The Red-headed Step Brother of Sales … Client Success; we don’t pay attention to it. But, we should. There were times, growing up in Jamaica when we would have issues with getting water into our house. The pressure wouldn’t be strong enough or a pipe would burst, and we would have to take buckets down to the community water source and haul them back home. Imagine me, Little Donald, carrying a bucket of water a quarter mile each way …and I’m sure I filled that bucket to the very top. Naturally, some will spill out as you walk along, but imagine my surprise to see the bucket only half-full when I got home … A small crack in the bucket caused me to lose most of it. What incentive would I have to go back for more? I needed to fix that bucket. Client success is the same way. Nobody pays attention to it but it is critical to the organization’s success. CLIENT SUCCESS Client success is the function of a company responsible for maintaining the relationship between the client and you, the vendor. The goal of client success is very simple: to make sure your clients are as successful as possible. This, in turn, improves your relationship with the client and the lifetime value of that client. It helps the organization in many ways. As with my bucket example, client success is the source that helps to make sure the holes in the bucket are sealed. We don’t lose water – we don’t lose customers. [02:17] Compare the lifetime value of your client to my bucket of water. The last thing you want to do is lose your customers after working so hard to get them. It would be such a waste to work for a year and a half to land an amazing client only for them to move on after only a year. Multiply that scenario across multiple clients and you’ll find yourself in a whole heap of trouble: you need to fix that bucket. You need to address client success. [03:26] I read a statistic in an article published by the Precision Marketing Group which states that86% of buyers will pay more for a product if they receive a better customer experience. This may not occur immediately but imagine a client does come on board who has an opportunity to purchase more of the licenses, or services, that you offer. Let’s use furniture sales as an example. You sold a nice desk and chair to your client. In the future, what prevents him from going elsewhere if he needs another chair? [04:11] MAINTAINING RELATIONSHIPS What if your client success team was able to actively work that account and learn the goals of the client? If you knew the client was planning to expand in six months, for example, would it not make sense for you to create an opportunity to help them reach that goal? In some companies, sales takes care of this but it spreads the sales force thin. They are asked to find new people, build value, close deals, AND actively farm the account, fix problems, and keep the client happy. You need new business to come in but you also need to maintain relationships with your current clients so they will return to you over and over again. It is virtually impossible to do it all. Something has to give and, in all likelihood, new business will stop coming in. [04:58] Again, 86% of buyers would pay more for a product or service if they receive a better customer experience. Let’s say your product is at premium value and a buyer could go somewhere else next time to get it for less. If the buyer perceives a value in the sales experience he has with you, however, he will stay with you. [05:48] CLIENT SUPPORT Client support, on the other hand, is basically a range of client services to assist clients in making cost effective and correct use of a product. This includes assisting in planning, training, troubleshooting, maintaining, updating, etc. Using the office furniture example again, the client support team helps install and assemble the desk. The client success team does not. In smaller organizations, however, sellers often do it all. Solving problems while also maintaining accounts can ce