Customer Success Management

The subscription business model is hot - from software to music to movies to diet programs, investors and public markets want businesses that create recurring payments from unlimited customers. The old sales and marketing methods can handle attracting new customers for growth; however, only in the last five years has a discipline emerged that views growth in relation to retention, not just sales.

The Customer Success Manager has become a critical asset to organizations across the business landscape. As the subscription model has spread from the cloud and SaaS to more sectors of the economy, that pivotal role will only grow in importance. That's because if you want to compete and thrive in this new environment, you need to put the customer at the center of your strategy. You need to recognize you're no longer selling just a product. You're selling an outcome.

From services to products, online to in-person, small-scale to multinational, your customers' loyalty depends on how you interact with them. Transform Customer Experience is your ultimate guide to putting your customer first. Author and CX expert Isabella Villani shows how you can implement a customer strategy from planning to execution.

Customers can be a mystery. Despite the availability of more data than ever before, everyone, from the CEO to salespeople in the field, struggles to understand who their customers really are, what they want, why they lose them, and how to regain them. To crack the case, start thinking like a market detective. David Scott Duncan shows how in his entertaining story of Tazza, a fictional chain of cafes with declining sales and leaders urgently seeking to understand why.

What are companies like Uber, IKEA, Belgo, and Eurostar doing that makes them so profitable? They know how to scale relationships. But online gurus are lying to you about scaling to hundreds of clients without creating an exceptional customer experience. Ben and I created this book with that in mind. When you feel like there is much more to be done in how you serve your clients, we’ve got you. For a long time, marketers--specifically in the online space--have been making bolder and bolder promises.

Stories That Stick provides a clear framework of ideals and a concise set of actions for you to take complete control of your own story, utilizing the principles behind the world’s most effective business storytelling strategies. Telling these stories well is a simple, accessible skill anyone can develop. With case studies, company profiles, and anecdotes backed with original research, Hall presents storytelling as the underutilized talent that separates the good from the best in business.

Clayton M. Christensen is a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. Michael E. Raynor is a director at Deloitte Research. Together, they outline an innovative plan that urges businesses to create disruption rather than fleeing from it. Named one of 2003's Best Business Books by Business Week, this book is a Wall Street Journal and New York Times best seller.

Fast-paced and down-to-earth, Delivering Happiness shows how a different kind of corporate culture is a powerful model for achieving success, and concentrating on the happiness of those around you can dramatically increase your own.

The New Gold Standard takes you on an exclusive tour behind the scenes of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. Granted unprecedented access to the company's executives, staff, and its award-winning Leadership Center training facilities, bestselling author Joseph Michelli explored every level of leadership within the organization.

Exceeding expectations rather than simply satisfying them is the cornerstone of the Disney approach to customer service. Now, in honor of the 10th anniversary of the original Be Our Guest, the Disney Institute, which specializes in helping professionals see new possibilities through concepts not found in the typical workplace, is revealing even more of the business behind the magic of quality service.

Still struggling through the financial crisis that began in 2008, consumers aren't buying traditional sales approaches anymore. So how do salespeople, corporate communicators, managers, and marketers sell their ideas, products, and services to a generation of customers who are more skeptical and less influenced by conventional marketing than ever before?

With emerging technology transforming customer expectations, it’s more important than ever to keep a laser focus on the experience companies provide their customers. In The Customer of the Future, customer experience futurist Blake Morgan outlines 10 easy-to-follow customer experience guidelines that integrate emerging technologies with effective strategies to combat disconnected processes, silo mentalities, and a lack of buyer perspective.

Negotiation is an essential element of almost all of our interactions - personally and professionally. It’s part of how we establish relationships, work together, and arrive at solutions for our clients, our organizations, and ourselves. Simply put, those who don’t negotiate well risk falling victim to those who do. Throughout his career, success expert Brian Tracy has negotiated millions of dollars worth of contracts. Now, with this concise guide, you too can become a master negotiator.

CEO of Hint, Inc., and author Kara Goldin turned her unsweetened flavored water into one of the most successful beverage businesses of our time. As she started to achieve her goals, Kara found herself being called “fearless”, “confident” and even “unstoppable”, but nothing could be further from the truth. In Undaunted, she shares real stories about her own fears and doubts, the challenges she encountered and what she did to overcome them to eventually build a great business and a life she loves.

The Carrot Principle reveals the groundbreaking results of one of the most in-depth management studies ever undertaken, showing definitively that the most successful managers provide their employees with frequent and effective recognition. Best-selling authors Gostick and Elton show how the transformative power of purpose-based recognition produces astonishing results. And they show how great managers motivate employees to excel by offering constructive praise and meaningful rewards.

Not every client is a good client! In that first flush of life as business owners, we often say yes to anyone who wants to hire us. We think the most important thing is establishing a client base. As long as we're getting hired, that's a good thing, and it's all that matters. But after a while we learn an important truth: Not every client is a good client. In fact some of them are truly toxic.

The coauthor of In Search of Excellence offers practical insights on business, management, leadership, and success. This audio program covers listening to customers, noting symbols, circulating, motivating others, and striving for top-notch quality and service.

In the old days, when we made physical products, setting project goals wasn’t that hard. But in today’s service - and software-driven world, “done” is less obvious. When is Amazon done? When is Google done? Or Facebook? In reality, services powered by digital systems are never done. So then how do we give teams a goal that they can work on? Mostly, we simply ask teams to build features - but features are the wrong way to go. We often build features that create no value. Instead, we need to give teams an outcome to achieve.

The phenomenal international best seller Fish! told the story of a fictional company that transformed itself by applying lessons learned from Seattle's Pike Place Fish market. Now, with Fish! Tales, listeners can learn how people in real-life businesses boosted morale and improved results by implementing these same principles. Here are specific and tested techniques that can be put to use right away in any kind of business or organization, even at home.

Charm is good business. It can increase your income, boost your status, and establish and maintain your reputation. Most businesspeople don't fully understand the concept of charm. It ought to be a reflex, a conditioned response, to "turn on the charm" when dealing with customers, clients, associates, and employees, but it isn't. Charm draws customers. Charm gets noticed. But charm is only partly innate. Much of it is learned.