Scaling customer success
How Passing Lane scaled SumoQuote’s customer success function for phenomenal ROI.
185% increase in customer outreach and interactions
42% decrease in at risk accounts
15% increase in canceled account reactivations
“
Passing Lane saved us over a year’s worth of time in building a scalable customer success function, and made an impact of nearly $100,000 on our bottom line.
It was the best investment we made on the customer success side—the ROI we gained was through the roof!
SHAUN FREY,
Director of Customer Success, SumoQuote
“
Thanks to Cary, our users are finally getting the level of support that they deserve. Our reputation in the industry is incredibly positive due to the responsiveness and engagement of our team.
We now have a system that can scale with our growth so that we don’t need to re-invent this process again in the future. It’s really the gift that keeps on giving!
RYAN SHANTZ
CEO, SumoQuote
SumoQuote is a high-growth B2B SaaS company based in Canada. Their platform helps contractors easily build custom quotes and proposals in minutes and close more deals.
Highlights
CHALLENGES
Scaling up beyond the initial growth phase of customer acquisition
Building a dedicated customer success function in a short period of time
Setting up a plan to address churn and cancellations
SOLUTION
Onboarding pipelines for new and existing customers
Cancellation recovery training and detailed reporting
Outreach campaigns to reach low-use accounts and boost reactivations
Customer success team capacity plan, CSM recruitment & training
Monthly Customer Success KPI scoreboard
RESULTS
Passing Lane helped SumoQuote achieve these results under the leadership of their Director of Customer Success
185% increase in customer outreach and interactions
15% increase in Canceled account reac-tivations
42% decrease in low use (at risk ac-counts)
Trending toward a 1% decrease in monthly churn.
ChallengeS
Retain and grow existing customer base with a customer success function
SumoQuote has achieved an impressive growth trajectory over the years thanks to a strong sales team and a great product.
But to unlock the next stage of revenue growth, it was time to shift gears to retain and grow their existing customers.
While SumoQuote had a strong sales and marketing team and a support resource, they lacked a customer success function that would proactively reach out to customers to ensure they were successful with the product, drive usage, and encourage adoption of new features and upgrades.
There were no dedicated customer success managers nor onboarding and retention pipelines yet, which created a need for a strategic plan to address churn and reactivate low-use accounts.
Shaun Frey, Director of Customer Success at SumoQuote, explains,
“Before Passing Lane, our Customer Success department was non-existent—it was just one support person answering calls. We were a sales-led organization but we lacked re-sources on the customer success front.”
When Shaun took over the role, he knew he needed to build a customer success function from the ground up.
Coming from a sales background, he had a strong understanding of SumoQuote’s products and customers–but customer success was uncharted territory.
He reflects, “We were trying to figure out how to scale our CS function, how many people we should hire, what analytics and tools were important, and which processes to set up—which was a massive waste of time and resources.”
To be successful in his new role, Shaun needed to build an highly effective CS team that is able to execute and set up specific targets and goals to work towards.
With over a decade of management experience, Shaun was perfectly capable of building a new team. But he needed to do it, fast.
Each day without a customer success system meant the company was losing out on additional revenue and ac-counts. In a fast-paced construction technology market, speed was crucial to stay competitive.
SumoQuote was also launching a new solar product, their most innovative product to date, which they were excited to introduce to their existing customers.
Ryan Shantz, the CEO of SumoQuote
As a scaling tech company, we knew retention could be a serious contributor to our continued growth and valuation. Without a true specialist in-house though, our customer success felt like a bit of a black hole.
Together, Shaun and Ryan considered hiring an external consultant to bridge the expertise gap and set up the foundations for success quickly.
But there was one caveat. Back in sales, Shaun held the perception that consultants merely regurgitated the same cookie-cutter approaches and overpromised results.
However, this changed when Shaun met Cary from Passing Lane.
“Right off the bat, I connected with Cary because of his personality and the way he thinks. This is incredibly important to me considering I’ll be working hand-in-hand with this person. Cary is just a super great guy!” Shaun says.
Shaun met with Cary for a couple discovery calls where he explained SumoQuote’s situation, his concerns, and how he thinks they should be fixed. After a few days, Cary shared an outline of a possible engagement direction; summarizing the key challenges and drawing out potential solutions.
“Cary’s quick outline proved that he was going to save a lot of time—and money—for us. It was such a relief to know that he understands and agrees with the issues I’m seeing, and sees a light at the end of the tunnel,” Shaun recalls.
Cary’s extensive track record of building teams for high-growth B2B SaaS companies also reassured Shaun. He wanted to work with someone who had been in his shoes before, and who knew how to tackle the challenges head on.
Shaun appreciated how Cary probed further into how he likes to work and set expectations on the partnership.
“We had been considering some options for consultants but never went beyond the surface level. With Cary, it felt like he actually cared and was excited about our business, which gave us the big green check mark to move forward.”
“
Before Passing Lane, our Customer Success department was non-existent—it was just one support person answering calls. We were a sales-led organization but we lacked resources on the customer success front.
Solution
Expert guidance, hands-on execution, and a collaborative partnership to build a customer success team.
Cary’s fast-track consulting and Fractional Chief Customer Officer engagements were the perfect fit for SumoQuote. Shaun engaged Cary as a consultant and a Fractional CCO for six months.
First, Cary set out to build the foundations. In the next 12 weeks, he assessed SumoQuote’s business in-depth, recommended strategies, and built out the customer success team under Shaun’s leadership. This included:
CSM coverage model
CSM compensation structure
A CSM team launch plan (3 x CSMs)
Onboarding pipeline and self-guided onboarding playbook
User adoption reports
Cancellation reason collection
Churn and cancellation recovery training
Initial CSM launch campaign to existing customers
Monthly CS scorecard & team KPIs
This was done in four phases:
Phase 1: Kick-off and Detailed Discovery (Weeks 1-2)
Kick off and engagement overview
Detailed initial discovery and team integration including:
Company stakeholder interviews & survey
Sales, marketing, and product
Phase 2: Recommendations and Roadmap Development (Week 3)
Customer Success Strategic Roadmap
A draft of key initiatives
Prioritization of initiatives with leadership
Detailed project planning
Phase 3: Roadmap Execution (Weeks 4-12)
Execution of priority roadmap initiatives
Ongoing fractional CCO leadership participation and advisory
Phase 4: Engagement Debrief (Week 12)
Post engagement recommendations
“
“What I appreciate most about Cary is his organization and the ability to set and execute goals and plans from start to finish. His processes, standard operating levels, and expectations set everything in motion for us.”
Once the foundation was established in the first engagement, the SumoQuote team decided to engage Cary for a second engagement to move on to more assertive strategies to improve performance and launch the solar product to existing customers.
In the next 12 weeks, Cary jumpstarted onboarding and outbound activities.
This included:
Low-use account outreach campaigns
Contractor success calls campaigns
CSM 60-day review & team assessment
Self-guided onboarding playbook for new users
CSM recruitment
Detailed Solar product launch plan
In product cancellation recovery flow
Historical churn analysis
Detailed churn reporting
According to Shaun,
“Cary’s coaching on building employee profiles and setting role expectations was super helpful. Although I had a decade of management experience, his guidance was instrumental for me to manage a different type of team and succeed in my role.”
Ryan was also pleased with Cary’s help and support. He shares,
“Working with Cary helped our team focus on the main drivers we needed to work on and give us measurable targets and strategies for the future.”
Results
A scalable customer success function adding $100K to the bottom line
In just six months, SumoQuote now had a fully functional customer success department to reduce churn, boost retention, and scale their revenue:
1. A fully functional CSM team
CSM team launch, training and scaled capacity
Leader progression
2. New Account Onboarding Experience
Onboarding pipeline & tracking
Setup process & training
Onboarding playbook (admin & new user)
3. Proactive Retention Activities
~200 accounts completed setup
+500 proactive customer calls
Both Shaun and Ryan were thrilled with the results.
“Cary saved us over a year’s worth of time and made an impact of nearly $100,000 on our bottom line, based on the amount of churn we were able to reduce during the six months,” Shaun estimates.
On top of the tangible metrics, Cary also saved SumoQuote’s leadership team the stress and headache of building a new department from the ground up.
Ryan remarks,
“From past experience, any significant changes to the business could put incredible stress on everyone and negatively affect the culture. As a CEO, I was incredibly grateful that Cary helped execute our CS function in a short period of time without stressing out our team or leadership.”
Beyond the six months, due to the foundations set by Cary and Shaun’s continued leadership, SumoQuote saw:
185% increase in customer outreach and interactions
15% increase in canceled account reactivations
42% decrease in low-use (at risk accounts)
A trend towards 1% decrease in churn
Ryan comments,
“Thanks to Cary, our users are finally getting the level of support that they deserve. Our reputation in the industry is incredibly positive due to the responsiveness and engagement of our team.
We now have a system that can scale with our growth so that we don’t need to re-invent this process in the future. It’s really the gift that keeps on giving!”
But more importantly, Cary and Passing Lane were instrumental in setting Shaun up for success in his new role. According to Shaun:
“Coming from a sales background, I never truly understood the role of customer success. But working with Cary was like a crash course on managing and owning a CS department–I now know what works, how the industry is, and the standards and expectations that come with it.”
When previously Shaun was wary of consultants, Cary completely changed his outlook. Throughout their partnership, Cary moved beyond being an external consultant and became an extension of the team.
Shaun says, “Everybody was really sad when Cary was leaving. He definitely became a part of our CS team, and it felt like we were losing a colleague when the engagements ended.”
Shaun and Ryan would endorse Cary and Passing Lane to any B2B SaaS companies that have achieved the initial revenue traction and now need to retain and grow their existing customers for continued growth.
“Cary is a down-to-earth, caring, organized, and results-driven individual who you can have 100% confidence in. Passing Lane was the best investment we made on the customer success side—the ROI we gained was through the roof!”