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As the world of Customer Success (CS) evolves, organizations are turning towards more scalable strategies to maintain and enhance customer relationships. One such strategy gaining traction is the tech touch model. By leveraging technology, companies can provide personalized, on-demand services to a larger customer base, effectively managing customer relationships at scale. This article explores the concept of tech touch in Customer Success, its benefits, how to implement it, and when to avoid it.
Understanding Tech Touch in Customer Success
Tech touch, sometimes referred to as low touch, is a model of customer success that utilizes technology to manage customer relationships. This model involves less direct human interaction but aims at delivering personalized and meaningful experiences to customers. The tech touch model is not about replacing human effort but supplementing it with technology, enabling businesses to serve more customers efficiently and effectively.
How Does Tech Touch Differ from High Touch and Low Touch?
Before delving deeper into the tech touch model, it's essential to distinguish it from other customer success models: high touch and low touch.
- High-touch models are typically employed for complex products with enterprise customers who require constant interaction with a Customer Success Manager (CSM). It involves a lot of 1-on-1 human interaction.
- Low-touch models, on the other hand, are best suited for simpler products where users don't need a lot of support. It relies on basic automation and doesn't focus a lot on personalization or segmentation.
- Tech-touch models combine the benefits of both high touch and low touch. They use automated communication but go beyond simple onboarding and standard automation. Tech touch is customer-centric, leveraging data to hyper-personalize the customer experience. It engages customers proactively across every stage of their journey and determines when human intervention is needed based on specific metrics.
The Advantages of Tech Touch Customer Success
The tech touch model offers several advantages that can significantly enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of your Customer Success efforts.
1. Personalized Communication and Education
Tech touch tools can analyze customer data to provide personalized communication and education to customers. Whether it's a prompt due to low product usage, a reminder of an upcoming renewal, or an in-app pop-up about a new feature, the communication is tailored to the customer's needs and preferences.
2. Customer Insights Collection
Tech touch tools can also collect and analyze customer data, providing valuable insights about customer behavior, product usage, and customer health. These insights can help improve products and services, provide preemptive support to prevent customer churn, and personalize the customer experience.
3. Time Savings for CSMs
By automating routine tasks, tech touch tools can save valuable time for CSMs, allowing them to focus on more strategic tasks. It reduces the load on CSMs and allows them to manage larger customer portfolios effectively. As part of this, it's important to consider processes like the sales to customer success handoff.
4. Cross-channel Communication
Tech touch tools can communicate with customers across various channels – emails, chatbots, in-app messaging, and more – ensuring a consistent and personalized customer experience.
Implementing a Successful Tech Touch Strategy
Implementing a successful tech touch strategy involves careful planning and execution. Here are some best practices to keep in mind:
- Know when not to use tech touch: Tech touch may not be suitable if your product or service is complicated and requires a lot of customer support. In such cases, a high touch model is more appropriate.
- Segment your customers: Tech touch can't be a one-size-fits-all approach. Segment your customers based on factors like product usage, onboarding needs, customer behavior, and business needs to deliver personalized experiences.
- Track customer data: Tech touch tools can collect a wealth of customer data. Use this data to monitor customer health, improve products and services, and provide preemptive support to prevent customer churn.
- Personalize everything: Personalization is critical in tech touch. Use sophisticated personalization to make every automated customer interaction feel unique and personalized.
When to Avoid Tech Touch
While tech touch can be highly effective, there are situations where a more human touch is needed. Here are a few instances when tech touch might not be the best approach:
- Renewal conversations for large contracts: For significant renewals, it's better to have a human-led conversation to discuss contract terms and address any concerns. Make sure you monitor customer retention metrics.
- Significant escalations: If a customer issue escalates or a customer is not satisfied with the automated support, a human should step in to resolve the issue.
- Building genuine relationships: While tech touch can help manage customer relationships at scale, nothing can replace the human touch when it comes to building genuine, long-term relationships.
