How Zendesk Reduced Churn With Human Touch

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According to Zack Urlocker of Scale Venture Partners, the inefficient old school field sales model had one major advantage over the current, high-volume SaaS sales model—human touch.

Employees were up close and personal with customers, giving them the ability to ensure that the product was delivering value. Today, online sales are fairly anonymous, especially in larger organizations with a high volume of customers. It’s no longer easy to identify how they’re using a service, whether it’s making their lives easier, and how they might be struggling—which means it’s harder to prevent them from churning.

The Execution

Zack wanted to help

Zendesk⁠

avoid being the kind of company who only calls when seeking renewal, so he helped the company to implement a Customer Account Management (CAM) team that reached out to Zendesk customers using a 12 month program with regularly scheduled check-ins, phone calls, and emails.

This proactive approach helped to identify and curb potential issues before they could contribute to a negative experience with Zendesk, and the close relationship between Account Managers and customers meant that issues like new management or lack of engagement (both of which put an account at risk for churn) could be identified and managed early on.

CAMs also provided information about new features, best practices, and resources to help customers get the most out of Zendesk, and they connected customers with Support and Engineering to help resolve problems quickly and efficiently.

This ongoing relationship helped Zendesk to earn trust with customers, resulting in more upgrades and referrals, as well as below-industry churn rates.

Why Did This Happen?

Adopting a new software solution can be difficult. Until customers are reaping the benefits, they see it as more of an obstacle to overcome than a valuable part of their business. By assigning customers a CAM, Zendesk helped to make the transition easier, forming a positive relationship in the process. I have done this at both

BigCommerce⁠

and Mavenlink, and highly recommend it.

Actionable Advice

The amount of contact you’ll have with your customers depends on the service you provide. Though a high-touch CAM team might not be right for you, the only time customers hear from you should not when you ask them for money.

Use analytics to identify the points at which customers are most vulnerable to churn, and craft a plan for reaching out in a genuine, human (even if automated) way. Provide resources, best practices, or a voice or video chat where they can find support and guidance.

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