At SaaSiest, we celebrate leaders who push boundaries, and Jillian Sayuri Falconi, SVP of Customer Experience at Brandwatch, is a prime example. With over a decade of experience guiding industry giants like Google, Unilever, and Toyota through the dynamic landscape of customer experience, Jillian’s insights resonate deeply with the challenges faced by today’s SaaS businesses. Her message is clear: customer success isn’t just about adoption; it’s about delivering genuine business value.
“I started in customer success 10 years ago when it was more about training than driving business outcomes,” Jillian shared. “It wasn’t the commercially driven function it is today, but that’s completely changed.” Now, customer success has become crucial for any SaaS company aiming to thrive in an increasingly competitive market.
Understanding customer sentiment through data
“At Brandwatch, one of our core offerings is answering the question, ‘What are people saying about us?’ through social data,” Jillian explained. This fundamental question is at the heart of social media management, where brands like Toyota utilize Brandwatch’s research capabilities to gauge whether their messaging is resonating with audiences.
For a global giant like Toyota, social data not only helps identify trends but also allows for strategic adjustments based on insights drawn from social conversations—an essential capability for brands seeking to maintain relevance in a crowded marketplace.
With this foundation, Brandwatch has crafted a CX strategy anchored in 5 pillars that we’ll explore together now.
1. Building emotional connections
A key pillar of Jillian’s strategy is ensuring that every customer feels valued, regardless of their size or market. “The way we build our customer journeys and overall experience starts with an emotional connection—everyone needs to feel special,” she noted. Whether it’s through one-on-one sessions or more scalable solutions, fostering this emotional connection is a central component of customer loyalty.
2. Evolving Customer Adoption
The concept of customer success has evolved over the past five years, particularly around customer adoption. “One of the biggest things we had to improve and evolve is how we train businesses, especially at the C-level, to move away from thinking that CS is solely focused on adoption. It’s about realizing the value CS brings to the overall business.”
This shift in thinking represents a broader understanding of CS beyond just adoption—it’s about ensuring that customers not only know how to use a product but also recognize its value within their organization. “It’s not enough to just get users on board; we need to show how they can fully leverage our solutions to achieve their goals and business outcomes.”
3. The importance of value realization
Value realization is central to the work that customer success teams perform. “The challenge is helping customers translate their use case into business value. How do you take that conversation from ‘what is your use case’ to ‘what’s the business case that your manager wants to see?’”
This is where the role of Customer Success Managers becomes critical. Proving value is not always straightforward, especially in industries with higher complexity. “It can be difficult for a CSM to conduct deep research into your brand,” she explained, using Toyota as an example of a company that relies on extensive research to identify trends and messaging effectiveness.
“For complex industries, CSMs often need support from professional services teams,” Jillian added. The focus is not just on customer satisfaction but on mapping the journey to clear, measurable outcomes that align with business objectives.
4. Customer acquisition and revenue growth
Jillian emphasized the dual role of Customer Success Managers (CSMs) in enhancing customer retention and unlocking upsell opportunities. She suggests separating account management from Customer Success, allowing for:
- Focused roles: One team member drives value realization while another grows the account.
- Continuous engagement: This separation ensures ongoing positive experiences for customers.
This separation is designed to ensure continuous positive customer experiences while also capitalizing on opportunities to expand accounts. Jillian underscored the importance of lead passing between the CS and account management teams, pointing out that customer-qualified leads often have the highest conversion rates. “Lead passing is one of the highest conversion rates in comparison to any other marketing activity—whether it’s direct upsell or cross-sell opportunities,” she explained.
To establish a commercial connection between CS and account management, Jillian recommends creating, tracking, and managing leads in a way similar to a marketing funnel. This approach helps CS teams demonstrate their commercial value to leadership teams by showing how they directly contribute to revenue growth.
5. Profit maximization and cost efficiency
As the market landscape changes, organizations are increasingly focusing on profit maximization and cost efficiency. “One big shift we’ve seen in the industry is the move from growth at all costs to a more cost-conscious mindset,” Jillian noted. “We’re always competing for a business decision, so understanding both sides of the coin—revenue impact and cost—is essential.”
This approach involves not only evaluating the revenue contribution of CSMs but also weighing the costs of delivering success. Jillian emphasized the need for CSMs to consider, “What’s the revenue impact that my CSM has, and at what cost?” By balancing these factors, businesses can set a strong foundation for sustainable growth, ensuring they maximize profitability while keeping an eye on operational costs.
Commitment to customers: Creating partnerships, not just solutions
A successful customer experience goes beyond offering a linear process or standard playbook, it’s about building real relationships.
“All of these models that we tend to create—they’re linear in nature,” Jillian notes. “What we did was detach ourselves from the idea that customers have to go through this linear process. Instead, we ask, ‘What is the relationship status with our customers?’”
This shift in thinking helped Brandwatch reevaluate their customer journey. Rather than assuming that once a contract is signed everything will automatically fall into place. Customer commitment is a two-way street. “Customers need to do some work, too. It’s like buying a gym subscription. You can sign up, get the best personal trainer, but if you don’t do your part, you won’t see results.”
A model that combines people and tech
To address this, Brandwatch has developed a customer success model that combines both human guidance and technology to educate customers while holding them accountable. It’s a delicate balance of enabling customers through tools and self-service while maintaining close personal engagement to ensure success. This begins with understanding the stage each customer is in. “Most of your customers come in as beginners,” Jillian explains. There are two key questions to consider:
1. Do they have the resources and time available to commit to using your product effectively?
2. How complex is their use case?
Brandwatch focuses on delivering quick wins for simple use cases but also offers in-depth training and resources for more complex needs, primarily through their academy, which serves as a self-service platform. All of our complex knowledge like algorithms and advanced functions are made available through the academy,” says Jillian, highlighting how Brandwatch empowers its customers with the tools they need to succeed, regardless of the complexity of their needs.
The power of meaningful engagement
The customer commitment doesn’t end after onboarding. It’s a continuous process that takes consistent effort. On average, it takes about ten calls a year to ensure that the customer is engaged towards renewal. But these aren’t just routine check-ins. Instead, they aim to create what Jillian calls “meaningful moments of happiness” with the customer. She shares an important insight: “Your customers aren’t always going to tell you when they’re happy. It’s up to us to be proactive.” This means rethinking traditional approaches like ABRs. “Should we be doing ABRs, or do we need to create proofs of concept to show customers how we’re delivering value?”
Brandwatch’s approach ensures that customer engagement is ongoing and tailored, continuously demonstrating value rather than relying on standard milestones.
Handling disconnection and risk management
Despite the best efforts, there’s always the risk of customers disconnecting from the product, whether due to shifting priorities, internal changes, or external pressures. Customers will become strangers and disconnect from your product due to other priorities.
This is where Brandwatch’s proactive risk management strategies come into play. Jillian explains how Brandwatch uses real-time data to immediately catalog potential risks and connect them to dedicated action plans. “What we’ve learned over the years is that it’s crucial to identify risks early on and attach them to a specific plan. This ensures the CS manager is always prepared with a path forward.”
The goal? Never let customers feel like they’re navigating challenges alone. By cataloging risks and crafting personalized plans, Brandwatch stays connected to its customers’ evolving needs, even when things seem uncertain.
A partnership based on mutual commitment
Jillian’s philosophy centers around creating lasting partnerships with customers. It’s not just about delivering a product or providing support; it’s about understanding where customers are in their journey, ensuring they have the resources and commitment needed to succeed, and maintaining meaningful connections throughout their relationship with the brand.
Brandwatch’s success isn’t just tied to the strength of its technology—it’s about how they foster a deep and mutual commitment with their customers, helping them reach their goals while also driving growth and value realization. With a clear focus on continuous engagement, proactive risk management, and a blend of human expertise and technological innovation, Brandwatch is building a future where customer success is not just a function, but a strategic partnership that drives long-term business growth for both sides.
In a nutshell, customer success has evolved beyond just helping users adopt a product. It’s about delivering real value and building lasting relationships. By connecting emotionally with customers and understanding their needs, organizations can create engagement strategies that lead to genuine partnerships. As the landscape shifts, customer success managers are stepping up as strategic partners, not just advisors. They play a crucial role in driving customer satisfaction and revenue growth, highlighting the importance of empathy and insight in their interactions to anticipate needs and deliver fitting solutions.
