NRR is tanking. The “North Star” is falling! Time to panic? Yes. Unless you understand what’s really going on. NRR Defined Net Revenue Retention – NRR – is the percentage of revenue retained from existing customers in a defined time period, including Expansion, Contraction, and Churn. Also called Net Dollar Retention or NDR. When NRR […]
Motivation vs. Discipline: How Knowing the Difference Skyrockets Customer Engagement
Article by Lincoln Murphy
When you’re working with customers, whatever your role (CSM, Sales, Account Management, Consultant, etc.), you may find yourself acting as a coach. To be an effective coach, you need to strike the right balance between motivation and discipline. Which means we need to explore the differences between motivation and discipline, and how to apply them […]
Why CSM Positioning is so Important (and How to Fix it)
Article by Lincoln Murphy
The customer’s perception of why the Customer Success Manager (CSM) exists in their world, and how the CSM is distinguished from other Individual Contributors (ICs) and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) the customer will work with, is called Positioning. Think of it as the position the CSM holds in the customer’s mind. Positioning impacts whether the […]
Customer Status: The Hidden Motivator You Can’t Ignore
Article by Lincoln Murphy
In Customer Success we’re always concerned with the status of our customers. We keep track of their health score, their adoption velocity, usage, satisfaction, and other metrics that tell us whether or not they’re successful. And while all of that is obviously what we should be looking at in our Customer Success operation, there’s another […]
The Power of Curiosity in Customer Success
Article by Lincoln Murphy
As a Customer Success Manager (CSM), it’s easy to fall into the trap of just going through the motions with your customers. You have a list of tasks to complete, metrics to track, and goals to achieve. But what if I told you that being curious could transform your relationship with your customers and position […]
Creating Customer Success Playbooks with ChatGPT
Article by Lincoln Murphy
Customer Success is always under pressure to optimize (and reduce the expense of) everything. Many people see ChatGPT as a way to streamline Customer Success processes like preparing for customer meetings or literally creating those processes upon which their organizations run. One approach some Customer Success pros are taking is to use ChatGPT to generate […]
ChatGPT or Bing: Which AI Tool is Best for Customer Success
Article by Lincoln Murphy
Generative Artificial intelligence (AI) like ChatGPT – and now Bing Chat – is transforming the way we communicate and work, especially in Customer Success. These AI-powered tools offer unique benefits to Customer Success Managers (CSMs) and Enablement pros like: enhancing search, language generation, and productivity. I finally got access to Bing Chat and was able […]
Customer Success Pros: Stay Ahead of the Game with ChatGPT
Article by Lincoln Murphy
As a Customer Success professional looking to stay relevant in your field and be the best at what you do, one emerging tool that you need to be aware of – and start using – is ChatGPT. ChatGTP is a powerful AI program that has the potential to revolutionize the way you work, but to […]
ChatGPT in Customer Success: Generative Output to Desired Outcome
Article by Lincoln Murphy
Generative AI, like ChatGPT, is a powerful technology that has revolutionized the way we approach various fields, including writing, coding, music composition, and even Customer Success. ChatGPT uses artificial intelligence to generate high-quality content based on prompts, enabling people to accomplish far more in much less time. For example, programmers can generate code that would […]
Stop Teaching Your Customers to Ignore You! A Guide to Effective Customer Engagement
Article by Lincoln Murphy
Customer Engagement still relies on email as the primary channel for most businesses. But what happens when the emails you send are ineffective, causing decreased opens and interactions, increased unsubscribes, and a tarnished sender reputation? These are clear signs that your customers may be ignoring you. In this post, we’ll explore why this might be […]
Growth Unlocked: The Key to Exponential Account Expansion
Article by Lincoln Murphy
Expansion – not simple renewal – is the ultimate indicator of a successful customer.
Customer Success: Defined (Winter 2023 Update)
Article by Lincoln Murphy
Customer Success is transformative for your business. If you do it right. Learn what REAL Customer Success is in this post.
Stop Confusing Free Trials and Onboarding (It’s Costing You Customers)
Article by Lincoln Murphy
Confusing Free Trials and Onboarding will likely result in poor engagement and lower conversion from free to paid.
The Importance of Consistency in Customer Success Management
Article by Lincoln Murphy
The Importance of Consistency in Customer Success Management
The Real Reason Your Company Invests in Customer Success
Article by Lincoln Murphy
The Real Reason Your Company Invests in Customer Success
Customers Hate These 3 Things (and How to Avoid Them)
Article by Lincoln Murphy
Customers Hate These 3 Things (and How to Avoid Them)
The 5 Secrets of World-class Customer Success Managers
Article by Lincoln Murphy
The 5 Secrets of World-class Customer Success Managers – CSMs.
Customer Onboarding: How to Design and Implement an Effective Onboarding Process
Article by Lincoln Murphy
Customer Onboarding is a widely discussed, yet often misunderstood, phase of the customer lifecycle. This article will level-up your understanding of Customer Onboarding.
Eliminate Churn Forever in 5 Simple Steps
Article by Lincoln Murphy
Churn… ya boring. Yawn. Time to move on. I’m so over talking about churn and if you really understand what Customer Success is all about, you should be, too. Churn is so easy to get rid of… you just have to do five simple things. If churn is a problem for you, this post will […]
Customer Success: The Lost Art of Churn Reason Analysis
Article by Lincoln Murphy
Why do customers churn? If you can’t answer this accurately, you’ll never be able to prevent future churn. This guide will help you do just that.
Customer Success: How to Quantify the Impact of Bad-fit Customers
Article by Lincoln Murphy
What’s the cost of Bad-fit Customers? This post takes your intuition that Bad-fit customers are bad for business and helps you prove it.
Designing a Sales-to-CSM Handoff that Actually Works
Article by Lincoln Murphy
The Sales to CSM Handoff is one of the most critical parts of our relationship with the customer and the most likely to be messed-up.
Customer Success: CSM Capacity Planning Guide & Calculator
Article by Lincoln Murphy
How many Customer Success Managers (CSMs) do you need? Here’s a tool – and the logic – to do Capacity Planning for your Customer Success organization.
Time to First Value (TTFV) is a Customer Onboarding Goal
Article by Lincoln Murphy
Time to First Value (TTFV) is a commonly used Customer Engagement metric to measure the efficiency of Onboarding.
Customer Onboarding: AHA! or WTF?
Article by Lincoln Murphy
You think the AHA! Moment during Customer Onboarding is a positive thing. But it’s not.
Emotional Disconnect During Customer Onboarding
Article by Lincoln Murphy
Emotional disconnect during Customer Onboarding is also known as “why your onboarding sucks.”
Bad Sales Handoffs Cause Customers to Ghost During Onboarding
Article by Lincoln Murphy
Customers ghosting you during onboarding comes up from time to time… you’ve probably experienced it yourself. Lets bust these ghosts.
How to Know if Customers are Actually Ghosting you
Article by Lincoln Murphy
If there truly is a logical reason for the customer to communicate with you, and they aren’t, then they really are ghosting you and you need to do something to restart communication with them.
Why Customers Ghost you
Article by Lincoln Murphy
When there is a legitimate reason for a customer to interact with you – based on helping them to get value from their relationship with you – but they are not… we say, in the parlance of our times, that they’re ghosting you.
The Basics of Customer Onboarding
Article by Lincoln Murphy
Onboarding is perhaps the most critical phase in the customer journey and is too important to just slap together and hope it works.
Success Potential: Real Customer Success Starts Here
Article by Lincoln Murphy
Customer Success starts by acquiring customers that have Success Potential and understanding what that is starts with this post.
Account Expansion: How to Upsell Unsuccessful Customers
Article by Lincoln Murphy
Getting your customers to buy more from you is awesome. Remember, you’re in business here and getting customers you’ve already spent money to acquire and serve to then expand their relationship with you – giving you more revenue – just seems like a super-efficient way to grow. And it is. But if you think for […]
Customer Growth: Why Lack Of Expansion Is A Really Bad Sign
Article by Lincoln Murphy
Customers buying more from you is awesome. I mean, you’re in business here and getting customers you’ve already acquired to expand their relationship with you just seems like a super-efficient way to grow. And it is. So when you have customers that don’t expand their relationship with you, it’s obvious that this is less-than-ideal revenue-wise. […]
Account Expansion: If You Want To Grow Fast, Do This…
Article by Lincoln Murphy
If you want to grow fast, don’t do what most companies do! When most companies want to eke out some quick incremental growth, they’ll often have their sales people turn to their existing customer base to make some sales. After all, you have a captive audience that you can sell to with little to no […]
Customer Growth: Upselling Hurts Trust (When You Do It Wrong)
Article by Lincoln Murphy
When it comes to Customer Growth or Account Expansion (upselling & cross-selling), I assumed people knew that… …you don’t have to hurt the relationship with your customer to hit your numbers. …it doesn’t have to be a difficult slog that you struggle through to barely hit your numbers. …giving CSMs or other non-sales people a […]
Customer Growth: The Difference between Sales and Expansion
Article by Lincoln Murphy
If you missed it, I’m done talking about churn. If you have a churn problem, read this post and follow my directions. Churn won’t be an issue for you anymore. Now we can move onto GROWTH! And the first order of business is understanding the difference between Sales and Expansion and why knowing the difference […]
Introducing the BEAST Message Framework for Customer Engagement
Article by Lincoln Murphy
Let’s talk about Customer Engagement, specifically one part of the Communication Model, which is my BEAST Message Framework for creating messages that actually engage customers. It’s really interesting that we communicate all day long – with our friends, with our peers, with our customers – but when was the last time you actually thought about […]
Introducing the Customer Engagement Communication Model
Article by Lincoln Murphy
Let’s talk about Customer Engagement, specifically the Communication Model. We communicate every day, all day. We communicate with friends, family, co-workers, industry peers, customers, vendors, celebrities, trolls, politicians, restaurants, airlines, etc., every day. We communicate more today than we ever had in the history of the world, and tomorrow, we’ll do it even more. Yet […]
Churn Classification Framework For Customer Success Management
Article by Lincoln Murphy
Customer Success is when your customers achieve their Desired Outcome through their interactions with your company. If you focus on Customer Success, churn will not be an issue. At least in theory. To take that from a simple theory to your Operating Model, you need to put systems in place, be able to monitor their […]
Customer Success and Sales: Why the Latter determines the Former
Article by Lincoln Murphy
Sales is part of Customer Success. Like it or not. No, I don’t mean the Sales organization should report to the Customer Success Management org. I mean that Customer Success as an Operating Philosophy, as a way of doing business, includes sales. It includes marketing, product, support, etc, too. It’s critical to understand that Customer […]
