The Three Pillars of Customer Success

I'm a simple person and big believer that almost anything can be broken down into 3 main components. In my opinion, an effective Customer Success plan is no exception. If I were to be asked to create a Customer Success plan today, these are the 3 components (or pillars) I would use as my framework.

1) User Adoption
2) Satisfaction
3) Retention

What do you folks have to say about this? If you were asked to create a Customer Success plan, would these three pillars be a good place to start?

Looking forward to hearing your opinions!

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CS Team

Comments

Jarren Pinchuck

Sounds like a sound plan Jared. There are many ways to skin a cat so it's refreshing and interesting to hear how other CS leaders set out their structures and process. Thanks for sharing.

MarkusS

We look at the SuccessPlan as the desired outcomes that the customer has and often are documented and presented to the customer.
The Account Plan is the internal plan to achieve the successes including all of the internal or back-end activities which could incorporate how you plan to drive adoption or advocacy.

Emmanuel Malanda

@Jared Orr, being in the Fin-tech industry its very easy to understand why a customer has left you. 100% of the time its because they did not achieve their desired business outcome. the very thing they got you in for. Therefore, i do not even waste time doing "Exit interviews"... imagine you get a bad coffee from a shop, you decide to not take the coffee and walk away but just before you get to the door, one of the guys runs from the till and asks you, why are you leaving, can you tell me about your experience with us? .....annoying right?. same thing here, i simply look at the data i.e. in the tickets, the Business reviews, utilization, etc... this is what has helped us in defining the "risk factors" and has also helped us in determining if a customer is a fit or not... if a customer falls into the "is not a fit" , i don't even waste energy on these because they will churn eventually. For this problem i.e. selling vaporware, we have introduced few things as well to prevent the on boarding of "bad Fit customers"

generally we utilize the Business reviews to gather feedback, feedback from our support guys,CSMs also contact their customers and we look at the data using the risk factors to target where potential issues might be so we get in there to harvest that good information and alternatively you could also use the "reverse" of the risk indicators to reach out to those customers who love you so you get their views to allow you to improve so they love you even more!

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Emmanuel Malanda
Global Head - Customer Success
Calypso Technology
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-26-2020 11:49
From: Jared Orr
Subject: The Three Pillars of Customer Success

I really appreciate your thoughts, @Emmanuel Malanda. The more CS executives I speak with, the more I realize how outdated NPS is becoming. I have spoken with a few that have strong opinions about how much they dislike NPS. The company I currently work for does "Exit Interviews" where when a client closes their account with us, the CSM will reach out and ask a few simple questions to gather feedback on their experience with us. We have found this to be very effective.

Do you see companies using a similar method to gather client feedback?

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Jared Orr
Customer Success Leader | Virtual Data Rooms
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-26-2020 11:39
From: Emmanuel Malanda
Subject: The Three Pillars of Customer Success

@Jared Orr, i do think that satisfaction need not to be subjective. There are ways of measuring this and here i am not necessarily thinking about NPS surveys because quite frankly, if you are like me, i respond to one or two surveys out of the dozens that land in my box... answering to NPS surveys is not a priority (i guess for our customers as well even if they love us) and in my case, when i do them, it is mostly to see what sort of feedback i would get from the sender... unfortunately, I am yet to receive some feedback from any of the NPS surveys i have done (closing the loop and letting me know what they have done with the survey, feel more like a feel good exercise done just to say we did it! ....but that's another discussion altogether ;-)

Instead calling it Satisfaction, i have called it "Positive Relationship Activities" - coming from the point of view that if a customer is truly "satisfied" they would act like i do when i truly love a product or a provider i.e. they would tell others about it, they would be ready to be on customer panels, provide referrals etc. etc being whatever is applicable to your industry and size of your customers base, you just have to find those elements and measure them.

as CSMs leader, i truly believe that we need to start thinking out of the box and that we should stop relying old methods e.g surveys such as NPS, especially now since not only us but many others are vying for the customer's attention. i am still thinking by the way :-)

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Emmanuel
Global Head - Customer Success
Calypso Technology

Original Message:
Sent: 08-25-2020 12:26
From: Jared Orr
Subject: The Three Pillars of Customer Success

Hi @Jarren Pinchuck

Thanks for your feedback and questions! I agree that "Satisfaction" is more subjective so more difficult to track.

Here is my thought process behind these pillars: Each can be broken up into a few sub-pillars that can be subjective and quantitative. For example, a sub-pillar of "Satisfaction" could be NPS surveys. This is a great way to measure how satisfied clients are through quantifiable data. Sub-pillars for User Adoption could be the touchpoint schedule for the first few months, slide decks for product training, and methods for effective communication with the sales/product teams.

The reason I start with these pillars is that, in my opinion, it outlines the most important priorities a CSM should focus on. Having this as a starting point can give a CS team the ability to organize all of there duties and priorities effectively.

Feel free to let me know your thoughts on this.

Cheers!

------------------------------
Jared Orr
Customer Success Leader | Virtual Data Rooms

Original Message:
Sent: 08-24-2020 21:24
From: Jarren Pinchuck
Subject: The Three Pillars of Customer Success

Hi @Jared Orr

Nice thinking, I too like to simplify things. I may play devil's advocate for the sake of good learnings...

User adoption and retention can be quantifiable (using metrics) but "Satisfaction" can't. Satisfaction seems to be subjective which is always a tough one and not simple at all. I'd also think that satisfaction would be a bi-product of a good strategy for pillars 1 & 3?

Can you elaborate a bit more on these pillars?
How does thinking about the plan with these as a starting point help you?

Jarren

------------------------------
Jarren Pinchuck
Global Head of CS and Operations

Original Message:
Sent: 08-24-2020 16:43
From: Jared Orr
Subject: The Three Pillars of Customer Success

I'm a simple person and big believer that almost anything can be broken down into 3 main components. In my opinion, an effective Customer Success plan is no exception. If I were to be asked to create a Customer Success plan today, these are the 3 components (or pillars) I would use as my framework.

1) User Adoption
2) Satisfaction
3) Retention

What do you folks have to say about this? If you were asked to create a Customer Success plan, would these three pillars be a good place to start?

Looking forward to hearing your opinions!

------------------------------
Jared Orr
Customer Success Leader | Virtual Data Rooms
------------------------------

Jared Orr

Hi @Markus S, that is more for internal purposes. As I mentioned in my reply to @Jarren Pinchuck, each of the 3 pillars will have sub-pillars that will allow internal CS teams to know what to do in order to attain what needs to happen in 1,2, and 3.

In your view, is an Account Plan made with the intent to be used internally and a Success Plan made to be shared with clients? How do the two differ?

MarkusS

@Jared Orr Curious to learn more about how you break out the Success Plan from the Account Plan?
When you talk about 1, 2 & 3, are you planning to have these as part of the Success Plan presented to the customer or are you looking more broadly at the internal overarching goals of what needs to happen to attain 1, 2 & 3?

Jared Orr

I really appreciate your thoughts, @Emmanuel Malanda. The more CS executives I speak with, the more I realize how outdated NPS is becoming. I have spoken with a few that have strong opinions about how much they dislike NPS. The company I currently work for does "Exit Interviews" where when a client closes their account with us, the CSM will reach out and ask a few simple questions to gather feedback on their experience with us. We have found this to be very effective.

Do you see companies using a similar method to gather client feedback?

Emmanuel Malanda

@Jared Orr, i do think that satisfaction need not to be subjective. There are ways of measuring this and here i am not necessarily thinking about NPS surveys because quite frankly, if you are like me, i respond to one or two surveys out of the dozens that land in my box... answering to NPS surveys is not a priority (i guess for our customers as well even if they love us) and in my case, when i do them, it is mostly to see what sort of feedback i would get from the sender... unfortunately, I am yet to receive some feedback from any of the NPS surveys i have done (closing the loop and letting me know what they have done with the survey, feel more like a feel good exercise done just to say we did it! ....but that's another discussion altogether ;-)

Instead calling it Satisfaction, i have called it "Positive Relationship Activities" - coming from the point of view that if a customer is truly "satisfied" they would act like i do when i truly love a product or a provider i.e. they would tell others about it, they would be ready to be on customer panels, provide referrals etc. etc being whatever is applicable to your industry and size of your customers base, you just have to find those elements and measure them.

as CSMs leader, i truly believe that we need to start thinking out of the box and that we should stop relying old methods e.g surveys such as NPS, especially now since not only us but many others are vying for the customer's attention. i am still thinking by the way :-)

---------------------------------------
Emmanuel
Global Head - Customer Success
Calypso Technology
-------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 08-25-2020 12:26
From: Jared Orr
Subject: The Three Pillars of Customer Success

Hi @Jarren Pinchuck

Thanks for your feedback and questions! I agree that "Satisfaction" is more subjective so more difficult to track.

Here is my thought process behind these pillars: Each can be broken up into a few sub-pillars that can be subjective and quantitative. For example, a sub-pillar of "Satisfaction" could be NPS surveys. This is a great way to measure how satisfied clients are through quantifiable data. Sub-pillars for User Adoption could be the touchpoint schedule for the first few months, slide decks for product training, and methods for effective communication with the sales/product teams.

The reason I start with these pillars is that, in my opinion, it outlines the most important priorities a CSM should focus on. Having this as a starting point can give a CS team the ability to organize all of there duties and priorities effectively.

Feel free to let me know your thoughts on this.

Cheers!

------------------------------
Jared Orr
Customer Success Leader | Virtual Data Rooms
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 08-24-2020 21:24
From: Jarren Pinchuck
Subject: The Three Pillars of Customer Success

Can you elaborate a bit more on these pillars?
How does thinking about the plan with these as a starting point help you?

Jarren

Jared Orr

Hi @Jarren Pinchuck

Thanks for your feedback and questions! I agree that "Satisfaction" is more subjective so more difficult to track.

Here is my thought process behind these pillars: Each can be broken up into a few sub-pillars that can be subjective and quantitative. For example, a sub-pillar of "Satisfaction" could be NPS surveys. This is a great way to measure how satisfied clients are through quantifiable data. Sub-pillars for User Adoption could be the touchpoint schedule for the first few months, slide decks for product training, and methods for effective communication with the sales/product teams.

The reason I start with these pillars is that, in my opinion, it outlines the most important priorities a CSM should focus on. Having this as a starting point can give a CS team the ability to organize all of there duties and priorities effectively.

Feel free to let me know your thoughts on this.

Cheers!

Jarren Pinchuck

Can you elaborate a bit more on these pillars?
How does thinking about the plan with these as a starting point help you?

Jarren