations early in the customer engagement process so there is sufficient time on both sides.

I have seen customers getting lost and not renewing based on some of the issues in these categories. Please understand, they can not fight with legal, compliance teams in their company; forget about winning. Try to track the sentiment in this regard as early as possible to act on it and get the customer health score better … 🙋  

• Time to value for each customer and user is the only metric which should be considered. I am suggesting b2b enterprise saas. Most of the time, the contract is signed and for the actual product to percolate through the system, it takes a significant amount of time. As time passes, it gets harder and harder for the product/ platform to get onboarded and adopted. 

I have seen that creating an onboarding and adoption plan always works. Who are the users, where are they? How will we reach them? Do they need training? How do we become part of their day to work? How can we make sure that they use our product frequently and for high value activities? Most of the time, customer health score includes the adoption parameters, however it seldom includes onboarding parameters which is equally important. 

• No buyer will ever say this upfront but in their mind they are doubting that will this partner be able to support us for the next 3 to 4 years? They understand their ecosystem, strengths and internal weaknesses. Many customers ask for penalties in case of improper support, however their objective is not to get money/ credits back but to be sure that the partner is aligned for continuous support … 🏆  

This is most important - if a customer has more support tickets, do not assume that their customer health score is not good. It may be that they are creating support tickets because they are very much engaged with the product and their teams need help. 

Example - If a table is busy in the restaurant and the server has to give excessive attention to that table does not mean the customer does not like the food. Be careful about customer health scores with support as an element in it. 

• Value realisation and cost benefit analysis matter more than you think. It is not just that customers get onboarded, users use the product and get value. It is required that we show that the product is providing value to multiple teams inside the organisation. This helps in getting the renewal easy and future upsells. 

A decade back, there was no role as customer success manager or similar. However, it is one of the most important ones in the renewal, upsell and customer health score journey  … 👏  

• Who is the executive or team who believed in you and your product as a partner? It is very critical that all those team members are present in the customer company. I am not saying it is not possible without those team members; it is possible. However, those trusted team members driving your product is a catalyst which can not be replicated.  

I have seen that most of the time, executives leaving the company is considered a strong signal for churn and I agree to it. However, it is not always the case. We can work with the new team, executive and help the customer grow and scale. 

• One of the most important facts about customer health score is the association it has with the ICP. Every product/ platform has limitations. No one size, product fits all industries, use cases, geographies and more. Think about this. It is very exciting to see a new customer; but chances of success from that customer is only possible if the customer is aligned with our ICP  … 👍 

Interesting fact about ICP - we have to keep validating ICP from both customer as well as user perspective as we grow and scale. 

• Their onboarding was not that good. Some of the geographies are not yet fully using it. They also have sizable support tickets. In spite of all these, if your customer engagement manager may think that the relationship is good; that might be correct. However, do not ignore the cost of being incorrect. 

Remember, you do not lose a customer until you do. 

Happy Scoring … 💥

PS - I took this picture ...