{"id":14677,"date":"2022-10-16T21:31:07","date_gmt":"2022-10-16T21:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/userpilot.com\/blog\/customer-intimacy\/"},"modified":"2025-05-07T18:56:55","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T18:56:55","slug":"customer-intimacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/userpilot.com\/blog\/customer-intimacy\/","title":{"rendered":"15 Customer Intimacy Best Practices and Tips For B2B Companies"},"content":{"rendered":"

For customer-centric SaaS companies, customer intimacy is indispensable to driving product growth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In this article, we’ll discuss what exactly customer intimacy means and how you can nurture long-lasting relationships that result in retention.<\/p>\n

What is customer intimacy?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Customer intimacy focuses on the specific needs of each customer instead of the \u201cdemand\u201d of the general market. Customer-intimate companies build deep relationships with customers so only you<\/strong> can offer a solution for their unique needs.<\/p>\n

This term was originally coined by Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema in their book \u201cThe Discipline of Market Leaders<\/a>\u201d, where customer intimacy is one of the three \u201cvalue disciplines\u201d that a company can follow in order to grow, and the other two models include \u201cproduct leadership\u201d and \u201coperational excellence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"customer<\/picture>
The three value disciplines.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Customer intimacy vs. customer focus<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Although customer focus and intimacy care about understanding the customer better, they\u2019re not the same.<\/p>\n

Customer focus<\/a> is mostly about researching customers, finding out their needs, and satisfying them in a transactional way.<\/p>\n

Whereas, customer intimacy is based on deep relationships. The goal is not to only satisfy a need, but to offer a bespoke solution that the customer didn\u2019t even know they needed.<\/p>\n

Why is customer intimacy important?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In customer success (especially in SaaS), intimacy with customers is essential to meet goals and grow businesses\u2014that\u2019s why they go hand-in-hand.<\/p>\n

In the long-term, customer intimacy also leads to:<\/p>\n

Better conversion rates<\/strong><\/h3>\n

When customers feel understood and aligned with your product and brand values, your sales will increase\u2014and thus, your conversion rates.<\/a><\/p>\n

Increased customer loyalty and retention<\/strong><\/h3>\n

When you keep strengthening your relationship with existing customers (either by listening to feedback, communicating with them, or providing repeated value), they\u2019ll eventually become loyal customers<\/a> and stay with your brand forever.<\/p>\n

Higher customer lifetime value<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Since customer intimacy leads to tremendous customer loyalty, your customer lifetime value<\/a> (LTV) will also increase as they keep renewing their plans and buying additional services.<\/p>\n

How can you measure customer intimacy?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Customer intimacy is not a metric you can measure.<\/p>\n

But you can get a full picture of your customer relationships and engagement by tracking some of these metrics:<\/p>\n

Net Promoter Score<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In a nutshell, NPS surveys<\/a> measure user sentiment by asking, \u201cHow likely are you to recommend us to a friend?\u201d. Usually, from a scale of 0 to 10.<\/p>\n

Mobile surveys<\/a> are a quick way to measure customer satisfaction, gather real-time feedback, and boost engagement.<\/p>\n

Your most loyal customers are those who answer 9 or 10, which accurately indicates how many customers feel intimacy with your brand.<\/p>\n

\"nps<\/picture>
NPS surveys explained.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Product adoption rate<\/strong><\/h3>\n

You can tell customers are developing a positive relationship with your product when they become active users.<\/p>\n

For this, you can calculate software adoption<\/a> rate, which is the percentage of signed-up customers that become active users.<\/p>\n

E.g., If you get 100 new signups per month and 25 of them become active, your software adoption rate would be 25%.<\/p>\n

\"product<\/picture>
Product adoption rate formula.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Churn rate<\/strong><\/h3>\n

On the other side, measuring churn rate<\/a> can also help you check if you\u2019re failing to develop customer intimacy.<\/p>\n

To calculate it, divide the number of customers lost during a given time period by the number of customers at the start of that period, and multiply the result by 100.<\/p>\n

Pro tip: <\/strong>try offering personalized client onboarding to reduce churn. This way, you can spend more time on calls with your clients and build intimacy.<\/p>\n

\"customer<\/picture>
Customer churn rate formula.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How to build customer intimacy?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Now, as a customer-centric<\/a> approach, building customer intimacy has a lot of overlap with customer success.<\/p>\n

So, if you want to foster intimacy, start with these strategies:<\/p>\n

Map the customer journey<\/strong><\/h3>\n

To build intimate relationships with customers, you must lead users through a series of steps to achieve their desired result (also known as your customer journey map<\/a>).<\/p>\n

With a map, you can list each user milestone and touchpoint, personalize the journey for each user persona, and determine who owns each step.<\/p>\n

Plus, the goal of your journey map isn\u2019t only to help users get from one milestone to the next. It also allows you to identify and remove friction whenever the user faces an obstacle (improving your bond).<\/p>\n

\"customer<\/picture>
Customer success journey map example.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Level up your personalization with segmentation<\/strong><\/h3>\n

A personalized product experience <\/a>is a prerequisite for customer intimacy.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Salesforce found that 75% of customers<\/a> expect companies to deliver hyper-personalized experiences, and this means you can no longer get away with just calling users by their names.<\/p>\n

A truly personalized product experience delivers customer value according to their specific use case, job to be done (JTBD)<\/a>, and stage in the journey.<\/p>\n

For this, you must collect data and segment users<\/a> based on their needs, in-app behaviors, NPS responses, and product usage<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And with segmentation, you can:<\/p>\n