Shreesha Ramdas, SVP&GM of Strikedeck-Medallia, discusses what aspects of customer success can be most revolutionized by digital transformation, what is involved in making those changes, and what the likely outcomes can be.
It is hard to ignore “digital transformation†mentioned in presentations, webinars, and news articles – it is all the rage in technology and business circles. Although sometimes generalized with vague definitions, the concept of digital transformation is an important one that can make all the difference with a company’s efficiency and effectiveness. More so than ever before, in these days of pandemic-driven changes, digital transformation may make the difference between success and existential failure. While areas such as sales, marketing, finance, procurement, and IT have been revolutionized by digital transformation, other areas such as customer success are often less considered. The reality is that the digital transformation of customer success offers strategic levels of corporate efficiency and effectiveness equal to or greater than the transformation of other parts of the company.
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Reactive Transformation? Does It Even Exist?
Can digitally transforming customer success really revolutionize its outcomes? The answer depends on the very definition of customer success and its role within a company. For many companies, customer success serves in a facilitatory role: it helps solve problems—perhaps in determining the proper contacts for each customer or getting a customer onboarded, a survey completed, or finding out why a customer may not be using a product or service. Customer success is also relegated to a helper role in getting renewals or facilitating customer retention.
The helper role is generally problem- or situation-driven. Whenever the company needs to resolve or accomplish something with a customer, customer success is called in to address it. The reactive nature of such a structure is understandable: there is a need, so assign it to customer success. In this capacity, customer success does not drive strategic gains or serve any transformative role; it merely fulfills a demand or need and then moves on to the next in a kind of corporate treadmill. This is not bad or without value, but it greatly misses the potential that a customer success strategy and the program can offer.
Strategic Transformation Driving Success
Rather than being simply reactive, customer success has the opportunity to help shape the success of each customer from the get-go. Responding to fire alarms could be significantly less of a need if customers were nurtured properly and helped reach success. Even the notion of success has two distinct models. The most common one defines success from a vendor or source company’s point of view—renewals, churn reduction, revenue expansion, Net Promoter Score results, etc. The other is firmly focused on how each customer defines success. Make no mistake—the two measures of success are quite distinct, although a customer who achieves a unique mark of success generally ensures the success of the vendor or supplier company. Customer success really involves the specific goals, needs, concerns, and constraints of each customer. For transformative customer success, the trick is to understand these success factors—not generally, but specifically for each customer—and help customers achieve them.
A strategically focused customer service team is more than just being proactive and helping each customer reach a unique measure of success It can get the company much more in sync with customers in a way that helps shape the direction of products or services, long-range planning, or get an early indication of substantial change that could otherwise, at some point, undermine a company’s entire business. Being enmeshed with the customer’s voice not only solves tactical issues, but it provides real, unfiltered insight into markets and customers. Such intelligence is highly transformative and strategic.
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Pave the Way for Success-Led Transformation
Digital transformation involves systems, procedures, and plans that substantially increase acompany’s efficiencies and effectiveness, protect/expand market share, and grow revenue. These same ingredients are important to customer success. It starts with an understanding of the role of customer success and what it could and should accomplish. It involves how customer success is structured, managed and resourced, and interacts with other groups. It requires a system of record that can not only capture customer data and activities but also encapsulate critical information and help distribute it and make it actionable.
Finally, the efficacy of a customer success program depends on the effectiveness of the customer success team. They must be able to actively listen to customer concerns, have discernment and analytical abilities, problem-solving skills, and must be able to practice empathy while engaging with customers. Digital transformation means everything to the health and future of a company. Make sure it extends to customer success to achieve what it is meant to accomplish.