Customer Success Terminology Flashcards
Adoption
Are the customers actually using the product? Adoption is a good measure of whether or not a customer is successful with a product/tool/service.
Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)
The actual revenue (not percentage) of money that comes in every year from the customer base.
Beta
A small group of testers (usually customers).
Book of Business
The number of accounts a CSM manages or the total revenue generated by the accounts the CSM managers.
Business to Business (B2B)
A business that is selling to another business. We see the pair “B2B” and “SaaS” together a lot in Customer Success as it’s where you’ll find the bulk of CS jobs.
Business to Consumer (B2C)
A business that sells directly to consumers. For example, Uber.
Churn
When a customer stops doing business with you. They’re no longer paying.
Customer lifecycle /Journey mapping
An outline of the journey a customer will have and the different stages/milestones within that journey.
Customer Segmentation
Grouping customers into segments based on the things they have in common like revenue (SMB, MM, Ent) or industry.
Customer Success Manager
The customer’s strategic partner! CSMs are there to build relationships, serve as the customer’s coach and retain the customer for the long run.
Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)
A survey completed by a customer usually after having an interaction with your business like solving a support ticket. The survey is scored from 1 to 100 with 1 being absolutely terrible and 100 is exceptional.
Cross Sell
Selling a customer on a complimentary product or service.
Executive Business Review
Very similar to a quarterly business review, but it’s just called an executive business review and may not happen every quarter.
Enterprise (Ent)
Usually companies create their own segments so SMBs can look different from company to company but Enterprise accounts are the highest paying accounts and are often paired with a high-touch service strategy.
Expansion
A combination of upsell or cross-sell plays to expand an account’s total revenue.
Feature Request
When a customer requests a new feature or improvement that can be made within the product.
General Audience (GA)
When the product team releases a new tool/feature/product, they either roll it out to a small segment of customers (beta testers) or to everyone, which is the general audience.
Health Score
A system that Customer Success teams put in place to help them quickly (hopefully) get a pulse on how their customers are doing. It’s usually a red, yellow, green, or healthy, neutral, at-risk spectrum.
High Touch
You can consider this the white glove treatment a Customer Success Manager can provide. This can include weekly/monthly and ad-hoc calls, additional training, success plans, and quarterly/business reviews.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
A way to measure performance over a given time related to a specific goal.
Low Touch
This service type involves face-to-face interaction with customers, but it’s not a super tailored white glove service like high touch is. Exactly what low touch looks like varies as the company’s CS structure can define it.
MidMarket (MM)
Usually companies create their own segments so SMB can look different from company to company but these customers are the middle field when it comes to revenue generated and the service may be a step up from SMB or step down from Enterprise.
MoM
Month over month.
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
A survey (scored 1-10, 1 being horrible and 10 being the best) completed by a customer that reflects how happy they are with a product.
