The Power of Customer Success: Lessons from Rachael McBrearty, CCO of Evisort
Customer success and experience are at the heart of any thriving SaaS company. In a recent episode of SaaS Stories, Rachael McBrearty, Chief Customer Officer (CCO) at Evisort, shared her journey into the SaaS industry and her strategies for creating a customer-centric approach to drive growth and retention. With a career that spans top-tier companies like Cisco and LeanData, Rachael offers insights into the evolving role of customer success in a world increasingly driven by AI and data.
Here are the key takeaways from the conversation, offering practical strategies for SaaS leaders looking to elevate their customer success initiatives.
Listen to the Full Podcast Episode
For the full insights from Rachael McBrearty, listen to the full SaaS Stories episode below:
Customer Success as a Revenue Driver
Rachael emphasises that customer success is no longer just about retention—it's a direct driver of revenue. She explains, "It isn’t about just having happy customers who stay; it’s about customers that stay and grow."
Research supports this: companies with strong customer success programs report 74% higher customer satisfaction rates, according to World Metrics. Additionally, businesses that invest in customer success see a 30% higher revenue growth than those that don’t.
Actionable Tip: Design for Growth
Focus on onboarding: The first 90-180 days of a customer relationship are critical. Use this time to establish trust, educate customers, and ensure they adopt the most valuable features of your product.
Identify power features: These are the features that customers engage with most frequently and derive the most value from. Make these a central part of your onboarding and engagement strategy.
According to Gartner, 80% of a company's future revenue will come from just 20% of its existing customers. This underscores the importance of nurturing relationships and ensuring customers find consistent value.
Overcoming Resistance to Change
One of the biggest barriers to SaaS adoption is resistance to change. Rachael highlights how many companies remain tied to outdated systems, such as spreadsheets, because they’re comfortable—even if these tools are inefficient.
She likens the adoption journey to the Lego movie analogy: early adopters are like "master builders" who thrive on creating from scratch, while the majority need a clear, step-by-step guide.
Actionable Tip: Simplify Adoption
Create starter kits: Develop simple, prescriptive solutions that guide customers step-by-step, making it easier for them to see value quickly.
Start small: Allow customers to implement your solution incrementally, building confidence before expanding.
Building Trust: The Currency of Customer Success
Trust plays a central role in customer relationships, particularly in B2B. Rachael explains that customers are more likely to buy from companies they trust to help them achieve their goals. This is especially critical for enterprise customers, where decision-making often involves multiple stakeholders.
Actionable Tip: Build Trust at Every Touchpoint
Map stakeholder needs: In enterprise sales, understanding the needs of all decision-makers is crucial. Create tailored content and engagement strategies for each stakeholder, from legal operations teams to executives.
Human connection: Beyond digital touchpoints, prioritise personal relationships. For example, connect your executive team with the customer’s executives to establish alignment and rapport.
The Role of AI in Customer Success
As the SaaS industry evolves, AI is transforming customer success by automating processes, generating insights, and freeing up time for human interaction. According to Top AI Tools, AI-powered chatbots can handle standard inquiries, reducing customer wait times and allowing human agents to focus on more complex issues.
Rachael highlights examples such as AI-generated meeting notes and predictive analytics to anticipate customer needs. "AI allows us to spend more time with clients," she says, "which is what we should be doing."
Actionable Tip: Use AI to Enhance Productivity
Automate repetitive tasks: Use AI to handle time-consuming processes like note-taking, scheduling, and data entry.
Identify churn risks: Leverage AI to analyse customer behaviour and predict churn, allowing you to take proactive steps to address issues.
The Long Game: Aligning Teams for Customer Success
Customer success is not a one-person job—it’s a team sport. Rachael emphasises the importance of aligning marketing, sales, and customer success teams around a shared goal of customer retention and growth.
Actionable Tip: Foster Cross-Functional Collaboration
Workshops and alignment sessions: Involve all customer-facing teams in strategy discussions to ensure alignment.
360-degree customer profiles: Create a single source of truth that includes customer history, usage patterns, and engagement data, accessible to all teams.
A unified approach ensures a seamless experience for customers, increasing their likelihood of staying and growing with your company.
Challenges in Customer Retention
Retention challenges often stem from a lack of focus or intentionality. Rachael warns against neglecting onboarding, which sets the foundation for a long-term relationship. She also stresses the importance of fixing product issues early based on customer feedback.
Actionable Tip: Design for Retention
Invest in onboarding: A seamless onboarding process establishes trust and ensures early adoption of key features. Research shows that effective onboarding can improve retention rates by up to 50%.
Gather continuous feedback: Replace long annual surveys with shorter, more frequent feedback loops. Simple tools like red-yellow-green sentiment tracking can provide valuable insights without overwhelming customers.
Looking Ahead: The Future of Customer Experience
Rachael predicts that the future of customer success will involve more sophisticated use of AI to optimize workflows and predict customer needs. However, she cautions against getting overwhelmed by AI’s possibilities. "Start with your current processes and identify areas for improvement," she advises.
Actionable Tip: Start Small with AI
Automate low-hanging fruit: Focus on simple tasks like meeting scheduling or email follow-ups.
Data-driven insights: Use AI to analyse customer behaviour and identify patterns that can inform your strategy.
Final Thoughts: Customer Success as a Leadership Opportunity
As the role of the CCO gains prominence, Rachael encourages aspiring leaders to embrace customer success as a path to executive leadership. "The sky's the limit for those who understand how to build systems that serve customers and drive revenue growth," she says.
Whether you’re just starting in customer success or aiming to become a CCO, the key is to align customer experience with business outcomes. By focusing on trust, collaboration, and data-driven insights, SaaS companies can turn customer success into their most powerful growth engine.