By Lauren Costella
Without a doubt, not many of us could not have imagined the unprecedented impact of COVID on our world, our nation, our businesses, and our teams. Only 10 months ago, many of us prepared for weeks or at most, several months of remote work. But as those months went by, and the pandemic progressed, it became very clear that our businesses would never be the same again.
With vaccines, we are hopeful we can learn to live with this disease; full eradication is a distant goal. Researchers and epidemiologists express that we will not go back to “normal.” And we need to start wrapping our minds around this. For example, diagnostic testing in public places may become more common, mask wearing will be here to stay, especially until more studies are run about the efficacy of the vaccine and the inoculation, and of course, there will likely be distancing within offices.
With these global “norms” now here for the unforeseeable future, we as company executives and Customer Success leaders, need to make sure that we continue to evolve, so our teams and our customers can maximize their potential. And quite frankly, of all the teams able to drive change, we as CS leaders are probably best to encourage different ways of thinking within our organizations.
Working for a company that engages with Chief Human Resources Officers (CHROs) and VPs of HR and Talent regularly, I have had the pleasure to learn about what they are thinking about within their own companies. Last month, GoodTime held our first VP Roundtable, and nearly 100% of the VPs of Human Resources and CHROs room said that remote and hybrid work are here to stay. If that’s the case, how do we think about the Customer POV (point of view)?
As I thought about this topic, I thought it best to frame some of the discussion around People, Process and Technology. I offer some ways we may need to think about the future of customer success and customer engagement, given the new “normal.”
People
The very first thing that comes to my mind with our new world is safety. Safety for our teams and our customers.
Often Customer engagement, especially for high-touch programs, includes some level of “in-person” connection with customers. The “taking you out to lunch or dinner” post a business review or having a customer conference to showcase thought leadership and celebrate what customers have been doing are both common practices. Yet, over the past year, we haven’t done these engagements, and the question is: will we bring them back? If teams are distributed, is in-person connection no longer viable? And if not, how do we think about “in-person” engagement?
We will need to consider methods that ensure safety for visits. Perhaps businesses will consider COVID swab tests on the way into the office - just like signing in? Or perhaps we’ll need to show recent vaccination records?
We need to talk to customers about how their businesses will function, their teams will function, and how they will want to be engaged in our “new world” realities with safety being at the center of the discussion.
Technology
Customers (just like our own teams) have been doing things differently now, for almost a year, and likely into the foreseeable future. They are working in distributed teams, different time zones, and in new ways. As CS leaders and practitioners, we need to ensure our customer engagements put flexibility into the hands of customers.
For example, why don’t we think about tools that allow for customers to choose the time they work with us? With tools like GoodTime Meet (free) or Calendly, customers would have the ability to choose the days and times that work for them to engage. As technology advances, perhaps it also allows flexibility to choose the people! What if a customer could choose to meet with Product or Engineering or Sales or their CSM or Support when it suited them and not just through the coordination of a CSM?
Technology is advancing fast, and new capabilities will allow for these choices, while protecting the time of internal employees. Are we considering how that level of flexibility may allow for more customer engagement among more team members and more customer teams? Have we thought about how this engagement could indeed create better and further stickiness? I think, personally, it’s pretty exciting. And it’s been driven to the forefront with the advent of remote, distributed work.
We should also consider technology for creating new methods for communicating. Sure meetings and email are a staple, but what about chat for CSMs? I know that chat with support has been emerging for years, but I haven't seen message methods like Slack and Chat for CSM engagement. In fact, CS Leaders are split on this topic in the “Great CS Debate.”
Goodtime has been using Slack to engage with customers long before I arrived, and while it was foreign to me, it’s been a game changer for our customers. In fact, one customer in particular told me that it’s the single most important way to engage with his CSM. It eliminates the need to have a call, when a call isn’t needed or to write into support when it’s not an “issue.” And perhaps that high touch level of accessibility can be something that your organization charges more for? Can we use this technology to offer more flexibility and better variety and charge a little more for it? I think we could!
The point here is that our customers have changed to have more freedom, distributed and remote options. As CS teams, traditional set meetings, times, cadences and “face-to-face” engagement needs to be changed as well. Those types of engagements may help us, but is it really helping our customer? We have to think differently.
Process
Speaking of thinking differently, one thing that we have to consider, especially given our “new normal”, is more “outside in” versus “inside out” thinking among teams. Because businesses are often KPI and forecasting heavy, we look for particular “activities” to ensure that things are “on track” and functioning smoothly within our organizations.
Take the traditional QBR. As part of our “inside out” playbook, we may believe that QBRs must be delivered to customers on a regular basis to check a box that we showed them their goals and they are “paying attention” to us. However, as pointed out recently by Dave Jackson, in his recent LinkedIn post, the number of technologies customers are using has increased to average 90. To be engaging with the exec level for all of them will not work on an exponential scale.
VPs don’t have time to meet with every vendor about everything - even when that progress is great. And now with meetings being remote and virtual, Zoom, video, screen fatigue is very, very real.
How are you thinking about your Customer Journey Processes? Are you putting in playbooks that are just “standard” or are you changing your processes to reflect our new reality, our “new normal”? The world has changed, and with it, our businesses. We won’t be going back to normal, and most companies are moving hybrid, so what can we do? Adjust!
The Success League is a customer success consulting firm that offers a Leadership Certification program designed for Success leaders, which includes classes such as Building a Playbook and Change Management. For more information on this and our other programs and offerings, see TheSuccessLeague.io
Lauren Costella - Lauren is a change agent, communicator, leader and passionate champion for Customer Success. When she’s not working as the VP of Customer Success for GoodTime.io, you can find her serving as an advisor for The Success League, a board member for the Customer Success Network, and blogging on the CS Playlist. Lauren has her MA and BA from Stanford University. She was a former USA National swim team member and enjoys staying active in the Bay Area.