2023 Pavilion 50 CCOs to watch, Top 100 CS Strategist| I fix broken Customer Success and Implementation teams
Are your clients experiencing delays in the onboarding process? Are you finding yourself requesting renewals from customers who have only used your software for a month or two? To avoid these situations, it is crucial to take the following steps: 1- Engage your post-sales team to proactively identify and address any potential issues that may arise during the onboarding process. By carefully scoping out the implementation journey, you can prevent any roadblocks that could hinder customer success. 2- Ensure consistent and standardized implementation practices for all customers. Consistency is key in demonstrating that you are a robust product and not just a generic white-label solution. By following a standardized approach, you can streamline the onboarding process and deliver a seamless experience to every client. 3- Consider implementing implementation fees to cover the costs and resources dedicated to setting up each customer. This not only ensures that you are compensated for the efforts put into onboarding but also adds value to the service provided. 4- Establish a clear and defined timeline for implementation. By setting specific durations for onboarding, you can manage customer expectations and ensure a timely and efficient transition to using your software. By implementing these strategies, you will undoubtedly notice a significant improvement in customer satisfaction and retention rates. Taking a proactive approach to onboarding and implementation can make a world of difference in how your clients perceive and engage with your software solution.
Martin Roxby
1w
All good guidance, Jeff Kushmerek. There are a number of activities that vendors need to be clear on: onboarding, implementation, and adoption. The vendor needs to understand the difference between all three of these and how they specifically address each. If you want to check whether the customer is a churn risk, you just need to confirm that the problem they were looking to address with your product is solved. If it's solved after onboarding, that's great...but rare. As a vendor you don't want to assume that because you completed a predefined step in a runbook, that the customer has all they need. Standardisation, as you say, is necessary if you want to deliver consistent and predictable engagements. Without this maturity, everything will be bespoke and hard to manage customer expectations. However, your standard approaches have to match the needs of your customers, not just internal desires for increased efficiencies.
I'm a strong believer that there should be at least a nominal cost to using implementation resources. Not charging anything seems to be a great way to signal to the customer that your implementation team doesn't bring any value to them.
Nick Goss
1w
In my experience, a crucial point is also the billing timeline versus onboarding timeline. Finance obviously want to bill as soon as possible, but sometimes this can be before the customer is onboarded and getting value from the service. This leaves a very bad taste in the mouths of customers and sets the relationship off to a bad start.
Operational Excellence in SaaS, EdTech, K-12, Nonprofit | RevOps & Customer Success Innovator | GTM & Growth Strategist | Advocate for Equitable Learning
1wExcellent strategies Jeff Kushmerek. I agree with all your points. Have had experience with success at adding implementation fees. Customers do not seem surprised such a fee exists and it was far easier to implement than I'd originally anticipated. I'd love to know how people are structuring these fees, however. Are you using a standard fee for all customers, is it based on contract value, is it a 1-time fee or annual?