As the year is coming to an end, it's time to start working on your "Year In Review" report and prove the value of your Customer Success Team.
Throughout the year, your Customer Success Managers work hard on providing the ultimate value to their customers;
From Kickoff Meetings to QBRs,
From reactive emails to proactive phone calls.
But now, the spotlight shifts over to you, the Customer Success Leader, as you need to:
Measure the success of your team, and
Prove the Customer Success's value to the rest of the company.
Your team's Year In Review report is crucial not only to the future of your team but to the future of the entire company.
Keep reading to learn why.
What is the Year In Review Report?
In short, the Year In Review Report summarizes the past year's work of the CS team.
For this reason, it is essentially an overview of all the projects, milestones, and data points that you'd like to share with the rest of the company, including the Leadership Team.
This report often influences the budgeting process and the funds allocated to your team in the upcoming year.
In the case of a new CS team, the report might be even more crucial to the future of your team.
The point is:
This report is your opportunity to "prove" the value of both your team and the customer-centric approach.
You succeed when your team succeeds.
By now, it's pretty obvious that the Year In Review Report is important to anyone involved in Customer Success.
However, the report is exceptionally important to CS Leaders.
Why?
As the manager of the team, you are being measured by the performance of your team.
With the Year In Review Report, you're able to prove that your team members (and your customers) are successful.
Without it, your Leadership Team can't see what the team has been working on and will focus on the weaknesses.
As a result, they might consider hiring a new manager, or if the Customer Success Team is a new function at the company, it might be seen as a waste of money.
Your customers succeed when you put them first.
The Year In Review Report isn't only important to you as the CS Leader,
It's also incredibly important to your customers.
Since this report is a collection of data points, milestones, projects, and goals, you can take advantage of it to further improve the Customer Journey.
The past year's data points and engagement rates allow you to identify:
Areas of improvement, and
Areas of excellence.
Areas of Improvement:
Anything that increases churn - from long and complicated sequences of events/actions to bugs within the product and missing features.
That being said, it can also be service-related; emails that weren't properly handled, or CSMs who weren't able to become their customers' trusted advisors.
All of these areas should be highlighted and fixed during this upcoming year.
Areas of Excellence:
Anything that increases retention rate - both product and service-related.
An example of a product-related area of excellence could be an excellent stage in the Customer Journey that shortens the customer's Time-to-Value.
A service-related area of excellence, on the other hand, could be a "save" call that prevented churn.
Your Goal for the upcoming year
Right before you share your Year In Review Report with the rest of the company,
Highlight all of the Areas of Improvement and Areas of Excellence.
Next, start by celebrating the areas of excellence with your team and having your team members share their best practices with one another.
Then, work with your team on turning all the areas of improvement into next year's areas of excellence!
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