How Customer Success Managers play a huge role in the product improvement process.

Introduction

Understanding and acting on customer and employee feedback is crucial for continuous improvement and success.

Many companies already have established processes for feedback collection and utilization. However, numerous other organizations will require you to set up a system that works.

This guide will help Customer Success Managers (CSMs) map the customer journey, gather valuable feedback, and use it to champion product improvements.

My Experience Establishing Feedback Systems: SaaS, B2B

I was fortunate to help a start-up grow into a scale-up. When I joined, most departments needed to be structured. I seized the opportunity right away and got to work. After all, I am an extremely organized person who runs her entire life by systems. Additionally, I had already managed the operations of two businesses in the past, providing me with a wealth of insight and a solid idea of how we could set up processes.

This guide explains exactly how I did it for the Customer Experience department, where we served international customers (Fortune 500, ASX 100 blue chips, and government organizations) and their global workforce.

Collect Customer Feedback

As a CSM, you want to identify key touchpoints in the customer journey where feedback is most valuable. Here, you will map the customer journey and set up feedback collection surveys at crucial touchpoints: purchase, onboarding, usage, feature value, and renewal.

• Purchase Experience Survey: Triggered at the deal's close (won or lost), this survey evaluates your product's value proposition and provides insights into the factors contributing to the success or failure of the deal.
• Onboarding Experience Survey: Triggered at the end of the onboarding process. Understand how confident new customers are to adopt your product and measure the effectiveness of your onboarding process.
• In-Product Experience Survey: Triggered during product use, it gathers feedback on design, features, and performance.
• Ongoing Product Experience Survey: Conducted six months post-purchase, and every six months after that, it captures overall satisfaction and specific feedback on features, delivery method, and speed of delivery.
• Renewal Experience Survey: Triggered at renewal, this survey evaluates the perceived value of your product throughout the customer's account period. It provides insights into the factors that contributed to the success or challenges of the renewal.

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