What does a CS strategy document look like?

Matt Myszkowski

Hi All,

Back from a week off, and thinking about my plans and strategy for 2021. I know we are a few months off yet but keen to get this in place as I am sure there will be plenty of battles to be had before then. A few questions:

• What does everyone else have to do for their yearly strategic documentation as a CS leader?
• What should be included in this document?
• Can anyone share what they have done in the past?

Looking forward to your responses!

Ed Powers

@Matt Myszkowski, I find it helpful to think about strategy (defined as how, in general, your will accomplish your objective/goal) in 3 areas: 

• Reactive: Saving accounts who have expressed a desire to cancel or significantly downgrade subscription revenue upon contract expiration
• Proactive: Mitigating the risk that certain accounts could churn while maximizing the growth of accounts that will stay 
• Preventative: Creating the environment where customers wouldn't dream of working with anyone else and where you always get the first call when their needs evolve or change

These total 100% in time and resources committed to executing supporting tactics. I've found that less mature organizations spend significantly more time "firefighting" in a Reactive strategy whereas more mature organizations spend significantly more time in Preventative activities. Working upstream tends to shift organizations away from Reactive to more Proactive. Eventually, organizations will plateau, and the next level of gains (typically achieving breakthrough improvements) comes when the focus shifts to Preventative. Here the root causes of churn and loyalty are addressed across the enterprise--in products, services, and processes. 

Typical tactics (defined as how, specifically each strategy will be executed) supporting each: 

• Reactive: Renewals ("Save Desk"), account turnarounds, negotiation training, etc. 
• Proactive: Success Planning, Onboarding, QBRs, Health Scores/predictive analytics, CSM tech platforms, CSM customer process/industry/financials training, Opportunity Identification training, customer advocacy, CSAT/NPS
• Preventative: Churn/Retention surveys & analysis, Lean Six Sigma practice, SDLC process improvement, Customer Advisory Boards, change management, Strategic Management Systems/organizational transformation process

Hope that helps provide a framework. I'm happy to discuss more. 

Ed

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Ed Powers
Consultant
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-03-2020 10:37
From: Matt Myszkowski
Subject: What does a CS strategy document look like?

Hi All,

Back from a week off, and thinking about my plans and strategy for 2021. I know we are a few months off yet but keen to get this in place as I am sure there will be plenty of battles to be had before then. A few questions:

• What does everyone else have to do for their yearly strategic documentation as a CS leader?
• What should be included in this document?
• Can anyone share what they have done in the past?

Looking forward to your responses!


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Matt Myszkowski
VP, Customer Success Management, EMEA
SAP
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