Digital Customer Success

4The Digital Customer Success Maturity Model

Most SaaS companies are dipping their toes into digital waters, but many have not yet learned how to swim. Although a few firms have already mastered advanced strokes and styles, many are treading water, and some are flailing. Why? Because their CS strategies are still reactive and their resources are scattered. They might have one website for customer support, another containing best‐practices tips, and another for customer Q&A. One CSM might have a library of training manuals stored on her computer while another is sitting on a cache of email templates. Overall, the approach is ad hoc, the strategies are reactive, and the impact on customers is suboptimal (to put it kindly). In some instances, overworked CSMs are doing a better job of inspiring pity among their customers than driving successful outcomes.

If this description sounds like your company or CS organization, you may be trapped in the twilight zone we mentioned in Chapter 1. Although you now have access to Digital CS resources, you are still in the Reactive phase and haven't yet entered the realm of true Digital CS. In the Reactive phase, CS typically responds to customer needs only after the customer verbalizes those needs, in an improvised fashion, and with resources that are unorganized and siloed. This produces inefficiencies and a poor customer experience. (See Figure 4.1.)

The Three P's of Digital CS Success

Based on our many customer conversations and industry ...