“No-one gives a sh*t about your product” and 5 more motivating customer success quotes

Last updated on June 13th, 2023

Pardeep Kullar
Pardeep Kullar

When a guy has repeatedly built companies worth up to $200m then it’s worth listening to his advice, even when he says ‘No-one gives a shit about your product’.

img

I like reading Mitchell Harper’s stuff. He’s a typical driven entrepreneur but also a very good writer and presenter. Here is what he says about products:

“When was the last time you woke up and said “today I’m going to buy some software/consulting/services/apps/etc?”. Seriously, when was it?

No One Gives A Sh*t About Your Product.

They want to buy a specific RESULT your product gives them.

Spanx sells undergarments, but is in the RESULTS business of helping women appear slimmer immediately, without having to lose weight.

BeachBody sells workout programs, but is in the RESULTS business of helping you get in shape without having to leave your house” Mitchell Harper

5 more of our favourite customer success quotes

Simple logic

The health of a SaaS business is directly tied to its ability to retain its customers and prevent churn. To do this, they have to ensure that their customers are happy. That means making sure they get the promised business benefits they signed up for. David Skok.

Priorities

The keyword in this next quote is ‘focus’. I’m certain he means that you need to still do the rest but focus on desired outcomes.

“You can focus on adoption, retention, expansion, or advocacy; or you can focus on the customers’ Desired Outcome and get all of those things” Lincoln Murphy

Process becomes a substitute for thinking

Here is one by Elon Musk that relates to hiring and I think it relates to customer success because it’s a job that takes empathy and initiative.

“I don’t believe in process. In fact, when I interview a potential employee and he or she says that ‘it’s all about the process,’ I see that as a bad sign. The problem is that at a lot of big companies, process becomes a substitute for thinking. You’re encouraged to behave like a little gear in a complex machine. Frankly, it allows you to keep people who aren’t that smart, who aren’t that creative” Elon musk.

Customer happiness and success are different but does Elon Musk care about the customer’s happiness? Damn right he does.

@elonmusk had a terrible experience with very pushy sales guy from tesla stanford shop while shopping for model x.

Screen-Shot-2018-06-26-at-16.35.47

Customer success is not a project

A tweet by Nick Mehta (CEO of Gainsighthq) of a slide deck presentation.

“Customer success is a business strategy, not a function, project or initiative” Jose Vergara

Can’t agree more but at the same time, we currently apply customer success thinking in bit parts rather than as a central agreed on strategy hence this is a timely reminder for us.

First understand the problem, then the issue.

I’ve forgotten who said this but it’s from a sales guy on a youtube video, hence the inability to google for the rough words.

First understand the problem, then understand the issue. The problem is that they’re frustrated spending hours dealing with old data in salesforce because 30% of people change jobs every year. The issue is that it costs them $40,000 a month in lost sales because their key contact has now left.

We’ve been trying to do this with our leads but with difficulty. The problem Upscope solves is, by allowing their support agents to instantly see the customer’s screen, live chat agents can enjoy guiding their most difficult time consuming clients from sign up through to purchase. They know they have the problem but they don’t know the total cost of the problem. Imagine that.

See a conversation we had with a top sales guy that shows exactly how to be great at sales while still being focused on customer success:

/blog/a-conversation-that-nails-how-sales-and-customer-success-overlap/

Pardeep Kullar
Pardeep Kullar

Pardeep overlooks growth at Upscope and loves writing about SaaS companies, customer success and customer experience.