When the SaaS industry was in its infancy, Customer Success was almost never seen as the primary revenue driver in an organization.

The market has changed substantially since then. Now, a strong CS function has become the financial lifeblood of thousands of SaaS organizations. 

Customer Success is no longer solely focused on retaining existing business. It’s about upselling and cross-selling to expand the financial relationship with each customer. That’s where Customer Success Qualified Leads (CSQLs) come in. 

You’ve likely heard of Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs), Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs), and maybe even Product Qualified Leads (PQLSs). CSQLs are significantly higher in value because the lead is a current customer who has already shown interest in paying you more money. 

These leads tend to convert at a higher rate than others because they’re built on a pre-existing foundation of trust and satisfaction. You may have a CSQL on your hands if a satisfied customer is…

• Bumping up against their maximum usage or seats
• Expressing the need for something an add-on or new product would solve
• Thriving as a business and hoping to accelerate their growth

To make the most of your CSQLs, your organization needs a defined process for identifying, generating, and capturing them. Without a clear and standardized process, you may miss valuable opportunities or inaccurately measure your CS department’s revenue contributions.

We turned to three post-sales experts from our Success Network to break down how to build out an efficient CSQL process:

• Alex Turkovic, Sr. Director, Customer Experience at Belfry
• Annie Stefano, Head of Education, Strategic Advisor at Growth Molecules
• Bill Walker, Director of Customer Success Operations at Cyera.io

What’s the Point of Having a CSQL Process Anyway?

What you’re currently doing to expand accounts might already be working. So, why might you need to create an entirely new system for managing your CSQLs? Well, our experts unanimously agreed with Bill Walker that CSQLs are “vital components of CS organizations that directly impact revenue growth.” Alex Turkovic expanded on this idea, explaining, “For sales, receiving a CSQL is about the warmest lead you can possibly get, as the sale will most likely just need to be closed.”

The value of CSQLs is undeniable, and so is having a defined process to manage them; standardization of your efforts will maximize your opportunities and increase close rates. Our experts identified three primary benefits of developing a CSQL process. 

🤷‍♂️ It Reduces Human Variability

Bill explains that “having a clear, well-documented process for submitting and tracking CSQLs makes discovering opportunities and marking them for appropriate follow-up both straightforward and easy.” Alex called out that a CSQL process reduces the potential for dropped opportunities and miscommunications that could result in lost deals.

💸 It Increases Revenue Predictability

Developing a CSQL process leads to more predictable revenue streams. Annie emphasized that a CSQL process is crucial because retention is more powerful than a net-new account. “Retention brings in anywhere from five to 25 times more revenue than a single new customer,” she said.

🔎  It Clarifies CS’s Impact 

This last benefit is slightly selfish, but good: Customer Success organizations can clearly demonstrate their contributions to the company’s bottom line with clear CSQL identification processes in place. Alex believes a strong CSQL process allows CS teams “to tie concrete revenue performance numbers to an organization that has historically had a hard time measuring its impact.”

Related: The Revenue Mystery: Why Customer Success Leaders Struggle to Prove the Value of CS

What’s the Best Way to Get Started? 

Creating (and implementing) any new process is challenging, but our experts offered up some tips to eliminate that “Where do I even start?” feeling.

‍Know this before making any plans, though: All three experts underscored that you cannot create a CSQL process in a vacuum. Creating an impactful process requires collaboration from the entire revenue function of your organization. 

As Bill Walker pointed out, a successful CSQL process “requires comprehensive engagement across the organization, particularly with sales leadership. The process must consider technical complexity levels and determine whether additional resources like Sales Engineers are needed. Integration with existing sales functions is crucial for effective execution.”

Here’s a step-by-step guide from our experts who have been in your shoes to help get you started:

1. Engage All Stakeholders

Bring together everyone who will touch the CSQL process. This will look slightly different for every organization, but could include sales leadership, account executives, solution architects/sales engineers, CS leadership, and CSMs.

2. Determine Your Goals

Once you’ve determined who needs to be involved, go on a fact-finding mission. Gather as much information as you can about what requirements different roles have for the process. To guide you in this step, Alex recommends asking questions that help you understand:

• What criteria make a lead a CSQL
• How sellers would best receive the CSQL
• How to make it easy for CSMs to enter and track CSQLs in their CSP
• How this process could be implemented operationally

3. Map the Process

Use all of that data to create an outline of how CSQLs will be identified, submitted, and tracked. This outline will guide your team as they build out the necessary systems and integrations in your Customer Success software of choice.

4. Build Out Systems and Integrations

Now that you’ve spelled out the process, build it out in the existing tools your organization uses. Alex recommends “ensuring you have the proper systems and integrations in place so that you're implementing the CSQL process in the systems that already exist within each team and in a way where these leads are easily reported on and tracked.”

5. Train and Align Teams

This process will only work if all teams are aligned on their roles and responsibilities within it. Provide individualized training for each team that walks through the aspects they will touch and then explains the process as a whole, too.

Annie, a former educator, also stressed that it’s important to truly educate your team on the process instead of just assigning it. “The difference is that real education shares the ‘why’ behind what you're actually doing,” she said. People will be more bought into implementation if they have a high-level understanding of the process’s goals vs. just knowing their individual roles.

These five steps are a great place to start, but remember that building a CSQL process is not a one-and-done endeavor. You should continuously track the performance of your CSQL process and make improvements over time.

Are CSQL Processes Ever Not Helpful?

A well-developed and well-implemented CSQL process is rarely a bad use of business resources. However, Alex points out that CSQL processes can become problematic if implemented and operationalized incorrectly. Here are two things to watch out for:

1. Driving Toward Quotas: Setting a quota of required CSQLs may sound like a good idea, because who doesn’t want a guaranteed number of high-quality leads, right? Unfortunately, this practice often backfires. Alex says it well: “You'll feed a bunch of false positives into the system and erode the value of having CSQLs. It's great to spiff them and give CSMs some incentive to use the process, but setting specific goals for how many quarterly CSQLs each CSM should enter usually won't drive the desired outcome.”

2. Incentivizing Inputs Over Outcomes: Another common pitfall is programs that spiff on the number of entered CSQLs instead of closed-won opportunities. Alex says the danger with this is the same as with quotas, where it’ll “erode the validity of the process by having a bunch of false leads be fed into the system.”

Final Advice from Bill, Annie, and Alex

Creating a CSQL process requires intentional planning and masterful execution. Bill encourages anyone beginning this journey with a clear vision: “Start with the end goal in mind. The goal should be to maximize the organization’s CS resources to not only support customers and facilitate maturity, but to facilitate growth and expansion, too, based on first-hand knowledge of the situations a customer is encountering.” 

Annie advised CS leaders not to skip out on training and to emphasize ongoing coaching during one-on-one meetings so CSMs can spot CSQLs easily. She recommends dedicating time in your one-on-one meetings for at least four to six weeks to check in with team members on the CSQL process rollout. “It could be five minutes on your agenda, but it needs to happen because they need to see that they're making an impact.”

Alex’s biggest piece of advice was succinct. “Overcommunicate, and then communicate some more.” With quality enablement of your entire revenue team, your CSQL process will yield results. He also emphasizes the importance of ongoing training. “It’s not good enough to do one introductory training session. I’d check in with teams repeatedly to see how things are working and what the areas of opportunity for improvement might be.”

Go Forth and Generate CSQLs 

Creating a CSQL process is more than just a way to identify and track revenue opportunities; it’s a vital tool for maximizing existing customer relationships and driving bottom-line growth.

The creation and execution of a successful CSQL process is complex and requires excellent CS leadership and collaboration across the entire revenue organization. The organization-wide lift it requires might feel daunting, however, it’s clear that prioritizing the creation of a CSQL process is a worthwhile goal for any organization looking for a sustainable growth mechanism. 

Vitally is a fan-favorite Customer Success Platform that makes it simple for teams to turn CSQLs into expansion revenue. Take a tour of the platform or schedule time with our team today.