I’ve been in this space formally for almost 10 years now. I say formally because I’ve been doing the work a lot longer, just under another name. I’ve been passionate about it all these years and still am but after that long, you’ve got to question things. I’ve written on the state of customer success twice before, in 2017 and 2018. This is not such a post since they were in depth pieces based on the annual Pulse events run by the category builder Gainsight. This is just a simple temperature check, for my own sanity if nothing else.
Continue reading “State of a category – customer success 2021”From this article over at Process Street which I just discovered. Very useful since I am doing so much work in this space at the moment and I am trending watching this and related topics here: Customer Success Marketing and Scale.
Customer Success Operations – an excellent roundup
Considering Microsoft Teams as a Platform – get started with App templates
In several foundational pieces I have written about Microsoft Teams as a Platform (disclosure). This post gets to some of the detail and focuses on a simple way to get started with use of App templates in Teams. This is a big focus of my work with customers at the moment and I give an overview of the App template library and then dive into two popular Apps.
Continue reading “Considering Microsoft Teams as a Platform – get started with App templates”
Customer Success and Marketing functions are increasingly interrelated and working together. With scale motions and operations it’s driving customer experiences to new heights. I’m not sure its a new trend but I’ve started watching it here: Customer Success Marketing and Scale
A trend watcher is an innovator that spots trends and determines if they are here to stay and whether they should be incorporated into existing strategy. I enjoy it, it keeps me on my innovation toes and I dabble. I’ve captured this view with a few trends I’m tracking and published reports on already: Trend Watching
Customer success operations – some answers
I was asked by Brook Perry from ’nuffsaid if I would be interested in contributing to an article she was working on with others to get feedback on a set of questions covering customer success operations. Being close to my heart I agreed. I’ll update this post with a link to the article once it publishes so you get the input from others, but here are my answers for now.
Continue reading “Customer success operations – some answers”How to measure value for customers
This is a worthy challenge I’ve grappled with before, just check out my posts under the metrics tag. The other day I got my hands on a recently published Forrester report with the same title as this post. I cannot share the report for obvious reasons but this is my review of the highlights of the report which does share some details.
Continue reading “How to measure value for customers”
I’ve taken a short break from work and as you do when you have time, I’ve been thinking. For one, about this site, it’s activities and it’s purpose. I thought I would try and capture it in this doodle (DanelDoodle actually), which is in itself a function of many aspects of this site and my activities. This is a good representation for now and this post contains all the categories I write about for that reason. A good baseline for future progression and supplement to my welcome post.
Another shift the pandemic has accelerated – enterprise sales
B2B selling was already changing before COVID-19. I’ve written before about how I think customer success practices with their emphasis on product usage is changing sales to be more data and impact driven and more receptive to the user, not just the purchasing unit. This change is not unique to enterprise software sales – think about how you purchase cars these days, I did and it involved very few sales people or even physically seeing the car. VC Andreessen Horowitz looks to startups for inspiration and new research from McKinsey provides data points.
Continue reading “Another shift the pandemic has accelerated – enterprise sales”Customer Success is not about tech or human touch but about the right touch
By touch I mean the way and frequency of times a customer is touched by representatives of a company, whether by technology (think BOTS, automations, etc.) or a human. I would also argue for less touch as there is a danger of bureaucracy creeping in to this fledgling profession, which comes on top of customer touchpoints that are already cumbersome.
Continue reading “Customer Success is not about tech or human touch but about the right touch”The supremacy of business outcomes in a low code no code world
You may know of the new low code / no code approach to developing technology solutions (good primer if not). Simply put, it offers a development platform to users that requires little to no coding capabilities to build applications. There are benefits to this but also challenges which is why its important to consider the adage, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. In this post, I consider the importance of business outcomes, choosing the right platform, governance and pitching your solution.
Continue reading “The supremacy of business outcomes in a low code no code world”
I had an interesting conversation on LinkedIn the other day. It was based on a retrospective view of the customer success profession which I had written about on the State of Customer Success in 2018 after attending a conference. I captured the essence of the conversation in a DanelDoodle and discuss briefly here.
Continue reading “Metrics that matter in Customer Success”