Supporting multi-champions for large enterprise

Leetal Halamish

Hey CS community, 

Our platform is very flexible and can be implemented in 1000s of ways. Due to the flexibility of the platform we find ourselves having multiple champions and decision makers.

I'd be interested learning how you are handling Large Enterprise Customers who have multiple champions and decisions makers

Guy Galon

HI Leetal,
We are on the same time zone. let's connect on LinkedIn and schedule to talk.
I can provide tips and share my experience.
Regards,

Guy
https://www.linkedin.com/in/guy-galon-b1a80/

Harsh Shah

Hey Leetal, I hope you're enjoying your weekend!

As per my understanding, you're dealing with enterprise clients who have multiple decision-makers or take team decisions. The first thing that came to my mind while handling such scenarios is to start knowing all those stakeholders (Behavior, Hierarchies, Background, etc.) and if the list is too long then you can also try segmentation. With this, you can start knowing more about their champions and their business ecology. Try to create an organizational chart, showing how their hierarchy might work. Understand what problems they are trying to solve with your platform and how your CS team could be helpful in this process. 

As there are multiple decision-makers involved so it is possible to have a lot of confusion and repeat requests but try to make their process easier by being transparent and straightforward. Offer help to every stakeholder to make sure all have enough information to be on the same page. You can also more focus on influencers so once you win their support, it will be easy to get other decision-makers onboard. Furthermore, try to find if there are any organizational conflicts that could impact the goals, if so then help them to bridge those gaps.

I hope this would be a starting point for handling large enterprise customers with multiple champions.

Guy Galon

Adding to the points mentioned by Harsh:
1. Conduct internal account planning internally with the different teams interfacing with the customer (in enterprise customer, there are multiple people  from the vendor's team who engage with the customer). Account planning should review status/objectives/risks/opportunities and stakeholders. you can use this framework to review the  stakeholders engagement and influence, prioritize the effort and  put specific plans in place to engage stakeholders.
2.   Monitor the quality of relationship , sentiment , changes in customer environment and impact on your product and stakeholders.

3. Conduct QBRs and have your main stakeholders attend them to ensure they acknowledge your value and have the stage to provide feedback and suggestions.