How can I help my Customer Success teams engage more proactively with customers? This is a challenge that\u2019s top of mind with many CEOs and VP\/Directors of Customer Success. Of course your team needs to respond to customer queries, but when teams engage proactively from the beginning of the customer\u2019s experience it strengthens your role as a trusted adviser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here are three practical approaches to help Customer Success teams move toward proactive customer engagement:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1. Teach Customers to Fish<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s a quote that says \u201cgive a man a fish you\u2019ll feed him for a day; teach him to fish you\u2019ll feed him for life.\u201d Your solution is about helping customers do something differently or move toward a desired business outcome. This means doing things differently or changing – changing the way things have been done for years, or maybe always. Lots of people don\u2019t like change, especially if they don\u2019t really understand WIIFM or \u201cwhat\u2019s in it for me\u201d. And just to keep things interesting, the customer leadership teams who made the decision to bring in a new solution sometimes don\u2019t communicate the new desired outcome to their own internal teams. This means key customer contacts and users that CSMs regularly engage with might not fully understand why they\u2019ve been asked to change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Helping customers get the most adoption, and the most value, from your offering isn\u2019t just about walking them through the how to\u2019s of using your solution (i.e. giving them the fish). If CSMs can go beyond \u201chow to\u201d and teach the skill that\u2019s behind the feature, they can help your customers adapt and excel at a new way of working. Doing this well is a company-wide effort and CSMs will likely need help and training from product, product marketing, pre-sales or other experts. I\u2019ve seen Sales teams sell features one way and the Success team\u2019s training position them in another way. This can cause confusion and lack of trust with your customer and across your company so it\u2019s important that CSMs get the internal support they need to teach your customers to fish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Ask Questions Differently<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As I mentioned above, at times key users aren\u2019t clear what the desired outcome or business value of your offering is. Or maybe they\u2019ve been a customer for a while and that desired outcome has evolved over time. One way to encourage customers to clarify their desired business value is for the CSM to ask questions in a different way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Q – CSM: Imagine it\u2019s the start of your new fiscal year and you\u2019re reviewing last year for your CEO or leadership team. What would a successful year look like? What would you want to present as proof points that your department knocked it out of the park?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n This style of questioning engages customers to think proactively about what success looks like and describe it. Then CSMs can work together, across every interaction, towards new ways of working that will influence or help your customers achieve these goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moving toward proactive behaviors can be especially challenging your CSMs were promoted internally from your Support team, which by its very nature reacts<\/em> to issues that customers raise. In a support-based model teams are focused on reacting quickly and efficiently to the customer\u2019s problem. Often this is reinforced by internal metrics like TTR (Time To Resolution) and Call Satisfaction. Instead CSMs should understand the underlying business problem the customer is trying to solve and what\u2019s the best approach to accomplish this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Q – Customer: I\u2019m trying to do \u201cthis thing\u201d. I\u2019ve tried all these ways and I can\u2019t figure it out. Does it do \u201cthis thing\u201d?<\/em> This is an especially challenging question if your customer is experienced with and knowledgeable about your offering because they\u2019ve jumped to what they think is the solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A1 – CSM: No it doesn\u2019t actually do \u201cthis thing\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Checkmark – the customer\u2019s question was answered promptly and efficiently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But what if instead of just answering the question that was asked, CSMs asked some of their own questions to better understand what problem the customer was trying to solve and then proactively help them solve it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A2 – CSM: Can you help me understand why you\u2019re trying to do \u201cthis thing\u201d? What problem are you trying to solve?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n OK – now that I understand what you want to accomplish, if instead of doing \u201cthis thing\u201d you did \u201cthat thing\u201d and added \u201cthis other thing\u201d, would that get you to your original goal?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Once CSMs understand the underlying issue the customer is trying to address there might be several ways to solve for this – just not the way the customer originally asked about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Prioritize Intentionally<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n At the beginning of every week I find it’s helpful for CSMs (and me too) to identify the three most important tasks that need to be accomplished and stay focused on completing or moving the ball forward on these as the week progresses. Is it on-boarding a new client, a renewal that\u2019s stalled, preparing the content for a QBR or a customer that\u2019s turned red and is now at risk for churning?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I find it\u2019s best to limit the focus to no more than three priorities – after all, if everything is top priority, nothing is. Set the intention at the beginning of the week. Then take a few minutes at the end of each day to review what actions you took to make progress on completing those tasks or goals. If required, help them to adjust their schedules for the next day or the remainder of the week to give them the time to accomplish the most important tasks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These are some techniques that have worked for me. Let me know if they\u2019re helpful, and if you have other practical advice that\u2019s helped you engage more proactively I\u2019d love to hear about that too.<\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Helping your Customer Success teams engage more proactively with customers is a challenge that\u2019s top of mind with many leaders. Of course your team needs to respond to customer queries, but when teams engage proactively from the beginning of the customer\u2019s experience it strengthens your role as a trusted adviser.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"\n How can I help my Customer Success teams engage more proactively with customers? This is a challenge that\u2019s top of mind with many CEOs and VP\/Directors of Customer Success. Of course your team needs to respond to customer queries, but when teams engage proactively from the beginning of the customer\u2019s experience it strengthens your role as a trusted adviser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are three practical approaches to help Customer Success teams move toward proactive customer engagement:<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. Teach Customers to Fish<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s a quote that says \u201cgive a man a fish you\u2019ll feed him for a day; teach him to fish you\u2019ll feed him for life.\u201d Your solution is about helping customers do something differently or move toward a desired business outcome. This means doing things differently or changing - changing the way things have been done for years, or maybe always. Lots of people don\u2019t like change, especially if they don\u2019t really understand WIIFM or \u201cwhat\u2019s in it for me\u201d. And just to keep things interesting, the customer leadership teams who made the decision to bring in a new solution sometimes don\u2019t communicate the new desired outcome to their own internal teams. This means key customer contacts and users that CSMs regularly engage with might not fully understand why they\u2019ve been asked to change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Helping customers get the most adoption, and the most value, from your offering isn\u2019t just about walking them through the how to\u2019s of using your solution (i.e. giving them the fish). If CSMs can go beyond \u201chow to\u201d and teach the skill that\u2019s behind the feature, they can help your customers adapt and excel at a new way of working. Doing this well is a company-wide effort and CSMs will likely need help and training from product, product marketing, pre-sales or other experts. I\u2019ve seen Sales teams sell features one way and the Success team\u2019s training position them in another way. This can cause confusion and lack of trust with your customer and across your company so it\u2019s important that CSMs get the internal support they need to teach your customers to fish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Ask Questions Differently<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As I mentioned above, at times key users aren\u2019t clear what the desired outcome or business value of your offering is. Or maybe they\u2019ve been a customer for a while and that desired outcome has evolved over time. One way to encourage customers to clarify their desired business value is for the CSM to ask questions in a different way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Q - CSM: Imagine it\u2019s the start of your new fiscal year and you\u2019re reviewing last year for your CEO or leadership team. What would a successful year look like? What would you want to present as proof points that your department knocked it out of the park?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n This style of questioning engages customers to think proactively about what success looks like and describe it. Then CSMs can work together, across every interaction, towards new ways of working that will influence or help your customers achieve these goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moving toward proactive behaviors can be especially challenging your CSMs were promoted internally from your Support team, which by its very nature reacts<\/em> to issues that customers raise. In a support-based model teams are focused on reacting quickly and efficiently to the customer\u2019s problem. Often this is reinforced by internal metrics like TTR (Time To Resolution) and Call Satisfaction. Instead CSMs should understand the underlying business problem the customer is trying to solve and what\u2019s the best approach to accomplish this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Q - Customer: I\u2019m trying to do \u201cthis thing\u201d. I\u2019ve tried all these ways and I can\u2019t figure it out. Does it do \u201cthis thing\u201d?<\/em> This is an especially challenging question if your customer is experienced with and knowledgeable about your offering because they\u2019ve jumped to what they think is the solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A1 - CSM: No it doesn\u2019t actually do \u201cthis thing\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Checkmark - the customer\u2019s question was answered promptly and efficiently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But what if instead of just answering the question that was asked, CSMs asked some of their own questions to better understand what problem the customer was trying to solve and then proactively help them solve it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A2 - CSM: Can you help me understand why you\u2019re trying to do \u201cthis thing\u201d? What problem are you trying to solve?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n OK - now that I understand what you want to accomplish, if instead of doing \u201cthis thing\u201d you did \u201cthat thing\u201d and added \u201cthis other thing\u201d, would that get you to your original goal?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Once CSMs understand the underlying issue the customer is trying to address there might be several ways to solve for this - just not the way the customer originally asked about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. Prioritize Intentionally<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n At the beginning of every week I find it's helpful for CSMs (and me too) to identify the three most important tasks that need to be accomplished and stay focused on completing or moving the ball forward on these as the week progresses. Is it on-boarding a new client, a renewal that\u2019s stalled, preparing the content for a QBR or a customer that\u2019s turned red and is now at risk for churning?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I find it\u2019s best to limit the focus to no more than three priorities - after all, if everything is top priority, nothing is. Set the intention at the beginning of the week. Then take a few minutes at the end of each day to review what actions you took to make progress on completing those tasks or goals. If required, help them to adjust their schedules for the next day or the remainder of the week to give them the time to accomplish the most important tasks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These are some techniques that have worked for me. Let me know if they\u2019re helpful, and if you have other practical advice that\u2019s helped you engage more proactively I\u2019d love to hear about that too.<\/p>\n","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,11],"class_list":["post-141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-proactive","tag-skills"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/striveengagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/striveengagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/striveengagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/striveengagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/striveengagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/striveengagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":570,"href":"https:\/\/striveengagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141\/revisions\/570"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/striveengagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/striveengagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/striveengagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/striveengagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}