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How do customer success KPIs change with a self-serve product?

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Kiran Panigrahi
Kiran Panigrahi
Gainsight Senior Director - Client OutcomesApril 4

Customer success KPIs for a self-serve product may differ from those for a more traditional, high-touch product. This is more of a 1:Many methodology driven based on these strategies. Here's how they typically change:

  1. Customer Onboarding and Activation: With a self-serve product, the focus shifts to ensuring customers can quickly and easily onboard themselves and activate key features without human intervention. KPIs may include time to first value, activation rate, and completion of onboarding tasks.

  2. User Engagement and Adoption: Tracking user engagement and adoption becomes critical in a self-serve model. KPIs may include metrics such as active users and feature adoption rates.

  3. Customer Satisfaction and Support | NPS: While self-serve products aim to reduce the need for human support, it's still important to measure customer satisfaction and provide resources for self-help. KPIs may include customer satisfaction scores (CSAT), self-service resolution rates, and the effectiveness of knowledge base articles or tutorials.

  4. Churn Prevention: Preventing churn becomes even more crucial with self-serve products, as customers can easily switch to competitors if they don't see value or encounter roadblocks. KPIs may include churn rate, customer retention rate, and reasons for cancellation.

  5. Expansion Revenue: Driving expansion revenue from self-serve customers requires a focus on upselling and cross-selling opportunities within the product experience. KPIs may include upgrade rates.

  6. Product Feedback and Iteration: With direct user interactions, self-serve products provide valuable feedback for product iteration and improvement. KPIs may include the quantity and quality of feedback collected, as well as the speed of implementing product enhancements.


In a nutshell, KPIs for self-serve products will revolve mainly around the onboarding effectiveness, use of KB or bot, use of digital motions to capture feedback at the feature level, milestone level, and ease of use.

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