It’s a new year, which serves as a reminder to reevaluate your strategies and goals. We’re in an era of change—which means the processes and tactics you’ve used in the past may not be as effective or efficient as they were before. In the midst of the ongoing economic slowdown, many teams are reevaluating their budgets and workflows to make sure every moment and every cent are optimized. 

With these shifts taking place, the responsibilities of customer success teams are also shifting. CS professionals are taking on more work, oftentimes with fewer resources. In order to empower the individuals on your customer success team, they must have access to the data and tools they need to prove product value and build trust with customers when it matters most. They also need to be able to transform that data into digestible stories that resonate with customers. 

In this blog post, we’re sharing the essential tech stack that will help CS teams use data to build trust with customers in 2023. 

Comprehensive data housing platform

Customer success professionals need access to a wide range of data in order to do their jobs. Data housed in CRM platforms like Hubspot, Salesforce, or Gainsight; or in BI platforms such as Tableau or Looker can provide essential insights that allow CS teams to provide user adoption recommendations and help customers work toward their goals. 

Regardless of which platform your team uses, your CSMs need to be able to access customer account data, customer journey data, product adoption, customer goals, and more. The platform you choose should improve productivity, integrate easily with other tools, be relatively easy to use and implement, be scalable, and should provide insight into all stages of the customer journey. In addition, your CS team members should be able to easily find essential engagement metrics, health scores, and other customer insights.

However, with so many sources of data, things can get complicated. Make sure your CS team is able to quickly access essential data and transform it into data-driven content. This will reduce time spent on manual processes and result in more time building customer relationships. 

Presentation creation software 

In order to build a data-driven story that resonates with customers, it’s important to create simple, yet compelling data visualizations that you can easily share with customers and key stakeholders. A presentation creation software like Google Slides or Powerpoint is absolutely essential for CSMs that are creating data-driven business review presentations. Rather than sharing obscure screenshots and entire complex dashboards within your CRM or BI tool, CSMs should be sharing well-designed, on-brand content that is personalized for each customer. This will help your team stand out from the competition, build trust and credibility, and position itself as a trusted partner.

To boost productivity, use your presentation creation software to build out templates that your CSMs can use for each new customer-facing resource rather than reinventing the wheel each time. 

Cloud storage

In order to build trust with customers in 2023, your team needs to create several types of customer-facing, data-driven content pieces such as presentations, one pagers, and more. With that in mind, your team may be creating hundreds if not thousands of personalized resources, and it’s important to have a trusty, reliable method for storing and backing up all of those resources. 

Equip your team with a platform like Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, or Microsoft OneDrive. And of course, make sure it integrates seamlessly with the other platforms your team relies on. 

Content tracking platform

Now that we’ve covered the importance of sharing data-driven content to build trust with customers, it’s important to have insights into which types of data-driven content are performing the best. Tools like Salesforce and other content management platforms can give your team visibility on your most used and most successful resources so you can lean into what’s working.

Distribution tools

Finally, your team needs a way to share the data-driven content you’ve created. Rather than expecting your CS team to send out countless emails manually, it’s a good idea to invest in an email automation platform that can efficiently get your data-driven content into the right hands. Also, make sure your cloud storage platform and presentation sharing platforms enable your team to share files with customers as needed. 

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In 2023, CS teams that remain customer first while strategically implementing tech to simplify processes will be most successful. The right tech can help your team save time, which can then be put back into building relationships—a win-win situation for everyone involved. 

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