Data is essential for effective customer success practices. It gives customer success managers (CSMs) important insights to understand customer behavior, anticipate needs, and tailor strategies accordingly. As a CSM at Amplitude, one of my main priorities is using data to find ways to help our customers succeed, so they stay satisfied and engaged for the long term.
I’m not alone: One report suggests that about 55% of CSMs predict an increased focus on data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) in customer success initiatives in 2024 and beyond. And 59% of customers say they want businesses to use collected data to personalize experiences. Yet the mass of data available makes this an overwhelming task.
In this post, I’ll share some of the ways the Amplitude customer success team uses data to guide our customer success initiatives.
- Customer success best practices are essential for driving long-term customer satisfaction, engagement, retention, and growth.
- Five of the most effective customer success best practices are:
- Providing personalized onboarding
- Proactively identifying and mitigating risk
- Fostering upselling opportunities
- Using scalable approaches
- Identifying product champions
- Use a platform that enables your customer success team to root their approaches in data so they can make more informed decisions.
1. Provide personalized onboarding
As a CSM, personalized onboarding helps my customers understand how to use Amplitude to meet their specific needs and goals. It guides users through the product, focusing on the features and functions they’re most likely to use regularly. I use personalized onboarding to ease the learning process, build confidence, and empower my customers to discover and use more features.
The result is a faster time to value, reduced friction, and less confusion for users. This tailored approach not only improves initial adoption but also sets the stage for long-term customer engagement and satisfaction.
To personalize onboarding for your customers:
- Address unique use cases and challenges with a detailed plan of action.
- Assign onboarding specialists to guide customers through the setup process.
- Use interactive tutorials and live demos to engage customers and ensure they understand key features.
- Define and track success milestones to keep customers motivated and on track.
- Establish a feedback loop to continuously improve the onboarding process based on customer input.
- Offer self-service resources—like FAQs and troubleshooting guides—so customers can find answers and resolve issues on their own.
Implementing these strategies at Amplitude has improved our onboarding experience, helping to lay a solid foundation for ongoing customer success and retention.
2. Proactively identify and mitigate churn
Being proactive with risk identification and mitigation helps prevent minor issues from escalating into significant problems that could lead to customer churn. Early intervention also saves time and resources that would be spent on fixing problems after they occur.
Plus, customers are 2.4 times more likely to keep using a brand that resolves their issues quickly.
As a CSM, I focus on strategic, proactive activities that drive long-term satisfaction and engagement. Having a data-centric platform enables this proactivity and saves me from having to be reactive to customer issues.
There are a few tactics that can help you proactively mitigate risk:
- Track user behavior metrics (e.g., usage frequency, login activity, feature adoption and engagement, and support ticket trends) to identify early signs of risk.
- Develop a scoring system to assess customer health based on usage, engagement, satisfaction, and other relevant factors. Use your scoring system to prioritize intervention.
- Implement an early warning system that flags accounts showing signs of potential risk, such as decreased usage or negative feedback. You can set up automated alerts for key metrics to enable timely intervention.
Create detailed action plans for mitigating identified risks, including steps for immediate intervention and long-term support.
How I use Amplitude to respond to customer issues
At Amplitude, I use our platform to find and address issues that could be red flags for customers. For example, if I’m looking at an account and see a sudden, significant dip in users, I can do a quick search to see if that company has recently gone through layoffs or has other internal issues going on. Once I know what the situation is, I can intervene or check in with the customer. Without Amplitude, those red flags may go unnoticed.
3. Foster upselling opportunities
Upselling enables you to generate more revenue from your existing customer base by encouraging them to purchase additional features or higher-tier plans. Selling to your existing customers is more cost-effective than acquiring new customers.
Fostering upselling opportunities involves demonstrating the value of these advanced features and plans, showing how users can solve additional problems or boost efficiency. When CSMs are able to effectively communicate these benefits at the right time, customers are more likely to see the added value, leading to deeper engagement and a stronger commitment to your product.
To identify and foster upselling opportunities with your existing customers:
- Use data from your analytics platform to identify customers with the potential for upselling based on their usage patterns.
- Create targeted account-based marketing campaigns for specific customer segments with relevant upsell offers.
- Share success stories and case studies highlighting other customers who have benefited from additional features or higher-tier plans.
- Offer trial periods for advanced features to encourage customers to experience the benefits firsthand.
- Develop incentive programs to reward customers for upgrading or expanding their usage.
How I use Amplitude to identify upsell
As B2B SaaS CSMs, we don’t sell to end users, we sell to companies—but it’s the end users who are using the product. In my customer success practice, I focus on each customer’s user base as a whole. I look at how that user base, or segments within the user base, are using Amplitude.
For example, say I notice a group of users on an account who are exceeding their maximum number of free syncs and hitting a paywall. I can use that information to let the company know there is a segment of users on their account who would get value from a higher-tier plan.
4. Use scalable customer success approaches
You can implement scalable customer success strategies across large customer bases without needing to significantly increase the size of your customer success team. In B2B SaaS, these “at scale” tactics are crucial to managing growing customer demands while maintaining high satisfaction and support quality.
Using scalable methods, I can focus on strategic and personalized interactions rather than getting bogged down in administrative tasks. There are a few ways to do this:
- Segment customers based on characteristics such as usage patterns, industry, and business size. Segmentation enables you to deliver more relevant and effective support and marketing efforts.
- Employ automation and AI to streamline repetitive tasks such as sending onboarding emails, collecting feedback, and monitoring customer health scores. This frees up our customer success team to focus on more strategic and personalized interactions.
- Use analytics to gain insights into trends in customer behavior and predict potential issues. Analytics platforms and customer relationship management (CRM) tools help manage customer interactions, track progress, and automate workflows.
- Send automated emails when customers reach product usage milestones or to recap their usage. These emails can help customers understand value faster without you, the CSM, having to intervene and have a one-on-one with them directly.
5. Turn power users into product champions
Champions help drive product adoption and retention by advocating for your product’s value within their organization. Identifying and nurturing these champions is crucial for B2B SaaS CSMs because they can significantly influence their peers and promote broader adoption of your product. These power users provide valuable feedback and insights, bridging your company and your customer base.
By leveraging your champions’ enthusiasm and deep understanding of the product, CSMs can ensure consistent usage and foster long-term loyalty.
- Establish continuous feedback loops to gather customer insights and identify emerging risks promptly.
- Identify potential power users based on predetermined criteria like usage patterns, feature adoption, engagement levels, and positive feedback.
- Develop engagement programs to connect with potential champions, such as exclusive webinars, early access to new features, or special events.
- Maintain regular, personalized communication with identified champions to keep them informed and engaged.
Encourage power users to participate in case studies and testimonials, showcasing their success and how they use your product.
How I use Amplitude to identify power users
By tapping into the available data, I can use Amplitude to pinpoint individuals who are true champions of the product. These power users are ideal candidates for marketing opportunities, such as testimonials and case studies, as the depth and consistency of their usage provide compelling evidence of Amplitude’s value.
Quantitative data is crucial because it validates customers’ advocacy with hard numbers, confirming they are not just enthusiastic but also deeply engaged. While you can use direct feedback alongside quantitative data, it’s not always the most effective way to find power users. For instance, a customer might say they love your product but only use it sporadically. By contrast, quantitative data showing regular and extensive use demonstrates that your customer derives real value from the product.
Earn customers for life
Prioritizing these customer success best practices ensures your customers see continuous value in your product, leading to sustained growth and a strong, loyal customer base.
To explore other techniques that help keep customers coming back, check out our Mastering User Retention Playbook.
