The ultimate objective of a CSM (Customer Success Manager) is to nurture a healthy and trustworthy relationship with their customers. There can be “N” number of reasons to approach a customer. However, not all reasons provide excellent value and fulfill the CSM (Customer Success Manager) objective.  

As a CSM (Customer Success Manager), your job is to ensure that your customers succeed in their end-objective. And one way to do that is by ensuring you call them up to add value to their end experience.  

For example, imagine you are a CSM (Customer Success Manager) of HubSpot. You decide to call a customer who happens to have purchased your product recently, and now you assess an upsell opportunity, and you break the ice by calling up the customer. 

As soon as the customer picks up the call, you say something like, “Hey, I’m calling just to check how are things going.” 

If the customer gives a cold reply by saying he is doing well, that is it. You do not bother to offer tips to make your customer’s life easier or provide an inlet in case of any issues with the customer’s account. 

After an awkward silence, both of you parted ways and went about during your regular chores. Isn’t that a total waste of a tremendous opportunity? 

Was there a better way to deal with the customer? We will try and answer that question to you in this write-up. 

Introduce yourself to the customers much early in the sales cycle, i.e., much before the customer signs up to your platform 

It is compulsory to introduce yourself to your customers as early as possible. The more you wait, the more chances you will miss. Stats show that 30-40% of the sales go to the sellers who get in touch with the prospects first.

Without introducing yourself at the appropriate time, you cannot leverage the benefits of multiple opportunities that come up during the various phases of the sales cycle. The sales cycle begins with the beginning of the customer prospecting process by the salespeople.

As soon as the Ideal Customer Profiling (ICP) is done, you should start making contacts with these prospective customers. Remember, making contact here does not mean directly calling or scheduling an in-person meeting. Depending on the stage where the customer currently stands, you will need to assess their pain-point and nurture them.

To convert your lead into paying customers, you need to call them as soon as possible, introduce yourself and tell them how you can provide the best solution for their pain points. If you do not connect with your prospective clients, the chances are that your competitors will do so, and you will lose the business and other future opportunities related to it.

So, do not wait until someone climbs up to your sales cycle and sign up to your platform. Get in touch with them much earlier and bring them to your platform ready to pay. Thanks to the latest advancements in technology, you can track leads who can become your ideal customer.

When your customer is using a new feature of your product or service for the very first time 

The next appropriate time to call your customer is when they are using a new feature of your product or service for the very first time. You can use various features of Customer Success Software to stay updated in this regard. While going through your client’s account health, try to figure out the clients who have used any feature for the first time.

These clients, at this stage, are the ideal customer whom you need to call and talk to. This is the perfect opportunity to lend a helping hand and show your customer how helpful the feature can be for them. Any experienced CSM (Customer Success Manager) can tell you that this is the opportunity to build a trust relationship with your customer.

While using a feature on their own, a customer may not find its entire usability or see it as time-consuming. By getting in touch at this moment, you can ensure that the customer is informed of the value of the feature, and any issue they face in using it can be resolved.

When you see that the customers have failed to achieve the desired outcome from your product 

Whenever a customer starts using a product or service, she has some goals in her mind. You need to keep an eye on customers’ account health in your customer success software. As soon as you find a scenario where your customer has failed to achieve your product’s desired outcome, you need to call them up and try to help them achieve their goals in the existing investment. You should never miss this type of opportunity.

Scenarios like this are a double-edged sword. Customers who fail to achieve their desired outcome are most likely to stop using not only the feature but your entire product. They may also switch to your competitor. When you hold your customer’s hands at this critical moment, you develop a long-lasting bond of trust.

A customer whom you call and help at this phase is more likely to remain loyal to you in the future as well. So, never miss a chance like this where you can widen your loyal customer base.

When you are trying to introduce a complementary feature 

Another good opportunity you can utilize is the time when you have some complementary features to be introduced. Your product might have ten features, but not all customers will use all these features. By assessing the individual usage patterns through customer success software, you can find out customers using lesser features.

Find out other features that can help those customers attain their goals in a much efficient way and inform them about the same. When you share such valuable information and make things easier for your customers, you build trust in yourself. This will increase your upselling potentiality. So, whenever you find a situation where you have any complimentary feature that can help your customer achieve their goals easily, quickly, or efficiently just give them a quick call.

As a Customer Success Manager, you must never miss such an opportunity to call your customer. This is one of the best times to build a strong bond with your customer and make them loyal to your brand. What else do you want as a CSM (Customer Success Manager)?

You are in the process of renewing their account, which is a perfect opportunity to do a features-focused upsell 

It is never a clever idea to bring the upselling discussion out of the blue. When you call and offer your customer to sell some new feature, you will lose the trust. A customer success manager needs to give the customer the feeling that the call or any contact is for the customer’s benefit and not for the company’s profit.

One of the best times to bring up the upselling conversation without risking your trust is when you are renewing a customer’s account. You need to closely observe your client’s activities and find any new feature to sell them as a solution to any of their pain points.

You can call your customer, talk about the renewal, and offer them a solution to any of their problem or pain-point. The feature-focused upsell talk does not only feel genuine from the customer’s point of view but also increases the chance of upselling actually happening.

This conversation will give your customer the impression that you are trying to solve their needs rather than trying to take out money from their pocket for your benefit.

As soon as you find that the customer is about to churn 

Another crucial moment to call your customer is the time when you find out that your customer is about to churn, i.e., stop using your product or service. Once a customer turns their back towards you, it becomes almost impossible to bring them back. So, make sure to find out when your customer is about to leave your product and talk to them. This is the time when you as a CSM (Customer Success Manager) become especially important to your company as well as the customer.

Here you require to heal a breaking relation. If a customer is leaving a product that she earlier used, it means that she faced some issue or got dissatisfied with the product. You need to listen to your customer and solve any issue she might have.

As a representative of your product, you need to reassure her about the usability and solve any problems she might have. Never miss this last opportunity to hold back your customer and rebuild the trust.

Final Thoughts 

A CSM (Customer Success Manager) needs to call their customers only if they have anything valuable to offer. If you can do that, it will not be a question of how many times. Rather it will be about when is the perfect time to call your customers? I hope you enjoyed reading this write-up. Until we meet again, keep reading this section!

---