Digital Journey Does Not Mean Automatic Journey
By Michael Su
In the last few months I’ve had an uptick of CS leaders asking me for advice around their Customer Journey Maps. We discuss why they need it and how it’s important to have a well thought out plan to deliver the best experience to all of the various types of customers they have. We talk about how each of their customer segments should warrant a unique journey of its own. (Otherwise, why even segment??)
I see a high touch journey for a company’s enterprise customers who require the most attention and have the highest spend as a customer. We give them the “white glove” service and do everything we can to ensure they adopt our product and realize all the value they signed up for. This usually includes regular weekly meetings, customized training and onboarding, executive business reviews, onsite visits, and all the attention they deserve from support. This makes sense as they are the customers who have the highest spend with the company and perhaps have the highest growth potential. The cost for delivering this high touch journey is justified.
Then there’s a scaled back version of this high touch journey for a Commercial or Mid Market segment. We remove the white gloves and give them an adequate journey and experience. We might have monthly meetings instead of weekly. Zoom is the way to go, and maybe we’ll meet up in person at a conference or if the CSM happens to be in their area. These customers will follow a standard training and onboarding process.
Throughout my conversations with these CS leaders, the focus is on their Enterprise and Mid Market customers. This is the majority of their customer base. It’s also where most of their revenue comes from. They are also the customers with a seemingly larger impact if they churn; revenue and brand wise. As they start to wrap up their final thoughts, I like to remind them that they have an entire group of customers they haven’t covered yet. Yes, the lowest tiered customers that are often an afterthought when it comes to strategic planning.
And so we talk about a journey for their customers with the lowest contract values and smallest churn impact. There are a lot of them. With high volume, this segment yields a sizable chunk of the company’s revenue. We all know they’re important customers, however it doesn’t make financial sense to deliver many touch points as they will no longer be profitable. A high touch approach probably doesn’t provide the right experience to these customers either. It’s also hard to justify dedicated CSMs to this group. We need a low touch or Digital customer journey to deliver a comparable experience to these customers.
The common misconception is that we can create one-to-many touch points like sending out monthly newsletters or providing a self service knowledge base. The idea is you can build out all these fantastic digital processes and then walk away and have the customers magically adopt your product and renew on their own. I hate to burst your bubble, but it doesn’t work that way. Yes, we’ll build out one-to-many touch points. And they’ll work great! Customers may be able to self-serve and do many things on their own including buying your product, onboarding themselves, and even finding answers to their support questions. However, there is a lot of behind the scenes work involved. Someone has to build all this out. Someone needs to measure and track telemetry data and define automated trigger points. And keep in mind that everything we’re talking about can and will change over time. Articles need to be refreshed. Newsletters need to be written. Etc… etc… A Digital journey is not an automatic journey. It’s a full-on journey with some carefully curated automated processes. Instead of assigning a CSM to own 200+ customers in your Digital segment, consider a Program Manager with a marketing or data analytics background. Although not directly customer facing, this role is heavily involved in the customer journey and responsible for the customer’s adoption, growth, renewal, and overall outcome.
When designing and building out a Digital customer journey, here are some tips and tricks I’ve collected throughout the years.
Focus on what you want to deliver to your customers first. Then decide which touch points can be automated. It’s easy to lose sight of what’s important when you jump straight to a digital or automated mindset.
Include automated touch points based on triggers dependent on customer behavior. For example, an automated email can be sent to a customer if their usage drops below a defined threshold.
I am a big fan of newsletters, but make sure they are short and informative. I like to include sections for upcoming features as well as older features customers might not be aware of.
Newsletters are also a great vehicle to circulate past knowledge base articles. Check with your support team to find the most common issues in the past month. Chances are your customers will benefit from them. This can also reduce the number of support tickets, so they’ll love you for that.
Ask me Anything (AMA) events are popular for good reason. It’s a great way for you to connect with your customers at a strategic level and offer some great networking opportunities to create a buzz for your company.
Consider a separate technical track AMA where customers can talk with someone live about technical issues and learn from each other.
This list can go on forever, and I would love to hear your ideas. Join the group discussions in our “Mapping Digital Journeys” class.
See you in class!!
Looking for advice around Customer Journey Maps? Check out our Mapping Digital Journeys class, which can be taken on it’s own, or as a part of our Structuring Your CS Program certification series. The Success League is a global customer success consulting and training firm. TheSuccessLeague.io
Michael Su - Michael is a Customer Success innovator with over 15 years of working experience. While leading the team, he has designed, built, and successfully implemented Customer Success departments at various companies spanning from early stage tech start ups to publicly traded enterprises. He is passionate about improving processes and streamlining workflows. As a leader he loves working with people to help nurture and grow their professional careers. When Michael is not helping companies fight churn, he enjoys spending time with his wife, 3 kids, 2 turtles, and 1 dog.