For a CSM, the departure of a customer is always a difficult step to digest, and sometimes to understand. Often, questions are quickly asked. We try to understand what we've missed or what could have been done better, tackled better or explained better. Here are a few tips on how to make the most of this stage, so as to gain in efficiency, reputation and... humility.
Don't take it personally
The mistake we often make is to think of it as a personal matter. When in fact, it's very often (if not all the time) a decision motivated by factors that you can't always control or know in advance. They are linked to your Product, your Company... but in the overwhelming majority of cases, not to you!
By adopting this posture, where the ego is unconsciously affected, we make it difficult for the company, its image and the customer's transition to leave.
So you'll need to proactively eliminate anything that can make you emotional in these situations. In this way, you'll be much better able to understand the reasons for leaving, and turn them into a strength for finding the right solutions.
All is not necessarily lost!
First of all, you can work with your Sales and/or Account Manager team to make a final approach to the customer who has announced his wish to do without you. Sometimes, the request for termination is the result of a misunderstanding or lack of knowledge (e.g. the new CEO wants to challenge all the tools in place, and you are one of the tools that will help him in his new strategy... he just doesn't know it yet).
You then need to track down the person behind this initiative, and attempt to make contact, establishing a balance sheet and proposing recovery solutions. If, at the end of your exchange, the interest is there, you can go as far as offering discounts or commercial gestures to catch up with your customer.
It's a card you can play that can make all the difference and enable you to "save" the outcome your customer has in mind for the time being. Once again, the idea is not to obstruct, but to make sure that the departure is really motivated. If not, then yes, the offboarding process should take its course. On the contrary, it will always be a rewarding and customer-centric aspect of your company's brand image!
Review the customer's achievements and objectives
If you have the opportunity to "defend your balance sheet", be strategic and don't come across as the "rescuer of the last hope". To be sure of approaching your customer in the right way, you need to have drawn up a clear and precise modus operandi in advance with your Sales and/or Account Manager colleagues.
You need to go back to the objectives that were set beforehand and use them to compare the customer's progress with and without your solution. You may choose to produce a deliverable that your customer can keep. This will provide additional material and content to share with your collaborators (Product, Marketing, R&D, Tech, Ops...).
You'll also be able to compare the MRR / ARR value you've defined with the value you've managed to deliver to your customer. Since ROI is the key factor in assessing a SaaS market model, you'll have an easily exploitable added value here.
Don't stop your customer from leaving!
The art of successful offboarding is not to put every possible obstacle in your customer's path, but rather to make it easy for them to leave with a positive experience. Proceeding with kindness and respect for your customer's choice will always enhance their image of your company. Commercially and strategically, this attitude can even encourage customers to return to your solution.
Supervise and stagger departure
Taking care of your customer portfolio means first and foremost being able to evaluate the actions to be taken over time, and therefore knowing which stages and contact points need to be (re)worked on/improved with your customers. The moment you realize that your customer is no longer reacting in the same way, or is showing signs of wanting to leave, take the time to suggest a phased approach.
Let them know that you'd like to gather information about their experience, and take the opportunity to gather as much feedback as possible about the reasons behind their departure. This is undoubtedly one of the moments when your customer will speak to you most freely. And they'll usually not be stingy with their time at this stage, since they're usually keen to get things right themselves. Identifying the root causes of churn is the key to improving retention..
Keep in touch with your customer
This point is often naturally overlooked or sidestepped by CS clusters, but it's very important to base your strategy on this last phase.
Some time after your customer has left, it may be useful to get back in touch with them to see what experience they have gained from leaving and/or joining one of your competitors. This is an opportunity to compare the competitive offering and better position the company against your prospects' expectations.
You can take advantage of this opportunity to send out a quick and simple satisfaction questionnaire on your customer's appreciation of offboarding. In this way, you enhance the value of your customer's experience, while at the same time gathering qualitative data.
If your customer agrees to receive communications, you can liaise with the Growth or Marketing team to feed your customer with content about your potential product updates, the latest news about your solution, its development, new features... You can also produce key customer testimonials to prove your value and show that the things they may have told you when they left have been taken into account.
This shows your ability to challenge yourself and the fact that you're implementing a purely customer-centric strategy.
Just like onboarding, customer departure is a touchpoint in your customer journey. You mustn't neglect the value it brings, or cut corners.
Make sure you have a clearly identified procedure in your knowledge base, and promote/train your staff (across all departments) about it, and you'll reduce the margin of error of poor offboarding, and bring valuable feedback to your company.
It's best to keep the account manager who took the first steps with the customer. Finally, remember that offboarding is not a failure in itself!
