What does a Customer Success team do in a SaaS company?

A Customer Success team in a SaaS company is responsible for ensuring clients achieve the outcomes they purchased the software to deliver — not just resolving support tickets, but actively managing adoption, usage, and return on investment. In practice, this means overseeing onboarding, migrating existing data into the new system, training users, configuring the platform around the client's workflows, and conducting regular reviews to identify features that are being paid for but not used. The gap between what a vendor promises during a sales process and what a client experiences six months later is one of the most consistent failure points in enterprise software. A properly resourced Customer Success function exists to close that gap.

What is a Quarterly Business Review (QBR) in software?

A Quarterly Business Review, or QBR, is a structured meeting between a software vendor's Customer Success team and a client, held every three months, to assess whether the client is getting measurable value from the platform. A genuine QBR examines usage data directly: which users are active, which features have been adopted, whether there are training gaps, and whether the investment is delivering the return the client expected. It is distinct from a sales call — the goal is honest evaluation of value, not upselling. Clients who receive regular, substantive QBRs consistently achieve higher adoption rates and longer tenure with the platforms they use.

Why do so many organisations fail to get value from their software?

Most organisations fail to get full value from their software because adoption is treated as the client's responsibility once a sale is complete. Research from Zylo found that around half of all enterprise software licence spend goes unused. The root cause is almost never the software itself — it is the absence of structured onboarding, data migration support, user training, and ongoing review. Organisations end up paying for tools that are partially used or abandoned, while continuing to rely on spreadsheets and disconnected systems that the software was supposed to replace. Vendors that do not invest in Customer Success have a commercial incentive to prioritise new sales over existing client outcomes, which compounds the problem at renewal.

What is Net Promoter Score and why does it matter for software vendors?

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a measure of how likely a client is to recommend a product or service to a peer, expressed on a scale from 0 to 10. Respondents scoring 9 or 10 are classified as Promoters; those scoring 6 or below are Detractors. The NPS figure is calculated by subtracting the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters. For software vendors, NPS matters because it captures client sentiment more honestly than satisfaction surveys or renewal rates alone — clients who are dissatisfied but find switching difficult will renew without being Promoters. Vendors that measure NPS seriously use it to identify clients at risk of underachieving value before that dissatisfaction becomes a churn decision.

How does Tractivity's Customer Success model differ from competitors?

Tractivity's Customer Success model differs from competitors in three specific ways. First, the entire team is UK-based and named publicly on the Tractivity website — clients know who they are working with before they sign, and can hold that relationship to account. Second, onboarding includes active data migration from existing spreadsheets and legacy systems, rather than directing clients to self-serve resources. Third, every client receives a formal Quarterly Business Review that examines usage data directly, identifying adoption gaps and unaddressed training needs. Competitors in the stakeholder management software space — most of whom are based in Canada or Australia — do not publish their Customer Success team members by name, which makes individual accountability structurally difficult to maintain.

Why Accountability Starts With Naming Your Team on the Website

This blog post is the second article in the four-part series, The ROI Imperative. Tractivity Chairman, Paul Rivers, examines why most software vendors fail their clients after the sale, and how Tractivity has built its Customer Success model around genuine accountability, not the illusion of it.

You can read the other articles here: Article 1 | Article 3 | Article 4.

The account manager myth

If you visit the Tractivity website, you'll find something uncommon on SaaS websites: the names and faces of our UK Customer Success team.

That's a deliberate choice. Not a quirk of web design.

When organisations procure software, any software, there is almost always a gap between what the vendor promises in the sales process and what the client experiences six months in. The demo looks polished. The procurement process is time-consuming. The onboarding is attentive.

And then, gradually, the level of engagement drops off. Tickets take longer to be answered. The 'dedicated account manager' turns out to be overseas (or maybe even virtual) and shared across a hundred accounts. The renewal comes around, and the client isn't entirely sure they've had value, but switching feels difficult, so they renew anyway.

I've watched this pattern play out for years. We have set out to build something structurally different.

The Customer Success model we have built

At Tractivity, we have a large UK-based Customer Success team. They are not a support desk. They are professionals who understand Stakeholder Engagement and work alongside our clients on an ongoing basis. They have a very specific remit: to ensure that every client is getting a return on their investment in Tractivity.

In practice, that means several things. First, intensive onboarding. When a new client joins us, we don't hand them a manual and wish them luck. And we certainly don’t solely point them at a Help Centre or an AI agent, even though such functions have their role in the support mix.

Instead, we work with them to migrate their existing data, often from a combination of (usually poorly structured) spreadsheets and legacy systems, into Tractivity. We train their users. We configure the system around their workflows. We don't declare success until they are actually using the platform.

Second, Quarterly Business Reviews. Every Tractivity client has a formal QBR with their Customer Success Manager. We look at usage data together. We ask hard questions. Are all the relevant people using the system? Are there features the client is paying for but hasn't yet adopted? Is there a training need we haven't addressed? This isn't a sales call disguised as a check-in. It's a genuine audit of value. Is it for our benefit or the Client’s? In reality, it’s both.

Third, we measure Net Promoter Score. We want to know what our clients actually think of us, not what they say to our faces, but what they'd tell a peer. NPS is a discipline that forces honest reflection, and we take it seriously.

Why do we name our team?

You can't hold an anonymous team accountable. When a client knows they are working with their account manager, when they can see that person on our website and can put a face to the relationship, it changes the dynamic entirely. It signals that we are serious about the long-term partnership, not just the initial sale.

Our competitors allude to UK support, albeit with no detail, and some allude to dedicated account managers. But they don't name them. They don't show them. There's a reason for that, and I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

We have over 100 UK clients and thousands of users. Our competitors, combined, can name just a handful on their websites. That asymmetry tells its own story.

Enlightened self-interest

I'll be honest about something: our focus on client adoption and ROI is not purely altruistic. It is also good business.

Clients who use Tractivity fully stay longer. They expand their usage. They refer others. Clients who don't use it, who let it sit as expensive mustard on the side of the plate, are at risk of leaving at renewal. Our entire commercial model depends on our clients succeeding.

So our Customer Success team's job isn't to manage satisfaction scores. It's to make sure that the investment our clients have made in Tractivity is genuinely working for them, and then ultimately for ourselves.

That alignment of incentives is, I believe, exactly how the relationship between a software vendor and its clients should work.

In the next post, I explore the real competitor we face, which is not any software platform, but the organisational status quo.

Frequently asked questions

What does a UK-based Customer Success team do? A Customer Success team is not a support desk. At Tractivity, our UK-based team works alongside clients on an ongoing basis with a specific remit: to ensure every organisation is getting a genuine return on their investment. That means intensive onboarding, regular usage reviews, and honest conversations about whether the system is being fully adopted, not just whether tickets are being resolved.

What is a Quarterly Business Review in software? A Quarterly Business Review, or QBR, is a formal check-in between a software vendor and their client that goes beyond account management. At Tractivity, QBRs involve reviewing usage data together, identifying features that haven't yet been adopted, and asking the hard questions about whether the system is working as it should. The goal is a genuine audit of value, not a sales call in disguise.

Why does it matter whether a software vendor names their support team? Accountability requires visibility. When clients can see who they are working with, a named person, not an anonymous team, it changes the nature of the relationship entirely. It signals a commitment to long-term partnership rather than post-sale disengagement. Vendors who don't name their teams make it very difficult for clients to hold them to account.

What is Net Promoter Score and why do software organisations use it? Net Promoter Score, or NPS, measures how likely a client is to recommend a product or service to a peer. It's a discipline that forces honest reflection, because it captures what clients actually think rather than what they say in a renewal conversation. At Tractivity, NPS is one of the ways we hold ourselves accountable to client experience, not just client retention.

Why do software vendors lose clients after the initial onboarding period? The most common cause is a gradual withdrawal of engagement after the sale is secured. The demo is polished, the onboarding is attentive, and then the contact drops off. Account managers turn out to be shared across hundreds of clients, or are based overseas, or are difficult to reach. By the time renewal comes around, clients aren't sure they've had value, but switching feels difficult, so they stay. At Tractivity, we've deliberately built a model designed to prevent exactly that pattern from forming.