Customer Success Strategies for Product Integration

🔷 Collaborative Success: Customer Success & Product Management 🔷 The synergy between Customer Success (CS) and Product Management (PM) teams is an overlooked driver of success in SaaS companies. Let's explore this with real-world examples. 🔶 Voice of the Customer (VoC): Example: Salesforce has a robust customer feedback system. Their CS team gathers detailed customer insights and relays them to the PM team. The effectiveness of this system is evident in several Salesforce product enhancements. For instance, introducing new AI-driven features in SF's Einstein platform was driven by customer feedback highlighting the need for more intelligent and automated CRM tools. 🔶 Product Adoption and Usage: Example: Slack uses data from its CS team to understand how customers use their product. This information has helped Slack's PM team develop intuitive user interfaces and integrate popular third-party apps, making Slack more user-friendly and increasing adoption rates. 🔶 Cross-Functional Strategic Alignment: Example: HubSpot ensures alignment between its CS and PM teams. This collaboration has led to a more cohesive product strategy, where customer feedback directly influences product updates and new features. Both teams work under shared objectives and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). 🔶 Market Intelligence: Example: Asana leverages its CS team's insights into how customers compare their products with competitors. These insights have guided Asana's PM team to introduce differentiated features like workflow automation. 🔶 Enhanced Communication and Feedback Loop: Example: Atlassian maintains a continuous feedback loop between its CS and PM teams. This open communication has led to rapid iterations and improvements in their products, keeping them aligned with customer needs. Beyond internal communication, Atlassian actively encourages customer feedback through multiple channels like support forums, social media, and direct customer surveys. 🔶 Proactive Problem-Solving: Example: Dropbox exemplifies proactive problem-solving. Dropbox organizes regular workshops where CS and PM teams collaboratively brainstorm potential issues and preemptive solutions. These sessions foster a proactive mindset and ensure that both teams are aligned in their approach to problem-solving. 🔶 Customer-Centric Roadmaps: Example: Adobe's CS and PM teams work together to gather and analyze customer feedback. This collaboration involves synthesizing data from support tickets, user forums, social media, and direct surveys to understand customer needs comprehensively. The powerful collaboration between CS and PM teams in these leading SaaS companies underlines the importance of a united approach. It's not just about developing a product; it's about creating an experience that resonates with and retains customers, fosters innovation and customer satisfaction, and drives sustainable growth. #CustomerSuccess #ProductManagement

Working with customers we don't often talk enough about the Change Management Risk. You see, your customer isn't going to wake up one day and think "I'm going to use more of that product today" A customer is trying to solve a problem and move (quickly). So they will go to the path of least effort (or least resistance). So, we have to go introduce "change" to the customer. We have long wondered what Customer Success roles really should be focused on....the debate is revenue, product, renewals, etc. It's not those things... it's this: Helping the customer institute change management. ① Help the customer update processes to include your product ② Help the customer update the right people across teams about your product ③ Help the customer integrate your product into their tech stack Those three pillars are the most critical path to securing your next renewal. And the best part: You ARE an expert at change management around your product. You have this knowledge and expertise to share. But instead, we have our CSM focus on driving "feature adoption" or "a renewal save" thinking that ducktape can fill a titanic-sized hole. As a customer success leader, you have to help your teams reduce the amount of change management risk that exists on your customer's plates. Reduce their risk. Reduce their effort. Focus on those two things. --- #customersuccess #saas

"What's broken is customer expectations in terms of integrations, and how we integrate into different platforms. Netsuite or Quickbooks could have the worst API, but the customer doesn't see that. That's our fault. So what I think is broken for us, is that we're handling other companies' problems, and we are basically operating in a CX world for these bigger companies that have a lot of brand. That's broken. Start-ups are having challenges because we are handling the CX for these massive, Goliath companies." This was a mic-drop moment from AJ Bruno on the episode 46 of Topline podcast which accurately captures the inherent challenges in delivering CS and CX when you have a heavy dependence upon 3rd party integrations. Setting proper expectations with customers is critical, but also challenging to do while not creating concern about your own products' effectiveness when the integrator may have issues. This is an under-discussed aspect which feeds the perception challenges that exist in Customer Success these days. Integration support is a meaningful contributor to customer complaints and often a steady producer of reactive work for your CS teams. Don't underestimate this in your planning because it is dynamic. In a year that is expecting a lot of M&A... your integrations could change quickly. If your company is heavily dependent upon key 3rd party integrations to deliver full product value, this needs to be deliberately planned for and built within the product design & technical support approach, or your CS teams will quickly get overwhelmed.