Activation Manifesto | Pingbase

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2025-01-14 16:30:08

This post portrays my view of the world regarding the successful adoption of B2B SaaS products. You may not agree with everything but my hope is that it will ignite (or revive) this important conversation.

Activation… a word that is almost entirely absent from the vocabulary of every Customer Success professional. I scoured the web and there’s barely a site or blog that mentions CS and activation in the same breath. It’s not on a CSM’s job description, and it’s not on the agenda at CS conferences. WTF!

User activation is a leading indicator of retention, so why aren’t CS folks shouting about this from the rooftops? Have Product & Growth teams taken over to the extent that CS has given up the ghost? Has all the talk from CS about onboarding and retention pushed activation to the margins? Is it a terminology issue?

Let’s not put the cart before the horse. Said another way, you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. With the average activation rate of B2B SaaS products at only 30%-40%, there’s clearly a lot more work to do. Once it's above 70%, then sure, let’s move on to downstream adoption metrics.