CRMs were built for sales teams, and Customer Success teams were bolted on afterwards. It doesn't fully meet what CSMs actually need. To show what that means in practice, here are 5 use cases that Customer Success Platforms handle well and where a CRM holds you back.
Which use cases does a Customer Success Platform handle better than a CRM?
1 - Get a true 360° customer view
CSMs are usually asked to log customer information in the CRM (HubSpot, Pipedrive, Salesforce and the like), but it soon becomes clear that the CRM can cap what the Customer Success team is able to do, especially when it comes to building a genuine 360° view of the customer.
Some of the information CSMs rely on most simply isn't in the CRM, or isn't up to date:
- Usage statistics such as which features are used, the number of active users, login dates or the adoption rate tend to live in your SaaS admin panel, in a product analytics tool (Mixpanel, Pendo and so on) or in a BI tool that sits outside the CRM.
- Contract information (renewal, billing and subscription data) lives in tools like Stripe or Chargebee.
- Customer support data usually sits in a ticketing tool that isn't connected to the CRM.
- ...
What you find is that the information is siloed across different systems, and CS teams struggle to pull it together into a single 360° view of their customers. That gap often drags performance down: less proactivity, missed commercial opportunities and more churn.
With a Customer Success Platform like Skalin, you can connect your various tools in a few clicks and work from centralised data in a single dashboard that brings together user activity, customer interactions, touchpoints, upcoming actions, contract dates, health score and more.
Customer dashboard in the Skalin Customer Success Platform.
2 - Build automation scenarios based on usage
Here it isn't so much a CRM's features that limit its automation potential, but the data available to trigger those scenarios. That's why running a real-time scenario based on a user's activity stays difficult, if not impossible, with a CRM.
Because Customer Success tools give you a 360° view, every trigger can go right down to the feature-by-user level. Skalin's automation module (also known as the 'Playbook') lets you build scenarios around a range of usage triggers, such as a first login, the first use of a given feature, or a key feature going unused for a set period.
Automation module and triggers in the Skalin Customer Success tool.
You can also tell whether it's the first time a customer has used a feature, so you can automatically push relevant content suited to how they're using the product. In the same way, you can set up alerts and action plans when users start to disengage, so you can reach out quickly.
3 - Fine-tune the level of automation
This is rarely mentioned: with a CRM like HubSpot or Salesforce, you end up either doing everything by hand or setting up rigid automations where the CSM's input is minimal, or missing altogether.
Yet automation scenarios are meant to smooth out your processes, streamline day-to-day portfolio management and support your CSMs, never to make decisions on their behalf.
That's why, at Skalin, we think it matters to offer a level of automation you can switch off. In practice, that lets you:
- Fine-tune the automation: you can build fully automated scenarios, but you can also weave in manual actions. For example, you might trigger automatic emails for a low-touch segment, but schedule a send with manual approval on a high-touch segment so the CSM can tweak the content first.
- Gate certain automation steps: you can wait for the CSM to approve or complete an action before the scenario moves on to the next step.
- Create manual splits: depending on how set steps are answered, the CSM can vary the scenario. For instance, if during onboarding the CSM judges a customer's maturity to be low, they can route them into a 'reinforced' onboarding with an extra workshop to shore up the basics, or, if not, jump straight to the rest of the Playbook. That way, the CSM stays in control of the calls they want to make across the whole customer journey.
4 - Analyse user behaviour
Behavioural analysis is fundamental to Customer Success, yet it isn't something a standard CRM handles well. As soon as you get into fuzzier ground, such as spotting warning signs, it turns out to be hard to find the right metrics in the CRM to identify them.
At Skalin, we use AI-powered sentiment analysis, which studies and scores customer interactions (emails, tickets, comments, call transcripts or meeting notes). The tool automatically flags negative interactions, detects friction and fires triggers so you can get back on top of the situation and re-engage customers.
AI sentiment analysis tool by Skalin.
Alongside that, sentiment analysis is combined with other information to work out a customer health score. The closer that score gets to 10, the more likely a renewal. The closer it gets to 1, the higher the churn risk.
Other factors feed into the algorithmic view of account health too: metrics tied to interactions and product usage, contract data and the CSM Pulse, which captures the CSM's own read on and outlook for their customer. So the score genuinely reflects your business, Skalin lets you tailor these criteria.
KPIs for assessing the customer health score.
5 - Sharpen your B2B SaaS reporting
CRMs generally aren't SaaS-specific, even though they're common in the sector. The real value of a platform built for B2B SaaS, like Skalin, is a set of detailed reports geared to the challenges of the industry.
For instance, automatic reports are generated on monthly recurring revenue (MRR), pulling in a set of key KPIs (NRR, LTV and so on) along with expansion and contraction data.
MRR tracking dashboard in Skalin.
Skalin can generate other kinds of reports too, such as:
- Reports on the value of contracts up for renewal by customer risk level, so you can spot customers likely to churn several months ahead.
- Reports on CS team performance, showing how portfolios are split by volume or value, how balanced that split is and the workload per team member. A consolidated view of performance matters a great deal, especially in an automated setup, to protect both productivity and wellbeing at work.
- Customer profitability reports, based on the data the tool collects, highlighting the ratio between the MRR a customer generates and the time spent on them. A ratio of 1:10 (1% of revenue for 10% of the time spent), for example, points to a profitability problem. This kind of reporting helps you make informed decisions and adjust your priorities.
Customer profitability reporting in the Skalin Customer Success tool.
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How long does it take to set up a Customer Success solution like Skalin?
Connecting tools in Skalin is quick and intuitive. A wide range of native integrations lets you link your favourite tools in a few clicks. From there, a single JavaScript tag in your application is enough to collect usage data. More complex cases that call for APIs involve a development phase, but how long it takes depends a great deal on the company's tech stack.
Expect roughly 3 to 4 weeks end to end to be fully up and running. First there's a data integration step, then a period of building history so you get reliable, detailed analysis, particularly on the health score. Only then can you switch on the automation scenarios and alerts.
