Amidst the economic uncertainty and a few other headwinds last year, businesses within all industries were competing not only for new customers but also to retain the existing ones. As a result, more organizations made customer success their strategic priority, investing in it as a new revenue center. 

While many teams choose to invest in better customer collaboration tools or focus on improving related processes, like sales to CS handoff, there’s one aspect of customer success that often gets overlooked — content.

In this article, we will explore the main reasons you should create content for your customer success teams and what exactly you need to create.

Why does content creation matter for customer success teams?

Over 70% of marketers use content marketing as part of their overall marketing strategies and achieve six times higher conversion rates. But that’s marketing, what about the customer journey post-sale? Is content really that important for customer success? 

The short answer is YES! Here are a few reasons why you should be investing in CS content:

• Smooth onboarding and adoption: Content designed specifically to guide customers through the onboarding process and facilitate product adoption can improve their initial experience. This might include tutorials, walkthroughs, or welcome guides that help customers get started quickly and effectively.
• Effective product education: Providing educational content about product features, functionalities, and best practices helps customers fully understand how to utilize the product to its fullest potential. This can reduce confusion and frustration, leading to higher satisfaction and retention rates.
• Troubleshooting: Content that addresses common issues, FAQs, and troubleshooting guides empowers customers to resolve problems independently. By providing self-service resources, businesses can reduce support ticket volume and improve customer satisfaction.
• Customer loyalty: Regularly sharing valuable content such as tips, industry insights, or success stories with customers keeps them engaged and reinforces the value of the product or service. This ongoing engagement fosters loyalty and strengthens the customer relationship.
• Upselling and cross-selling: Customer success content can also be used strategically to introduce customers to additional products or features that complement their current setup. By showcasing how these offerings can further benefit them, businesses can capitalize on upselling and cross-selling opportunities.
• Retention and renewals: By proactively addressing customer needs and helping them achieve their desired outcomes, customer success content contributes to higher retention rates and increased renewals. When customers consistently derive value from a product or service, they're more likely to remain loyal over the long term.

Types of content for customer success

Yes, you should create content, but how? We will cover the seven main types of content to reach out to your potential and current customers and take your customer success to the next level.

1. User guides and tutorials

User guides or tutorials offer detailed, step-by-step guidance to help your users get familiar with the product. This type of content is essential for customer success as it streamlines the onboarding process, alleviates confusion, and empowers customers to utilize products or services effectively. 

By offering clear instructions and troubleshooting guidance, they enable self-service solutions, reducing dependence on support channels. These resources accelerate time-to-value for customers, ensuring they quickly achieve their desired outcomes and fostering a positive user experience from the start.

2. Best practices and expert tips

Best practices and expert tips serve as valuable customer success content by providing actionable guidance and insights to help customers optimize their use of a product or service. These resources offer tried-and-tested strategies, recommendations, and techniques for maximizing value and achieving desired outcomes. 

By sharing expert knowledge, businesses empower customers to leverage the full potential of their offerings, overcome challenges, and drive success. Best practices and expert tips not only enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty but also contribute to long-term success by continuously improving customer proficiency and results.

3. Case studies

Case studies present illustrated product usage stories of your happy customers and highlight what were the outcomes and benefits that they achieved. They provide real-world examples of how a product or service has delivered tangible benefits to existing customers. 

By showcasing specific use cases, challenges faced, and the outcomes achieved, case studies offer compelling evidence of the value proposition and effectiveness of the offering. Additionally, They can inspire and educate customers by highlighting best practices, innovative solutions, and lessons learned from others' experiences.

4. Webinars and workshops

Webinars and workshops play a crucial role in customer success by providing interactive platforms for education, training, and collaboration. These live or recorded sessions allow businesses to deliver in-depth insights, best practices, and updates directly to customers in a personalized and engaging format. 

Webinars and workshops offer opportunities for customers to deepen their understanding of the product or service, learn new features or functionalities, and address specific challenges or use cases. Moreover, they facilitate real-time interaction, enabling participants to ask questions, share experiences, and receive expert guidance from presenters and peers.

5. Academy and courses

Having an academy or offering courses with certifications is a strategic approach to customer success, providing structured learning opportunities that empower customers to become proficient users of a product or service. These educational resources offer comprehensive training modules, tutorials, and assessments designed to enhance customer knowledge and skills. 

By completing courses and earning certifications, customers validate their expertise and demonstrate their commitment to mastery. This not only boosts their confidence in utilizing the product effectively but also enhances their credibility within their organizations or industries. Additionally, having an academy fosters a sense of community among users, encouraging knowledge sharing, collaboration, and peer support. 

6. FAQs and help centers

FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) and help centers serve as essential resources in customer success by providing quick and easy access to answers and solutions for common inquiries and issues. These centralized knowledge bases offer self-service support options, empowering customers to find information and troubleshoot problems independently, without needing to contact customer support. 

By addressing frequently encountered questions and concerns, FAQs and help centers alleviate customer frustration and reduce the volume of repetitive inquiries, freeing up support resources to focus on more complex issues. Additionally, these resources serve as valuable tools for onboarding new customers, guiding them through initial setup and usage, and improving overall product comprehension.

7. Newsletters

A newsletter can help you keep your customers informed and engaged by serving as a direct and consistent channel for delivering valuable and relevant information. This could be product updates, feature releases, industry trends, best practices, or upcoming events. 

By staying engaged with customers through newsletters, businesses can reinforce their brand presence, nurture relationships, and foster a sense of community. Moreover, newsletters offer opportunities to share success stories, customer testimonials, and useful tips, demonstrating the ongoing value of the product or service and inspiring continued usage and advocacy.

Tips to create effective CS content and collateral

• Understand your audience: It’s not just about knowing your audience; it’s also about pinpointing their challenges and aspirations. Explore their true pain points to create materials that appeal to their immediate needs.
• Focus on quality: Rather than shoving an endless number of articles, go for creating something that stands out, helps, and involves the reader. Invest the time and effort in content that actually serves your audience and will stick in their minds long after they've finished reading.
• Leverage customer feedback: Your customers are the best source of inspiration for CS content. Try to integrate their feedback and requests into your content generation process to polish and modify your strategy accordingly. By speaking to your audience and developing material based on their response, you will ensure that the content you produce is timely and valuable.
• Embrace variety: Try different types of content or formats, including articles, videos, infographics, podcasts, and many others, to address a wider audience of various tastes. Diversify your content so that it's evergreen and engaging.
• Pick the right distribution channels: Everyone creates how-to videos and product guides, but few deliver them in an engaging and convenient way. So, make sure the content is easy to access and share, digestible, and visually appealing. Flowla helps you build an ultimate content hub to keep your collateral organized and always available to all involved parties.
• Measure and iterate: Be sure to monitor your content performance over time and optimize it accordingly. By iterating on the strategy using engagement insights, you can make sure the content always stays on top of the game by being effective and meaningful in achieving the end goal.

Conclusion

Content creation is your secret recipe for achieving customer success and getting your audience to want to follow you. You can use innovative content to elevate your customers' experience, profitability and growth in the long run. Whether it is an instructional session or an interactive webinar, the potential is high for developing content that engages your audience and flavours their world.

There's always a place for your creative side! Don't be afraid to think outside the box and include some personality into your content. After all, "Laughter is the best medicine"—even in the world of customer success! Be creative and write great content that captivates, informs, and entertains. Who knows, your next viral video or hilarious meme might be the key to unlocking your customer's hearts (and wallets)!