The path to greatness is paved by a strong and genuine desire, a good purpose, and a good company along the way. Hence every SaaS company identifies itself with client success and positive impacts brought about by proper implementation methodologies. Its Client success teams are dedicated to boosting clients’ achievements by optimizing the company’s value in the eyes of the client and developing a mutually beneficial relationship between the clients and the company.  

Client success is the difference between a company going broke and achieving mega-growth. Therefore, building a strong client success team is imperative to the success of your SaaS company. As you start to build a strong client success team, keep some best practices in mind as you begin to hire and set up more formalized processes for the team. Creating a practical guide to a great client success team demands the following; 

1. Start with an influential client culture

When aiming to build a successful business, it demands that you spend the first months or years establishing a product-market knowing the importance of keeping the client in mind at every step of the process. This process should focus on building an influential culture that meets the clients’ needs in every interaction. 

2. Get the right people on board

In building a great client success team, you need to look at candidates with a strong track record of managing high amounts of client interaction. Make sure you recruit candidates who demonstrate a strong background in client service roles and are eager to transition to service-oriented roles and understand how to advocate for their clients. Therefore it is crucial to have passionate members who will push for improvements and services that their clients want. 

3. Empower the client

The last thing you would want as a business manager is your client’s running into a challenge using your product. Therefore part of your client success team’s strategy should be providing resources that allow your client to solve their problems in a way that feel s empowering. 

4. Build a knowledge base and leverage technology 

As your CS team expands, you’ll become aware of the most common issues that clients face and how these issues can be resolved. Critically, this is where you need to build a knowledge base that contains the most common questions and answers that your client success teams discover when talking to clients. Also, to make your efforts more productive and successful, strategic use of technology scales up your client success teams by automating some of your processes. 

5. Accountability

A successful client team has key performance indicators that measure the team’s performance. These metrics may be based on renewals, churn, and the results of client satisfaction surveys. Resultantly, it gives your team opportunities to reach out to clients and dig deeper into their experiences and also helps to keep everyone working on the same goals and strategies for improvement. 

6. Empower your team

To ensure your team’s success, you need to empower them on various aspects that will enable them to make decisions that enhance clients’ experiences. These aspects might include flexibility in pricing and the ability to give free renewals or upgrades. 

7. Client success team structure

Everyone in your client success team needs to know what they are individually responsible for and what role they play in the large team structure. Therefore, creating an effective client success team structure demands that you need to do the following;

• Put the client at the centre
  This means prioritizing your clients, consistently monitoring their progress, identifying and taking action on opportunities to enhance the client experience.   
  
• Data sharing across teams
  It allows your team to easily access data from a central point, thus establishing internal efficiency. This way, it helps minimize conflicting reports and redundancies.
  
• Data sharing in context
  It enables the processing of information to a level where its usage is secure and can provide solutions to critical problems.
  
• Up-datedness and robustness 
  The evolution of operations is vital in maintaining a company’s needs and goals. This evolution is facilitated by keeping real-time data that helps your team act quickly to respond to- and even predict- what problems your clients will bring to the table next.
  
• Development of standardized processes
  Through standardized methodology, it becomes easier to collect, analyze, and make use of data enabled by transparent workflows and procedures for handling common occurrences e.g., waning interest from clients. This leads to less time spent by your client success team in analyzing reports and hence accelerates their time with the clients. 
  
• Adaptability and flexibility
  Due to unpredictability in various business formations, it is essential to acknowledge that mistakes can occur, requiring quick adaptations of new and efficient strategies. Therefore, once necessary changes have been implemented, you should track and analyze progress to determine if new policies are working or if further changes need to be made.

 Below is a summary of critical roles likely to be met in any typical client success team, alongside its primary functions. 

Head of Client Success 

The head of client success oversee the development and implementation of client success strategies, handles the management and growth of the client success team, and manages the existing client base. It is the responsibility of the head of client success to motivate and inspire the employees to share a common vision and drive the productivity of the team to the maximum.  

Client success manager team lead 

• Develops and tracks metrics and key performance indicators for the client success team and its members. 
• Oversees the management of client portfolios. 
• Manages team workflows and internal processes to ensure efficiencies. 
• Establishes early warning systems. 

Digital Success manager 

• Specializes in virtual aspects of the client success team’s operations. 

Client success managers 

• Clients advocates and support system 
• Contacts clients directly, guide them, and foster positive connection. 

Finally, it is significant for your client success team to understand their roles within the more massive team structure. You should carefully consider how to design your CS team structure that suits your enterprise. 

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