Top 10 in Tech - What to know for Week ending December 18, 2020

We're going to make this weeks newsletter a customer-focused edition:

1. SaaS METRIC OF THE WEEK: LTV/CAC. The ratio of a customer lifetime value (LTV) versus costs associated to acquire that customer (CAC) is one of the primary metrics that companies use to measure efficiency. Many think the higher the better - but 3 is actually the magic number, if it's higher, you are more than likely leaving customer money on the table - but this article is interesting as it gives 4 reasons (from an advertising lens) as to why LTV/CAC is not a great metric for early startups (and what to use instead). HINT: It’s totally payback period…...
2. CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE: Customer loyalty drives the success of a business, and the customer experience (CX) drives loyalty. Zen Desk has published their CX Trends Report for 2020 and it's full of great nuggets: 74% of customers feel loyal to a particular brand or company and 52% of customers report going out of their way to buy from their favorite brands.
3. CUSTOMER TESTIMONIALS:   When it comes to trust, people trust people over brands. Chart Mogul has posted an 'Ultimate' Guide to Using Customer Testimonials to Boost Sales, noting that a generic and insincere endorsement is just as helpful as not using anything. It's also possible to take it a step further  by leveraging those frothiest of customers into a referral channel. Here is a playbook from SaaStr on how to make that happen.
4. CUSTOMER CASE STUDIES: Latching onto #3 above, beyond testimonials, case studies are super valuable at early-stages as a company needs to demonstrate to the market not just their credibility but both the business value and the technical context of the product. Heavy Bit has a great guide on how to craft that first customer case study and Uplift provides 6 best practices to be using in your story.
5. CUSTOMER SERVICE:  In this current age of the customer, enhanced by COVID,  SaaSx makesthe argument that Customer Success is actually the product. Want to start building out that product? Check the HubSpot guide on getting started with your customer team.
6. CUSTOMER SEGMENTATION: In order to calculate the cost for Customer Service Managers, it’s best to segment customers out in order to understand the efforts required. Chartmogul has this great visual and once again Gainsight take a look at how to Benchmark efforts over segmentation. Here is what they found. The median amount of ARR that an Enterprise CSM can manage is between $2M and $5M and The median amount of customers an Enterprise CSM manages is 10-50 - these revenue figures drop with mid and SMB customer segments and increase fairly dramatically with number of customers per CSM.
7. CUSTOMER PERSONAS: SaaS B2B Marketing is a pretty unique beast - and getting into the minds of an idealized customer often requires going through the practice of creating personas - you should try it - it will def make you a better SaaS marketer. For most SaaS companies creating multiple personas is often a strategic necessity. So here is an additional differentiator (and what the difference is compared to a persona) of an Ideal customer profile.
8. CUSTOMER DATA: Customer data management is a practice, not a technology. I love that simple message. Bluconic give the crib notes/5-steps in this article about how to develop a strategy to optimize and improve customer experience using good data management practices.
9. CUSTOMER ONBOARDING: Onboarding success is often de-prioritized with scrappy fast-growing business but giving customers all the tools they need to succeed with your product is the best way to ensure that they stick around. Profitwell review the importance of good SaaS onboarding and discuss steps to create an awesome program. Userpilot also have a great tactical complimentary post here on the best customer onboarding software options for SaaS companies.
10. CUSTOMER DELIGHT AUDIT. Its the Age of the Customer you know, so this needs to  be a thing - here is an in-depth post from CopyHackers on how to make this kind of Audit happen and here is a case study on how 3 big Tech companies (GitLab, HubSpot and Zoom) make delight happen. Also here is a Case Study on building a customer centric B2B organization from McKinsey.

POD OF THE WEEK: WFH life for Customer Success teams - the CEO of ChurnZero has a perspective on how to build this function remotely ​