The New Frontier

10 Years of
Customer Success

Explore this detailed exhibition of the
evolution and maturity of customer
success across businesses and industries.

Where we are now

NRR:
Your New
North Star.

Customer Success has evolved from a nice-to-have function in a single department to a company-wide activity, delivering value to customers at every stage of their journey.

Forward-thinking organizations focus on driving growth with Net Revenue Retention (NRR) as their north star metric.

NRR indicates company momentum, so investment in NRR requires that the entire company works synchronously and cross-functionally.

For a $1B revenue SaaS company, a mere 1% increase in NRR could translate into more than $700M in enterprise value.

1% increase in NRR
could translate to

$700M

in enterprise value.

The Evangelists

Rally
around
NRR.

Snowflake
169% at IPO.

Gainsight has evolved alongside market shifts, driving the CS market forward with innovative technology and proven expertise for growing the impact of your Customer Success strategy.

Snowflake
169% at IPO.

SurveyMonkey
100%

Fastly
130%

Box
106%

PagerDuty
139%

Zendesk
116% at $1B ARR

Slack
143%

Okta
120%

Twilio
155% at IPO
137% at $2B+ in ARR

Where are we now?

Investment
with an
impact.

Gainsight customers on
the Bessemer Venture
Partners’ Cloud Index
have an average NRR of

117%

We examined Bessemer Venture Partners’ Cloud Index and found that Gainsight customers grow faster and have higher net retention rates than their peers.

Compare Gainsight customers →

To Non-Gainsight customers →

Gainsight usage explains 13% of the variation in their NRR, which is 10% higher than non-Gainsight customers’ average of 107%.

With the broadest scope of functionality in the market, Gainsight is the vendor of choice for organizations looking to tap into the power of their customer base to drive the growth of their business.

How We Got Here

A Then vs. Now Journey through how Customer Success teams and technology became must-haves in the age of value.

2012

The experimental
stage of customer
success.

The business challenge in focus is reducing churn, presenting both a reactive and unsustainable approach. Companies rely on periodic check-ins resulting in sending the fire trucks to save accounts.

Thus, the seed of customer success is planted.

“Outside In: The Power Of Putting Customers At The Center Of Your Business.”

“Find a quote from this article.”

Billboard’s #1 song is

"Somebody That I Used to Know"
by Gotye

2015-2016

A broader influence
and impact.

A more sophisticated approach to managing customer relationships unfolds, particularly with the CSM role. The private SaaS market grows exponentially and Customer Success scales along with it.

SaaS organizations monitor usage as a component of their customer retention strategy.

G2 creates a “customer success” category in May 2015.

“Customer Success: The Best Kept Secret of Hyper-Growth Startups”.

cite Forbes

cite Global news wire).

The role of CSM
has seen a

736%

increase from
2015 to 2019.

2017-2019

SaaS Kick-starts
the movement.

Traditional companies with both on-prem and cloud products increase their customer success efforts.

Leadership roles within CS become more prominent and the focus on metrics comes front and center with Gross Retention Rate and Net Retention Rates.

As the benefits of CS gain more attention, so does the need for scalability across the customer base.

cite LinkedIn

Organizations with a CXO or CCO

2017

65%

2019

90%

In 2017, only about 65% of organizations had a chief experience officer (CXO) or chief customer officer (CCO). In 2019, that number grew to 90% and 89%, respectively. (cite Gartner)

2020 and
Beyond

A new playbook.

In April 2020, the economic downtown hits hard. Unemployment reaches 14.8%, and those who previously doubted the importance of customer success are forced to come to terms with the facts – customer success is paramount to business success.

Customer success is a growth engine, and as a result, career opportunities in CS soar with more CCOs than ever before.

Organizations increasingly rely on net dollar retention (NDR) to assess enterprise value, growth, and stability. (cite TSIA) A proactive framework for customer success serves as the causation for higher net retention rates (NRR), and across industries, boardrooms increasingly take notice of customer success as NRR directly correlates to shareholder value.

-customers who are using Gainsight

Ready for take off?

Revolutionize your business metrics and make history as a customer success champion.