Stop Chasing Visitors, Start Creating Customers

The 98% Problem: How Your Digital Visitors Disappear

It's easy to get caught up in the idea that more traffic automatically equals more business results. Many companies operate under the assumption that if they keep flooding visitors through their digital front door, eventually, some percentage will convert into leads or sales.

But since websites serve as our digital storefronts, let's consider a retail analogy:

Imagine you've just opened a brand new store. You've arranged your products attractively, created a trendy and appealing atmosphere, and secured a prime location with good footfall. People are coming in regularly, but they aren't buying as much as you need them to. You have a staffing choice. Do you:

1. Hire someone to stand outside with signs to drive even more people into your store?

2. Or hire a sales assistant to help and engage customers already inside, increasing the likelihood of purchases?

For most business owners, the answer is obvious. You'd turn your attention to maximizing the value of each potential customer who's already shown interest by entering your store.

We can learn significant lessons from traditional retail. In a physical store, businesses invest in displays, layout, lighting, product arrangement, and even ambiance with music and video displays to inspire shoppers.

But what's often missing from websites? Human guidance. No one to help visitors through their journey, find what they need, understand their motivations, or answer their questions. On websites, visitors are expected to do all the navigational heavy lifting themselves.

Unfortunately, when it comes to digital strategy, many organizations fall into the trap of investing heavily in traffic generation — the digital equivalent of sign spinners — while neglecting the conversion experience itself.

This approach typically disappoints. Visitors get bored or frustrated, or they're enticed by a better experience on a competitor's site. It's no surprise that the average conversion rate for most websites is just 2%.

This means that ultimately, around 98% of site traffic leaves without completing desired actions. Whether that's making a purchase, submitting a form, or engaging with content.

The Customer Success Connection

This is where Customer Success teams become critical partners in digital strategy. While traffic generation focuses on bringing new prospects to the site, Customer Success professionals excel at understanding visitor needs, pain points, and lifetime journeys—insights that are invaluable for conversion optimization.

Customer Success teams interact daily with existing customers, gathering real-world feedback on what convinced them to engage, what hesitations they experienced, and what ultimately pushed them to convert. This intelligence is invaluable for improving website conversion rates.

By breaking down traditional departmental silos, organizations can create a continuous feedback loop where:

1. Digital channels drive traffic to the website

2. Customer Success insights inform the conversion optimization strategy

3. The improved conversion experience feeds back into customer satisfaction and retention

4. Happy customers provide testimonials and referrals that enhance credibility and trust signals

In the most effective organizations, Customer Success professionals participate directly in conversion strategy meetings, content planning, and user experience design. After all, who better to help craft a converting customer journey than those who speak with satisfied customers every day?

This collaborative approach is particularly important when an organization is paying to acquire traffic through advertising or referral partnerships. But it affects any source of traffic that requires investment, including organic search engine optimization.

Many web pages rank highly in search results for popular queries but simply don't generate conversions from the traffic they bring in. We recently worked with a luxury holiday provider experiencing exactly this issue. They had a blog ranking highly for "New York flights to the Caribbean" — a highly desirable and competitive search term. Despite bringing in tens of thousands of organic sessions and having several "book your holiday now" calls-to-action on the page, they hadn't captured a single sale from all that organic traffic.

Why? Because most visitors were still in the research — or "holiday inspiration" — phase. Showing them hard conversion prompts wouldn't motivate an expensive purchase decision.

How Customer Insights Transformed Dead-End Traffic

The solution was to embed an interactive visual bot on the page that enabled users to "build" their perfect holiday experience. Importantly, the design of this conversion tool was heavily influenced by the company's Customer Success team, who provided crucial insights about the questions and concerns that actual customers raised during their booking journey.

The Customer Success team highlighted that most new customers needed reassurance about three things before booking: destination suitability for their specific needs, trust in the company's service quality, and flexibility of booking options. The interactive tool was designed to address all three concerns systematically.

This gamified experience led to significantly increased on-page interaction and, crucially, many more users reaching appropriate conversion points. The bot engaged visitors with questions like "How far along are you in planning your trip to the Caribbean?" and offered tailored next steps based on their responses. For those just researching, it offered softer conversion options like newsletter sign-ups or travel guides rather than pushing immediate bookings.

For those further along in their journey, it helped them explore options based on their preferences: beach vs. city, family vs. couple, preferred activities, and priorities like privacy or amenities. It also incorporated trust signals like customer reviews that were curated by the Customer Success team from their most satisfied clients.

The result? Tens of thousands of pounds in booked revenue within weeks — all from a blog that had previously brought in traffic but no conversions. What's more, the Customer Success team reported higher satisfaction scores from these new customers, as they arrived with more realistic expectations and better-matched holiday packages.

Beyond The First 'Yes'

The Customer Success role becomes obviously even more critical in nurturing prospects through complex buying journeys.

B2B purchase processes frequently involve dozens if not hundreds of digital touchpoints to close a deal. Within those many interactions, there might be several different necessary conversion points: webinar registrations, resource downloads, demo requests, specification reviews, support inquiries, or free trial signups.

Customer Success teams can help organizations map these complex journeys based on actual customer experiences rather than theoretical models. They can identify:

• Which content pieces most effectively move prospects to the next stage

• What objections typically arise at each phase of the journey

• Which touchpoints are most valued by customers who ultimately convert

• What post-purchase experiences drive satisfaction and advocacy

This collaborative approach creates a seamless handoff between acquisition, sales, and Customer Success functions. Rather than working in isolation, each team contributes to a holistic view of the customer journey from first touch to loyal advocate.

The Retention and Advocacy Dividend

Another powerful benefit of integrating Customer Success into your conversion strategy is its impact on retention and advocacy metrics. The widely accepted business principle that it's significantly less expensive to retain a customer than acquire a new one runs counter to how many organizations allocate their digital budget.

Traffic acquisition is primarily aimed at new prospects, while conversion optimization — especially around advocacy — is more geared toward lifetime retention and revenue. Customer Success teams excel at identifying opportunities to:

• Cross-sell and upsell existing customers based on their usage patterns

• Create personalized re-engagement campaigns for at-risk accounts

• Transform satisfied customers into active advocates through referral programs

• Generate authentic testimonials and case studies that fuel further conversions

Some forward-thinking organizations are even embedding Customer Success professionals directly within their digital teams to ensure this perspective is represented in all conversion-focused initiatives. Others create formal feedback loops where Customer Success insights are regularly reviewed in strategic planning sessions.

If your organization is looking to shift focus from traffic metrics to conversion outcomes, consider these practical steps to integrate Customer Success into your approach:

1. Invite Customer Success team members to participate in your conversion rate optimization planning

2. Create a system for regular sharing of customer feedback and insights

3. Review your conversion tools and paths through the lens of actual customer journeys

4. Test new conversion approaches based on Customer Success recommendations

5. Measure not just initial conversions but customer satisfaction and retention metrics

6. Develop content that addresses common questions fielded by your Customer Success team

The most successful organizations recognize that digital acquisition doesn't end at generating traffic, and Customer Success doesn't begin after the sale. By aligning these functions around a shared goal of conversion optimization, you can create a more efficient and effective growth engine.

If businesses truly want to drive efficient commercial results, perhaps it's time to start making the most of the traffic they've already generated and the customer insights they already possess!