Planning for 2025: Technology & Training
By Kristen Hayer
Realistically, the biggest piece of your budget as a CS leader will be the cost of your team. However, two other large pieces to consider are technology & training. Technology to provide your team with the tools they need and to support any digital CS efforts. Training to ensure that your team can operate as top performers inside of your organization. In the past 2 blogs in this series I’ve covered how to plan for your staff and figure out compensation plans, so if you still need to do that, please go back and look at those posts. If you’re all set on your headcount plan, here are some ideas for planning for technology and training.
Tips for Technology
1. Understand Your Business Case
First, make sure you know exactly how much the technology will cost. Get a quote (or better yet, quotes from a few vendors) before you budget. Make sure you consider the cost to implement it and administer it in your budget. Then, think about how the technology will benefit your company. Is it going to reduce costs in some way (think: save time, eliminate other tech needs, automate processes)? Is it going to drive more revenue in some way (think: improve retention rates, drive expansion)? Be sure to quantify the annual cost savings and increased revenue.
2. Make Sure You Don’t Already Have It
Before you go to the trouble of (and invest your political capital in) asking for new technology, ask yourself: Is there anything else we already have that we could use instead? Could you leverage your CRM system to build a scrappy health score instead of buying a whole new CS platform? Could you create your initial digital CS program using marketing tools like an email marketing system? Take the time to find out what other teams are using before you go to bat for a whole new system. Adding licenses is generally a lot less expensive than buying something new.
3. Pitch It to Finance the Right Way
If you do decide to budget for something new, make sure you make the pitch to finance compelling. Remember, every other team in the company is also asking for new technology every year. Funds are not unlimited, so it is critical that you demonstrate how your solution will support company objectives. Include the product cost as well as cost savings and new revenue expectations in your pitch. Also include soft benefits like risk reduction, support of the brand promise, and improvements to the customer experience. These can be the “icing on the cake” and make your pitch more compelling.
Tips for Training
1. Where Does Your Team Need It?
Consider the biggest training needs on your team today. If you have nothing formal in place, start by coming up with an onboarding program for new CS professionals you add to your team. If your team is already in place and stable, do they have the skills they need to perform at their peak? Do your customers get the training they need to learn and use your solution at both a basic and advanced level? Consider all these groups as you think about the training you’ll need for the coming year.
2. What Do You Need?
Once you’ve determined who needs training the most, think about what kind of training they need. Do your new team members need broad onboarding training? Do your existing team members need to boost their understanding of your product? Are there soft skills they need to build to be better at serving as trusted advisors? What kind of training would benefit your customers the most? Can you combine any of these needs to deliver training to different groups who need, essentially, the same thing?
3. Where You Can Get It & How Much Does It Cost?
When you’ve solved for the audiences and the training needs, you’ll need to figure out how best to deliver it. Some training may already exist in your company if you connect with HR. Often, they have ready training or access to tools like Udemy that you can leverage without adding much, if anything, to the budget. If training needs to come from inside of your company (think: product or process training) check to see if there is an existing learning management tool (LMS) you could use to deliver that to your team or customers. In this case, estimate the time it will take for internal resources to develop what you need. External training can be trickier to budget for. Find a few vendors with the type of training you’re looking for and ask for a proposal. Vendors should be very open about their pricing if you have an estimate of the number of people who will need training throughout the year.
Of course, even after putting in all of this work to plan your technology and training needs, you may run into some challenges. If you do, here’s what to do:
Your finance team is getting hit with requests from lots of other teams
Make sure your business case is solid. You must have the cost of what you’re asking for detailed out, along with a solid estimate of the cost savings and additional revenue the new technology will drive. That’s the bare minimum. It really helps if you have thought through and outlined the soft benefits of your solution as well. Can it reduce risk to the company?
Can it improve customer or employee satisfaction? Can it push the brand or mission of your company forward? The more you can tie it to your company’s business objectives, the more successful your request will be.
Your company doesn’t place a high value on training
You may need to draw the line for your finance team between education and performance.
If there are ways to leverage existing resources (think: Udemy, an LMS already being used) call those out. This will help to demonstrate that you’re trying to be cost efficient. If you tie the benefits of training to improving the customer experience, be sure to estimate what you think this will do to retention (in hard numbers). Retention is a company-level metric that is sure to get the attention of your finance team. Finally, if you need external training that could benefit multiple teams, team up with those leaders to make a joint proposal for training resources.
You don’t have internal resources for training
This loops back around to your headcount budget. Did you include enablement, training, or success operations team members in your budget? If so, are they sufficient to cover your team’s needs? Budgeting can be a bit of a circular process, so you may need to loop back to your staffing plan and include people who are tasked with training. Prepare for pushback from your finance team, and if you get it be sure to discuss the tradeoffs between team and customer performance, external training costs, and internal resources. Your finance team has a strong interest in making sure your team and your customers perform well.
Technology and training are the last pieces of your budget I’m planning to cover in this series but consider adding small things like team events, contests, and travel. If this is your first time budgeting, ask your HR or finance teams what other groups include. Good luck, and I hope you found this article helpful as you prep for 2025!
Need help with 2025 planning? The Success League is a boutique customer success consulting firm that also offers a Coaching Program. Our coaching team will give the expert, customized advice you need ensure your CS initiatives are on the path to success. Visit TheSuccessLeague.io for more.
Kristen Hayer - Kristen founded The Success League in 2015 and currently serves as the company's CEO. Over the past 25 years Kristen has been a success, sales, and marketing executive, primarily working with scaling tech companies, and leading several award-winning customer success teams. She has written over 100 articles on customer success, and is the host of 3 podcasts about the field. Kristen has served as a judge for the Customer Success Excellence awards, and is on the board of several early-stage tech companies. She received her MBA from the University of Washington in Seattle, and now lives in San Francisco.
