SaaStr

DECEMBER 11, 2021

We’ve talked on SaaStr about leaning in on Customer Success as much as possible. the revenue ultimately generated or supported by Customer Success) is the key to growing a SaaS business. We’ve talked about how all the Second Timers are hiring in customer success way early , ahead of sales, ahead of revenue.

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Sales Hiring Customer Success Headcount Churn 293

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 3, 2020

Q: What can you do to lower your customers churn rate? A few basic thoughts: Have every customer have a named customer success rep. Every customer. If every customer knows “Casey” is her rep, and who she can turn to … churn will go down. Segment your Customer Success — and Sales — teams.

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Churn Technology Customer Success Pricing 321

SaaStr

AUGUST 16, 2021

We put out a call on Twitter the other day for folks’ best tips on what has really lowered churn for them this year. Customers care about relationships, and nothing replaces a human available to help whenever you need something.” Are you segmenting churn? High usage can still mask churn. If not, start ASAP.

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Churn Sales Hiring Headcount Technical Review 326

SaaStr

JUNE 7, 2021

If a sales rep closed a deal, A customer success manager should take it over. An open question around smaller customers is how do you staff up Customer Success for them — if at all. Many founders wrestle with the question of if they can really afford customer success professionals for their smaller customers.

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Customer Success Scale SMB Sales 353

SaaStr

MARCH 1, 2020

The good news today, is there are tons of customer success veterans out there. Even just a few years ago, there weren’t enough folks when enough experience to be your first “head of customer success.” How often should we visit, and check-in, with which customers? View original question on quora.

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Customer Success Sales Hiring Leadership Interviewing 329

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 18, 2022

So ChurnZero put out a great new report surveying 1,037 customer success professionals. Churn-and-burn deals help no one except the AE getting a commission. #4. 58% of SaaS companies surveyed have a real Customer Marketing function. More on Customer Marketing here. Grab it here. Some good data on this split.

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Customer Success Headcount Churn Revenue 347

SaaStr

MAY 21, 2020

A Top Customer Success Hack: Driving Up Activation Rates, ASAP. The post The Silent, Lurking Churn: Activation Rates Less Than 90% appeared first on SaaStr. While B2C can be different, for a B2B app, why should it be less? And then make sure you have clear action plans for the other 10%.

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Churn B2C B2B Metrics 334

SaaStr

MARCH 17, 2021

Churn is a paramount topic in SaaS , as we all know. If every dollar of ARR is worth $6+ in the long term, including upsells and second order revenue … then of course, by the same token, for every dollar of ARR that churns … you’re losing $6 of notional ARR. Lose a $100k customer? As Almost Churn.

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Churn Metrics Customer Success Investment 300

SaaStr

APRIL 30, 2025

Churn and Expansion : For existing customers, analyze churn rates, upsell/cross-sell performance, and NRR (Net Revenue Retention). AI can help predict churn and identify expansion opportunities. Alignment Across Teams : Ensure alignment between sales, marketing, and customer success. If so, why?

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Technical Review Sales Forecasting AI 185

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 6, 2021

Q: Who Should Our First Head of Customer Success Report To? Ah, who should Customer Success report to. So usually, she can easily also manage Customer Success as well as all her reps. She’ll be better able to hit your ARR end-of-year goal if she’s also in charge of churn, and all upsell.

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Customer Success Sales Hiring Finance Churn 311

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 14, 2023

If you are a SaaStr reader, you’ll know how passionate I am about Customer Success, since Day 1. What it all means is that if you do it right, you’ll make 6x or more the revenue from your customers after the sale itself. Churn, upsells, renewals, and all that, and compensating against it. Word-of-Mouth.

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Customer Success Compensation Churn Enterprise 326

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 17, 2021

Ah, who should Customer Success report to? So usually, she can easily also manage Customer Success as well as all her reps. And Sales and Customer Success are of course connected. Your VP of Sales may be better able to hit your ARR end-of-year goal if they are also in charge of churn and all upsell.

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Customer Success Scale Churn Finance 284

SaaStr

AUGUST 5, 2024

How do you leverage your customer success team to drive revenue growth? Hook’s Head of Customer, Natasha Evans, took the stage at SaaStr Europa to discuss the three things leaders should focus on to fuel revenue growth. Historically, customer success teams have been pretty data-poor.

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Scale Customer Success Scaling Revenue 284

User Pilot

NOVEMBER 7, 2024

Let’s review everything your customer success team has to do in the absence of any customer success tools. Collect customer data to calculate complex formulas for tracking metrics, monitor customer health scores, and resolve support tickets while continuously trying to improve retention and expansion.

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Customer Success Enterprise Software Review Startup 105

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

The landscape of customer success has been evolving rapidly. So much so that we seem to be releasing new content on customer success just about every week. Today we’re focusing on actionable insights you can use to drive down churn with customer success in today’s new era of SaaS efficiency.

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Customer Success Sales Hiring Scale Headcount 299

SaaStr

JANUARY 14, 2021

Reducing churn in SaaS, along with increasing new ARR is the backbone to growing your business. In this guide, Andrea Webb, the SVP of Customer Success & Retention at Solarwinds , and Tim Willey, the SVP of Commercial Strategy & Operations at ForgeRock , share their tips for understanding and combating churn. .

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Churn Customer Success Subscription Payment Features 257

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 21, 2021

The other day Nick Mehta CEO of Gainsight invited me to talk about the latest trends in Customer Success. A few points we dove in on: Should your VP of CS be most focused on NRR or Churn? Every SaaS startup now has 2-10 public SaaS companies that are somewhat similar in customer make-up and product. Aim for 140%.

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Customer Success Churn Trends Startup 271

SaaStr

APRIL 1, 2020

Your top customers will grow with you. Downgrades are not churn. It may be time to segment your “churn” into lost customers vs. downgrades. A positive customer experience, even for a customer that leaves, is a new brand ambassador for your product. And A Downgrade is Not Churn.

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Churn Pricing Retention Branding 337

Stax

MARCH 16, 2025

The average churn rate for the software industry as a whole is 14%. Thats actually one of the lowest churn rates across all industries. That said, industry experts agree that your SaaS companys goal churn should be below 2%. TL;DR The average software industry churn rate is 14%, but SaaS companies should aim for under 2%.

Payment Solutions 88

Payment Solutions Software Review Churn SaaS Payments 88

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2024

Is it the end of an era for customer success in SaaS? We just wrote up how some of the biggest changes of SaaS are now coming, specifically in Customer Success and Sales. Customer Success Is Vulnerable to Cuts Jason shared that he didn’t realize how vulnerable customer success was to cuts until 2023.

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Sales Hiring Customer Success Scale AI 320

SaaStr

MARCH 28, 2024

Dear SaaStr: How Do I Best Prevent Churn? You can’t eliminate churn. You can hide churn (e.g., My top suggestion is: Measure churn carefully, and consistently. Usually, your smallest customers will churn at the highest rate. And set a big annual goal to drive churn down say 20%. Each quarter.

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Churn Revenue Sales Business 273

SaaStr

AUGUST 6, 2023

As a VP of sales at early stage SaaS companies, what’s your best advice for reducing churn rate? A few things that always work to drive down churn in the early days — and later: Make sure you have a strong Head of Customer Success … whose #1 goal is reducing churn. And lead to unnecessary churn.

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Churn Sales Hiring Customer Success Onboarding 242

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 14, 2020

Customer success – every business wants to invest in it but only a few know what it actually entails or how to do it well. There are a lot of words that get thrown around with customer success: problems to be solved, implementation, product experts, expansion, strategic partners, technical advisors, proactive versus reactive.

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Customer Success Management Technical Review Onboarding 249

SaaStr

JUNE 22, 2021

This is a positive trajectory, but it presents a challenge for your customer success efforts: How can you scale your support and CS while still delivering a memorable, quality customer experience? Latest Customer Learnings From New Research. Today’s Critical Challenges For Customer Success .

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Scale Customer Success Scaling Compensation 278

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 27, 2021

If this is your first SaaS company, you may not have ever hired or built a Customer Success team. If you hire a great, experienced Client Success leader as your first hire here, and you like him/her, and the experience is on point — my guess is you’ll be fine. If not, are you sure your have this right?

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Sales Hiring Customer Success Scale Customer Lifetime Value 246

SaaStr

DECEMBER 19, 2024

Best case, your happy customers buy more from you. Worst case, they still use it and are happy, and churn less. And perhaps most important, move on from mediocre customer success folks. You need the team sharp to retain your customers in 2025. Force yourself to at least grow +20% more than your NRR. #5.

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Sales Hiring SaaS Venture Capital Healthcare 280

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 27, 2021

If this is your first SaaS company, you may not have ever hired or built a Customer Success team. If you hire a great, experienced Client Success leader as your first hire here, and you like him/her, and the experience is on point — my guess is you’ll be fine. If not, are you sure your have this right?

Sales Hiring 245

Sales Hiring Customer Success Scale Customer Lifetime Value 245

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 15, 2022

if Churn > 2% = Bad, Just Terrible. And even in the enterprise, losing one big customer can swamp you here in the early days. What most matters is that churn is going down , rather than the core absolute value, IMHO. What most matters is that churn is going down , rather than the core absolute value, IMHO.

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Scale Customer Success Sales Hiring Scaling 261

Tom Tunguz

FEBRUARY 26, 2025

Third, contracts mitigate churn rates because the customer is only making a renewal decision once per year, instead of 12x per year. Just a quick reminder: Payback Period = Cost of Customer Acquisition/Gross Margin The gross margin is the revenue per customer minus the costs to provide the service.

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SaaS Payments Pricing Strategy Scale 283

SaaStr

JANUARY 4, 2023

Dear SaaStr: What Do You Do With Churned Customers? The post Dear SaaStr: What Do You Do With Churned Customers? You put them into a Get Them Back bucket and re-market to them with a dedicated program. And you have sales especially follow-up twice. at no cost to them. And then again in about 8-9 months.

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Churn Marketing Data Sales 274

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 18, 2022

The definition of success will vary from business to business, from customer to customer. That said, customer success is evolving, and the importance of customer success continues to grow. Embed customer success into the core of your business. Offer enhanced value.

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Customer Success Retention Company Culture Metrics 274

SaaStr

APRIL 28, 2022

Especially after interviewing 50+ customer success managers over the past few years. And importantly — importantly — they don’t sweat churn too much if the NRR goal is still being met. Lost a few customers? But — it’s one that that is best not neglected. I’m no longer so sure.

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Customer Success Metrics Scale Retention 260

SaaStr

APRIL 15, 2025

This approach ensures reps dont just chase signatures but also care about customer success. Avoid the Silent Churn Problem : Many SaaS companies are shocked to discover how low their activation rates are when they start tracking them. If customers dont go live, they churn silently, and you lose revenue before it even starts.

Scale 144

Scale Compensation Retention Churn 144

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 12, 2025

Balanced Metrics : While they track traditional SaaS metrics, they also measure customer success indicators specific to the construction industry. Lower Churn : When software is deeply embedded in industry workflows, switching costs become naturally high.

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Construction Scale SaaS Travel 251

Totango

NOVEMBER 21, 2024

In a world where customer expectations are sky-high and data complexity is ever-increasing, Totango Unison is the game-changer that customer success and post-sales teams have been waiting for. Welcome to the future of customer success with Unison. With targeted interventions, they significantly reduce churn.

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Customer Success AI Churn Data Analysis 62