Customer success
Customer what?!?
Customer Success is a newer term in the SaaS industry and beyond. Post sales, after the contract has been signed…. Many organizations deem Customer Success, CS, to be defined as the management of the implementation, adoption, support, training, advocacy, and renewal of contracts. I find this to be limiting to achieve true success for a customer. It is a fulfillment of the customers goals, and you are the vehicle to drive them there. Yes you… Let me explain…
Customer Needs: this is where empathetic listening comes in play. Listen to what the customer is asking for. Most of the time, if directly asked, they will tell you if they know. Or they may just state the problems they are experiencing, or the customer will tell you they want something different than they already have in place. Unfortunately, many companies will try to sell a solution that works for them and not the customer. If it is not going to rock the customers world and resolve these issues or required functionality, walk away!!! That’s right, walk away from the sale. Selling a boat to an inland customer to get to and from work will never work for them! That’s not customer success, that’s defined as self-centeredness, a less endearing shortcoming to say the least.
As a professional with many decades aligning solutions to current and future problems, if I find that if there is not a good fit, help them find one or point them in the right direction. If something is sold and it is not the best possible solution that will help the customer grow, you will never achieve ‘Customer Success’. Empathetic and selfless listening coupled with intelligent discovery and research will foster a long and successful relationship with my customers.
Engage Success Mode!
The solution is positioned perfectly. Your company has exactly what will help the customer transform to success. It may be a process fix, technological solutions, IaaS, SaaS, Service Offering or anything that helps the customer! The deal is done, agreements are in place, and everyone is happy. There is a bit of nervousness since the customer put their name on the line, company resources, and has spent quite a bit of time making their decision. They opened themselves up for risk and hopefully an even greater reward. They sold you and the company to their stakeholders; they took a risk. Now the customer is wondering just how that Proof-of-Concept is going to be implemented in their company. They need value from it, and they need it yesterday. Enter stage left… Customer Success Engage Mode!
Sales brings in Customer Success and makes the introduction. This is CSs time to shine. A transference of trust is critical at this stage for the success post sale. Customer Service Managers discover any additional business requirements, needs, technology gotcha’s, or processes at the customer site and map them out accordingly. Here is where the expectations can be level-set. Customer Success’s first goal is getting the customer their value and do it as seamless and quickly as possible. Afterall our stakeholder needs to show this value to the company, their peers, and more. At times their career is on the line. They invested a lot into our company solution, they have reasonable expectations, and we can not only meet them but exceed them
The time is now!
Now is the time to engage internally as well. Cross functional engagement is necessary to meet the needs of the customer. Let’s say the customer data is to be imported into your solution. However, it resides in a homegrown database with skewed Unique delimiters. This is going to slow down the process. Best engage the engineering department and seek out a solution. Afterall promises were made and our mission is the Success of the Customer. The CSM goes to their playbook. IN the playbook is almost every single eventuality that they may come across. I like to build digital playbooks with comprehensive how-to guides for my Customer Success teams as well as externally facing solutions and guides for the customers, more on this later.
The CSM needs a sample of the existing dataset. They reach out to the customer and inform them. I work with all my VPs, Directors and CSMs and teach them how to have that ‘difficult’ conversation. Those calls can be unsettling at first but necessary to the health of the on-boarding task and customer trust. The customers do not mind working alongside you on the solution. There is something special when a collaborative effort is underway when people share the sweat together. I experience this not only with my teams and customers but also out on the lonely dark trails running Ultra Marathons. Teammates to reach a goal and no matter what it takes, no matter the cost to comfort, I’m here for you. They are your champion over there and you are theirs! Data received, go back to the goals and mission of the customer, it’s time to show them the value in their purchase and commitment. Time to shine!
You rock the on-boarding process. You! You did it! With the help of the customer, your internal teams, peers, and management you brought a new technology, change, process to someone that needs it to grow and actualize their goals and vision. Next post… Enablement… Stay tuned!