End of Year Customer Success Checklist

With the end of the year approaching, it is a busy time for Customer Success teams. Businesses are under pressure to finish out the year strong, perform Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs), determine and refresh KPIs for the new year, finalize budgets – and most importantly ensure your customers are successful going into the new year.

To help you with this process, we put together this end of year checklist for your customer success team.

Conduct a Year-End Review

• Analyze overall customer success results (gross revenue, customer retention, annual recurring revenue per CSM, accounts per CSM)
• What were your biggest successes? How were they achieved?
• What were your biggest losses? Why did they happen?
• Have there been any market or competitor changes?

Prepare Your Customers for the Next Year

• Determine goals and KPIs based on the current year
• Map out major upcoming customer milestones
• Uncover any foreseen changes in the coming year

Plan Internally for the Next Year

• Set internal customer success team goals and KPIs
• Schedule out milestones for each month and quarter
• Plan new strategies and optimizations to be adopted
• Finalize budgets for technology and team headcount

Close the Year with a Personal Touch

• Send out holiday greetings to your customers from the company thanking them for their business
• Have CSMs send out personalized messages to their clients pledging success in the new year

If you are looking for more guidance for your year-end planning, you came to the right place. We decided to reach out to some industry leaders and solicit their advice for end of year customer success planning, and we compiled their recommendations in a new eBook. Download your own copy now – Advice from Customer Success Experts: Best Practices for Year-End Planning.

Let’s fight churn and close out the year strong!

Customer Success Around the Web

• How to Talk to Customers: When a Phone Call Is Better Than an Email – Knowing when to make the shift from our default — email — to the phone is an important skill for customer teams.

• Less Than 1% Churn? It’s Possible – Just Listen to Your Customers– Four ways to stop loosing potential lifelong customers and better your bottom line
• How Productive Customer Success Manager Organize Their Time– Tips to tailor your time management techniques to your personality, business and even your learning style