If you're like me, you probably considered customer success and customer service to be one and the same. But as of a few moments ago, I learned a key difference: pro-activity versus reactivity. It goes from a normal help desk position of taking calls, to anticipating customer's problems, and reaching out to them first.
"When you help customers achieve their goals, they'll associate your company with their success". As Collin Wheeler had said in my previous post, customer success is an investment for repeat customers. The companies that are growing and highly value customer success programs have a noticeable increase in overall revenue. These programs can be manual, with people actively checking company metrics, or automatic, having machines do that. People who have good experiences with the company solving their problems are more likely to recommend the company to others.
Someone in the customer success role will typically hold a position similar to that of a help desk. They will take calls helping others solve problems they have with their product or service, which is important because not everyone knows what your company provides. After a while, you'll notice patterns in calls, repeat problems, and that's when you can be proactive and reach out to customers about potential problems they might have and how to solve them. Of course, there will be crazy hard problems that are not repeat problems. This is where typical customer service plays a role.
Customer success is proactive customer service. It provides a helpful, greater, and more profitable hand to the business.