Customer Success Across Multiple Parties
At the beginning of a new year, many of us brainstorm new goals and objectives, both personally and professionally. We need to think about how we can achieve these goals in ways that are realistic with the resources we have at hand. I have been thinking about this as it relates to Customer Success. Many companies wish to be more customer-focused, but they are overwhelmed by the resources it will take. At the same time, we all know there are many new AI options to offload work which would have previously taken many people to accomplish. I believe there are ways to get from current-state reactive mode into future-state proactive & predictive mode that consider resource optimization. In full transparency, it will take some resources! However, once you set a clear strategy, there will be opportunities to add efficiency and automation and to minimize added costs associated with achieving your goals long-term. If you do it right, the benefits (through retention & expansion) will outweigh the costs. A few thoughts:
Start with culture - it costs nothing for your team to prioritize how they interact with customers. Make sure everyone knows you exist because of your customers.
Articulate your value - Succinctly capture the value you offer to customers. Once you do that, make sure you deliver it! Now you know what to report and automate.
Consider a Customer Journey workshop - I have shared about this often; capturing an ideal state journey from your customer’s eyes gives you a template to automate.
Build a business case for Customer Success Managers - If you show that adding a few CSMs will decrease churn and increase expansion, you can justify owners of the post-sale relationship. They can bring your ideal Customer Journey to life!
Measure Customer Health - This identifies risks fast and improves resolution time.
Now think about automation! Once you have some simple structure in place, you can digitize through a CS platform and use AI tools to automate responses. You can increase the number of accounts per CSM for additional efficiency.
Don’t forget personalization - While automation adds efficiency, clients want you to pay attention to their specific goals. CSMs must maintain this focus.
It feels like a lot to do before considering automation, but I feel strongly that you need to know what you are automating first. Starting small with a few key accounts can help confirm your playbook, and things will be much smoother as you automate and scale.
The approach above is what I take with many of my clients. If you need help navigating this shift from reactive to proactive, I encourage you to reach out. It can be difficult to enact this type of change from within a company, and having a third party guide the process can be extremely helpful. Reach out to learn more!