Customer success outsourcing

Customer onboarding and success.

Getting your customers set up, keeping in touch with them, and preparing their renewals, in your name.

Where it helps

Some customers only hear from you when the invoice goes out. We get new customers set up, stay in touch through the year and prepare their renewals, for as many of your customers as you want covered.

Around the people you already have

Whether you have a customer success team, a few account managers, or nobody doing it yet, the team takes on the part you want covered.

One part, or several

Only onboarding, while sign-ups are ahead of you. Only one group of customers. Only the run-up to renewals. It doesn’t have to be everything.

Not a support queue

Support waits to be asked. Success gets in touch first.

They are different jobs, and the team is set up, trained and reviewed for this one.

Customer support

Starts when the customer does

Customer, 10:42

The export keeps failing. Can someone help?

It was a permissions setting on your account. I’ve fixed it, and the export is running now.

Answered. The conversation ends here.

Customer success

Starts when the team does

An account, four months in

Needs attentionBack on track

Nobody has run a report in three weeks
Their main contact has left the business

Nothing has come in from the customer.

The team gets in touch

I’ve seen that Dana has moved on. Could I take whoever is picking this up through the monthly reports? Twenty minutes would do it.

New contact shown round. Next check-in booked.

What the team does

The work, stage by stage.

Each one run the way you want it done, in your systems. If that isn’t written down yet, we’ll help you write it.

New customers, up and running.

From the handover from sales to the day they’re using it without help.

Picking up what was promised, so nobody is asked twice
The welcome call, the set-up and moving their data across
Training for their users, and for whoever leads it on their side
Handed on to everyday support, with notes

Onboarding · three weeks in

A new customer, nearly there

Welcome call held, goals written down

Accounts set up, data moved across

Two training sessions run

Their finance team hasn’t logged in yet

Raised with their lead user today

In touch before there’s a problem.

Planned contact through the year, to find out what’s being used, what isn’t, and what’s in the way.

Check-ins at the points you choose
Showing customers what they pay for and don’t use
Surveys sent, and the answers followed up
What customers ask for, passed back to you

Check-in

Paying for something nobody has opened

To the customer

Your plan includes scheduled reports, and nobody has set one up yet. Fifteen minutes on Thursday and your Monday report will arrive on its own.

Session booked

The quiet accounts, watched.

Whatever you can see about an account, such as how much it’s used, what it has raised and who has left, checked for the warning signs you’ve chosen.

Accounts looked at against your warning signs
Contact made when one shows, following your steps
Passed to your people when it needs them
What happened, written into your records

Account · needs attention

Two warning signs this month

Their main contact has left

Usage down three weeks running

New contact found and shown round

Passed to you, with the detail

Follow-up booked for Tuesday

Every renewal, started on time.

So no renewal arrives unprepared. How far the team goes is something we work out with you. For example, the team might prepare each one and make first contact, with price and terms kept on your side.

Every contract date known, and started early
A check of usage, open problems and changed contacts before each one
A short summary of what the customer got this term
Room to grow noticed, and passed to you

Renewal · coming up

Ready for the renewal conversation

Usage steady, no open problems; Summary of the year sent to the customer; Their contact confirmed
Noticed: Asking about a second team

Passed to you, ready to go

The preparation, done.

So the time your people have goes on customers, not on building slides and tidying records.

Figures pulled and slides built for each business review
Reviews run for smaller accounts, or sent in writing
Notes written up and actions chased
Contacts, dates and notes kept accurate in your records

Business review · Thursday

Prepared, ready to present

Usage and results for the quarter

Open actions from last time

Three points worth raising

Sent over ahead of the meeting

Where the line sits

The team takes on the work. The decisions stay with you.

How the work divides depends on how your business is set up. This is one common shape. The line is yours to draw, and to move.

One way to split it

Kept with you

The accounts you want to keep close

Often the largest, or the ones with the most at stake.

Passed back to you, with the detail, when something you’ve named happens, as in these examples.

Their main contact leaves
A renewal looks in doubt
Someone senior is unhappy

With the team

The accounts you hand over

All of the work for them, or one part of it, such as onboarding, check-ins, or the run-up to renewals.

Yours to decide

Who gets how much attentionHow your customers are grouped, and what each group receives.
What “at risk” meansThe warning signs, and the steps that follow each one.
Price, terms and exceptionsWhat can be offered, and how far the team goes in a commercial conversation.
The strategyAnd any relationship you’d rather keep yourself.

How it’s reviewed

Judged on outcomes, not on speed.

A customer success team measured like a support desk turns into one. This team is reviewed on what you’d review your own people on.

A first result, soon
How quickly a new customer gets something useful from what they bought.
Onboarding that finishes
Each customer reaching the milestones you’ve set.
Renewals started on time
Every one prepared and opened ahead of its date.
Warning signs picked up
Accounts at risk noticed, acted on, and what happened next.

Platforms and marketplaces

If your platform has two sides.

Paying customers on one side, and a community of sellers, creators, freelancers or researchers on the other. Each side needs its own attention, and is reviewed on its own terms.

Your customers

Getting what they bought it for

Set-up and onboarding
Check-ins and adoption
Renewals prepared

Your community

Joining, getting started, getting paid

Applications, and help with the first steps
Everyday questions about how the platform works
Payment questions
Account standing, to the rules you set

How we start.

Nobody contacts a customer of yours until you’re confident they’re ready.

Book a call

We agree what success meansWhich customers, which parts of the work, what “at risk” means, and what the team is reviewed on.
The team learns your productYour product, your customers and how you want things done, before they speak to anyone.
They work alongside your peopleIn your systems, on real accounts, until both sides are confident.
It runs, and we review it togetherThe accounts, the patterns across them and the way of working itself, on a regular rhythm.

Security and data protection

Your data, protected.

The questions every client asks first, answered plainly.

Works inside your tools
Data protection built in
Managed devices

Named accounts
No shared logins, so you can see who did what.
Only the access needed
Set role by role, and shut off the day someone leaves the team.
Never mixed
One client's information is never visible to another's team.
Transfers covered
The safeguards your customers' law requires, in place before work crosses borders.

Security and data protection

Where this fits

Three ways we help with customer success.

The difference is what you end up with. This page is the third, and they join up.

Plan it · Consultancy
Work out who needs what
How your customers should be grouped, how much attention each group gets, and what the warning signs are. You end up with a plan.
Consultancy
Build it · Set-up
Set up what the work runs on
The playbooks, the onboarding material and the reporting that shows which accounts need attention, in your own systems. You end up with something working.
Set-up
Run it · Delivery
Run the work
The team runs onboarding, check-ins and renewals preparation the way you want them done. You end up with customers looked after.
This page

Questions, answered.

The things people ask us first.

Isn’t customer success the one thing you shouldn’t hand over?

The strategy, yes, and any relationship you’d rather keep yourself. What a partner can take is the work around them, such as getting new customers set up, staying in touch with the ones nobody has time for, the run-up to renewals and the admin. How much of that you hand over is up to you.

Who do our customers think they’re dealing with?

You. The team works under your name and in your systems, so your customer sees one company.

Does each customer get one named person?

That’s your decision, and it can differ from one group of customers to another. Some accounts suit a named person. A large number of smaller ones are often better looked after by a team that shares them. We set it up the way you’ve decided.

What can the team decide on its own?

Whatever you’ve said it can. Anything beyond that, such as a concession, an exception or a commitment, comes to you with the detail already gathered.

Does the team sell to our customers?

Only as far as you want it to. We work out with you where the line sits. A common arrangement is that the team notices when a customer is close to a limit, or asks about something else you offer, and passes it to you. Price, terms and negotiation stay on your side.

How will the team learn our product well enough?

The way a new starter of yours would. They learn the product and how you want things done, then work alongside your people on real accounts before they work alone. Anything beyond them comes back to you.

Can you work in our systems?

Yes. The team works in whatever you use to keep track of your customers, each person under their own named login. Nothing has to move.

How is our customer data protected?

Each person has their own named login, with only the access the work needs. One client’s information is never visible to another client’s team.Security and data protection

What do you report to us?

How onboarding is going, which accounts need attention, the renewals coming up and why any were lost, and what your customers are saying about the product.

Alongside it

The rest of your customer operation.

Customer success rarely sits alone. We can take on the work around it too, so your customers meet one standard whichever way they reach you.

Let's talk.

Tell us what's going on. If we're not the right fit, we'll point you to someone we trust.