Customer Lift-Off

Adam Joseph, Founder, CustomerSuccessManager.com

Getting your Customers off to a "Fast Start" is critical to your mutual long-term success

There is a psychological term known as the “seven-year itch”, it suggests that happiness in a relationship (at least for some people!) declines after seven years.  Unfortunately for those of us who work as vendors in the SAAS Customer Success world, we don’t get the luxury of seven years (or anything like it) to prove our worth.  In all likelihood, unless you are helping your customer get significant return on their value within the first six months, you are well on your way to a sizable credit or at worst, complete churn. 

Helping your customers realise early value in your relationship is critical to your mutual long-term benefit.  To succeed you need to have a clear strategy on how you are going to engage with customers during the critical “Launch” phase otherwise pretty much everything else you planned for (including the recurring revenue) will go out of the window.  To compound the misery further, any unhappy customer will most likely take every opportunity to steer others well clear of your business using both on and off-line channels.

The typical “Launch” period is traditionally defined from the point at which your customer signs their contract until they have reached a specifically defined milestone in using your solution.  However, I would argue that “Launch” starts with the first contact in pre-sales and ends with a successful renewal at the end of their (typically annual) subscription.  Even though as vendors we typically see the world through the “pre-sale” and “post-sale” lens, our customers do not.  They look at their relationship with their vendors holistically and will rightly expect that everything described and promised to them in pre-sales will be carried out in full by Customer Success teams.

In my experience, there are typically three critically important factors that decide whether a client continues to renew and grow or whether they diminish and leave.  The first two are financially-based; either customers can’t or won’t pay their bills.  On that basis, it is vital that you have effective credit control systems to help identify those that fall into these two categories.  The third factor is the one I want to focus on – those customers who do not see the value in what you are providing. 

​This is especially true in the Launch phase – there is no track record or history of success, the customer has made a significant investment and got nothing back in return yet and their minds are rushing to judgement – “have I made a great decision or shall I cut my losses and run?”.  With that harsh reality, here are my top hints to ensure that your customers not only succeed but thrive during the critical Launch phase:

• Pre-Sales Due Diligence:
  • No-one likes walking away from a potential deal (especially for Sales Executives who know that a hefty commission cheque is riding on the decision) however a bad deal is bad business for everyone.  The short-term glow of the bookings credit will quickly diminish as both customer and vendor realise that the solution is not a good fit.  Whilst it is sometimes necessary to take a “smart risk” during the pre-sales process with a less-than-perfect prospect, you should be prepared to walk away from a genuinely bad-fit deal.  It’s important to identify this early on during the pre-sales process however to save your Sales Team as much angst (and lost commission) as possible.
• Pre-Sales Expectation Setting:
  • Even if the prospect is an ideal fit for your solution, they will expect every commitment given by the Sales Team to be carried out by their Customer Success Manager.  It is imperative that every commitment given during the pre-sale process is accurate, appropriate, recorded and communicated.  Anything less than 100% transparency with both the customer and post-sale implementation teams (i.e. Customer Success) will cause considerable issues.
• Streamline your Launch Processes:
  • Helping your customer realise early value is vital. If it takes 6 months to launch your customer using your solution, then you only have (at most) 1-2 months before they will be making their decision whether to renew or leave.  Even if they do stay, they will be asking for vastly reduced terms at which point it might not even make economic sense from the vendor’s perspective.  With that perspective, it is vital that you focus every Launch activity on helping the customer achieve as many of their aims as possible and the sooner the better. 
• (Un)Drag your Customers Shoes:
  • Even with the most streamlined launch process in the world, there is always one factor that you can’t control which will have a major impact on whether it will succeed or fail – the Customer.  Even though the success of the Launch will be your paramount concern, it might be well down the list of priorities for your customer contact(s) – especially if they were “volunteered” to work with you by their boss when they already have extremely busy workloads.  Always attempt to take as much of the resource burden as you can and only involve the customer where it is necessary.  In your communications, you should ask assumptively positive questions on key tasks, rather than wait for permission (i.e. “we will be moving ahead with user training on 5th May unless you let me know otherwise?” rather than “can we arrange user training for 5th May?”).
• Agree the Launch Goals:
  • Launch should have its own set of goals and deliverables.  Although there will be several internal milestones to be achieved (e.g. set up on internal systems, account being set up, User IDs distributed, training, on-site visit, etc) it’s vital to understand what a successful launch looks like from the customers’ perspective.  As with any customer goals, it is vital that you collect as much detail as possible so that you can accurately measure success rather then something generic which is highly subjective.  Ensure that these goals are recorded so that you can continually monitor and track your progress and report back to the customer at regular intervals until the launch has been completed.

• Monitor Customer Health and React Quickly:
  • As stated above, continually monitoring your progress during the launch phase is vital in ensuring that all project resources are moving in the right direction to get to the final positive outcome.  However, if any issue occurs that impedes your progress you need to act quickly, inform the relevant stakeholders and clearly communicate what needs to happen to move to the next stage.  Apathy is your enemy and should be avoided at all costs otherwise the energy of the launch will dissipate and your existing resources placed elsewhere.
• Publicise your “Quick Wins”:
  • A great way of getting wide-spread adoption of your solution during the Launch phase is to publicise the benefits that has already been achieved.  This should always be couched in ways that are going to pique as much interest as possible by your audience (i.e. “Our top Sales Rep just closed a £50k deal which was sourced using…”) and be a call to action to get others to follow the same path.  What makes this even more powerful is to have the communication be sent by a senior customer contact rather than by an external source. 
• Marketing Programme for New Customers:
  • Once a customer has been “launched”, it is vital that all the good work does not end there.  Work with your Marketing team to develop a special communication programme for your first-year customers out of launch.  Much of this should be focussed on helping the customer get value from using your solutions (e.g. highlight key functionality and associated benefits, success stories, “how-to” videos, etc).  Depending on the level of resources that you have available, it would be even better if you had different “tracks” that customers would be put on dependant on their interactions with your solutions (e.g. those with low or high solution adoption). 

 
There is an undeniable link between providing a great Launch experience and the probability of long-term customer success.  By focussing your resources appropriately on the critical Launch phase will help ensure a great relationship from the start, pay enormous dividends in the future and help avoid the seven-year (or even month) itch!