Bonus: Customer Success for Human Flourishing
(Or, A Love Letter To SaaS) ❤️
Background:
I love (almost) everything about Product and Customer Success! Over the past 8+ years as a CSM and Product partner, I've become driven by the mission that is core to Product and Customer Success: helping people achieve their goals, helping them do it better, and helping them have a better experience while doing it. What's not to love?
The Problem:
Subscribe to a Product newsletter, and over a few weeks, you'll start to see some of the moral and theoretical issues that seem baked into the industry. Put down your phone, and within a few minutes, you'll see them in practice.
It is no longer controversial to say that the internet, in many ways, is making us worse off.
- "Hours per subscriber" is being used as a north star for product decisions.
- Excessive adolescent screen exposure is consistently correlated with higher anxiety and depressive symptomology, lower psychological well-being, and poorer academic and social functioning.
- A UCSF study of 9 to 10 year olds found that as social media time jumped from ~7 to 73 minutes per day over three years, depressive symptoms increased by 35%.
- Even children aren't just fair game, but often the target. For example, this recent product newsletter celebrated that kids were spending three times more hours glued to a screen as a 'win':
Approach + Methodology:
I believe that the core mission behind Product and Customer Success - to make things better for real people - is a noble one. But, unsurprisingly, when a company's model is expansion at all costs, measured by "stickiness", "daily active users", and "hours per subscriber", it becomes easy to lose sight of the people behind the metrics.
That's one reason I love SaaS. Unlike engagement-based models, people themselves are not the product. The mission is to help people do better work, more quickly, more effectively, more safely, or at a lower cost - to help them achieve their definition of success.
People are not means to an end. They are the end.
When we design products, deliver services, and measure success, we should ask:
Will this make someone's life better? Will it help them flourish?
Solution:
Customer Success and Product are uniquely positioned to ensure that technology encourages human flourishing, rather than undermining it.
- Customer Success acts as the Voice of the Customer, and has deep insight into client pain points, goals, and needs.
- Product translates those insights into tangible design choices, building solutions that help people work better, not just engage with a software for longer.
When these teams collaborate effectively, they create a feedback loop that balances business goals with user well-being. This results in products that drive adoption and retention because they align with customer values.
Outcomes + Impact:
It's easy to dismiss human-first design as idealistic. I argue that thinking about whether or not our design choices truly help our users is one of the best ways to drive adoption, long-term retention, and growth.
- Adoption: When users experience clear value, in the form of saved time, reduced complexity, or simplified workflows, they naturally deepen engagement. Adoption grows because the product helps them flourish. (Finish that work, and go spend time with your family.)
- Retention: Customers stick with products that respect their needs and empower them to achieve their goals. Long-term trust comes from alignment, not manipulation. (I think I'll keep the tool that helps me spend less time in front of my computer, thanks.)
- Growth: Sustainable growth happens when expansion strategies are focused on improved customer outcomes. Customer advocates are formed when people feel a product has made their work, and lives, better. (Help me get my work done faster, or help me look good in front of my boss, and I'll go to bat for you.)
In my own work, the human-first approach has driven measurable results: the simple habit of asking "How can we help our users flourish?" jumpstarts a process of reflecting on what we know about our customers, their process, and their needs, and taking time to evaluate how we can act on these insights to deliver meaningful outcomes.
Takeaway:
At its core, Customer Success is about helping people flourish.
If we measure our success by “minutes captured” or “attention retained,” we're treating people as products. But if we measure our success by the outcomes we help customers achieve, then we create technology that truly serves people.
I am grateful to be able to serve as an outcomes-driven CSM, and I belive my focus on positioning my customers to achieve success has allowed me to build trust, drive growth, and ensure long-term health.
TL;DR: Helping people flourish is the most sustainable SaaS business model of all.