By Chad Horenfeldt
“We really need this feature. If we’re not able to build this, we’ll lose the client.” If you’ve been in Customer Success for even a short length of time you’ve either uttered something similar or heard someone else say this. In many cases, these pleas for help are rejected. There are countless of other similar examples:
“We need another CSM. If we don’t get someone else soon we’ll see people quit.”
“I really need this new software. What we’re using today is crap.”
“Providing weekly updates on our clients is too time consuming. Do we really have to do that?”
The problem with these requests is there isn’t enough context and they seem more like complaints than constructive asks. This often leads you to barfing up information to your boss or other senior leaders and your message gets muddled in the process. The end result is these demands are often denied or ignored. Even worse, if you keep doing this, you will find yourself labeled as a complainer and it may even impact your overall performance rating.
In your defense, you’re just trying to do your job. Why are you being blamed for trying to save a client or improving your efficiency? The issue is not what you’re asking for but how you’re going about it. The good news is that there is a solution and it’s a relatively easy one - it’s using storytelling.
Remember those “upon a time” moments when you were a kid? Maybe you don’t, or maybe you’re the one reading stories to your kids. Whatever the case, it’s been proven that stories captivate children and adults. They can also help you make a better case for your requests that don’t seem to go anywhere. I’ll outline a simple storytelling formula you can start to use today, as well as four characteristics of a good story. These storytelling techniques will improve how you communicate and increase your influence with others.
The Simple Storytelling Formula
Many people feel intimidated at the thought of telling stories but there is a simple formula you can use. This was something I learned from Tatiana Kolovou, who created the Presenting to Senior Executives LinkedIn Learning course. She breaks storytelling down into three sections: The setup, the problem, and the solution. Others have similar approaches but I found this the easiest to remember.
The Setup
The setup of your story is simply providing details on how things used to be. Let’s go back to the client who’s demanding a specific product feature. Let’s say when they originally signed on with you, they were a ten person operation and had limited needs. We can also take the example of the CSM who’s complaining about their weekly updates. Perhaps when that process was put into place, they were only managing twenty clients. Now we have some context on where these requests were coming from.
The Problem
Once you’ve established how things used to be, you now need to hit your audience with a strong jab by mentioning what has changed. Going back to our client example, they have grown from a ten person company to 1,000 people in two years and have much more complex needs. They are now paying over a million a year as well and we’re at risk of losing all of that revenue. In our other example, the CSM who managed 20 clients is now managing 80 clients. Do we really expect them to provide 80 weekly updates? It’s very evident that the ground has shifted. We’re not in the same place we were, and a change is needed. This brings us to our final step in our story journey: the solution!
The Solution
This is self-explanatory - we need a way to resolve the conundrum we’ve found ourselves in. For the client, they need this new feature or we’re at risk of losing them. If the CSM has to provide 80 weekly updates, it will take them most of the week just to submit their updates and they won’t get anything else done.
With the context and issue clearly stated, you can then hit your opponent with your knock-out punch: a viable solution. This could be building a new feature as requested or it could be modifying your processes so that you only provide updates when clients are at-risk. Now is the chance to make your case. Not every request will be accepted, but this format gives you a much better chance of getting your ideas across to your audience. In addition, this step reminds you that you shouldn’t just be bringing forward problems but also thinking through possible solutions.
The Four Components of a Great Story
To bam up your stories, be sure you use these four components as recommended by author Kindra Hall, who wrote Stories That Stick. These include: identifiable characters, authentic emotions, a significant moment and specific details. Let’s dig into these.
Identifiable characters. It’s important to use real people in your stories so you make the story more appealing. For example, don’t just mention the company name of your client but mention the actual person that may be struggling and their role in their organization. The more real you can make your characters, the better, as they become people we care about.
Authentic emotions. Stories that are just places and dates are boring. When you mention how your characters feel, it adds to the realism of the issue that you are trying to portray. For example, if you mention how Tanya the CSM is frustrated as she now needs to work well into the evening a few days a week to finish her account updates we can really feel for her. We don’t want Tanya to miss out time with her friends and family and burn out. We want to help her.
A significant moment. A significant moment is taking a broad description of an issue and zooming into the actual situation. For example, a significant moment could have been when a specific feature of your product failed your client on a specific day which led to them losing tens of thousands of dollars. The more color you can bring to your story, the more it will come to life in the eyes of your audience.
Specific details. Don’t skip the small details. Don’t fast forward over those small tidbits that seem unimportant. For example, that client that’s asking for that feature could have been the same client who jumped on a reference call last quarter at 10:00 PM to help close a deal that made the Sales team hit their quarterly numbers. Details count. Leverage as many of them as possible to make your case.
So there you have it. These simple approaches including the three step storytelling formula and the four components of a great story can help you improve how you convey your requests and improve the odds of getting what you’ve asked for. In addition, the same approach described here for communicating internal requests can be used to convince your clients to take certain actions.
This isn’t something you can perfect overnight. Practice telling stories to your friends and family. Start with something small and work your way up to more complex stories. Take the time to learn these techniques and you will improve your ability to influence others. Storytelling is very powerful; the next time you have an important meeting or a certain need, don’t just throw your request out there. Frame it in a story and watch the magic happen.
The Success League is a customer success consulting firm that also offers coaching as well as CS Leadership Certification training. Please visit our website for more on these and our other offerings.
Chad Horenfeldt - Chad is a customer success executive with 15+ years of experience building and developing high performing teams. Currently, he is the Head of Customer Success at Kustomer. Prior to Kustomer, Chad held CS leadership positions at Updater, Bluecore, Influitive, and Oracle (Eloqua). In addition to writing for The Success League, he also writes regularly on the topic of customer success on his blog The Enlightened Customer.