Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify Listen on Google PodcastsIn this episode, founder Matthew Barnett tells us all about the value of customer support for a business and how it can become a strategic investment that increases customer retention and reduces churn.
For Bonjoro, customer support is more than just answering a customer’s question and calling it a day. It’s the best converting traffic source the company has ever had. Beyond positive interactions, customer support teams can help customers find success with the product at every step of the funnel. And that goes for months, years, even decades—no wonder the team has earned a seat at the product table.
In this episode, founder Matthew Barnett tells us all about customer service value for a business and how it can become a strategic investment that increases customer retention and reduces churn.
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Quick bio
Name: Matthew Barnett
What he does: Founder & Papa Bear @ Bonjoro
Matthew on the web: LinkedIn
Episode highlight: Matthew’s tips on how SaaS companies can use video to improve conversion rates at every stage of the funnel.
Top tips from this episode
How do you get found before anyone goes to Google?
First, the team divides a product build into three levels: big, medium, and small projects.
For Bonjoro, a big build can take up to six weeks. If the project is of a medium level (features), the estimate is for two weeks. For small projects, it only takes a day. Next, the team builds mostly breakout sprints, which go across three weeks. At Bonjoro, a quarter usually includes four or three and a half sprints.
According to Matthew, a company will not do more than four projects. For Bonjoro, this means aligning all teams during every quarter to evaluate capability and resources. The goal: make sure that everyone’s going the right way together and avoid unnecessary blockers for teams.
But how do you keep your team moving in one direction?
For Matt, this goes back to the higher business goals, higher profit developments, and higher drives formulated quarterly. Once these are set, it’s improbable for a team to end up chasing “shiny objects” or switch focus on other ideas and projects.
Even though the complexity is different, they all have one thing in common: testing. Each idea/project is built for rapid iteration, measurement, testing, while fully encouraging collaboration between teams.
Episode Highlights
Transcript excerpts from the interview
On how customer success can elevate the company with the right insights
They dictate what we fix and prioritize, and it’s up to them to work out. Does it affect enough users? Or high-value users? Does it affect users that we just love? Is it going to be an emotional issue that’s going to get worse? Is it actually a signal for somebody else? It’s up to them to learn, and we’ve had to train them. We have to train all of us to recognize where to spend the time. Resources, as everyone knows, is everything.
On how to nail pricing (or having to walk before you can run)
Don’t get into price wars, don’t worry too much, because you’ve got your own value. Test annual, test monthly, test free plans, test non-fee plans, you’re not going to get it right. And as your product evolves, your pricing might be right for now. In six months might you might be underpricing massively and leaving a lot of money on the table. So keep moving.
On the best converting traffic source
Most SaaS companies should invest more in support and customer success, like early on if you get that funnel to work if you can talk to customers, engage them if you can start talking to their communities and their customer bases do partnerships. It’s the best converting traffic source you’ll ever have. Like we look at it, and they convert like seven times better than any other traffic source.
On placing focus at the heart of the company’s strategy
If a team comes and says, “we want to build this new product!” that’s great, but can we do it next quarter? Because this quarter is all about conversion. So focus on that, get to understand that, and get people like customer support to understand. If some stuff is not going to get done, it’s because the main focus is obviously not there.
Next level down is things like small features, improvements, bugs, that kind of stuff. We’re much more flexible around that. And that comes down to those teams: understanding how to prioritize and understanding “ook, you have X amount of resource, you can’t do everything.” You do 20%, you need to work out for yourself, which of those are important and we’ll let you decide.
Top quotes
[ 07:10 ] the thing that works is what you’re doing in the video. So it’s the fact you’re stopping for 30 seconds or minute a day. Also, of you acknowledging somebody is a lead or customer or webinar registrants.
You’re showing that you took 30 seconds to check-in and see who they are. And it humanizes the whole process. In the end, that’s what was valuable. The video is a mechanism and a medium to do that. But it’s actually the act of doing it that is valuable and rewarding.
[49:19] Make your best first impression.
Have your CS team welcome leads aboard, wait 24 hours and then say “Hey, sorry, I see you’ve done onboarding steps one, two, and three, but you haven’t done four. Here’s a link to go and do that.”
What you’re doing there is basically trying and making sure these users are active in the product and your sales team is driving this. Customer support picks up people who haven’t been activated and helps them: “Here you go, and if you need help, we’re here.”
The activation part also comes into like postpaid, so someone’s paying and they and they’re not quite active. Hammer that because those are the ones that will churn. They’re not churning because the product didn’t work for them. They’re churning because because because they never got it even though they paid.
When people book demos with your sales team 24 hours before the demos, get your salesperson to send them a 20-second video and just introduce themselves. I guarantee that if you do that, you’ll increase demos up by 15 to 30%. It’s much harder to turn down a person than it is to turn down a calendar link.
The final area is the bottom of the funnel: try and filter out for your advocates and positive NPS customers, after they’ve hit a year off. Just say “you mean a lot to us and thanks for being with us. If you have time here’s a link to G2 crowd or Trustpilot where you can leave us a review. Do that, and you’ll double, triple your review rates.
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