How involved is your CSM during implementation and onboarding?

What responsibilities and accountability do you give to your CSMs as customers are in the implementation and onboarding stages of their Customer Journey?

There are many factors that influence this:

Length/Complexity of Implementation
Involvement of in-house Professional Services team
System Integrator involvement
Is their value delivered to client prior to full deployment?

How are you getting your CSMs engaged with the right resources at your customers during this time and what are they responsible/accountable for?

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CS Team

Comments

Andreas Knoefel

Spot on @Alejandro Sanchez . A CSM who appears way after onboarding is too late to the party. I introduce the CSM at the tail end of Selling to ensure smooth transition to Post-Sales. Doesn't mean that the CSM does the implementation/onboarding, yet they are coordinating and managing those stages.

Jeremy Donaldson

@Alex Hornbuckle To address the "one to many" approach for a moment. I think this is where a semi-templated success plan can be leveraged. Get CS introduced upfront to capture those pieces so implementation has an understanding of the success criteria then let services/implementation own initial delivery. CS will then be responsible to check back with the customer before the project close to ensure implementation hit those targets before the project is closed. You could leverage various automated touch points during the project o capture feedback that aligns with the success criteria and metrics.

Jeremy Donaldson

@Chris Jones (CJ) I am a big fan of CS being the cornerstone of the relationship with the customer. What better way to show consistency and understanding with a customer then having the CSM lead the discussion of implementation?

Let the IC/PM lead the tactical/technical elements while CS serves the strategic / busiess functions.

Jeremy Donaldson

@Alejandro Sanchez - I agree and disagree with the 2nd paragraph. I don't want my CSMs becoming implementation project managers. We have PMs who are paid to do that. However, for organizations that don't have designated PMs then 100% that is a value add to keep the IC/IS focused on technical onboarding tasks.

David Ellin

@Alex Hornbuckle, I've tended to get CSMs involved in the pre-sales process. By the time the customer gets to implementation and onboarding, the customer-CSM relationship has been established.

While our CSMs are not responsible for implementation and onboarding, they are contributors. Their involvement includes advice and guidance, and use the time to build trust and credibility. This also helps to facilitate a great hand-off process and tends to eliminate gaps in the hand-off process.

Chris Jones (CJ)

@Alex Hornbuckle This is one of the discussions we have at the start of the implementation. it depends on the complexity of the customer and their need for reassurance during the process.

During the implementation our PS team general has on average 3 meetings a week with a customer (1 administrative (everyone), and 2 technical (smaller teams)), so given this level of time commitment from customers I general try to meet with them once a month (some customers are fine with Bi-weekly too), just to ensure that I can get their heads above water and take a pulse check on them.

Brian Hartley

Hey Alex - here is our approach along with some context:

Onboarding is typically 60 days, handful of milestones and training before transition
Average ARR is <10K. I mention this as the stress and pressure to deploy isn't always there and often times we need to really push customers along during the onboarding experience
Each new customer is assigned a dedicated consultant but are introduced to the engagement consultant up front
Onboarding consultant uses a custom object in SFDC to track notes, dates, etc.
The engagement consultant is purely a background figure but is in tune with the overall experience through SFDC and onboarding consultant meetings
Value is typically delivered in the onboarding experience as customers are already actively using the tool to work proposals.

Alex Hornbuckle

Great Answer @Chris Jones (CJ)

Super helpful for those that use the RACI model. Assuming your PM is likely talking with multiple times per week or daily, how often is your CSM engaging with the customer throughout the implementation?

Chris Jones (CJ)

We presently have a onboarding process for NNB and it is kicked off by the Success Team. The assigned CSM kicks off the process, monitors and collaborates with the Professional services team throughout the implementation and hand-off to support.

The main reason for this is that the CSM owns the customer relationship, and we need the customer to know that throughout their life-cycle with us, a number of resources may interact with them, however the CSM is their long term strategic partner, therefore their view of the CSM is much more involved than say the way they would see the PS Project Manager.

When we look at a NNB implementation the PS PM is the R and A of the RACI for the project, the CSM is the C and I, and that works well, it ensures a few things;

Customer has continuity
The CSM knows how the customer is configured and the thinking behind decisions made
Customer see the CSM as invested in their success form the start

Alex Hornbuckle

Great points made above @Alejandro Sanchez !

Alex Hornbuckle

@Kevin Mitchell Leonor

I'm interested in how you are able to build quick rapport with your customers at RingCentral after the onboarding is complete. The Implementation - CS transition can be scary for customers and figuring out how to smooth out this process can be tough.

Alejandro Sanchez

Alex I think the CSM needs to be involved since before the customer signs the contract so as to become a familiar face to the customer, and be aware of their goals, needs, connections, issues, challenges, etc. since the get go. The question is how much and how deep is the CSM involved. And that depends so much on the size of the company, the complexity of the product and the other factors you mentioned. In my experience, the CSM needs to be presented as that strategic, main POC in the account who will own the relationship, move things internally and be the person who knows the account really well. So act like a project manager when others are the main drivers of the conversation keeping things together and on track. However, if and when possible (meaning at companies where there is a support system of professionals - services, support, others - who are the technical experts) other in the company should be the product technical experts. So CSM is not support and CSM is not the training/launch manager. And this needs to be clear to the customer. Otherwise, your CSM just becomes an on demand support/training/technical substitute person and that helps no one. Now don't take me wrong, I believe CSMs need to know the product really well but to uncover opportunities and help the client with product adoption, not to solve issues.

During onboarding, what I have seen works great, is for the onboarding specialist to own the content and sessions, but for the CSM to own the project management: scheduling, following up, staying on schedule, prioritizing action items, keeping people on track, involving who needs to be involved from the customer and from the company, etc. That way, again, they are not the ones answering the technical questions, but they are the ones on top of the flow and once launch is over, the can take over the operation of the account seamlessly.

Kevin Mitchell Leonor

I'll mention this from my two experiences:

Duetto: We were there to help with any customer facing bottlenecks like when customers fail to provide worksheets in a timely manner where my implementation team is ready to go, but doesn't have the information needed to proceed. We also were empowered to program certain things on behalf of implementation. It helped me understand the programming logic too and was easier to troubleshoot issues related to setup. We also provided training tot he customer.

RingCentral: we are not too involved in implementation and onboarding. We are invited as optional to all project meetings. We typically get too busy to attend.