3 ways to effectively scale your CS operation

In today’s challenging economic climate, teams must ensure they are utilizing the right initiatives to protect and grow customer loyalty. Enter customer success operations: a data-driven process that helps organizations understand how their initiative performance impacts key business results – ultimately safeguarding revenue for long-term growth.

At the Customer Success Festival in New York City, Katie Yagodnik, director of CS operations and digital programs at Totango, and Nick Chang, VP of global CS at Aryaka, explored how operations teams can be leveraged to drive revenue growth in a fireside chat about “Effectively scaling your CS operation.” 

Their discussion covered three key strategies for powering up customer success.

1. Organize your communication channels

Nick Chang recognizes that it can be challenging to build a customer-centric framework. To provide the best customer experience, an internal organization must maximize its collective braintrust across all stages of the journey. This process can be thought of in three phases which Nick recommends begins with discovery; understanding where customers interact with your business. The second step is engagement whereby feedback should be prioritized and measured alongside assigning appropriate roles & responsibilities to ensure this part of the framework runs smoothly. Finally, delivery happens via varied communication mechanisms such as self-service documentation portals, newsletters, and reviews that come together to make a meaningful impact on both sides of the equation. 

Don’t forget to make your feedback scalable. Katie advises on the importance of surveys: “people get at least 52 surveys a year,” so remember to ensure your survey stands out and reaches the right audience. With organized communication channels, businesses are able to close the feedback loop while customers benefit from superior services!

2. Identify metrics that drive impact

Metrics are essential for customer success operations to thrive, and Katie highlighted NPS as a crucial organizational metric. She suggested “giving back more than you extract,” utilizing automation and real-time feedback to leverage helpful insights to improve scores. 

Comparatively reviewing benchmark reports allows teams to gain perspective on how they’re doing relative to their peers industry wide – so all eyes can be focused on what’s needed to move forward.

3. Get started with customer journey mapping

Establishing an effective customer journey map for your business can be a daunting task. Nick jokes, “it is by far one of the most difficult things in the world.” But if you haven’t started already, you can begin with the basics. Katie poses, “do you have an onboarding motion? Do you have a renewal playbook?” Start there! 

It’s essential to secure the commitment of all stakeholders in this endeavor and ensure that each key leader is on board with the plan. This may require multiple maps as standards evolve over time, yet it should always include touchpoints with sales teams at regular intervals – these will enable you to embed account plans into the mapping process so roles stay clear and alignment remains strong. 

By putting the customer at the heart of operations, businesses can unlock growth and success for everyone in play. Through a hyper-focused approach to organizational continuity and customers’ needs, scaling Customer Success offers potential rewards unmatched by traditional business techniques.

In 2023, Totango is taking its show on the road. Be sure to check out our recent blog from Customer Success Festival in Austin, 5 Tips to Supercharge your CS Operations Playbook. Curious about where we’re going next? Visit our events page frequently for future updates of where we’ll be.