The End of Customer Success As We Knew It

So I think 2023 may mark The End of Customer Success as We Knew It.

What happened? At least 3 core changes:

#1. The Massive Push to Efficiency

As almost every public SaaS company got cash-flow positive and radically more efficient, and most startups had to stretch their dollars much further — customer success took a lot of the brunt. SaaS companies are now simply willing to run a lot more leanly in CS, in many cases hoping to rely on automation, knowledge bases and community to pick up the slack.

The days of $1m per CSM may be long gone. For example, you can see it here in the latest data from Pilot. CS has taken the biggest brunt in layoffs, unfortunately.

#2. The Massive Push of CS into a Sales Function

This is an even bigger change. CS in many ways become “weaponized” by sales and SaaS companies to chasing tough renewals and supporting aggressive upgrades in tougher times.

So be it, but that left even fewer resources and attention on just plain … customer success. Aggressive price increases across the board consumed much CS energy as well.

Your public pricing? Usually the answer is — Not Today.

• First, it’s complex to manage.
• Second, your users will see the pricing is “cheaper” somewhere else and get mad.
• Third, it’s unlikely to move the needle.

Usually — wait. Wait until your are bigger and can deal with all the complexity here.

But if you really can show it can move the needle now, ignore this, and go for it. A common exception here is when your app takes off in less developed countries as a large % of your customer base without you really planning for it. $5 a month can be a lot in some geographies … vs. probably way too cheap in U.S., Europe, etc.

A second important exception is localizing currencies. You should do this as soon as you have 5% of your customers in any given country. Make the pricing roughly comparable. This shows you are “localized” and customer-centric in all your important geographies.

Third, it’s OK to guide different regions to different plans.  It may make sense to show your cheapest plans in regions with less economic purchasing power.  Localized landing pages and more are a very simple way to pull this off.  And you should do this  

And finally, the biggest “exception” is non-transparent pricing. I.e., “Call Me”. Every type of deal is priced differently. Your UK team may need more flexibility in Call Me deals that your San Francisco team.  And that’s OK, up to a point.  Just be fair.

So a little while ago someone that had worked with me many years ago reached out.  He’d lost his job and was looking for something new.  He’d move into a lower paying customer success role, and had a $100k OTE at his last role, where he was laid off.

He’s been searching for months for a new role and was feeling the pressure.

While we hadn’t really kept in touch, I offered him a similar role with significantly higher comp.  My only ask: he own it.  He own the metrics, and really do the work.

He didn’t even hesitate in his response:

”No Thanks.  I Just Really Don’t Want to Work That Hard.”

He’d rather stay out of work, and take a much lower comp package — than own a number.

I sort of dismissed it until I talked with another exec I’d worked with just a little long ago, but really barely knew at all.  We’d only talked twice.  But he’d been laid off and was struggling to find something new.

I suspected I knew a role for him with a great CEO.  It would be risky for me to recommend him to the CEO, but I was willing to try.  I told him though he’d have to roll up his sleeves and do some real work himself at this startup.  Again, he didn’t miss a beat with his answer:

”I Really Only Just Want to Manage People.”

G2 had us back for another great deep dive on just where SaaS investing is there days, and it was a great panel:

• Accel Partner Arun Mathew
• Inspired Capital Founder & Managing Partner Alexa von Tobel
• Salesforce Ventures Managing Partner Paul Drews and
• Jason Lemkin!

Are things any better in venture than twelve months ago?  Our panel mostly agreed No … But.

Deals aren’t any better or easier to get done, but some optimism is back.  The deep dive here.

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Ok so it’s that time of year!

Let’s look back at the Top 10 SaaStr Annual, Europa and Digital sessions of the year across 1.4 million+ views. So you can catch up on any good ones you missed!

“My App Stack” is a new series where we dig in with top CMOs, CROs, CTOs and CEOs on just what apps they’re really using to run their business.  I always learn a lot from these — they are in essence a best practices list from each leader.  Last week we had a great one with Kyle Norton, CRO at Owner, check it out here.

This week we have Neeracha Taychakhoonavudh, Global Head of Customer Experience at Asana!

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