The Challenge: Breaking Free from Email Dependency

Customer Alliance faced a common scaling challenge. As their customer base grew, they needed to efficiently serve two distinct segments: high-touch customers with dedicated Customer Success Managers (CSMs) and a larger no-touch segment that required self-service solutions.

"We were completely stuck with emails," explains Mihlali Tshikila, Revenue Operations Manager at Customer Alliance. "People don't read them or engage with emails. If you really want someone to see something important, especially in a SaaS, product-led business, you have to reach them when they're using your product."

The company was losing customers in their no-touch segment due to poor engagement and couldn't scale their CSM team indefinitely.

"You can't end up with 50 million CSMs, you need to find a way to be more efficient," Mihlali notes about their scaling challenge.

Their monthly email tips and webinars weren't driving meaningful product adoption or preventing churn. The team hadn't spoken to their no-touch customers for quite a while, and they were seeing those customers churn over time.

The Solution: Strategic In-Product Messaging with Jimo

Customer Alliance implemented Jimo to create a comprehensive self-service customer journey, starting with onboarding and expanding to targeted feature adoption campaigns.

1. Self-Service Onboarding

Built a complete product walkthrough eliminating the need for CSM involvement in low-touch customer onboarding

Guided users through the left-hand navigation menu with contextual tooltips

The onboarding journey was their first implementation, as it tends to be one of the most time-consuming aspects of customer success.

2. Feature Adoption Campaigns

Implemented targeted hints for customers with low reply rates (below 75%)

Created contextual tours promoting their AI reply feature for faster feedback responses

Customer Alliance uses health score data from HubSpot to understand how customers use their product - tracking logins, feature usage, and key metrics for retention and value creation.

3. Health Score Optimization

Used health score data from HubSpot to trigger relevant in-product messages

Reached customers at the right moment when specific features were needed

Reply rate is a critical health metric for Customer Alliance, as their feedback solution requires customers to actually respond to reviews to see value from the platform.

The Results: Dramatic Improvements Across Key Metrics

970% Increase in AI Reply Feature Usage

Customer Alliance saw nearly a 10x increase in AI reply adoption among customers with low engagement scores, directly addressing a critical health metric.

"I was sitting next to our CEO at the time and I was like, damn, I think I don't need coffee anymore. I just need results because that dopamine hit was quite pleasant," Mihlali recalls about seeing the dramatic increase.

Onboarding Transformation

Eliminated CSM involvement for no-touch customer onboarding

CSMs who tested the new process reported that customers found it "very clear and informative," allowing the team to eliminate CS support for low-touch customer onboarding entirely.

Freed up CSM time to focus on high-value customers

Enhanced Customer Feedback Collection

Email surveys: Maximum 20 responses, ~2% open rates

In-product surveys: 120 responses in two weeks

6x improvement in feedback collection effectiveness

The difference was stark - email surveys maxed out at around 20 responses with 2% open rates, while their in-product survey collected 120 responses in just two weeks.

Operational Efficiency Gains

"We've been able to ship things so much faster this year than we were last year," notes Mihlali. "I'm able to ship those things within minutes. It's not even a day's work to get stuff done!"

The speed of implementation has transformed how quickly they can test and iterate on customer engagement strategies.

The Impact: Scaling Without Scaling

Customer Alliance successfully addressed their core challenge: serving more customers efficiently without proportionally increasing their CSM team size.

The implementation allowed them to:

Reduce CSM workload by automating routine onboarding tasks

Increase feature adoption through contextual, in-product guidance

Gather better customer insights with significantly higher response rates

Ship improvements rapidly with quick iteration cycles

"If you want a truly self-service journey, you need Jimo," explains Mihlali. "There's no way you can do this effectively without speaking to your customers in the product with Jimo, and the engagement is just night and day."

Key Takeaways

Customer Alliance's success demonstrates that moving from email-based customer communication to in-product experiences can yield transformational results:

Context matters: Reaching customers when they're actively using relevant features drives significantly higher engagement

Self-service scales: Well-designed in-product experiences can eliminate human touchpoints without sacrificing customer satisfaction

Data drives decisions: Health scores and usage patterns enable precise targeting for maximum impact

Speed enables experimentation: Quick implementation allows for rapid testing and optimization

"You have to reach your customers where it is most relevant for them," Mihlali emphasizes, highlighting the core principle behind their success.

For SaaS companies struggling to scale their customer success efforts while maintaining quality experiences, Customer Alliance's approach offers a proven blueprint for sustainable growth through intelligent automation and strategic in-product messaging.

Ready to transform your product's onboarding experience? Schedule a demo with Jimo today and discover how we can help you cut onboarding time, boost feature adoption, and deliver an exceptional user experience.