Category Archive : customer experience

Understand Customer Behavior in Your Trial Period

Tracy Kaufman Cloud9

Today I’m going to share another interview with Tracey Kaufman, VP of Customer Experience at cloud9.

Tracey was watching the Totango demo and then answered some questions about what she thinks of the application from a Customer Experience point of view.

Tracey believes that anyone who has trial period in the SaaS business or has the need, like herself, to understand users activities and prevent churn, would want to actively know what customers are doing in their application during that trial period.

It is very important to understand users behavior – especially at the trial period in order to proactively prioritize customers to refer to during that time. This way you could know who is potentially at risk because they’re not using the product or – the opposite – you can spot customers who are using the product well and you can use them as a reference or a case study.

 

Tracey especially likes the integration Totango has with salesforce and the fact that sales people are exposed to information that shows the level of customer engagement. This will allow them to determine the priority of their calls – for example they can first contact the users who are actually evaluating the service and try and move them up in the sales cycle.

To read the full transcription of the video, click here

 
 

Video Transcription:

Q: Hello, who am i speaking with here today?

A: Hi, my name is Tracey Kaufman, I’m the a VP of customer experience for cloud 9.

Q: Since we just went through the demo of Totango, can you give me your first reaction and who do you think should look at the Totango product and what’s cool about it?

A: So i think, actually, you know, certainly any one in the SaaS business who has recurring revenue or has trials, whereas anything to do where they need to understand the activities of their users and really try to chart from the time that you say OK, we’re going and we’re deploying and I’ve launched you, then what happens?

If you have a trial it’s absolutely critical to understand what is your leave conversion? Right who using this trial. Because what are you going to do? You’re going to call. You’re going to say, here you go, have this 30-day trial. And then you sit and you call them 30 days later so if you are a sales VP or a marketing VP and you actually want to know what happens, and you want to get a proactive look at some key trick so that you know when to call them or when to send off an email.

You know, if you’re like me and your running customer experience and you want to understand churn, and you want to understand who is potentially at risk because they’re not using the product or on the other side, obviously, people who are really using the product and gang busters and you can use them as a reference or case study think, you know, marketing, sales, customer experience, i mean, product, what part of the product you’re using. So i think it’s widespread usage, actually.

Q: That’s great. What do you think is the most sticky feature of the product?

A: So, i really love the fact that, of course you’ve got these great analytics and you’ve got people who are individuals in executive positions who love numbers. But what I think is the best thing you talked to me about, was how you’re actually going to put the information back in sales force and that way your sales reps can go in and figure out “Oh wow, I have this trial customer and I don’t know whether they’re using it, but wow now I can find out who’s actually using the product. So now I know I’m going to call them, because they’re going to be hot. Because I’ve got these ten people who’ve started and tried using my product and I can call them and now maybe move them down the sales cycle. I just think that’s great.

Customer Lifetime Value and Customer Experience

Lately, I’ve started building a SaaS Dashboard for my own usage (which I’ll be happy to share with others as well) and I have put together a short survey in order to learn what are the key metrics to measure SaaS business success. As I posted in our previous post, every metric matters when trying to see the whole picture, however, according to Chris Zane’s interview in Christoper Brown latest post, if he could only have one measure to manage his business, he would have chosen “lifetime value of customers”.

This metric, in Zane’s opinion is not a static number but a dynamic one that can grow with the customer, so that customers will first purchase their bike when they’re 4 years old, then when they’re 6, again when they’re 12 and they might come by to buy their own kids their first bikes. That’s the power of a happy customer.

This classic example could be taken to any sort of business, as in all businesses, it is critical to understand customers behaviour.

What is ‘customer lifetime value’ translated to the terms of a SaaS company? It’s when your service is valuable and highly appreciated by your users who chose to repeatedly and constantly use your service.

Most customers will encounter SaaS online services when signing-up to their free trial period / freemium. As the funnel goes on, the amount of users converting to paid customers naturally goes down, however, user’s usage pattern in crucial to understand what’s behind those numbers and also to reflect the users behaviour and needs.
Therefore, even though measuring many other metrics should be taken under account, I agree that customer lifetime value should be standing in front of our eyes when thinking of our business plan.

To run a successful SaaS business and increase the chances to gain lifetime users and revenue, a business must make the right conclusions and adjust its service according to customer / user experience.

Tell us how you adjusted your service to fit your user’s needs!

 

 

About TOTANGO:
TOTANGO analyzes in real time customer engagement and intention within SaaS applications to help you grow your business

 

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