Earlier, companies focus was totally on sales and marketing because customers were often “stuck” after purchasing. Therefore, all of the “post-sale” experience was a cost center in most companies. Now, with granular per-year, per-month pricing models, cloud deployments and many competitive options, customers have the power. In this emerging world, Customer Success teams are being created in companies to quarterback the customer lifecycle and drive adoption, renewals, up-sell and advocacy.
Gainsight, a leading Customer Success Company came up with mission to help customers “lead the world in Customer Success”.
Nick Mehta: Impresario behind Gainsight
Nick Mehta is CEO of Gainsight, the leading Customer Success Company. Gainsight was named a 2014 Cool Vendor for CRM Sales and under Nick’s leadership, the company has proven customer success to be a revenue generator for subscription businesses. Prior to Gainsight, Nick focused on developing opportunities in the enterprise applications and infrastructure markets as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Accel Partners. Nick also previously served as CEO of LiveOffice, where he led the company’s profitable growth to $25 MM in revenue and its successful sale to Symantec in 2012 for $115M. LiveOffice earned the recognition as a Visionary and as an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year finalist. Before joining LiveOffice, Nick was a Vice President at VERITAS Software.
Proven Services
Gainsight’s technology is built for Customer Success or Account Management teams who are responsible for Customer retention or upsell. It help these customer facing teams understand their customers by tracking important customer health data. Gainsight also help Customer Success teams take action on this data by providing ways for them to engage with their customer base. Finally, it offers a set of tools targeted to help Customer Success organization more effectively manage their teams and internal customer related processes. Gainsight’s results to date include:
- Gainsight has the largest annual Customer Success Management conference in the world .
- Gainsight has the only local peer-to-peer CSM best chapters, located in 25 major cities across the US and Canada.
- Gainsight has the only executive retreat group of CCOs come together to learn from each other and partner to create effective strategies around Customer Success.
- Gainsight has the only online university for new CSMs.
- Gainsight has the only onlineCSM Career Hub site, focused exclusively on posting and applying for Customer Success Management Jobs.
Gainsight has the largest customers (260+) and several unique product features such as Sponsor Tracker that helps you track key sponsors at your customer so you can keep tabs in case they switch roles or change companies. They are the only product on the market to provide native email automation capabilities. Their Customer Health Score is also very robust.
Gainsight believes that every community needs Golden Rule, Success all and Child-like Joy.
Future Aspects
Gainsight is already seeing other business processes embracing this trend-such as the Account Based Marketing (ABM) movement. With the availability of data that customers create by interacting with your products and services, companies can leverage that information to provide best in class service and help them achieve their business outcomes through the product.
Suggestions for Startup
Challenge conventional wisdom by flipping the sales and marketing funnel and starting with your customers. You’ll be ahead of your peers by embracing this trend head on before your competition will.