By Brian Hartley
Over one year ago, my previous company, RFP360, was acquired by a competitor, RFPIO. It wasn’t unexpected. Our team and company knew at some point that we were going to be acquired or sold, it was just a matter of time. However, it happened faster than I imagined, only two and a half years after joining. Nevertheless, I was proud of what our team had accomplished.
Naturally, the acquisition led to a lot of change, new experiences and growth. I am going to share what we learned from a Customer Success perspective as well as advice for the CS teams in the midst of a similar transition. As with any significant change, during an acquisition, it’s important for Customer Success leaders to focus on three areas: people, product and customers.
People
● Communicate, communicate, communicate.
I can’t stress this enough, talk to your team often and frequently, even if you don’t have all of the answers (you won’t). This time period is already filled with angst, uncertainty and concern. So, you can be a constant for your team members. Ensuring your physical or virtual door is always open will be very important.
○ Questions to consider: How can I help you through this transition? What will be important to you while we work through the post-acquisition process?
● Reach out and introduce yourself
Establish a rapport with key contacts from the acquiring company. Start with your Customer Success counterpart and Human Resources. Compare notes and ask about career paths, job responsibilities, titles, employee resource groups, performance reviews, and salary bands. This will help you better understand how your team will integrate into the larger Customer Success team.
● Create a Customer Success community
Regardless of how duties, roles and processes eventually shake out, we can all learn from one another. Start setting up virtual meetings, coffees, or meet and greets between the two Customer Success teams. Your team (if being acquired) is going to feel like they are on an island. Immediately start introducing others and encourage them to reach out to their colleagues. This will go a long way to understanding the team cultures and how team members interact with each other.
Product
● Get insight from Engineering
Begin to work with Engineering and product to understand the future of your current product. What is the long-term strategy for support and maintenance? What is the plan to transition from one product to another? Are resources available to help drive the transition activity? What are the differences between the two products? Will the price change if the customer is planning to move platforms? These are the questions your customers will soon be asking you. So, the sooner you know the answers, the more prepared you’ll be to navigate those conversations, mitigate potential churn, and build excitement for what’s next.
● Get creative to encourage migration
If your product is being retired, begin to establish a motion for customers to transition to the new platform. This could include engineering work to help automate data transfer, hiring a project manager to help manage the process, or ensuring ample resources are available in each area of the business to ensure the process flows smoothly for customers.
Customers
● Communicate, communicate, communicate
Sound familiar? Similar to the point above, it will be important for you to work with your Marketing and Operations team to create a communication plan to share news and updates with your customers. From your initial announcement to regular updates, make sure your customer messaging is proactive and positive. Remember to make it about them.
○ What is happening? Why is it happening? How will it benefit the customer? When can they move to the new solution?
● Customize your approach for key accounts
Set up customer-specific meetings where warranted. This may be with your larger customers, strategic accounts, customers considering renewals, or just contacts you know will have a lot of in-depth questions. You can also sprinkle in webinars that accommodate more customers. For example, this could be a pre-scripted fireside chat that features the CTO to talk about the product vision.
Certainly, this isn’t an exhaustive list, but focusing on these three buckets - customers, product, and people - will help make your transition easier. Ultimately, being acquired is exciting and nerve-wracking all at the same time, for everyone involved. As a Customer Success professional, you will be at the intersection of a lot of moving parts and it will be important for you to remain agile and patient. It is a marathon, not a sprint; you will make mistakes and that is ok — remember to rely on your team and other members of the organization to help you.
The Success League is a customer success consulting agency that provides consulting, coaching, and certification training to CS professionals. Please see TheSuccessLeague.io for our full offerings.
Brian Hartley - As Senior Director, Customer Success, Brian leads the customer success manager team at RFPIO Inc. He is responsible for creating outstanding and memorable user experiences through engagement, enablement and continuous support. He has been with RFP360 for 2.5 years (recently acquired by RFPIO) and 15 years of customer and client facing experience. In his free time he spends time with his three daughters, wife and dog.