What are the challenges of customer success? The key lies in manuals and educational content! What is the effective way to create them?

1. What are the challenges of customer success?

 

Here, I will summarize the challenges related to people and organizations in customer success operations, as well as potential improvements to address those challenges.

1-1. What is Customer Success?

First, let's briefly review the overview of "Customer Success." Customer Success refers to the efforts made to ensure that customers can maximize the use of products and services and achieve success. It involves supporting customers from the time they purchase a product or service so that they can fully realize its value.
For example, even if a subscription service is provided, if the usage is not carefully explained and supported, customers may not be able to fully benefit from its value, leading to a higher likelihood of discontinuation of use. Therefore, it is essential to understand the challenges related to Customer Success operations and work on improvements.

1-2. Challenges as an Organization for Customer Success

Challenges of People and Organizations

• Maintaining Motivation: Customer success operations are centered around customer interactions, which can create a stressful environment. As a result, the motivation of the representatives can easily decline.
• Lack of Human Resources: There are times when we are so busy handling immediate tasks that we cannot focus on long-term efforts to improve service quality and operational efficiency. Especially in Japan, since customer success initiatives are still relatively new, it is common to have few dedicated staff, which may often result in insufficient personnel to advance customer success activities.
• Insufficient Organizational Planning: There may be a lack of analysis of current issues and the establishment of improvement indicators in the Customer Success department.

Challenges of Effectiveness for Users

• Challenges of Provided Content: There are challenges regarding user-oriented content such as manuals and e-learning. The content may be unclear, lack necessary information, or vary in writing style depending on the individual responsible (relying on intuition and experience), which can lead to a decline in the quality of the provided content. As a result, users' understanding of the products and services does not improve.

System Issues

Creating user-oriented content takes time from development to publication, making it difficult to prepare content in parallel with development, which can lead to insufficient integration between products or services and content. Additionally, even if content is prepared, the operational flow is often complicated and cumbersome.

What is Customer Success? Differences in roles and customer support

2. The key to solving the problem is the review of the "content"

The key to solving challenges in customer success operations often lies in "content." Below, I summarize the reasons for this.

2-1. These are important for achieving customer success

1. Customer Education and Onboarding

New customers often struggle to utilize products and services effectively. This increases the risk of cancellation in the early stages. By providing high-quality onboarding content, we ensure that customers can smoothly start using the product. For example, tutorial videos, guidebooks, and FAQs are effective.

 

2. Continuous Value Provision

It can be difficult for customers to continue feeling the value of a product. Especially as usage progresses, if new value cannot be found, the risk of cancellation increases. By regularly updating content (such as blog posts, webinars, and case studies), we introduce new features and ways to utilize the product, providing customers with ongoing value.

 

3. Improvement of Customer Self-Solution Ability

Customers may become overly reliant on support when facing issues. This increases the burden on the support team. We provide content to promote self-resolution (such as knowledge bases, community forums, and chatbots) to enable customers to solve problems on their own.

 

4. Strengthening Customer Engagement

When relationships with customers become weak, engagement decreases and the risk of cancellation increases. By strengthening relationships with customers and enhancing engagement through personalized content (newsletters, special offers, customer case studies, etc.), we can improve the overall experience.

 

5. Data-Driven Approach

If we cannot accurately understand customer needs and behaviors, we cannot provide appropriate support. By analyzing customer data and optimizing content based on the results, we can offer more effective support. For example, providing personalized content based on usage patterns can be considered.

By leveraging these content strategies, you can effectively address customer success challenges and improve customer satisfaction and retention rates.

However, the "quality" of the content is also important. By improving and enhancing the quality of the content while managing it, we can appropriately support users to continue using our products and services. By continuously enriching and improving the quality of manuals (training texts) and educational content, we can achieve efficient customer success operations by enhancing various types of content. This serves as a means to eliminate inefficiencies and dependency on specific individuals, even when there is a shortage of personnel.

3. Key Points for Creating Customer Success Manuals and Educational Content

Here are the key points for creating customer success manuals and educational content.

 

1. Clarify the purpose and target

Clearly define the purpose of manuals and training content, and identify the target users (new employees, existing employees, customers, etc.). This allows for the creation of content that maintains a consistent direction and focus.

 

2. Simple and Easy-to-Understand Structure

We organize information simply and create an easy-to-understand structure. We utilize headings and bullet points to ensure a visually comprehensible layout. By using diagrams and illustrations, we can further aid understanding.

 

3. Practical Content

We incorporate not only theory but also specific examples and practical procedures. For instance, by introducing customer response scenarios and success stories, we make the content useful for actual business operations.

 

4. Interactive Elements

By incorporating interactive elements such as videos, quizzes, and simulations, we enhance the learning effect. Especially in e-learning content, it is important to have a system that allows participants to engage actively.

 

5. Continuous Updates

Manuals and educational content are not just created once and left as is; it is important to continuously update them. We review the content according to changes in products and services to provide the latest information.

 

6. Utilizing Feedback

We collect feedback from users who utilize the content to aid in improvements. Through surveys and interviews, we understand which parts were difficult to understand and which information was helpful.

 

7. Consistent Tone and Style

We maintain a consistent tone and style throughout manuals and educational content. This allows users to learn without confusion.

By keeping these points in mind, you can create effective customer success manuals and educational content.
Additionally, by utilizing tools for the production and management of such content, you can improve the efficiency of customer success operations.

3-1. Implementing the Optimal Information Sharing Tools and LMS

To effectively create customer success manuals and educational content, it is also important to implement optimal information sharing tools and learning management systems (LMS). Of course, depending on the scale of the product or service, there may be cases where tools are not implemented, but in many services, it has become common to manage content through tools.

 

1. Introduction of Information Sharing Tools

By utilizing information sharing tools, the creation and management of manuals and educational content can be streamlined. Tools such as the following are available.

• SharePoint: A cloud-based information sharing platform provided by Microsoft. It has a wide range of features, including file uploads, collaborative editing, use as a bulletin board for structured information, and website creation.
• Confluence: A knowledge management tool provided by Atlassian that allows for easy creation, accumulation, search, and sharing of document files. It is suitable for managing internal portals and business manuals.
• Toaster Team: A tool that automatically creates manuals using AI. It enhances the learning of business procedures and productivity, and realizes the development and retention of immediately effective personnel. It also supports the creation of video manuals and the management of glossaries.

 

2. Introduction of Learning Management System (LMS)

By implementing an LMS, it becomes easier to deliver educational content and manage learning progress. Below are some examples of LMS.

• Moodle: An open-source LMS that is highly customizable and can deliver a variety of educational content.
• Totara Learn: It has features specialized for human resource development within companies. It is open source and can be flexibly customized to meet the needs of businesses.
• learningBOX: Can be easily operated without specialized knowledge. It can be operated at a low cost and has all the necessary functions for e-learning, such as quiz creation, grade management, and registration of teaching materials like videos and PDFs.
• LearnWorlds: Provides interactive learning experiences utilizing AI. It also supports e-commerce, offering robust features for selling and marketing learning courses, enabling the monetization of online courses. Customization to fit your brand is also possible.

3-2. Review of Existing Manuals and Educational Content

It is also important to continuously review existing manuals and educational content. You can make improvements while considering elements such as the following.

• Clarify the purpose and scope of the revision: Clearly state why the review is necessary and its objectives. For example, reasons may include the introduction of new tools, changes in business processes, or amendments to regulations. Additionally, specify which parts will be reviewed and set the scope concretely.
• Evaluation and Analysis of Current Manuals: We evaluate the current manuals and educational content, identifying areas for improvement. We collect feedback from on-site personnel and users to determine which parts are unclear and what information is lacking.
• Plan for Revisions: We will list the areas that need revision and prioritize them. A schedule for the revisions will be created, clearly defining who is responsible for each part. If the revisions are extensive, we will also consider proceeding in stages.

You can prepare as mentioned above for content improvement, but there may be limited resources for that. In such cases, you can utilize evaluation and analysis services for content provided by experts in manuals and educational content.

3-3. Improve Based on Issues

Based on the results of the evaluation and analysis, we will actually revise the manuals and educational content according to the improvement plan.

• Content Revision and Updates: We will reflect the latest information and revise it for clarity. If necessary, we will add diagrams and videos to enhance visual understanding.
• Management of Revision History: We thoroughly manage the revision history, recording when, which parts, and how changes were made. This makes it easy to review the changes later.
• Feedback and Improvement: We will have users actually use the revised manuals and training content, and collect feedback again. If necessary, we will make further improvements. This ensures that we always maintain the most up-to-date and optimal state.
• Regular Review: Set a schedule for regularly reviewing manuals and training content. For example, by conducting reviews quarterly or biannually, you can always provide the most up-to-date information.

If you are short on production resources, you can utilize our production services provided by experts.

What is a user-friendly manual for users?

4. Summary

The priority of customer success is increasing in many B2B companies, especially SaaS companies. The operations of the customer success department are very diverse, so there is a need for streamlining and improving those business processes. Human Science's services can implement measures that lead to the efficiency of the customer success department and the enhancement of CX (customer experience).

Service Introduction

To efficiently share know-how for customer success or to enhance customer satisfaction, it is also important to organize documents and content. It is necessary to secure resources for this purpose. However, creating manuals and developing training content to improve customer satisfaction requires a lot of personnel and time, making it a high-priority but increasingly burdensome task.

At Human Science, there are many services available for customers in the Customer Success department. In particular, we believe that the quality of the content provided by the Customer Success department is the key to success. Therefore, it is necessary to improve and create manuals, enhance FAQs, and create training content. All of these require costs if done in-house. Additionally, the quality must be easy to understand. At Human Science, we have a proven track record of creating easy-to-understand manuals and e-learning content. We offer the following services:

• Improving the Quality of Manuals and Training Texts We propose the most suitable instruction manuals, technical documents, help, and FAQs for your environment. We provide consulting services from evaluating current manuals to creating a multilingual support system and building and operating a CMS. We can also handle the production of video manuals.
• Support for creating educational content and introducing LMS (Learning Management System) Just like manuals, we propose the most suitable educational content for your environment. Starting with evaluating your current content, we also offer optimization of LMS and multilingual support.
  
  • Analysis Services for the Effectiveness and Optimization of Existing Content
    We conduct hearings and analysis regarding the current state of manuals and content, and submit a report.
  • Analysis-based Improvement Proposals and Sample Production Services
    Based on evaluation and analysis results, we will provide rewrite examples, manual samples, and educational sample content.
• Chatbot Implementation and Construction Support Many companies are adopting chatbots to streamline their customer support processes. We will propose the most suitable chatbot for your environment. We offer one-stop support from chatbot system implementation to content creation.

At Human Science, we provide one-stop support for the production of documents (manuals) and teaching materials.

Project Achievements

The following are achievements for the Customer Success Department.

WingArc1st Inc.: Consulting and content creation services for the Customer Success department

We also offer services that can handle the creation of easy-to-understand "manuals" and "video manuals", as well as e-learning content, which are necessary for customer success, all in one stop. Please take advantage of them.