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The keys to scaling your customer success program
The document outlines key strategies for scaling a customer success program, emphasizing the importance of customer segmentation, operational processes, and effective use of technology. It stresses that defining customer needs and desired outcomes is critical and encourages businesses to think creatively about scaling rather than simply asking if something can scale. Overall, it highlights that successful customer success management relies on aligning people, processes, and technology effectively.
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The keys to scaling your customer success program
- 1. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Child-like Joy June 25, 2015 The Keys to Scaling Your Customer Success Program ©2015 Gainsight. All Rights Reserved.
- 2. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Housekeeping • Q&A panel on your right • Recording for colleagues who can’t make it • All attendees will receive slides • Twitter hashtag #customersuccess
- 3. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Presenter Lincoln Murphy Customer Success Evangelist @lincolnmurphy
- 4. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. What We’ll Cover Today 2 Customer Segmentation is Critical 3 Operationalizing around Segments 4 Automation and Technology 5 People and Processes The Reality of Scaling a Customer Success Program 1
- 5. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. 1. The Reality of Scaling a Customer Success Program
- 6. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. The Reality of Scaling a Customer Success Program • The best Customer Success Managers don’t tell customers what they want to hear • You tell customers what they need to hear
- 7. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. The Reality of Scaling a Customer Success Program • Everything in Customer Success is evolving • Industry / Best Practices • Your Company • Your Customers • Your Organization
- 8. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. The Reality of Scaling a Customer Success Program Which means "set it and forget it" cannot exist in any aspect of Customer Success.
- 9. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. The Reality of Scaling a Customer Success Program You came here for specific answers… but I can’t give those to you in a setting like this. #truth
- 10. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. The Reality of Scaling a Customer Success Program If you get a definitive answer on how to scale your Customer Success Program – or anything in Customer Success – from someone that isn’t speaking to you about your situation… be careful.
- 11. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. When Planning to Scale a Customer Success Program • Study Current Best Practices • Look for Frameworks • Explore Methodologies • Be Thoughtful and Creative
- 12. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. When Scaling, don’t ask “Will it Scale?” • Do what needs to be done • If it works, you’ll ask “how can I scale this?” • If this happens, you’ll figure out a way! • “Will it scale?” as a starting point will lead to premature optimization and may keep you from even getting started.
- 13. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. 2. Customer Segmentation is Critical
- 14. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Customer Segmentation is Critical • Scaling a Customer Success Program requires leveraging (scarce) resources wisely • The most effective way to do this is to segment your customers and assign resources logically • Only by segmenting customers logically can you develop an appropriate coverage model
- 15. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Most Common != Best For You • Customers are generally segmented by current annual revenue (ARR) / contract value (ACV) • Easy to look at customer data and see the natural segments across revenue bands • Relatively easy to extrapolate costs associated with each segment • Unfortunately this may not tell the whole story!
- 16. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Customer Success Benchmark Report Download Your Copy Today! http://j.mp/csmbench
- 17. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Caveat on the Benchmark Report • Represents a moment in time • Customer Success is Rapidly Evolving • Best Practices aren’t widely adopted… yet. • We’re working on that!
- 18. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. The Scientific Method
- 19. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. The Scientific Method
- 20. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. The Scientific Method • Create a Customer Segmentation Hypothesis • Basic Components of a Hypothesis • What you are testing • What impact we expect the change to have • Who you expect it to impact • By how much • After how long
- 21. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Three Basic Types of Customer Segments Shared Characteristics Shared Characteristics Requirements- Based Requirements- Based Value-BasedValue-Based
- 22. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Three Basic Types of Customer Segments Shared Characteristics Shared Characteristics Requirements- Based Requirements- Based Value-BasedValue-Based • Company Size • Industry / Vertical • Company Size • Industry / Vertical • Level of Support • Number of Touch Points • Level of Support • Number of Touch Points • ACV (Potential) • Social Proof • ACV (Potential) • Social Proof
- 23. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Common Segmentation Questions • How do you decide the best way to segment your customers? • Will there ever be a case where you can segment across multiple criteria? • How can you be sure you made the right decision in your segmentation model?
- 24. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. 3. Operationalizing around Segments
- 25. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Operationalizing Around Segments • Start by understanding the customers that make up the segment. • Their Desired Outcome – Required Outcome and Appropriate Experience • What Success Gaps you need to bridge • The Proactive Orchestration necessary to help them reach Success Milestones
- 26. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Three Types of Customer Engagement • Pre-planned, Proactive engagement • Onboarding, QBRs, Lifecycle Messages • Ad-hoc, Proactive engagement • Alerts, Changes to customer health • Reactive Engagement • Break/Fix, Bugs, How-to
- 27. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Coverage Levels • Map the Coverage Level to their Desired Outcome • Look at the level of touch required across the entire customer lifetime Tech TouchTech Touch Medium Touch Medium Touch High Touch High Touch
- 28. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Tech TouchTech Touch Medium Touch Medium Touch High Touch High Touch Coverage Levels: High Touch • Multiple in-person meetings during a quarter (depending on each customer’s initiatives) • QBR meetings • Creation of a blueprint success plan • One-to-one meeting(s) with your executive staff
- 29. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Coverage Levels: Medium Touch • One in-person meeting per quarter (or as needed) • Focus on at least one high- value meeting per month via online or video conferencing • One-to-one meeting with your executive staff Tech TouchTech Touch Medium Touch Medium Touch High Touch High Touch
- 30. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Coverage Levels: Tech Touch • Webinar-style one-to-many customers meetings on product adoption • Monthly to quarterly newsletter • Email campaigns Tech TouchTech Touch Medium Touch Medium Touch High Touch High Touch
- 31. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Common Segment Operationalization Questions • After Segmentation, how do you prioritize customers? • How do you balance what the customer needs vs. what my segmentation dictates? • How do you know when you've sold to the wrong customer?
- 32. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. 4. Automation & Technology
- 33. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Automation and Technology • Customer Success Management • Orchestration across the Lifecycle • Varies across “touch” levels • Technology enables Scaling, especially in areas where scaling humans costs too much
- 34. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Automation and Technology Automation is - or should be – what we’d do manually if we had unlimited time and resources.
- 35. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Automation and Technology • Allows you to scale touches with low-revenue customers instead of letting them fend for themselves or opting not to serve them • Helps you deepen your engagement with those customers you already have a high-touch relationship with
- 36. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. High-Touch and Automation Don’t Mix? • Will it hurt our relationship? • Will automation erode trust? • Is it unethical to pass off automated emails as “personal” emails?
- 37. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. The Scientific Method
- 38. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Gainsight: Scalable Customer Success http://access.gainsight.com/copilot/ High Touch Medium Touch Tech Touch STRATEGY ENTERPRISE MID- MARKET SMB SEGMENT PRO-ACTIVE Customer360 JUST-IN-TIME Cockpit AUTOMATED CoPilot
- 39. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Gainsight CoPilot http://access.gainsight.com/copilot/
- 40. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. 5. People & Processes
- 41. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. People First • Know where people fit • Some people like interacting with other people in person or on the phone (high-touch) • Some people are more analytical or creative, but don’t do well in 1:1 situations with customers (tech-touch) • Map Resources to Customer Segments
- 42. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. People Power! • Company Leadership • Organizational Leadership • Team • Individual Contributors
- 43. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Humans • Company Leadership • Customer Success must be top-down • Company buy-in is critical due to cross-functional requirements • Must communicate what “success” is for Customer Success
- 44. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Humans • Organizational Leadership • Develops Customer Success Strategy • Builds and Leads CSM Org • Sells (and continues to sell) Customer Success to rest of the company • Ensures a Deliberate Focus for the CSM Org and pushes back where required
- 45. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Humans • Team • Aligned around a core set of principles and Goals • Operationalized around logical customer segments • No Silos between segments
- 46. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Humans • Individual Contributors • CSMs, Ops, Customer Marketing, Renewals, etc. • Empowered to Help Customers achieve Desired Outcome • Trusted to push customers toward success where required • Knows where to focus, but is kept updated on evolution
- 47. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Scaling CSM Doesn’t Happen in a Vacuum • Product • Focused on our customers’ Desired Outcome • Sales & Marketing • Acquiring the right customers • Support, Operations, Etc.
- 48. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Processes Second • Customer Success Management • Single Version of the Truth • Document and Centralize Processes • Orchestrate via Workflows and Playbooks • Operationalize the Handoffs • Between Teams • Between CSMs
- 49. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. http://www.gainsight.com/pulsecheck2015/
- 50. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Customer Success Benchmark Report Download Your Copy Today! http://j.mp/csmbench
- 51. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. Q&A ©2015 Gainsight. All Rights Reserved. June 25, 2015
- 52. ©2015 Gainsight. AllRights Reserved. THANK YOU ©2015 Gainsight. All Rights Reserved. June 25, 2015