CSE: the new key profile in customer loyalty
Digitalisation, the health crisis, overabundance of supply and customer volatility are encouraging more and more companies to abandon the traditional, one-off purchasing model in favour of the more sustainable model of recurring sales. This change in business model means a change in the objectives of customer relations. Ensuring that customers are sufficiently satisfied at the point of purchase is no longer enough. It is now necessary to maintain, and even continually improve, their satisfaction in order to develop their loyalty.
At the heart of this approach is a new function that is making a major impact on sales teams: the Customer Success Executive (CSE) or Customer Success Manager (CSM). Introduced in France a few years ago by software publishers, this function is now becoming more widespread in many business sectors and is a key role in the development of your customer relations. So who is this CSE? What are its missions? And why integrate it into your organisation?
Customer Success Executive vs Account Executive
Loyalty undoubtedly goes hand in hand with satisfaction! If your customers are satisfied, they won't hesitate to buy additional services or products. Establishing a lasting relationship of trust is a long-term process, which is part of a win-win relationship for your teams.
From a transactional model to a more emotional relationship, the human element is once again a major component of the customer experience and its personalisation. At Efficy, a European CRM software publisher, we've been putting customer retention at the heart of our strategy for a number of years now, and one of the ways we've done this is by integrating CSEs into the sales team.
What is a CSE?
The Customer Success Executive is the guarantor of a successful customer experience. Responsible for maintaining good relations between customers, they must not only develop their company's sales, but also, and above all, contribute to building customer loyalty.
Be careful not to confuse Customer Success Executive with Account Executive.
An Account Executive's main, if not exclusive, objective is to develop "New Business" (new customers). However, the Customer Success Executive, like the Account Executive, has the objective of developing sales for his customer base by selling new products or services. They also need to develop customer usage to increase loyalty and ensure repeat purchases. Against a backdrop of increasing digitalisation, the Customer Success Executive is putting customer loyalty back at the heart of corporate strategy.
What tasks for what purpose?
Unlike customer services, the role of the CSE or Customer Success Executive is to anticipate problems before they arise. As a proactive member of the customer relationship, the CSE centralises discussions and mobilises the other teams around any problems that have arisen or may arise in the future. More specifically, the CSE is responsible for :
- Define and lead the customer integration process.
- Develop customer turnover by extending use within the company and selling additional products or services.
- Supporting customers in their day-to-day use of your product/service.
- Manage complaints or crisis situations
- Disseminating customer culture within the company.
- Monitoring customers throughout their lifecycle.
When and how should a CSE team be set up?
As soon as you want to put in place a customer loyalty strategy, recruiting a CSE takes on its full meaning. Many companies have opted for a sales team with the dual skills of business developer (account executive) and CSE (customer base management) for the same profile. Whilst this organisation makes it possible to provide interim support for customers, it quickly reaches its limits when you want to develop your business potential.
Investing in a different profile, one that is 100% customer-focused and objective about customer satisfaction - in other words, a CSE - is a key step in developing lasting customer relationships. As soon as you start rolling out your customer loyalty strategy, or after yet another disappointing satisfaction survey, it's never too late to take the plunge.
A privileged contact at the crossroads of the company's various departments
The key contact for your customers
As you can see, the CSE is the customer's first point of contact. On the one hand, they establish a relationship of trust and exchange with your customers. And secondly, they consolidate the company's knowledge of its customers in the CRM, the customer relationship management tool, and enrich it over time to provide a 360° view of the relationship.
As soon as the contract is signed, the CSE takes charge of welcoming and "onboarding " the new customer. This is an important stage in familiarising the customer with your products and services. The aim is to guide the customer towards initial autonomy.
Taking Efficy as an example, the CSEs are tasked with organising and running monthly webinars to present various tips on using our solutions. In this way, they show their customers how to use the software effectively, while at the same time helping them to discover new features that might be of interest to them. Subscribers are identified in the CRM, enabling the marketing team to send out communications tailored to the interests of each customer.
A realistic vision of customer satisfaction
In terms of both usage and performance, the CSE is also the person who responds to customers' day-to-day requests. They identify, qualify and respond to customer needs. They plan regular meetings to determine future actions and explain to customers what you, as a company, are doing for them. Thanks to this ongoing dialogue, the CSE is able to detect difficulties even when they are not clearly expressed.
It is therefore the first barometer of customer satisfaction, giving you greater visibility and responsiveness. So you can anticipate customer attrition and act at the right time.
The ideal CSE support covers 3 levels of relationship:
- Use of the product or service: the CSE helps the customer to get to grips with and use the product or service. This facilitates the link between the customer and the company's technical, training or support teams when new needs arise.
- The result: the CSE analyses the customer's specific needs and gives them the keys to achieving their objectives using the tool.
- Improvement: the support provided by the CSE and the dialogue established with its customers have a major impact on improving and developing your range of services or products.
An invaluable source of information for company performance
As the true spokesperson for the customer within your organisation, the CSE listens to customer suggestions and passes them on to the various departments concerned. Once you get beyond the tool itself, the exchange becomes richer. The customer then becomes a source of suggestions for improvements or changes to your product roadmap.
The CSE listens to these suggestions and passes them on internally to the various departments: customer service, product marketing, R&D, etc. The CSE acts as the "customer's advocate" and makes sure that their feedback is heard. Here again, don't forget to use collaborative tools such as CRM to save your teams time.
At Efficy, for example, every exchange is recorded on the customer file and then shared with the departments concerned. Thanks to alerts in the CRM, the CSE stays informed of the various actions in progress and can communicate with the customer on the progress of his request.
Conclusion
In conclusion, customer satisfaction and loyalty must be the ultimate goal for any company wishing to grow. By integrating a Customer Success Executive, you can optimise customer relations and, by extension, your business. At the crossroads of Marketing, Sales, Support and Technical: this key profile will enable you to optimise the customer experience and add value to your product/service.
Where New Business Sales and Customer Service focus on short-term satisfaction, CSEs add value for years to come. Their commitment doesn't end when a customer signs up for your offer: it's just beginning...
Article translated from French