January 25, 2024
Change Management. This term can often be thought of in the context of corporate shifts, but as those in Customer Success know, it is important in customer relationships as well.
This was the focus of our Gain Grow Retain Leadership Office Hours, led by Arjun Menon.
Understanding the types of changes your customer will go through from a variety of lenses (people, processes, technology) and then identifying the areas that they are likely to have issues transitioning with will be an important part of ensuring success.
Identifying the strategies to help your customer move through change processes successfully is setting up a foundation that moves you into true strategic partnership with your customers. But what does this look like?
What are some of the pain points your customer is likely to encounter? And how can you identify change management strategies to help overcome them?
Each of these is a unique situation with a need for a strategy to help change manage.
- Layoffs/staffing changes – move from a single point of contact to engagement (through community, emails, Office Hours) with a multiple relationship model. Identify (through engagement with offerings, content, training, events, etc.) strong product users and when changes occur with your primary stakeholder, you have other relationships ready to nurture and grow. In fact, much of this process can be done even while your primary stakeholder remains. It is never a bad thing to have more than one advocate!
- Disconnected tech roadblocks - take time to understand what other tech they are using and how your product fits into the mix. Identify potential overlap and automations, and potentially look for ways to create a shared digital process so your product isn’t locked into a single team. Ask ‘How can the value of information coming from your team help other teams?’
- Underutilization of training – talk to customers who are using it well, using it sparingly, and not using your implementation/training program and find out what works and what isn’t working at all. Identify whether it is an education issue (they don’t see the value) or a friction issue (it is too complex, and the value is too low for the effort). Address the issues you can control and build an education campaign to help show the ‘why’. Utilize a community to help support the implementation and onboarding through success stories, best practices, supplemental material, and peer conversations. Make sure your knowledge base is addressing the pain points well and in a clear fashion.
- No ’why’ – make sure the reason your product was purchased is clear and understood by those that use it. There can be a disconnect between leadership and point of use staff, and you can work to close that. By understanding their current workflows, you can also help integrate your product more efficiently making it a seamless integration rather than disparate tasks on various tools. Help your customers understand how your product helps them meet company goals and make it easy for them to use it.
- Metrics Uncertainty - not everyone has the skillset to understand what metrics should be tracked and how to tell the story that builds understanding of value. Based one their company goals, help them identify important metrics and show them how to align them with other team goals using language that resonates.
- Onboarded but not growing – onboarding is ongoing. Be sure you have a pathway to encourage customers to continue their journey. Share how implementing certain portions of the products have helped others like them grow their business. Allow your customers to talk to each other to share new ways they are utilizing your product. Create a learning pathway that encourages deeper and deeper adoption.