Customer Success Teams: Let’s Get Strategic
“Strategy without tactics is the slowest path to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” — Sun Tzu, “The Art of War”
Customer success (CS) practitioners often talk to me about postsale strategy and tactics. What I’ve noticed from those conversations is that those terms are being used interchangeably despite being different, though complementary, concepts. In Forrester’s State Of Customer Engagement Survey, 2024, however, we found that CS teams over-rotate on the tactical.
Our data overview report on B2B customer success responsibilities shows that only about a quarter of CS practitioner activities are strategic. Only three strategic CS responsibilities — customer segmentation, establishing strong relationships with decision-makers and key stakeholders, and determining overall strategy for the customer’s postsale experience — rose to the top 12 customer success remits. The other nine responsibilities in the top 12 are tactical. Tracking goals and sharing progress toward customer outcomes — joint customer success plans — barely registered. If the long-term goal of CS is to positively influence retention, customer outcomes should be near the top of the list.
If any of this resonates, reassess your CS strategy. To succeed, CS must have the right charter, investment, alignment with the business, and ability to manage the customer journey. If you haven’t revisited your strategy in a while, now is the time to do so. Your CS strategy must evolve to ensure that it’s in lockstep with the company’s goals and the changing needs of your market.
To read more about where customer success teams spend their time and other challenges they’re facing, dig into our data overview report, 2024 Data Shows Customer Success As Less Reactive But Still Tactical.
And if you’d like to assess your own customer success strategy, reach out to your account team to schedule a guidance session with us.