How To Avoid Getting Ghosted By Customers
As a CSM, you’ve probably been ghosted a time or two – by clients, of course. When critical issues aren’t being flagged, weeks can pass before you look around and realize you haven’t connected with a customer in some time. Then, when you try to reach out and re-engage it can be near impossible to elicit a response from the customer in question.
When do customers ‘go dark’
If you’re a CSM working for a SaaS-based vendor, there are a few stages where a customer would typically go silent. While the sales handoff, implementation, and onboarding stages of a customer relationship are all very hands on and require a significant amount of communication, the ongoing maintenance, management, and growth stages can be a little trickier.
When a customer account is moving smoothly, with no big issues or concerns, this may seem like a good thing to the discerning CSM. But this is often when customers can fall off the grid, since there is no reason for them to be reaching out or asking questions. If things are going so well, then, why do CSMs even need to care about getting ghosted by customers?
A CSM needs ongoing check-ins and engagement with customers to ensure project plans are on the right track, that the customer isn’t unhappy with the current solution, and to confirm that the customer isn’t looking to potentially switch vendors. Additionally, although things may be moving smoothly now, all it could take is one issue for a customer to feel as though they were forgotten about or left to fend for themselves.
How to avoid getting ghosted by customers
If there is one thing to remember it is that a CSM should never wait around to be ghosted by a customer to then try and re-engage. Instead, CSMs should be proactive and strategic about how they are engaging with their customer on an ongoing basis to avoid being ghosted in the first place.
Here are a few ways to proactively avoid being ghosted by customers:
1. Never skip your recurring customer check-in calls, or make sure things are rescheduled accordingly if there is a conflict.
Early on in a customer relationship, you probably set up a recurring meeting with your customers to touch base on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. This meeting can be essential for ensuring customers don’t go radio silent and that you can always check in when needed.
2. Set up a quarterly executive review.
If you realize that your customers are ghosting right when big conversations – like renewals and/or upsells – are supposed to take place, knowing there is an executive check-in around the corner can help appease a little of your panic. Putting these reviews on the calendar will also give your customers some room to breathe but will rein them back in when needed.
3. Track your product usage metrics accordingly.
While some customers’ ghosting could be no big deal, if users are also not logging in to the platform you may have a bigger issue at hand. Track your product usage, log ins, and other on-platform metrics to make sure your customer is still engaging with your platform.
You can learn more about how to avoid getting ghosted by customers with these other resources from ClientSuccess: