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Aligning OKRs to the Customer Lifecycle - Success (5 of 6)
In this podcasts, we'll be discussing how to align expectations with customers, help them realize value being proactive and educating them.
Transcript
In this podcasts, we'll be discussing how to align
KJ:expectations with customers, help them realize value being
KJ:proactive and educating them. And.
KJ:All right, all right. I'll read
Stephen Newman:those energy levels up. Yep. You do your push
Stephen Newman:ups, jumping jacks. callisthenics. Yeah. Yeah. So
Stephen Newman:we've been talking about the customer lifecycle, customer
Stephen Newman:journey, why the the, the mapping of the experience of
Stephen Newman:customers and the journey they go on, and how visualizing
Stephen Newman:strategy based on those different phases can be a more
Stephen Newman:contextual way to align your business and execute strategy.
Stephen Newman:And so we started with customer awareness, getting people into
Stephen Newman:the department store to use our analogy, then we went into
Stephen Newman:engagement, how you treat people, when you are in the
Stephen Newman:store, then going into customer acquisition, that point of
Stephen Newman:purchase and what that experience looks like. And now
Stephen Newman:it's at the stage of customer success. Now, customer success
Stephen Newman:is of more formalized function within business. There's
Stephen Newman:dedicated teams as to CS, we've, we know of a lot of people in
Stephen Newman:CS, I've never had a CS job, neither of you, but you've
Stephen Newman:worked with a lot of customers. But in my mind, from sort of the
Stephen Newman:outside looking in, it's making customers happy and successful
Stephen Newman:using your products. And it's not just, Hey, thanks for the
Stephen Newman:check. Good luck to you. There is an actual strategy behind
Stephen Newman:getting customers successful. And OKRs are critical to that
Stephen Newman:because you can measure sentiment and feedback and
Stephen Newman:satisfaction and retention and all that fun stuff. And these
Stephen Newman:are really critical metrics, especially within b2b SaaS, if
Stephen Newman:you don't have a happy, renewing customer base, you don't have
Stephen Newman:much of anything. So bringing this to the forefront for CES is
Stephen Newman:important. So that's a long winded way of saying, when it
Stephen Newman:comes to customer success, after the point of sale, what are some
Stephen Newman:of the most important things to look out for? What are some of
Stephen Newman:the things to avoid? What are the things that you can do?
Stephen Newman:Right? What are the things that happened internally that caused
Stephen Newman:problems, I'm just really thrown out of really big catch all
Stephen Newman:questions, so that you can grab one of these pieces of it and
Stephen Newman:run with it. But that's kind of my perspective of the this
Stephen Newman:particular stage of the customer experience. And we'd love to
Stephen Newman:hear yours. Yeah.
KJ:Well, you've summarized that, actually quite well,
KJ:there. This stage has become very popular as a discussion
KJ:point, because it's the most important stage for value
KJ:realization. And that's what people are arguing and b2b SaaS
KJ:nowadays is that this is actually more critical than any
KJ:other phase, because this is the phase where people realize the
KJ:value of your product. And so if they don't realize the value of
KJ:your product, you lose them. As simple as that. That's it. So
KJ:customers came to you for a reason to buy. You got them
KJ:aware of that reason, you engage them, you acquired them by
KJ:probably highlighting that they have this discomfort and that
KJ:they should buy your solution to solve this discomfort. And now
KJ:is the moment when they need to realize that they bought this
KJ:product and service so that it would sell the problem. Now is
KJ:the point where you solve the problem. And they go, Aha, well,
KJ:fantastic. Whatever you're gonna be want to call Eureka. This
KJ:this is the moment. This is the stage where it
Stephen Newman:happens. Big, big missed opportunity there.
Stephen Newman:It's not say brilliant, brilliant, you're again this
Stephen Newman:guy.
KJ:Yeah. Brilliant, brilliant pints.
Stephen Newman:Already draw the line. So where do you draw the
Stephen Newman:line between making customers happy and successful and solving
Stephen Newman:their problems and in mitigating that discomfort, reducing it and
Stephen Newman:getting a customer that dumps all of their problems on you, in
Stephen Newman:expects you to solve them? How do you tell them? Hey, sorry,
Stephen Newman:Mr. Customer, I'm not here. I'm not your therapist. You need to
Stephen Newman:go solve that problem with some Buy yachts.
KJ:Great question. That's the number one problem in this stage
KJ:of the customer lifecycle, misaligned expectations,
KJ:unequivocally happens. It's happened to you listener, it has
KJ:happened to you, I guarantee you throughout your career it has
KJ:happened where the, there has been a moment where things were
KJ:misaligned between both parties, you and your, your counterpart.
KJ:So, yeah, well, I just like to maybe take a quick step back and
KJ:say that there's two teams that drive that are the force that
KJ:drives customer success, the first team is onboarding. And
KJ:the second team are the actual success team. So, or the support
KJ:team, maybe you call them, and maybe those teams aren't divided
KJ:out, maybe some companies just have one individual that do
KJ:both. But there are two, let's call them two separate
KJ:responsibilities, onboarding, and customer support,
KJ:onboarding, their primary, their primary responsibility, and
KJ:priority is to get the customer to realize value as quickly as
KJ:possible. The support person is primary focus is to actually
KJ:ensure the long term success of the customer to the point of
KJ:renewal. So they're, they're operating the same, you know,
KJ:vicinity, but two very distinct responsibilities. And that's why
KJ:people get specialized in one area or the other. Because
KJ:they're both very important, that onboarding person has to
KJ:get some realisation of value for the customer. And that
KJ:person is typically coming back to what you said, the person
KJ:that deals with the moment the contract is signed, the
KJ:customers acquired. It's onboarding. And that's when
KJ:expectations need to be aligned, needs to be set. And people
KJ:often do this with a project plan or project management
KJ:system. They sit down, they have a, quote, kickoff call, and they
KJ:say, great, you're a customer, congratulations, we can't wait
KJ:to partner with you. Let's set expectations, we're not going to
KJ:be therapists, we're not going to do this, we're not going to
KJ:do that we're going to do this. This is our responsibility. This
KJ:is yours. You have things like RACI tables, you know, describes
KJ:who's accountable for what who's contributing tool. So that's
KJ:really a critical point of this entire journey of what the
KJ:problem is, it gets misaligned. Okay. Why does it get
KJ:misaligned? Because people feel as if it's this transitional,
KJ:you're running a relay race, and the sales guy hands the baton to
KJ:the next guy, and then they run off with us. And sometimes they
KJ:drop us. Well, yeah, let's scrap that analogy. It should be it
KJ:should not be transitional, but the way you can improve your
KJ:business is by mitigating that, that gap of transition. Any
KJ:breath.
Stephen Newman:I mean, that was an impressive, impressive run,
Stephen Newman:he just seems like he just ran your relay race, and you just
Stephen Newman:transition the baton to me, and now it's my turn to run. So I'll
Stephen Newman:do my best. It sounds like and I would agree with you. It's often
Stephen Newman:once customers have seen this so much in my career, that the it's
Stephen Newman:almost like when the customer is acquired, the job is done.
Stephen Newman:That's kind of the sense. And and then once from there, it's
Stephen Newman:what's the bare minimum that we can do to keep these people
Stephen Newman:around and not pissed off. And to create an environment where
Stephen Newman:that's not the case, it's got to be a holistic environment where
Stephen Newman:the customer is at the center, and the there's all these
Stephen Newman:different parts that are supporting the customer. So I
Stephen Newman:think customers support I think the help desk like hey, my
Stephen Newman:things broke, and who would I call, right? And that's a
Stephen Newman:function of it. Onboarding is a function. But the long term
Stephen Newman:success is driven from the holistic experience from that.
Stephen Newman:And if you have somebody that's really dedicated towards your
Stephen Newman:success, then you can get a lot more value out of the product. I
Stephen Newman:mean, we have a lot of SaaS products that we use internally.
Stephen Newman:And I've purchased a lot of SaaS products. And there's, it's
Stephen Newman:happened a few times where I don't hear anything from anybody
Stephen Newman:until about a month out from renewal. And that's a great
Stephen Newman:disservice as a customer because there's probably a lot of things
Stephen Newman:that I'm not aware of that I can be doing with your products that
Stephen Newman:I'm not taking advantage of, there's relationships that can
Stephen Newman:be built that I'm not building, I was a customer of one product,
Stephen Newman:and I won't mention who it is, but I had like six different
Stephen Newman:account managers within a year. Like, like that was the
Stephen Newman:communication was, hey, just got a new account manager. And it
Stephen Newman:was a, it was a really bizarre experience. What you're
Stephen Newman:describing, though, is it's not a linear journey. It is a it is
Stephen Newman:it needs to be focused on the customer, it needs to be focused
Stephen Newman:on value creation, sustainable value creation, and oftentimes,
Stephen Newman:and SaaS that is secondary to just acquiring the customer.
Stephen Newman:When in fact, the reason why SAS business models are so popular,
Stephen Newman:it's all on the premise of the recurring subscription. Yeah, if
Stephen Newman:you don't have the recurring subscription, you just have a
Stephen Newman:cash generator, right? You have a service,
KJ:basically. So Well, that's exactly it, the people
KJ:prioritize, well, we need to grow. Therefore, we need to make
KJ:more sales, therefore focus on just getting the sale. But no
KJ:deal is better than a bad deal. And you're going to you, you
KJ:ignore that at your peril. Because you'll sign up customers
KJ:huge rate, and lose them at a huge rate. For that exact what
KJ:you just said, You're not not thinking about providing them
KJ:value. And that's why it's become so popular for other
KJ:podcasters and people in SAS to talk about customer renew, and
KJ:customer onboarding and customer experience, all this sort of
KJ:stuff, because that's what the renewals you know, have a
KJ:business model that you can, you can sustain. But you've hit on a
KJ:really good point with the renewals, because that was the
KJ:second biggest problem I thought about at this stage of the
KJ:customer lifecycle is what an ignorant signal to send from
KJ:your, from your company to another to say, we haven't
KJ:spoken to you and since you bought this thing, but hey, we
KJ:need you to upsell, we need you, we need you to pay us more
KJ:money. How ignorant is that? We wouldn't do that to a friend or
KJ:you know your partner. I mean, it's it's ridiculous. So yeah, I
KJ:mean, what people need to realize is that without the
KJ:customer realizing their return on investment, only then may you
KJ:discuss a upsell or renewal. I haven't realized any value from
KJ:your product yet. How dare you? How dare you go and ask them for
KJ:more?
Stephen Newman:Right? You haven't paid the relationship
Stephen Newman:rent, relational rent, right? You haven't made it a boss?
Stephen Newman:Yeah. So it's like we were talking about before you get to
Stephen Newman:the two columns you have? Did they? Did they add value to the
Stephen Newman:point of the price of purchase? If if the value exceeds the
Stephen Newman:price point, you'll you'll get a customer? If the same thing when
Stephen Newman:you go to renew that customer and we'll get into loyalty and
Stephen Newman:how to do you know, retention and all that we'll do that
Stephen Newman:tomorrow on the next step. So but the same thing here, it's
Stephen Newman:like if you have a if you have a one month, not every company,
Stephen Newman:every SAS company does annual recurring, sometimes it's
Stephen Newman:monthly recurring. Sometimes it's self service, right. But
Stephen Newman:you will you do an equation in your head very quickly. Did the
Stephen Newman:value I get within the timeframe in which I signed up for exceed
Stephen Newman:the price that I'm paying? And if the answer is yes, you stay
Stephen Newman:on board as a customer? If the answer is no, you readjust your
Stephen Newman:subscription, you downsize or you just you just churn. And if
Stephen Newman:you're doing a long term annual recurring revenue, obviously,
Stephen Newman:there's a lot more money paid up front, there, there needs to be
Stephen Newman:a sustainable consistent exchange of value, not even
Stephen Newman:really in exchange for you have to provide value, not only with
Stephen Newman:your product, but also with your services. So that when you have
Stephen Newman:the you know, the renewal comes around, somebody is doing the
Stephen Newman:math and saying, well, either like this is really working out
Stephen Newman:well for us. And let's remove it's a no brainer. Just give me
Stephen Newman:the contract or a yes, we sign up for a bag of shit here. And
Stephen Newman:we need to restructure this. I've seen it happen a lot. I
Stephen Newman:think the main thing to take away though, is it's always that
Stephen Newman:that equation happens very quickly. And yes, it's based on
Stephen Newman:a feeling it's based on. That's not it can't be ROI. But that's
Stephen Newman:I mean, who really knows the ROI of anything these days, right
Stephen Newman:Really, it's more, it's more based on the relationship and
Stephen Newman:just that the feeling of value. And because I mean, we have a,
Stephen Newman:as an example, we pay a monthly subscription to deliver
Stephen Newman:contracts, and we pay a little bit of money right now. It's not
Stephen Newman:a lot of money. But even though it's not a lot of money, we
Stephen Newman:still, after one cycle said, Hey, we can cut this in half and
Stephen Newman:save a few bucks. Because it just the value is not there.
Stephen Newman:We're using it like, you know, a handful of times a month. But
Stephen Newman:anyway, that's, that's the value equation when it comes to this.
KJ:Yeah, totally. But you've done it nicely, where you've
KJ:shared the value equation and how it relates to the
KJ:relationship and the relationship, we could talk
KJ:about that as well. We talked about this throughout the
KJ:entire, so one of those ubiquitous topics that flow
KJ:through the customer lifecycle, well, the customer life cycles,
KJ:the hint is in the title, it's about the customer, which is
KJ:about people and people are about building relationships,
KJ:and in a relationship. You know, this is the moment where people
KJ:are excited to finally tie the knot, use a wedding analogy,
KJ:they've decided to marry you, you know, they've decided to
KJ:partner with you, at least for a year. You know, and they, they
KJ:want to realize value, and you need to, you know, start this,
KJ:this is the first step in building a relationship with
KJ:someone. And in the first step, you need to keep your promises,
KJ:you need to get aligned on what, how it's the relationship is
KJ:going to operate. Like the valves, like the virus, very
KJ:much like the virus,
Stephen Newman:unfortunately. Well, I would say fortunately,
Stephen Newman:SAS companies have a better chance of renewal than weddings.
Stephen Newman:Because you know, 5050, everyone, or every marriage 5050
Stephen Newman:is going to
KJ:rise. Yeah, terrible statistic in the States. Yeah.
KJ:But, but yeah, I mean, it's probably the ideal analogy, but
KJ:it works, you know, its relationship. And so this needs
KJ:to be a primary focus, I'm OKR is can help but because OKR is
KJ:give the shared language, that Anna gives this, the structure
KJ:that you need with a partner, like a new customer, you need to
KJ:have a clear objective with the partner, well, okay, ours, first
KJ:thing you do is set an objective, and make it
KJ:inspirational, you know, make it something that you jointly would
KJ:like to get, you know, you know, you'd like, you would like to
KJ:have a customer that pays you lots of money in an incredible
KJ:incremental amount of money every year. And the customer
KJ:wants to have a partner provider that cares about them, and that
KJ:provides them value. So maybe that's a great objective to
KJ:start with. And then go into your key results, you know, it
KJ:gives that framework for this phase. And it's very important.
Stephen Newman:Yeah, and I think that I was going to
Stephen Newman:transition into some OKR talk, but you did it nicely, and beat
Stephen Newman:me to it. And I think the value here though, with OKRs, as it
Stephen Newman:relates to customer success is, as a marketer, I can tell you
Stephen Newman:that the vast majority of my time is spent on customer
Stephen Newman:acquisition, just broadcasting a big message, getting word out
Stephen Newman:there, build new channels, bringing in qualified leads,
Stephen Newman:building pipeline, working with sales, to get all these
Stephen Newman:customers across the finish line. And it's happened a lot in
Stephen Newman:my career to where it's an effort once they've gotten
Stephen Newman:across the finish line, it's on to the next one, right. And it's
Stephen Newman:almost counterintuitive to say you should split your time
Stephen Newman:because you might be missing out on things on the top of the
Stephen Newman:funnel, but you can get a lot more value, talking to
Stephen Newman:customers, getting quotes, getting case studies, having a
Stephen Newman:consistent production of those materials out to the market, you
Stephen Newman:can get a lot of value out of that. And it's often de
Stephen Newman:prioritized. And I think it's a big missed opportunity. So when
Stephen Newman:you're creating OKRs and you can Your Head of Customer Success is
Stephen Newman:saying, Hey, I got this problem with churn for example. Well,
Stephen Newman:that's more of a product question or product statement
Stephen Newman:like well, okay, we've got a problem. We have a problem
Stephen Newman:problem with churn. Why? Well, the technology is lacking. Okay,
Stephen Newman:well, instead of, let's shift a roadmap, right, to solve that
Stephen Newman:problem, or we have, we have all these unbelievably happy
Stephen Newman:customers. And marketing's not even doing anything about it.
Stephen Newman:Why can't we create a coalition or advisory group that's all
Stephen Newman:about happy customers to build our long term value? Like, these
Stephen Newman:are often like, secondary? Not even thoughts
KJ:really are. Totally, yeah, maybe you've hit on the third
KJ:problem, which is a lack of proactive engagement. You know,
KJ:from all departments, all teams throughout the company, you
KJ:know, there should be a, they're all reactive to Oh, shit, we're
KJ:gonna pull out a fire at this customer, because they didn't,
KJ:you know, they didn't get their feature on time or something,
KJ:whether what you're saying is, take a proactive approach,
KJ:let's, let's proactively talk about the customer in this
KJ:particular vertical. And let's incorporate a cross departmental
KJ:collaboration with people from marketing people from
KJ:engineering people who can have other ideas and how to solve it,
KJ:and, and use OKRs to them formulate something a plan of
KJ:action.
Stephen Newman:Yeah, I mean, it's, it's the siloed nature in
Stephen Newman:which companies operate, it's, it becomes a big finger pointing
Stephen Newman:game, where it's like, well, that's not my problem, it's your
Stephen Newman:problem. Whereas if everybody's kind of looking at everything
Stephen Newman:through the lens of the customer, and making sure that
Stephen Newman:they're happy. And yeah, there's a lot of interesting ways. I
Stephen Newman:mean, if I could fast forward a few years, and we've got tons
Stephen Newman:and tons of customers, we do lead scoring and marketing,
Stephen Newman:where we look at all your activities and how you've
Stephen Newman:engaged with content. And we can give you a score based on your
Stephen Newman:segmentation. And we can see which leads are the top of the
Stephen Newman:list. And based on all these sorts of scoring algorithms, I'm
Stephen Newman:sure it exists with customers as well, I haven't really seen it
Stephen Newman:that much. But I would love to know, based on some sort of
Stephen Newman:rubric, how we can score and understand whether a customer is
Stephen Newman:happy way in advance of the subscription renewal. I mean,
Stephen Newman:that's the most important part. It's like, you're the point of
Stephen Newman:signature is the the epitome and the highest the highest point
Stephen Newman:you'll ever be. Most likely, it's usually downhill from
Stephen Newman:there. But you know, a lot of cases it's not, it can be a
Stephen Newman:better relationship that has long term value. But anyway,
Stephen Newman:it's about visibility and bringing that to the forefront
Stephen Newman:being proactive and not waiting till they say we're not going to
Stephen Newman:assign to try to solve problems, it's no different with
Stephen Newman:employees. Yeah, you got to be able to retain you have to
Stephen Newman:consistently engage your employees and correct by them
Stephen Newman:value. And so they because they the job market, now you can go
Stephen Newman:work pretty much wherever you want. And you don't want to try
Stephen Newman:to rectify a pissed off employee at the last second, the damage
Stephen Newman:is already done. So
KJ:you're right, you're right. And that's probably the last
KJ:thing you know, it's we talked big one is misaligned
KJ:expectations, now keeping promises, then asking for money
KJ:when you don't deserve it, and being reactive to these
KJ:customers. But maybe the last one is exactly that, you know,
KJ:the point of this site, or this stage in the cycle is to realize
KJ:value. And the only way you're gonna get there is through
KJ:education, you know, you got to train an employee, you got to
KJ:train your customers, you got to really prioritize that.
KJ:Prioritize being proactive, and prioritize that in a proactive
KJ:way, educate the customer. You know, whatever they need to
KJ:learn about your products, whenever they need to learn
KJ:about the methodology behind your product, be proactive in
KJ:that it's the first thing we do, we say, Hey, you're not getting
KJ:into this product and clicking every single button without
KJ:knowing the OKR framework, knowing the pitfalls, no one,
KJ:you know how to operate them correctly, how to communicate
KJ:them correctly, you know, can't get in the car without, you
KJ:know, learning doing the written test. So yeah, training, lack of
KJ:training is another one in this phase of the cycle that gets
KJ:overlooked.
Stephen Newman:Oh, yeah, I mean, there's the training parts
Stephen Newman:huge. And I know like the next podcast we'll be talking about
Stephen Newman:customer loyalty and getting into all the different touch
Stephen Newman:points in how you can deliver value that all the different
Stephen Newman:touchpoints whether it's through your product or training or
Stephen Newman:services, but it's the car analogy is great because you can
Stephen Newman:do the written test. I don't know how you learned how to
Stephen Newman:drive but like my my old man took me out into the high school
Stephen Newman:parking lot. Like every weekend for like a year. for like a
Stephen Newman:year. I was I would drive all throughout the parking lot. I
Stephen Newman:thought I was gonna be like Dale Earnhardt when I got behind the
Stephen Newman:wheel. I don't know if you know who that is, but I don't
KJ:Yeah, as like a good driver
Stephen Newman:for this he passed away like 20 years ago,
Stephen Newman:but he was. He was a NASCAR driver. He was he was awesome.
Stephen Newman:But anyway, I but my dad took me every weekend and I learned how
Stephen Newman:to drive. I learned how to parallel park, I learned how to
Stephen Newman:your head on swivel, and I learned a lesson and knock on
Stephen Newman:wood. I've never been an indirect that was my fault. I've
Stephen Newman:been driving for 22 years, I've only been in two wrecks, or
Stephen Newman:somebody smashed me but I was very, very well trained. So when
Stephen Newman:it came time for me to get out on the road, I knew what the
Stephen Newman:hell I was doing. Yeah, exactly. And living down here in Florida.
Stephen Newman:I wish everybody had taken that driving training the way I did
Stephen Newman:shitty drivers down here.
KJ:Send them an excellent, it's an investment and it's worth it.
KJ:You know, it's worth it. So yeah, definitely. I did learn
KJ:the same way my mom would take me in car parks and stuff. She
KJ:was the typical mom like hanging on to the side of the car like,
KJ:so it was going like 20 kilometers. Yeah. Yeah.
Stephen Newman:I was good. It's good stuff. I think to kind of
Stephen Newman:summarize it. Yeah, we see the value in there's obviously an
Stephen Newman:immense amount of value in customer success. We talked more
Stephen Newman:theory than OKRs and like ways to measure customer success,
Stephen Newman:like, you know, there's customer engagement or satisfaction,
Stephen Newman:there's different touchpoints there's onboarding
Stephen Newman:implementations at
KJ:the time, time to onboard trying to achieve the milestones
KJ:in the project. There's always time to value you know, number
KJ:customer interactions, you know, there's there's a ton of them
Stephen Newman:support tickets time to resolve sort of support
Stephen Newman:ticket always measurements, let's Yeah, and there's the
Stephen Newman:combination of volume, quality and in health in the health one,
Stephen Newman:it's more important. It's the most important when it comes to
Stephen Newman:this stuff. It's like, you got to have a healthy happy
Stephen Newman:customer. And yeah, and there's a lot of ways to do that. And
Stephen Newman:there's a lot of key results and objectives that can be created
Stephen Newman:to really deliver an exceptional customer experience. So it's
Stephen Newman:been a good topic. For the next podcast, we'll be talking a lot
Stephen Newman:about the customer loyalty phase and how to create the advocate
Stephen Newman:for your brand and for your products and, and what that can