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What if customers only paid for performance?

By Jay Nathan

In other words, if our product doesn’t produce measurable results, no cash changes hands.

What would we do differently to drive performance? How would we measure it? Would we be more careful about who we sell to?

How would we measure our own effectiveness in driving customer performance?

In essence, SaaS has driven us all to a pay-for-performance model. We have found creative ways to price and contract annually, but 12 months isn’t that long. And many B2B SaaS solutions have a CAC payback period of >12 months.

If our companies lived and died by performance, we’d all be in the customer success business, and we’d be clear about 1) defining customer’s desired business outcomes, 2) determining how to measure and monitor our impact on those outcomes; and 3) engaging continuously to drive the required results.

That’s what customer success is.

Published April 5, 2017
About the Author

I've spent my career working in technology companies to build customer-centric teams, processes and technology platforms. In 2017, I founded Customer Imperative, a consulting firm that helps fast-growing B2B SaaS companies improve renewals, increase expansion sales and scale customer engagement. See full bio ›

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