The Customer Success Economy: Why Every Aspect of Your Business Model Needs A Paradigm Shift

by Nick Mehta, Allison Pickens, Maria Martinez (Foreword)

If leaders aren't integrating their digital offerings into a philosophy of Customer Success, they will be defeated in the next decade, because technical excellence and other traditional competitive advantages are becoming too easy to imitate. The Customer Success Economy offers examples and specifics of how companies can transform. It addresses the pains of transforming organizational charts, leadership roles, responsibilities, and strategies so the whole company works together in total service to the customer. Get that competitive advantage in the most relevant and important arena today—making and cultivating happy customers.

Genres: Business, Nonfiction, Leadership

360 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 10, 2020

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like Nick Mehta’s previous book on customer success, The Customer Success Economy is not only a must read for CS professionals and leaders in the C-Suite, but it’s also a must re-read. There is a lot here because, as customer success has matured, a larger and more holistic view has become necessary to meet the immediate and upcoming challenges. And hence, it’s a book that I will be re-reading quite soon.

Divided into three sections, it begins with some history on why customer success became a vital component in today’s business world, followed by how to hire and incorporate and empower these teams into existing organizations. Metrics, data analysis, and standardized actions rather than one-off heroics are just a few of the ideas detailed, but the key point which is woven throughout the book focuses on a company-wide transformation in order to achieve the greatest successes.

And how is success measured?: Through recurring revenue, which is achieved by exceeding expectations, reducing churn, and continuous expansion. And it’s not just the responsibility of a siloed CS Team, but rather the CCO (or VP of CS, etc.) must work closely with other leaders. In short, customer success is greater than any Customer Success Manager or CS Team.

If you are new to the customer success concept, I would strongly suggest first reading Mehta’s previous book, Customer Success. Next, dive deep, take notes, reflect, and put into practice the concepts listed here.

[Daniel M20 Blackburn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another fantastic book by the Gainsight team! Thank you to Nick and Allison!
Customer Success is the career I have chosen (or the career that chose me) and this book is one I will recommending to my colleagues, my team and any senior leaders seriously interested in the success of their customers. As well as recommending the book to others, I will be taking the content and using it to help my customers succeed, help my team succeed and help me succeed (in fact I already used the DEAR topic in a presentation today!).

[Chad Horenfeldt · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another defining book on customer success. They helped break down certain concepts that were hard to describe. From the different types of upsells to the different CSM structures. It’s just reading for CS professionals and should be a starting point for many of the endless debates that we see today such as who owns renewals. Kudos to Allison and Nick for writing out the various ideas they’ve had over the years into a readable and comprehensive book. It’s already triggered some ideas of my own and was a call to action on improvements I need to make.

[Janine Sneed · Rating 5 out of 5]

1.) CS: From job function -> enterprise wide initiative

2.) Customers expect CSMs to be experts in their business, not just yours

3.) Product + CS = the new Sales and Marketing

4.) Metrics that matter = NRR

5.) CS talent = IQ + EQ + Grit

[Matt Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book if you are in the CS domain or leadership position for any software company. Has more leadership & theory than tactical takeaways. Really in depth and thorough but took me longer than expected to make my way through it.

[Vinny Conti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read! Valuable resource to have!

[Celeste · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another must read for understanding Customer Success.

[M · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is full of insights and practical advice for CS leaders. At times though it feels like a collection of blogs but I’d take that practical information and real-life experiences/examples over theory.