By Mike Lee
Over the past few years I’ve seen customer success grow in practice and relevance. I’ve also seen a focus on individual actions that help users find value in the tools being represented, along with processes to help the customer (or users) use the tool to make their lives better.
In a strategic sense, I’ve seen us move away from organizational change as a strategy to simply achieve success with a sponsor or champion to secure a renewal. I am not saying that is bad, but I do believe we’ve moved away from the bedrock of customer success… change management.
I’ve often said two of my certifications have served me best as a CS Professional: my PMP (Project Management Professional), and my ITIL Expert (Information Technology Infrastructure Library). Both certifications are highly respected and internationally known, and both are steeped in change management. The core of both certifications are process-related on how to make organizational change based on new needs of that organization. Both have inputs to change management as well as outputs. Although they manage change differently, the result is the same: a program structured to ease the impact of change on an organization as a result of a product, process, and project.
Those two certifications highlight the reasons it is important for CS Professionals not to forget about helping our customer’s organization through the change our products represent. Like it or not, no matter what product we are representing, it SHOULD represent some sort of change in the organization or individual behavior. That change is what I am addressing in this article.
My first real role in CS was for an IT budgeting SaaS product. It was a great company and a great product. One of the things I liked best about my role as a Customer Success Advisor was my ability to speak to “above the line” leaders about the value this tool provided. Part of my advocacy was a well-defined change management program that we would literally drop in the lap of the customer to achieve step by step.
The change management program covered every detail based on best practices to adopt the tool organization-wide. There were timeline-based actions such as:
Set a go live date
120 days before the go live date, send a prescribed email for which an email template would be presented
90 days out, send the next prescribed email speaking about everyone taking training courses
60 days out, meet with your identified champions… etc.
This program allowed for our customers to abdicate the creation of a program to get their user to adopt the software. Everything was given to them, making it very easy for the CSM to follow up to make sure the steps were being taken.
I feel this type of change management program is what is missing from many of our programs now. I speak to lots of people and CS Professionals, and the idea of adoption continues to come up, but the one single thread that seems to be prominent in many of those discussions is the absence of helping the customer understand what needs to happen internally in their organization to move users to adopting the software. I think it is easy for us to forget that our users, champions, and sponsors may not have experience in managing an organizational change program such as the one your product will provide. Many of them understand the benefit, and may even see the value in the product, but may not know how to get started in advocating for the entire organization to use the product. That is where we, as change leaders, have to step up.
Since we are experts in our products and possibly industries, we should be able to understand what it takes to use the tool organizationally. We should be able to provide examples of communications, practices, meeting agendas, training schedules, verification processes, etc., to remove that burden from our customers’ plates. So, let’s take a look at what that may look like.
In a change management plan to deliver to your customer, we should consider topics like the following to be included in a program:
Set a go live date for the organization using the product
Select an activity timeline with actions associated with dates leading up to the go live
Include best practices on how to identify champions and detractors, and provide resources in how to deal with both groups
Provide timed email templates for the sponsor or champion to send out to the adopting organization (these could be created by your marketing team to communicate the benefits of your product)
Identify any training and activities each user must complete, and help the champion or sponsor track those activities. Create an email for the sponsor to compel the users to take the training in a timely manner before the go live date.
Provide any other resources, information, or training a user may need to successfully use the tool on day one
Provide day two resources that users can access once the go live date has passed
Offer ideas on how to get the organization to celebrate the go live date, which could include buying a cake or some other event.
Although these are very rough ideas, providing this type of change management program to support your customers can very much make a difference in your renewal rates, NRR, and eventually lowering churn. It is clear that if we can get an entire organization to adopt our products by using a well-designed change management program, we will have a long term customer… and that is how to make your leadership smile.
The Success League is a customer success consulting firm for executives who want to build and scale a top performing team. As a part of our Leadership Certification Program we offer a class in Change Management that includes tools, group discussions and best practices. For information on this and other programs for CS leaders, please visit TheSuccessLeague.io
Mike Lee - With 28 years as a technical professional, Mike is currently the Head of Customer Success at PublicInput, the leading Software as a Service public engagement platform. He leads the entire post-sale organization including Customer Success, Customer Support, Onboarding, Renewals Management, Professional Services, and Training. Mike also is an Adjunct Professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC). Mike received his MBA in 2011 from UMASS and is currently perusing his Doctor of Business Administration at UNCC.