How SmartBear got $6m in referrals 😯

View in browser

Hi there,

Your customer account experience data can be used for much more than tackling customer churn.

It's also an opportunity to grow revenue.

On stage at our event, Monetize!, Jennifer Mahoney from SmartBear walked us through how she brought in $6m in referral revenue using their Net Promoter program.

I've watched Jennifer's talk several times and there are two key things that made their program so successful:

good NPS program fundamentals
a strategy to leverage experience data

In this week's Gaugie community email, we're going to highlight what makes SmartBear's approach a success and why.

Grab a coffee and join us for a short read ☕

1. SmartBear has good NPS program fundamentals.

SmartBear had setup their customer feedback collection system properly. That means:

Relentlessly trying to get feedback from all customers—no 'grey areas' where they had no customer satisfaction signals. They targeted at least 80% coverage of their customers, so they know what's going on with as many of them as possible. (Here's a related resource: how to improve your NPS response rates here)
Linking account revenue data to customer feedback. This allows SmartBear to map out strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) amongst their entire customer base.

The second point here is important, so let's focus on it for a second.

The truth about the customer base of any business is that not all customers are of equal value. It's likely that some larger accounts will be 10x the annual revenue of the smaller ones.

By linking customer feedback to revenue, you're able to weight the importance of that feedback and take action accordingly.

SmartBear leverages the SWOT graph for this very reason:

Each bucket in the SWOT is revealing and present an interesting talking point when discussing how to grow revenue faster.

Here's how SmartBear categorizes their customer accounts:

Strengths = High value accounts who are happy
Opportunities = Low value accounts that are happy
Weaknesses = Low value accounts that are unhappy
Threats = High value customers that are unhappy

On stage, Jennifer mentions that her sales team came to her and said "we just want you to give us a list of customers that I can call that I know love us and that I can sell to" and she said, "I can do that. I have a software program that can give you a list of just that."

With revenue connected + a smoothly running CX insights program, Jennifer was able to quickly identify opportunities to hand them to her sales team (ultimately, those customers generated $6m+ in referrals and upsell from the accounts categorized as opportunities).

This leads me to point two—a clear strategy.

2. SmartBear built a revenue-driving strategy to leverage experience insights

In the talk, Jennifer showed us this slide which shows she built strategies around each SWOT quadrant.

She then sat down twice a month with her teams to help them leverage the NPS program to move the needle in each quadrant.

By defining responsibilities, empowering frontline teams with the insight, and tracking successful outcomes, SmartBear was able to:

(1) Drive increases in account size

(2) Create referral opportunities

(3) Quantify the contribution of CX to company growth—winning additional resources and budget for the program

When NPS has such a clear impact on revenue, it's clear why CX is becoming the powerhouse of company growth in 2022 and beyond.

Watch the full talk here to get even more details on SmartBear's growth strategy.

With love,

CustomerGauge (aka the Gaugies)

P.S. We're in the midst of organizing another B2B CX conference in Amsterdam in September. Be the first to know when we announce it by putting your name on this list—early-bird tickets go fast!