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by

Lincoln Murphy

These lists dont tell you is that the value chain


for a customer to successfully use your product is
long and keeping them engaged is a process filled
with a combination of

The SaaS
Customer
Success Lifecycle

Customer
Acquisition

Sales
Process
Engagemen
t

Billing and
Payment

Customer
and User
Onboarding

Initial
Engagemen
t
(Activation)

Functional
Support

Technical
Support

Customer
Feedback
Loop

Ongoing
Engagemen
t

Customer
Driven
Growth

Customer
intelligence

Customer
Expansion
and
Renewal

Customer
Renewal

Customer
Retention

Post-Churn
Follow Up

Customer
Developme
nt

Customer
Development

The Expert
Tip
Ray
Wus
3 step guide
on how to d
o Customer D
evelopment r
ight.

Strategy
This list by
KISSmetrics
has
over
26 awesome r
esources to
help you
start
interviewing
your
customers
and building
your product.

Food for
Thought
Ash Maurya
On how we n
eed to rethi
nk Customer
Development
for startups
and web app
s.

Basics
13
Quora
answers on
How to desig
n an effecti
ve Survey fo
r Customer D
evelopment

Helprace lets you design


customer
surveys
to
reach out to potential
customers
and
understand their needs.
Pricing: All plans come
with Ticketing support +
knowledge base.
Free Forever 3 Agents |
Targeted: $9 agent/mo |
All-In: $18 Everything

Survey.io lets you create


surveys and send them
by
email
to
your
prospects.
Pricing: Gated. Appears
once you provide details
of your campaign.

Customer
Acquisition

The Expert
Tip

Core
Metrics

A very in-dep
th look at th
e customer ac
quisition pro
cess

The core metr


ics you need
to track to a
cquire custom
ers

Strategy

Food for
Thought

Rafi
Choudhury
explains
the differenc
e between hir
ing a growth
hacker and a
digital marke
ter

Consult the
Ultimate Saa
S Pricing Gui
de
to
improve
an important
part of your
product
marketing

Videoscribe

Quickmail.io Lets you follow up on


your email outreach.
You can also track open and reply
rates, automate mails and follow
ups and stop follow ups on reply,
A/B test mails
Pricing: Free Trial: 14 days. No
credit card required.
Monthly:
$49
(mail
200
prospects/day)
| $69 (mail 500
prospects/day)

Helps you create simple white


board explainer videos to talk
about your product. Discounts for
registered charities.
Pricing:
Monthly
$12
Billed
annually at $144 or Monthly $29
KickoffLabs
A useful tool to create landing
page campaigns, lead capture
forms, social referrals and viral
campaigns.
Pricing: All plans offer unlimited
landing pages, a/b testing and
launch
templates.
Business
$104/mo | Premium $48/mo |

Sales Process
Engagement

The Expert
Tip

Strategy

Every
customer
starts out as
a
prospect
that
is
costing your
company
money

Choices,
choices. Your
prospect
usually has
plenty. How
do you help
them choose
you?

Food for
Thought
A great visua
l representat
ion of the Sa
les Process

Close.io is an alternative
to Salesforce that has a
beautiful sales workflow
and promises to help
you close more deals
and get more sales.
Pricing: Free 14 day
trial / no credit card
required | Basic: $65
(Unlimited
Opportunities)
|
Professional: $110 Basic

Pipedrive: A sales CRM


for small teams with big
ambitions
Made
by
salespeople. I love their
simple pricing.
Pricing: Simple pricing
for busy people. $12 /
user
/
month
No
contracts No account
limits No hidden fees No
charge for support, API
key. No credit card
required for 30-day trial

Clearbit
helps you
narrow
down
your
research on customers,
verify leads and gain
insights to build a strong
customer base. Saves a
ton of time for small
growth teams. Pricing:
Plans start at $99 a
month.

Billing and
Payment

The Expert
Tip
A list of tips
to keep in mi
nd when planni
ng a billing p
age.
This can help
you
offer
customers an
improved
and
enjoyable
recurring

Strategy
Neil
Patel
shares
strategies on
creating recur
ring billing

Hiveage is a simple,
powerful
online
billing
tool
for
freelancers
and
small
businesses.
Their Free Plan is
flexible and useful.
Pricing:
Free

Unlimited Clients &


Invoices
|
Paid
plans
from
$6.95/mo

Billing Orchard is a
great tool to create
and
manage
recurring billing and
quickbooks.
Pricing: Try their
Free 15 Day Trial
(No
credit
card
required)
Their
charged plans are
OAK $19.95/month
and ORCHARD
$29.95/month.

Chargebee
promises to handle
your Billing and
Invoicing, Payments
and Subscriptions
by
automating
processes that slow
you
down
like
dunning and tax
compliance checks.
They also have a
great free plan for
small startups for
upto $50K revenue.

Chargify is a great
recurring billing tool
for small, growing
businesses.
They
offer credit card as
well
as
Paypal
billing
(flexible!)
and
their
Small
Business plan starts
at $129 (500 active
users) Their Small
Business+
plan
($169/mo)
also
offers
Mailchimp

Customer
and User
Onboarding

The Expert
Tip
Beautifully broken
down onboarding flo
ws by Samuel
Hulick of
useronboard.com.
Samuel writes in a
way that are sure
to make you crack
up while learning
how
important
every
step
of
onboarding is

Strategy
Intercom
explains
why user onbo
arding is har
der than you
think it is,
and how to ma
ster it

Best
Practices
Case Study
from
Ghost.org
on the onboar
ding metrics
they tracked
to increase w
ebsite conver
sions

Autosend can be used to


reach customers inside and
outside your app. There is no
free plan. All plans offer
Unlimited email and In-App
Messages / Email Support.
Pricing: Starter $50 / 500
active users / 500 SMS
Growth $250 10KUsers / 10K
SMS. Pro $600 30K users /
30K SMS

Elev.io helps you create inapp


guided
website
experiences. All paid plans
offer unlimited modules, with
limited page loads.
Pricing: Free: 1 Users / 1
Active Modules
49 LITE $ 49 / mo 1 User.
GROWTH $ 79 / mo 5 Team
Users
$199 BIG TIME $ 199 / mo 10
Team Users

Initial
Engagement
(Activation)

The Expert
Tip

Strategy

The
crucial natur
e of the firs
t 30 days you
r customer us
es your websi
te or app

Ott
Nigulis
detailed
guide
to
understandin
g data and c
ustomer acti
vation

Airbrake helps you track


your applications for any
errors or roadblocks your
customers may hit along the
way.
Pricing:
Small $39, 5 Applications
Monitored,
10
team
members
Pro $89, 15 Apps Monitored,
20
members.
Enterprise
$199, 40 Apps Monitored, 30
members

User Testing helps you get


insights directly from your
customers mouths.
Pricing: Basic: $49/video &
$99/video after first 10
videos
Test across devices. 15 min
max video length.

Functional
Support

The Expert
Tip
Lincoln Murphy writes about
why Customer Success needs t
o be about making your produ
ct functional and useful.

Freshdesk An easy to use knowledge bank, billing and invoice tool.


Pricing: Free Trial, No Credit Card
Sprout 0/Month 3 Agents. Blossom 999/Agent/Month
Garden 1499/Agent/Month Estate 2499/Agent/Month (Most Popular) Forest
4499/Agent/Month. Billed Annually
Groove HQ: Easy-to-use ticket management, knowledge base and more.
Pricing: Free Plan at $0/user/month. Two Users, 1 Mailbox, Customer
Histories.
Groove Plus at $15/user/month Unlimited Mailboxes, Automated
Workflows and Email tracking. No credit card required/ Cancel anytime.
If
you
are
a
small
business
owner,
here
are
26 webinar tools you could use as part of your marketing and content offering
s.
Freshdesk An easy to use knowledge bank, billing and invoice tool.
Pricing: Free Trial, No Credit Card
Sprout 0/Month 3 Agents. Blossom 999/Agent/Month
Garden 1499/Agent/Month Estate 2499/Agent/Month (Most Popular) Forest
4499/Agent/Month. Billed Annually

Technical
Support

The Expert
Tip
Find out why
the folks at
OnePlus feel
the need to h
ave great Sup
port.
(Unlike Uber)

Strategy
Read about
what makes c
ustomer supp
ort effort p
roactive?

Intercom: To acquire, engage


and support customers.
(Two thumbs up for their
unique pricing, but good luck
figuring out what exactly
you need.)
Pricing: Acquire, Engage,
Learn and Support: Start at
$49, add-ons at $4

Olark: Live Chat solution to


support customers. Visitor
Profiles, Canned responses
and more. Tip: bill annually or
bi-annually.
Pricing: Bronze $17 Gold $49
Platinum $129 and Ultimate
$243 / Month

Customer
Feedback
Loop

The Expert
Tip
A great piece on
customer feedback
that
highlights
the various avenue
s you can get cust
omer feedback from

Strategy
How to use f
orums and su
rveys to cre
ate a custom
er
feedback
loop

Food for
Thought
Harvard Busin
ess Reviews
long piece on
closing the
customer feed
back loop

Promoter.io can help you


with all your NPS needs.
Pricing: Free Plan (No
credit card required)
1000 surveys/month 1
campaign.
NPS
LITE
$97
/mo
2,500
surveys
/mo
/
2
campaigns
NPS COMPLETE $369
/mo
25,000
surveys
ENTERPRISE
Unlimited
Everything.

Delighted lets you send


out single questions to
get customer feedback
and analyse the results.
Pricing: Free Plan Send
question
to
250
customers
100 sends per month
$25 (plans go upto
50,000 sends per month
at $999)

Qualaroo
gives
you
customer insights for
smarter A/B testing. You
can
try
the
Small
Business
and
Professional plan for
free (no credit card, but
must submit but other
details)
Pricing: Small Business
$63/mo
Professional
$199/mo
Enterprise
(Demo

10

Ongoing
Engagement

Strategy
Nudgespots
guide
to
using in-app
messaging a
nd business
messengers f
or Customer
Success
will help you
keep
your
customers
engaged and
active

The Expert
Tip

More Expert
Tips

Food for
Thought

Crazy
Egg
share
27 customer r
etention stra
tegies that y
ou should be
using

This
amazingly wr
itten articl
e on custome
r engagement
by David
Skok
is

What not to
do when you
are trying t
o engage cus
tomers

something to
keep coming
back to at
every step of
your growth

A customer success
platform that helps
you stay on top of
your
customer
connections
and
drive
recurring
value to them. Get
in touch for pricing

A customer success
platform that helps
you track churn
risk, NPS score and
upsell
opportunities.
Available on iOS
and Android.
Pricing: Plans begin
at $8/user and go
upto $40/user

Nudgespot
is
a
great
tool
to
onboard,
support
and
engage
customers.
Pricing: Acquire +
Support: $0 100k
Users + Unlimited
Team
Members.
Onboard + Engage:
$49/mo Free Plan +
Triggered In-App
Retain:
$199/mo
with
Behavioural

Evergage helps you


achieve
web
personalisation for
your audiences by
segmenting,
marketing
automation,
a/b
testing and more.
See pricing here

11

Customer
Driven
Growth

The Expert
Tip

Strategy

Kristi Hines
breaks down
the steps to c
reating a deta
iled case stud
y for your web
site and how t
o position it
effectively.

The
good
folks
at
Unbounce
tell
you
How to use on
line marketin
g to perfect
your customer
testimonials

Mention
is
a
social
monitoring app that lets you
track what your competitors
are doing, as well as what
your customers are saying
about you on social media.
Pricing: Tip: Opt for a Yearly
Plan, save 2 months. No
credit card required. Solo:
$29/Mo 2 alerts / 3k
mentions Starter: $99/Mo 5k
mentions. Custom: Unlimited
users, mentions.

Amity is a Customer Success


Software that can be used for
SaaS customer success. It
helps you track and monitor
customers on their visual
dashboard
as
well
as
measure portfolio health and
automate
messages
to
customers.
Pricing: Get in touch for a
demo/free trial.

12

Customer
intelligence

The Expert
Tip
On
how to use an analyt
ics tool like
KISSmetrics
to learn about how
your customers use
your product

Strategy
See
How
Hubstaff
uses
Mixpanel
for Customer
Intelligence

Case Study
Understand
How Expedia f
ocused on Cus
tomer Intelli
gence to turn
Clicks into
Dollars

Kissmetrics is the place


to go if you want to start
tracking and analyzing
the key metrics that you
can base changes on to
improve
conversions
and reduce churn.
Pricing:
STARTER / $200 / 500k
events. BASIC / $700 / 5
million
events.
PRO
$2,000 / 20 mil events
+ more

Mixpanel believes in
abolishing what they call
bullshit metrics
and
using funnels to track
real, relevant customer
engagement metrics.
Pricing:
Free
25,000
Data Points / $0 / Month
Startup 500,000 Data
Points / $150 / Month
(Five more plans. Most
expensive is $2000 for
50,000,000 data points)

Piwik is a free and open


source data analytics
platform
that
guarantees data privacy.
Features include usercentric insights, user
privacy protection and
customisability

13

Customer
Expansion

The Expert
Tip
A quick read
to help you u
nderstand why
expansion re
venue is so e
ssential to a
SaaS busines
s

Strategy
The
Land and exp
and Strategy
: Chris
Yeh
(VP Marketin
g at
PBworks
) discusses
Customer eng
agement for
the SaaS wor

Inspectlet allows you to


record user and visitor
sessions. All plans come with
Playback
sessions,
heatmaps, mobile support,
Seamless AJAX and HTTPS
support.
Pricing: Free $ 0 per month
100 Recorded Sessions 1
Website
Plans from $ 39 per month
(5,000 Recorded Sessions / 1
Website) to $ 299 per month

Sprout Social Monitoring lets


you track mentions, monitor
content
and
outreach.
Because in an era where
Twitter is used for support,
you cant monitor your social
feeds enough.
Pricing: Deluxe $59 PER
USER/MONTH. Plans go upto
Team Plan at
$500 / month (3 users) with
Advanced reports and team
features

15

Customer
Renewal

Strategy
Marketo
explains
How to take a weak
renewal email and t
urn it into a power
ful renewal campaig
n

Case Study
WP
Rocket
discuss
How they inc
reased renew
al rates by
154%

Best
Practices
What
to
Measure
to
monitor custo
mer renewal r
ates for your
SaaS / cloud
-based busine
ss

Planhat is a Customer Success Platform built


for small and mid-sized SaaS companies. Key
features include churn & up-sell alerts,
advanced Success Playbooks and Customizable
Health Score. It integrates with SaaS products
like Slack, Salesforce, and Zendesk. There is
also an open REST API. Pricing: Get in touch for
a free trial.

14

Customer
Retention

The Expert
Tip
Evergages
tips
on
how to calcul
ate customer
retention
using
Customer
Retention
Rate
(CRR)
and
Dollar
Retention
Rate (DRR)

Strategy
Groove HQ sha
red their str
ategies to re
tain customer
s

Case Study
Learn
how Symantec
created a d
igital exper
ience that r
educed churn
from Market
ing Sherpa

Best
Practices
Sweet tooth
rewards
offers
the ultimate
guide to cust
omer retentio
n

Heap Analytics
provides
instant,
retroactive
analytics and lets you track
customer actions on your
website to better understand
their needs and roadblocks.
Pricing: All plans come with
a 14 day free trial. Free: 5K
Sessions / Month Startup
$249
/
50K
sessions.
Premium
$599
150K
sessions. Enterprise offers
Support / SQL Data

Framed.io
uses
machine
learning
and
predictive
analytics to figure out which
of your customers are more
likely to churn and take
precautionary mesaures. You
can also use their analytics
tool to understand which of
your marketing efforts are
bringing in customers that
stay and become loyal.
Pricing: Plans start at $99
(Monitor) and go upto $1000.

16

Post-Churn
Follow Up

The Expert
Tip
Before
you
fix
churn,
you need to
find out why
are
you
facing churn.
Read Conversi
on XL 9 case
studies to h
elp you under
stand why you
rchurn
users

Case Study
See
how
Baremetrics r
educed churn
with a clever
drip email c
ampaign

Pushcrew helps you send push notifications on


Mobile/Desktop
to
get
feedback
from
customers.
Pricing: Free Unlimited Notification 500
subscribers
Premium $25 per month for 2k subscribers
(prices increase depending on subscriber)

Lets make this list bigger. Comment and let us know your secret weapons, tools,
tips and strategies and well add it to our list to create a resource for anyone in the
SaaS Customer Success world

Read more
http://www.nudgespot.com/blog/customer-success-saasstartups/#
top
Read More:
Give Your New Customers The Welcome They Deserve
50 Ways to Win at SaaS Customer Success with In-App Messaging
www.NudgeSpot.com
Thoughts From The Field - Why Nudgespot
Is More Relevant Than Ever!

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