Being in the customer success business, it is of no surprise how vile the pangs of customer churn could be. All of us have faced that stage when we are brutally tired of restraining our clients from churning out. And especially when you do not know what is going on with your client base, it can be a big reason to worry. Thankfully, early warning systems are here for your rescue. This way you can move out of this pattern and focus on customer retention.

Customer success early warning systems are designed in such a manner that they alert you whenever a user needs special attention. It can range from a customer with a deteriorating health aspect or can even be a cross-sell opportunity which is all set for renewal. Now let us have a look at how deploying early warning systems help prevent customer churn.

Creates Customer Success Manager Engagement Plans

Monitoring the vital actions that sail through a customer journey allows you to make lists that your manager can review. This could include checking a product engagement tool, or maybe a notification when a client starts to peruse a specific facet of the dashboard, or it can even tell you when a periodic business is due.

Not only that, but these are also planned out in a manner that drives customer success team to reach out to the clients whenever something changes from their usual patterns that could be subject to attention. With this, you can get to know if the customer is doing well.

On this note, you can also ask your customers to explore new value-oriented opportunities. Else, you can begin with sharing product improvisations that may benefit a customer. All that matters at the end of the day is deeper value and adoption.

Does a Periodic Check-In

The biggest advantage the early warning systems provide you is the periodic check-ups. Basically, these are time-based milestones that help to reach out to the clients on a timely basis. And just in case, you see that the customer is doing poorly, you can zero in on drafting a mutual well-being plan. This should put a laser beam focus on getting the client back on track.

Further, it will help to identify the root cause of the situation and create an escalation plan to curb out that issue completely. It is never a problem to send out a friendly nudge every now and then to your client base.

This only helps you to know them better. What are their thoughts? Are things working out for them or is there any assistance you would like to delight them with? You never know, you could actually save up a client from churning away.

A definite Customer Health Score

In customer success, early warning systems are truly a savior. To effectively determine which customers need your attention, you will have to come up with a comprehensive way. The best way to get started is by segmenting your client base into different profiles. You can do that by scaling where they are within their respective customer journeys. And each of these profiles needs a health score. You can segment them on basis of free trails, onboarding, loyal and established, enterprise, etc.

There are two spheres of health score that you should be considered when determining the health score. One is the proactive indicators that tell you changes in customer account even before you have human interaction. And reactive indicators being the opposite. They are indicators of the data collection points that render qualitative information about a customer account.

Once you are on your way to having some sort of health score, it will allow you to plan and prioritize your engagements. Also as you continue to collect data, as required by your entire customer base, these health scores will evolve and become even accurate with time.

Increases Executive Visibility

It is critically important to revert to your executive team, while you are on the verge of implementing a new strategy or solutions. Aside from this, these reports help you to track progress as well as identify issues if any which are prevailing on your way. It will also show you the opportunities where you can optimize the process.

With the help of early warning systems, your customer success teams can render regular executive reports and share the status of customer loyalty as well are customer churn reduction across the entire organization, through various teams.

Focuses on the entire Customer Base

The biggest mistake that you can do in the subscription businesses is by focusing only on the high-value accounts. This way, you stand to lose a lot of your revenue, profits, and customer base as well. And it what early warning systems do, they focus on the whole of the client base and not just some chunks.

These systems give an objective to your teams and put out a consistent metric to track down customer success across the entire base. With this, you can spend more time focusing on the accounts that need your attention and not only pry on the high-dollar accounts.

Makes you more data-driven

This system alerts your team when it is time for creating cross-sell and upsell opportunities. But the early warning system helps you to be more data-driven and use data straight from your product. Not only that, but it also allows you to be more proactive and manage your client base as opposed to relying on the anecdotal feedback that you receive from your customer success team.

Final Take

The early warning systems are here to make the systems give a good run for the money. When the aforementioned tactics are played intelligently, there is a very good chance to slip off churn, almost instantly. Utilize this tool to make the best out of it. Every time you sense a humdinger, use this to curb them out and when you happen to see a green light, stay focused and bring out even better success rates.

WRITTEN BYKaustubh Sangam

Kaustubh Sangam is a Customer Success Analyst with 2 years of experience. Committed to delivering exceptional customer experiences and driving business growth. Proficient in leveraging data analysis to optimize customer success strategies.

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