Transformation from a bookings-focus to a success-focus

Susan Ulrich
Susan Ulrich Member Posts: 2 Navigator
edited July 2020 in Customer Success Leadership Community

How did you transform your company from a traditional bookings-focused organization to a customer delight-driven organization where Customer Success is a "first-class citizen" proactively working and representing the voice of the customer with finance, sales, and marketing to drive retention? Examples of companies that do this well are welcome!

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  • Marco Innocenti
    Marco Innocenti Member Posts: 18 Thought Leader
    Second Anniversary
    edited July 2020

    From my side, I am not sure I see them as being mutually exclusive. We have always been a bookings focused org, along with having a strong culture of customer success and delight that is supported from the top down. 

  • Susan Ulrich
    Susan Ulrich Member Posts: 2 Navigator
    edited July 2020

    Agree. They should not be mutually exclusive; but how do you transform a culture where it has been?

  • Marco Innocenti
    Marco Innocenti Member Posts: 18 Thought Leader
    Second Anniversary
    edited July 2020

    executive buy-in.  If the leadership teams are not fully committed, it will be a long road that most likely doesn't deliver in the way that you or the customer want.

  • Samma Hafeez
    Samma Hafeez Member Posts: 24 Thought Leader
    Second Anniversary
    edited July 2020

    Hi Susan, can you tell us a little more about your organization? Answers to the following questions would enable a more thoughtful response: 

    1. How would you describe your company's maturity, stage, and size? 
    2. How new is the CS motion? How is CS currently defined and structured at your company? What aspects of the customer journey do you own? How is your performance measured?
    3. You seem to imply that CS is a second-class citizen. What current facets or norms make it so?

    Generally speaking, cultural transformation is an iterative and self-disrupting cross-functional process or program that begins with a robust root cause analysis & baseline, prioritization of required or desired outcomes based on the results of the RCA, buy-in from key internal stakeholders, C suite/board-level commitment to improve cross-functional dynamics by creating shared KPIs that incentivize depts to work in lock-step or harmoniously, and company-wide, data-driven education and awareness. Mapping routine CS efforts to board-based KPIs tends to earn you a seat at the table. 

    I realize that's a rather broad response, hence the questions!

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