10 Ways Customer Success and Support Can Learn from One Another

By Omid Razavi

Customer Success (CS) and Customer Service and Support (CSS) are two different customer-facing functions that aim to ensure customers are satisfied with their products and services, and they differ in their focus and approach:

• Customer Success (CS) focuses on working with customers to ensure they get the most value out of a product or service and helping them achieve their desired outcomes. It involves providing executive relationships, offering best practices and insights, and identifying opportunities for customers to use the product or service more effectively.

• Customer Service and Support (CSS) focuses on helping customers resolve issues or problems they may be experiencing with a product or service, which can involve answering questions, troubleshooting issues, and providing technical support. Customer Service in B2C (business-to-consumer) companies and Customer Support in B2B (business-to-business) companies are the same functions. 

What can Customer Success learn from Customer Service and Support?

There are a few things that Customer Success can learn from CSS:

1. Listening to and understanding customer issues: CSS professionals are skilled at listening to customer concerns and working to understand their issues, whether through email, phone, chat, or other channels.

2. Quick and effective problem-solving: CSS professionals are skilled at quickly and effectively solving customer problems, which is essential for maintaining customer satisfaction. 

3. Providing clear and concise communication: CSS professionals are often skilled at communicating complex technical information with customers in a clear, concise, and empathetic manner, which is essential for helping customers understand and resolve their issues.

4. Self-Service and Digital Support: CSS professionals often deal with common issues and pain points that customers experience. They use knowledge management to store and organize information about products, services, and common customer issues, accessible through self-service channels such as chatbots, online forums, social media, and customer portals. Customer Success may leverage the same tools and capabilities.

5. Metrics-Driven: CSS professionals and teams are typically measured on various metrics to gauge their efficiency and effectiveness and identify improvement areas. These include response time, resolution time, first contact resolution rate, the volume of inquiries or issues handled, customer satisfaction, etc.

In summary, CSS can offer a wealth of knowledge about how customers use a product and the issues they may be experiencing. They can also help Customer Success scale by sharing their data and tools.

What can Customer Service and Support learn from Customer Success?

There are a few things that CSS can learn from Customer Success:

1. Understanding the customer's overall goals and needs: Customer Success professionals work to understand their customer's goals and needs and how the product or service can help them achieve them. This understanding is also valuable for CSS, as it helps them better address customer inquiries and provide more personalized support.

2. Building and maintaining strong, long-term customer relationships: Customer Success professionals are skilled at building and maintaining strong, long-term relationships with customers at all levels. 

3. Taking a more holistic and strategic approach to help customers: Customer Success professionals strive to understand the customers' business and how their product or service fits into their operations today and in the future.

4. Proactive Guidance: Customer Success professionals are proactive in their approach to helping customers, identifying potential challenges before they become problems, and working to prevent them from occurring. 

5. Adaptability: Customer Success professionals must often be adaptable, flexible, and responsive to changing customer needs and goals.

In summary, Customer Success can provide valuable skills and insights that help CSS professionals become strategic and offer more personalized customer support.

Unifying Your Customer Success and Support: The Benefits of a Single Leader

When Customer Success and CSS teams work together cooperatively and under a single leader that establishes clear objectives for both teams and encourages them to share information and collaborate effectively, it can lead to significant benefits for the business and customers, including:

• Enhanced understanding of customer needs: By working closely together, CS and CSS teams can gain a more comprehensive understanding of customer needs and goals, which can help both teams better support and help customers achieve success.

• Greater efficiency: When CS and CSS teams work together cooperatively, coordinate their efforts with clear lines of communication, avoid duplication of effort, and leverage each others' skills and expertise, they become more effective, leading to cost savings and improved efficiency.

• Improved customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention: By working together and sharing information, CS and CSS teams can better understand customer needs and provide more comprehensive and personalized support and help customers achieve long-term success with the product or service, resulting in improved customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention.

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