In this VMblog Q&A, we sat down with Puneet Gupta, CEO & Founder of Amberflo, to find out more about the company and their latest Salesforce App, designed to help companies drive real-time customer success.
VMblog: For those who may not already be familiar -- tell us a
bit about Amberflo.
Puneet Gupta: Amberflo is a cloud metering and cloud billing platform.
Many companies wish to transition to usage-based pricing, but it's very complex
in the cloud. We make it easier. Once you've built in cloud metering and you
understand how your product is being used (and how much), it makes pricing on
top of that usage much easier.
VMblog: How does the rise of product-led-growth tie into the rise of
customer success?
Gupta: There is a very interesting and straightforward connection here. Let's look at
what "Customer Success" means -- simply put, it's a movement that
recognizes that reducing churn and keeping existing customers happy is just as
important as closing new deals. In the past, when large enterprise deals were
the primary way of buying software, you'd pay a large sum up front as a
customer and then you'd never hear from the sales rep again. Once they have you
locked into a long contract, what's the incentive to make sure you are having a
good experience on a continual basis?
The power is shifting to the customer/user. That is why PLG is taking off.
Customers want to experience the product before they make a decision. So right
at the outset of a sales engagement, the model for sales rep is shifting from
underneath them. It is no longer old school negotiations, arbitrary quarter end
discounts, fancy dinners to lure customers in. With PLG sales teams need to be
on the ball for how the prospect is using the product. Are they using more or
less day over day? Sales needs to use these signals to formulate their sales
close plan per customer. And once the customer commits, this continues
throughout the engagement cycle, not just at renewal.
VMblog: So how does the new Amberflo Salesforce App work?
Gupta:
Well, if you are a business operating in the cloud, you very likely are already
using Salesforce to track your customers. Now imagine having data from Amberflo
at your fingertips as a sales rep -- you can pull up a customer dashboard and
answer important questions in real time: is the customer's usage growing? Are
they actually using the new feature they were so excited about? Typically, you
don't get these answers from customers until they are complaining or until it's
too late and they churn. Having real-time usage data from Amberflo directly in
your Salesforce dashboard means you can do things like trigger alerts when
usage drops, route that alert to the appropriate sales rep, and then reach out
confidently to your customers to proactively address their issues.
Let's put it this way: if you are flying blind as a Customer Success
organization and have no real-time insights into how your product is being used
(and how much), you'll be at a distinct disadvantage to your competitors who
are being engaged and proactive.
Try the new Amberflo Salesforce App: https://www.amberflo.io/products/salesforce-managed-application
##