How Will They Know?
By Russell Bourne
There’s a lot of content in the Customer Success thought leadership space about how to do just about everything a CS professional might need to do. From how to grow your CS program, to how to increase product adoption, to how to make data-driven decisions or calculate the ROI of your solution. Whether you’re a CSM or a CS leader, there’s no shortage of great advice out there about how to do a great job.
Well, if you do a great job, how will your customers know?
The bottom line is, ask them. Listen to what they say; look for trends in their answers. You may get some outlier responses, but chances are, trends will emerge. In this article, we’ll examine some of the common trends you can expect, quick-hit style.
CUSTOMER END-USERS
If you’re a CSM, your customer end-users are probably the primary targets of your change management skills. From their point of view, their leadership dropped your solution into their laps with a directive to use it. If you ask them how they’ll know you did a good job, their answer will likely have to do with time - meaning, their use of your solution hinges on whether it’s less time-consuming for them than the previous way. Of course, that’s unlikely to happen in the near-term, so you could focus on setting expectations accordingly and on how an up-front time investment in enablement will pay off later.
FRONT-LINE AND MIDDLE LEADERSHIP
In terms of customer contacts, the leadership of the department who uses your product are probably your main stakeholders - true whether they’re a front-line leader or possibly a Director-level leader who doesn’t make final financial decisions. These folks are likely looking for ways to look good to their executive-level leader while also avoiding a munity from their individual contributors. In addition to offering a compelling ROI story, see if you can give them insights into their team’s usage of your solution, and raise early warning signs of risk by non- or mis-use.
EXECUTIVES
Executives care about high-context ideas such as the state of their industry, the company’s position, and market share. They’re also concerned about how accurate their business forecasting is. One of the best ways to gain and keep an executive’s trust is to help them forecast accurately, preferably impacted or enabled by your solution! They also tend to appreciate reputable articles relevant to what you do in their industry.
DISC
Whoever you’re communicating with, understanding how to cater to their DISC profile can make or break the effectiveness of your communications with them. If you aren’t familiar with DISC or how to diagnose others, there are plenty of great resources you can find through a simple web search. In terms of communicating results:
A “D” wants things done now. If you ask them how they’ll know you did a good job, they may shoot you a strange look and say “I don’t know, just do it”. A good way to cater to this is to oversimplify your delivery - think single words, color coded charts, and catchy taglines. Be warned, a D may choose to grill you on a randomly-chosen detail to test whether you can support your answers. But, if you pass the grilling with flying colors on the one detail, they’ll trust you on the rest.
An “I” wants to do things socially. Similar to a D, you may not get a clear answer on how they’ll see success, but it may come in the form of, “don’t worry about it, we’ll know!”. Consider delivering qualitative stories and anecdotes to show your value instead of data - just make sure the stories are representative of the data. You may also need to change the venue of your conversations. Use fewer structured meetings, and instead favor socially-geared events such as lunch-and-learns or customer advisory sessions.
“S” personalities crave consensus, so you want to show them multiple parties all agreed on the success of the program. You may need to show poll results, and offer more than one way of measuring an outcome. You also may need to let them go off and think about what you presented on their own before they agree with you, so don’t push them to accept the results within the same meeting you presented them.
The “C” personality wants things done right. They’ll ask you for data to prove whatever stance you take, and lots of it. Make sure your reporting is thorough and correct. It’s acceptable to give them data in spreadsheet format and like an S, they may want to take it and process it on their own before they agree with your summary.
Any combination is possible between DISC profiles and your contact roles. Combining the role and DISC profile of the person you’re sharing results with will give you a reliable answer on how to position your value. The bottom line remains the bottom line: ask them!
The Success League is a customer success consulting firm that offers both CSM and CS Leadership certification programs. Please visit TheSuccessLeague.io for more information on these and our other offerings.
Russell Bourne - Russell is a Customer Success Leader, Coach, Writer, and Consultant. In a Customer Success career spanning well over a decade, his human-first approaches to leadership and program management have consistently delivered overachievement on expansion sales and revenue goals, alongside much friendship and laughter. Russell serves on the Board of Gain Grow Retain as co-lead for Content Creation. He is passionate about equipping individual contributors and business leaders alike to lean on their Success practices to grow their careers and help their companies thrive. He holds a BA from UCLA, and in his free time plays guitar semi-professionally.
