A customer success dashboard, also known as a CSM dashboard, is a tool every business looking to improve their retention rates needs. It allows you to monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) and track the success of your Customer Success team. But with so many metrics and data points to think of, building a customer success dashboard can feel daunting - to say the least. In this blog post, we will guide you through everything you need to know about creating a customer success dashboard that works for your organisation.
Key Components of a Highly Effective Customer Success Dashboard
To make a customer success dashboard that really works, you need to think about what information is most important. The two most common usages of dashboards are 1. Informing decision making and 2. Providing data to support meetings, such as Renewal Reviews or even 1:1s. With this in mind, here are some important things to include:
Customer Health Scores: This helps you see how well your relationships with customers are doing. You look at things like how effectively they use your product and if they are seeing positive results. This helps you know where to focus your efforts.
Customer Segmentation: This means dividing your customers into groups based on what they need, how they act, the relationship owner, their ARR, their revenue or even their region. It helps you give each group the right solutions and make sure they're happy.
Churn Analysis: Churn is when customers leave. You need to watch how often this happens and why. This helps you prioritise which problems to fix so you can keep more customers.
Customer Feedback: You should ask customers what they think of your company. You can use scores like NPS, CSAT, and CES to understand what makes satisfied customers satisfied and what makes unsatisfied customers unsatisfied.
Team Performance Metrics: To improve the performance of your team, you need to understand where they are spending their time and what are their most valuable actions.
Putting all these things in your dashboard will help you make more informed decisions and better prepare you to delight customers.
Building More Tools For Building a Customer Success Dashboard
We recommend using a Customer Success Platform like Velaris for building Customer Success Dashboards. And we’re not just being biased, either - a CSP eliminates the need for multiple expensive tools and licenses and brings all your work into one place (and what CS team wouldn’t like that?). At Velaris we work directly with you to understand your key decisions, meetings and general data requirements to build a dashboard for you that covers all your needs. All you have to do is tell us what is important to you and we do the hard work
But in case you think it’s not the right fit for you, here’s the tech stack you will need:
1. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software: A CRM system stores your customer information and can serve as the central repository for customer data. However turning this data into intuitive insights that Customer Success teams can use will be difficult without additional tools. Most modern systems allow you to integrate CRM data into your dashboard, but keep in mind that you will need to buy a data visualisation tool if you don’t have a CSP.
2. Data Visualisation Tools: Data visualisation tools, such as Tableau, Power BI, or Google Data Studio, can transform raw data into visually appealing and easy-to-understand charts, graphs, and dashboards. These tools enable you to present complex data in a visually engaging format that helps stakeholders quickly understand and interpret the information.
3. Survey and Feedback Tools: Collecting customer feedback is crucial for understanding their satisfaction and needs. Tools like SurveyMonkey, Typeform, or Google Forms allow you to create and distribute surveys to gather valuable feedback that can be incorporated into your dashboard.
4. Analytics Tools: A CSP like Velaris has inbuilt analytics tools, but you can also use other tools like Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics can provide insights into customer behaviour and website interactions. By integrating these tools with your dashboard, you can monitor website traffic, conversion rates, and other key metrics to better understand your customers' online journey.
5. Collaboration and Project Management Tools: Collaboration tools such as Trello, Asana, or Jira can help you manage and track tasks related to your dashboard project. You can use them to assign tasks, keep track of progress, and make sure everything goes smoothly.
Velaris combines the capabilities of all these tools — and we throw in some excellent automation as well — so you don’t have to buy and manage multiple systems. Book a demo to see it in action.
Best Practices for Maintaining and Improving Your Dashboard Over Time
Making a customer success dashboard isn't a one-time job; it's something you have to keep working on to make sure it stays useful. To do that, follow these tips:
Keep an eye on your goals: Your business goals can change over time, so check your key performance indicators (KPIs) regularly. Make sure they match what you're trying to do now. This helps you track the right things and make decisions based on data.
Listen to feedback: Ask your team and other important people for feedback. They can tell you how well the dashboard is working and suggest ways to make it better. Use their ideas to make the dashboard easier to use and more helpful.
Check the data: Make sure the data you use is accurate and up-to-date. Bad data can make a dashboard worthless. Keep an eye on the data sources and make sure they're giving you the right data.
Stay up to date: The way people do customer success is always changing. Keep learning about new ideas and best practices by attending events and talking to others in your field. Use what you learn to make your dashboard better.
Conclusion
Building a customer success dashboard is an essential step for any business looking to improve customer satisfaction and retention. In this blog post, we have explored the importance of a customer success dashboard and its ability to provide valuable insights and drive actionable results. By understanding the key components of a highly effective dashboard and incorporating relevant key performance indicators (KPIs), you can track the success of your customer success efforts and make data-driven decisions to enhance the customer experience. Regularly reviewing and updating your KPIs, collecting feedback from stakeholders, monitoring data accuracy, staying updated with industry trends, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement will help you maximise the effectiveness of your dashboard.
Velaris makes creating and updating your dashboards a breeze. Book a demo to find out how.
