Customer Success 2: End to End

The idea of End-to-End Customer Success is in most cases seldom understood due to ineffective viewpoints. The use of Key Performance Indicators, Sales Targets and Department Goals can quickly erode the businesses ‘Customer Success’ as internal staff aim for their own targets at the expense of the concept of “Customer Success’

In the SaaS environments this is particularly evidence when an upcoming or new feature is sold as complete when objectively this may not be the case. Within a situation like this several Targets are trying to be met with the customer ultimately taking the brunt of the fall and being mis-sold in many cases. 

• Customer wants feature X
• Sales says that feature X is available
• Feature X is not fully completed by the Product team
  • Work on Feature X may not have been started
• Sales and Product Development teams create a Demonstration that Feature X is operational. 
• The customer purchases based on Feature X being available 
• When feature X is then used in a real world environment holes are found and Feature X is considered ‘not working’ by the customer.
• This then causes friction between the customer and Account Management Teams to either placate the customer, to stall, offer remittance or wait until the feature X is considered ‘complete’ by the customer. 

I will stress that this is not the fault of either the Sales or Product development teams processes. Referencing Figure 1. We know that Product Design comes immediately after identification of customer needs. Ultimately the customers are identifying their needs and it is the role of the business to address those needs. 

Those with experience also understand that there are times when the speed of execution can be the deciding factor and that not everything can or will be complete before the need to execute on a sale. The concept of Customer Success can still be achieved in situations such as these by the use of clear communication and identification of potential stress points. To use the above example the concept of customer success can be implemented by communication.

• Customer wants feature X
• Sales says that feature X is able to be implemented 
• Feature X is not fully completed by the Product team
• Sales and Product Development teams create a Demonstration that Feature X is operational.
  • This is the key stage where potential stress points and caveats must be properly communicated to the customer. This is a step that most Sales roles will wince at as it does work with the ‘say anything to get a sale’ that alot of sales teams work from.
  • At this stage if work on the feature is still ongoing a rough time line should be provided to the customer
  • This is also the stage where what Feature X does not do is identified and explained.

The above points are a deviation from the way many teams like or want to work however if the above is followed trust and integrity are established with the customer and this is at the heart of Customer Success. Customers will not trust you if you do not act with integrity and this sometimes means telling them all the facts as they are rather than stretching the truth.