Requests of customers from business units

Andy Chandler

Hi everyone,
I wondered if anyone has a good system they have in place for small-mid size start-ups on controlling/funelling the asks of the business from customers.  It's great to get customers involved but with sales asking for reference calls, marketing asking for appearances on panels, product asking for UX interviews, sales enablement asking for case studies, it can end up asking customers to help us be successful more than the other way round.
I'm working on making sure the asks are in the beats of the customers (EBRs), rather than ours (it's a pet peeve when a marketing department asks to find someone for a panel in 2 days time) but also does anyone have a good system in place to monitor and help?
Thanks

Andrew Marks

Mandate that customer asks need to be made through Customer Success. You're the gatekeeper and need to maintain that for the sake of your customer. Keep a log of every ask (in something as simple as Google Sheets) so you can track which customers are being asked what and not overburden them as well as spread the asks out over the customer base. You own customer success. Not overburdening them with asks from the business is part of that. This mandate needs to come from the top down. Make sure you message it in a positive way but make sure everyone understands how important this is to not burn out your most successful customers on asks.

Steve Bernstein

Hi Andy -- Members of this community probably know what I'll advise... A strong Voice-of-Customer program would provide you with the right contacts that you'd (or, better, the business) be able to easily identify and engage in the right way (i.e. it's not much of an "ask" of the customer if they tell you they want to do it!):
- A steady stream of promoters/advocates to leverage as case stories, sales training, etc -- they are PROMOTERS and are telling you they want to help!
- End-user contacts that want to participate in product updates (detractors telling you about specific issues would be a good place to start)
- Webinar participants and other marketing activities
Etc... happy to provide more detail... our clients see 80%+ response rates with excellent coverage across persona (Decision Makers, Champs, Influencers, End Users), and segments/tiers (strategic/high-touch down to low/tech-touch).
/Steve

Andy Chandler

Hi Steve,
Thanks for the information. Yes would be interested to hear more.
Thanks
Andy

Steve Bernstein

Hi @Andy Chandler -- I'd be happy to provide more... strategy? tactics? templates? process?  Although I hate to take the discussion out of GGR (in the hopes that others might be reading and have similar interests), I'm not sure if you have specific questions I can address so maybe best to connect live to discuss in more detail...?  My direct email is steveb-at-waypointgroup.org to set up time to talk... or, if you can let me know what I can provide then happy to continue here...

Voice-of-Customer (VoC) should be viewed as a strategic effort that serves the needs of many parts of the company. CS generally leads the effort because CSMs should be using the feedback to improve the account's experience and use the "deep and wide" feedback in the account (i.e. trustworthy and representative, especially covering the stakeholder team) to drive Joint Success Planning (nay, "QBRs" which are often a waste of everyone's time as a backward-looking exercise).  So while the CS team gets great insights into what's working ad what needs improvement in individual accounts, the rest of the business roll-ups to address the needs of specific cohorts, ideally linked to financials to make prioritization easier than just relying on the stats. Yes, it might be different work than what the team are doing now, but our view is that there's nothing more powerful than "I know..." statements based on the actual data rather than "I Think..." statements based on anecdotes.

Hope we can continue the disucssion...

/Steve