In just a few years, Karnott's customer portfolio has grown 2.5-fold, whilst its Customer Success team has stayed almost the same size. Automating key processes is what made that scale possible. But automation doesn't suit every customer, and some accounts need a more human approach. Anne Gaillard from Karnott explains how she segments her customers to strike the right balance between automation and personalisation.
Could you introduce yourself and tell us a little about Karnott?
I joined Karnott in March 2018 as a Customer Success Manager (CSM). I soon had the chance to build the department from scratch and became Head of Customer Success. My role is to shape our customer success strategy alongside the rest of the business: processes, tools, customer communications, data and upskilling the team.
Karnott is an agtech start-up. Our solution lets farming and wine-growing businesses track all their field operations and machinery automatically. We offer both hardware, a tracker that shows where each machine is, and a web and mobile platform. Karnott has 1,900 customers.
How is the Customer Success team organised?
I hired our first CSM in August 2018, and others followed. The team is now made up of three CSMs and two support specialists, all of whom have been with Karnott for several years.
One CSM is dedicated to onboarding. After that, two CSMs acting as Account Managers take over to look after retention and satisfaction. Each specialises in one type of customer: one covers viticulture and the other covers arable farming. Key accounts are split between them. (For more on choosing the right set-up, see how to structure your Customer Success team.)
When did you decide to automate your customer journeys?
When I arrived, we had around 50 customers. Six months later, we were probably at around 300. That's when I started putting our processes in order and introducing automation.
- At first, we used the tools we already had: an Excel file, a back office and our CRM, HubSpot. Our product team began by building buttons into the back office based on the stages of the customer lifecycle.
- Next, we set up dynamic lists in HubSpot to create fairly simple workflows. We also rolled out Intercom and launched in-app communications.
- The final step was adopting a Customer Success Platform (CSP). It gives us a 360° view of every customer, covering both raw data and behavioural data, and it complements our CRM rather than replacing it. It's an everyday ally that helps us stay proactive and does the work of one or two CSMs. We started with one CSP, which we later replaced with Skalin.
The CSP lets us make the most of automation through Playbooks. A Playbook is an automated workflow that runs when a trigger condition is met. That condition kicks off a series of actions, such as sending the customer an email, assigning a to-do to the CSM or updating an attribute. Bear in mind, though, that you can have too much of a good thing: pile on too many playbooks and they stop being effective.
How have you organised your Playbooks?
They cover every stage of the lifecycle:
- Onboarding: when a contract is signed, the sales team enters information that flows into our back office, which then sends it to Skalin automatically. For example, we know why each customer chose Karnott.
- Adoption: if we release a new feature, for instance, we provide guidance on how to use it. We also have separate journeys for detractors and promoters, gamification through quizzes, and support for our hardware. (See also 5 essential steps to secure the adoption phase.)
- Expansion: this covers upsell, whether that's a plan upgrade or buying an additional product.
- Churn: we have an offboarding strategy in place.
We've also built a 'ghost' stage to keep track of customers who no longer respond or aren't active on the platform, but are still paying their subscription. One Playbook reminds them that we're here and points them to resources if they need them. Another alerts the CSM if a ghost customer logs back in.
How do you set up Playbooks successfully?
- The first thing is to work on your data, and above all its reliability. That data is what allows you to segment and personalise, and therefore to deliver digital, automated support. Start by making sure a minimum of information is properly qualified in the CRM, then make sure you have behavioural data on how users actually use the platform.
- Next, it's important to define every stage of the lifecycle.
- I'd also recommend getting teams aligned. At first, CSMs are tempted to phone customers every time a new order comes in. In reality, when you're working at volume, that's best avoided. You need to explain the approach to the CS team, the sales team and the field teams.
- Finally, I suggest you build a library of resources to share through your automations. That could be a help centre, an FAQ or videos.
You automate a lot. Is there still room for personalisation?
Absolutely! We still talk to our customers; we just choose not to do it by phone every time. That's the difference. Data, segmentation and targeting allow us to personalise communications, even when they go out to lots of similar customers. There's no point saying the same thing ten times over to 100 customers.
As a small CS team, we're also looking for productivity. Playbooks free us up for high-value work by automating repetitive tasks. The tool does the thinking for the CSMs. They understand why they don't need to call a particular customer, because the digital, automated support is doing its job.
Automation also helps us pick up the phone when it really matters, at strategic moments.
How do you tailor your approach to different customers?
We position our CSMs as coaches. They're not there to do the work for customers, but to give them what they need to succeed. Because of that positioning, we start with a 'Low Touch' strategy, but we can adapt it or switch to a more 'High Touch' approach. It depends on the user's behaviour, their potential and where they are in the lifecycle.
Once a customer reaches the adoption stage, we place them in one of our three tiers. Tier 1 is Low Touch, whereas tier 3 gets a High Touch approach. Only 20 or 30 key accounts sit in tier 3.
We assign tiers based on three criteria:
- The subscription plan and the number of trackers: for example, if a tier 1 customer has 15 trackers and buys five more, they move up to tier 2.
- The needs that led the customer to adopt the solution.
- The CSM's judgement, which takes into account the customer's growth potential.
How do you make sure emails feel personal enough?
Customer segmentation takes away the impersonal feel. For example, when I identify customers in the expansion phase, on the Pro plan, who need help with invoicing, I can get the right message across. Customers can tell we understand how they use the product when we speak to them.
Several details also make an email feel highly personal, even when it goes to lots of users. Emails are sent from the assigned coach's mailbox and carry the coach's signature. They include a mobile number, and we write in the first person, with an informal tone and emojis. We also add video content to bring a human element.
Which metrics do you use to track customer satisfaction?
We look in particular at open rates, click-through rates and drop-off during product tours.
For onboarding, we judge whether it has been successful against a set of criteria. Since we offer self-service training, the most important thing is that the customer uses the video tutorial to set up their account. We also look at how the app has been configured and how intuitive customers find the product. (For a broader view of what to measure, see 5 KPIs to monitor in Customer Success.)
At the end of onboarding, we also ask customers to rate how clear our explanations were, using NPS. Some customers won't open the email and start to disengage. That's when human intervention is needed.
What results have you seen since rolling out Skalin?
I can already see the impact of Skalin. Skalin's AI processes my data to produce meaningful health scores. It also makes predictions. My CSMs are automatically alerted when a customer starts to disengage. The goal is to bring my churn rate down, and I'll see how it evolves over time.
The aim of Skalin is to focus my team on high-potential customers I don't want to lose. You have to make choices: if 300 customers suddenly start to disengage, you absolutely have to prioritise where to put your effort.
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