Customer success metrics are torture. They’re 50 shades of pain. They’re also essential.

Last updated on June 10th, 2023

Pardeep Kullar
Pardeep Kullar

Do you have customers who are not really using your app but paying you? What
happens if you send out metrics showing them all exactly how much they use it
and who does not need it. They’ll unsubscribe and that’s the best thing ever.
A good set of customer success metrics will change your outlook and while the
short term is torture, it becomes the greatest relief.

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Deep down inside we knew that some people did not really need
Upscope in the long term.

Upscope is co-browsing aka instant screen
sharing for live chat and phone support / sales.

Does everyone with software need it? No. It’s best used for onboarding new
users and dealing with tough customer support issues for software which has
users who are non-tech.

It’s not always clear who is a good fit customer


We avoid bad-fit
customers

but the companies that seem like a good fit sometimes end up not needing it
and it takes time for that realisation to come about.

We sent an email out to all our customers giving them a breakdown of how much
they were really using Upscope.

What do you think would happen?

Of course they would unsubscribe


I knew what would happen when we sent out an email telling them about their
usage.

I thought it would hurt when some unsubscribed but the pain was all before the
email, afterwards it felt great.

Some companies used it an incredible amount, one company had not used it at
all in the last month and when they unsubscribed, I felt better.

Having a company sitting there paying but not using our product was a false
positive for our revenue. It was a distraction. It was also embarrassing.

It’s shameful thinking that we’re getting paid for something someone is not
using. There’s no love there from either side. It’s an empty relationship.
It’s dead inside.

We can focus more on our real market


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It’s the classic rule “See who needs your product the most and find more
like them”.

The problem with this?

Some of the people who signed up and paid did not really need it as much as
they imagined so the push for real customer success metrics help us understand
who really does.

We’re now analysing the people using it the most and ‘the obvious’ that was
not so obvious is becoming obvious.

People with non-tech users dealing with complicated software? Winner.

Even tech savvy people need to be onboarded for some tools and so a company
that uses Upscope for demonstrations and guiding people through the site?
Winner.

We’re still combing through it. I’ll update this in time as we understand more
but now it’s data driven from the ground up and not ‘Hey, this person signed
up, they must love it, wow, they do X… we need to find more of these guys’.


Related: The danger of bad fit
customers.

Also see: 27 companies show you their best onboarding
emails.

Pardeep Kullar
Pardeep Kullar

Pardeep overlooks growth at Upscope and loves writing about SaaS companies, customer success and customer experience.