In today's volatile economic landscape, businesses face unique challenges, including economic and geopolitical instability, layoffs, and reconsideration of their needs and budgets. For revenue teams, this translates to account churn, at-risk renewals and increased ghosting from customers.
Customer engagement and product adoption are critical for survival and growth in this climate. Organisations that maintain close relationships, add value, and ensure active product usage can reduce churn and thrive in turbulent markets. Here, we explore the importance of investing in customer engagement and product adoption, offering practical strategies for revenue leaders, customer success managers, and account managers to navigate these challenging times.
Restricted budgets and unusual market behaviours
Economic uncertainty often leads to tightened budgets across industries. Companies are compelled to scrutinise every expenditure and prioritise investments that deliver the highest return on investment. This fiscal conservatism impacts not only internal operations but also external spending, including marketing, customer support, and product development.
The current market is characterised by unprecedented fluctuations and shifts in behaviours. Supply chain disruptions, changing consumer preferences, and digital transformation pressures are creating a dynamic and often unpredictable environment. Businesses must be agile and adaptable, ready to pivot strategies as market conditions evolve. Fears continue around the use of AI and its impact and with the AI revolution only in its infancy, organisations who struggle to quickly adopt new technologies will soon be feeling an immense pressure to change. If they don’t, they risk becoming obsolete to competitors that can. AI won’t replace humans but it will replace humans who do not use and leverage AI.
Stay close to customers during turbulent times
Customer engagement is crucial in this environment. Engaged customers are more likely to stay loyal, spend more, and recommend your products or services to others. Having a robust customer engagement strategy not only ensures a steady revenue stream but also helps build a strong brand reputation.
But beyond sending emails and liking their LinkedIn post, how do you stay close? Here are some key elements every organisation should have as part of their customer engagement strategy:
Personalise communications
Personalisation is key to effective customer engagement. Use your customer data to tailor communications to make them relevant to the specific person. Personalised emails, product recommendations, and targeted marketing campaigns can significantly enhance engagement.
Navigate single-threaded accounts
Don’t be single-threaded in an account as you’ll run the high risk of churn if that person wakes up one day with a different idea to yours. Get to know the sphere of influence, silent stakeholders, champions and influencers involved in the account. This approach will also lead you to organic growth. One brilliant strategy to mitigate this risk that will grow the business further, would be running a rapid hackathon or ideathon event with them, that opens up the organisation as a value-added service. It’s a win-win for both parties and creates phenomenal value.
Solicit feedback and get them involved
Actively seek customer feedback and involve them in the development process. This not only makes customers feel valued but also provides insights into their needs and preferences. This goes beyond grabbing an NPS rating. Bring them into your growth journey and allow them to share in your development. Include them in Beta testing, ask them to be on a customer advisory panel, or put them in touch with your product team for feedback on certain features they feel strongly about (good or bad).
Have regular (and meaningful) check-ins
Regularly checking-in with customers to understand their current needs and challenges is a staple. But don’t just highlight all the great things users did with your product since the last time you met. Proactively discuss ways to increase usage. Don’t wait for the end of the quarter review. And most importantly, make sure you are talking with the customer about organisational challenges, initiatives or changes to their business so you can offer support, gather feedback, and strengthen the relationship. Use these times to listen and not promote.
Proactively problem solve
Be proactive in identifying and solving customer problems. Anticipate potential issues and address them before they become significant pain points. This could be a new product update that doesn’t have a roll-back option, being made aware of upcoming organisational changes, or even sharing a piece of industry news that might have some impact on your customer’s business.
Add value through content
Regularly provide valuable content that addresses customer pain points and helps them achieve their goals. This can include blog posts, webinars, reports, whitepapers, and how-to guides. If you have the authority and some opinions and ideas, why not craft something yourself and really personalise it for your portfolio of customers.
Build a community
Foster a sense of community among your customers. Create forums, user groups, and social media communities where customers can connect, share experiences, and support each other. Make it easy for them and leverage places your customers already live like LinkedIn, Slack, Teams or even Whatsapp groups have become very popular in the EMEA and APAC markets.
Offer flexible solutions
Consider offering flexible solutions that meet customers' changing needs. This can include flexible payment terms, customised packages, access to value-add features or temporary discounts. Nobody likes to discount their brilliant services, especially when so much value is being created. But sometimes, for strategic gains, it might be necessary to flex the status quo in order to win.
Ensure product usage remains active
High product adoption rates are crucial for ensuring ongoing usage and reducing churn. Organisations will roll out the red carpet when their data or insights flag a customer at-risk of non-renewal and the account team quickly jumps into action to save it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, especially if the decision has already been made from somewhere else in the organisation. But instead of waiting until the account is in crisis mode, focus on product adoption regularly. You want to make your product so sticky and so integrated into the customer’s ecosystem, that getting the renewal is never a question.
Comprehensive onboarding programs
A well-designed onboarding program is essential for ensuring that new customers understand and can effectively use a product. Provide step-by-step guides, tutorials, live training, and support to help customers get started. Sometimes an onboarding program can last weeks if the service/product is complex enough. Often these are paid professional services so both parties have skin in the game to benefit. Free onboarding programmes tend to struggle from the outset which can initiate multiple problems down the line
Continuous education, partners and support
Don’t just onboard your customers and set them loose. Continuous education and support are vital for maintaining high adoption rates. Regularly update customers on new features, provide ongoing training, and offer readily accessible support. There is a large movement for customers to bundle professional services which includes customer education training programmes, often centred around a certification journey - Adobe, Databricks, Snowflake etc. Training your customers and partners to use, adopt, sell, and share your product gives a significant boost to your business.
Usage analytics and insights
Leverage usage data to identify adoption bottlenecks and proactively address them. Be careful to acknowledge the difference between the goals and success criteria of your customer versus your subjective expectations and perceptions. Often account teams rely too much on the data streaming from platforms rather than having the right mix of intimacy, trust and understanding with a customer, to know if something isn’t right.
Gamification
Incorporate gamification elements into your product or wrap around service to make usage more engaging, competitive and rewarding. This can include leader boards, badges, achievements, and rewards for regular usage. You can even leverage hackathons for a unique and effective strategy (more on that in a bit).
Feature Reminders and Updates
Regularly remind users of key features and updates. Use in-app notifications, emails, and other communication channels to keep users informed and engaged.
Incentivise usage
Offer incentives for regular product usage. This can include discounts, additional features, swag or other rewards for users who consistently engage with your product.
Continuous product improvement
Regularly update and improve your product based on user feedback and market trends. Show customers that you are committed to providing the best possible experience. Encourage beta-access to new initiatives for feedback and development.
Get creative and think outside-the-box
When it comes to product adoption, there isn’t a single silver bullet. Think about your customers, their likes, needs and what drives them. What creative things can you do to get them using your product and seeing the value? One strategy that has worked very well over the years for strategically minded organisations (often as part of a wider ABM approach) is running a private hackathon for your customer, your partners and/or their customers.
Benefits of private hackathons for revenue teams
Most people think of hackathons for developers and tech teams. But organising a private hackathon for your customer can be an incredibly effective (and unexpected) way to increase adoption and engagement.
Demonstrate commitment: Show your customers you are invested in their success by providing a platform for them to collaborate, innovate, and solve real business problems using your product.
Find growth: Given the simple nature of cross-functional hackathons, you (and your product) will be exposed to many more executives, SMEs and participants that in time will lead to organic growth, leading to an increase in revenue.
Solve business challenges: Hackathons are focused, intensive events where participants work on solving specific problems. They give your customers the opportunity to address their unique challenges with support from your team. This hands-on problem-solving approach can lead to innovative solutions and demonstrate the practical value of your product.
Drive product adoption: During the hackathon, customers will dive deep into using your product, exploring its features and capabilities. This immersion can accelerate their understanding and adoption of your product, showcasing its potential to solve their business challenges.
Gather valuable feedback: Observe how customers interact with your product in real-time. This can provide invaluable insights into user behaviour, preferences, and pain points. The feedback gathered can guide future product development and improvements.
Identify new audiences: By inviting a diverse group of customers to the hackathon, you can explore new use cases and applications for your product. This can help you identify new market segments and expand your customer base.
Build a community: The collaborative nature of hackathons can foster a sense of community among participants, encouraging them to share their positive experiences and attract new users.
Enhance customer engagement: Encourage collaboration, creativity, and innovation. The excitement and energy generated during the event can translate into long-lasting engagement and loyalty.
Showcase your product's versatility: By facilitating the development of various solutions during the hackathon, you can showcase the versatility and adaptability of your product. This can help customers see the full potential, increasing their confidence in its ability to meet their diverse needs.
Strengthen your brand: Hosting a successful hackathon positions your company as a leader in innovation and customer engagement. It enhances your brand reputation and demonstrates your commitment to driving customer success. Outsourcing the hackathon management makes you the hero of the show.
Navigating turbulent markets requires a strategic focus on your customers. Whether you partner with your customer(s) to run individual hackathons or implement other strategies outlined here, now is the time to take a fresh look at your customer success practices and revamp your engagement strategy.
In times of economic uncertainty, businesses that invest in their customer relationships and product usage will be better positioned to weather the storm and emerge stronger. By staying close to customers and adapting to their evolving needs, companies can build lasting loyalty, drive sustained growth, and ensure long-term success.