Traits of a Great Customer
By Lauren Costella
Often, we hear about what it means to provide a great and appropriate customer experience as a vendor, yet rarely do I hear from the Customer Success space: what does it mean to be a great customer? What separates the customers who test our resolve from the ones who we can’t stop raving about?
All of us want the raving fan relationship, and we work hard to create consistency in the customer experience to drive to customer value, but let’s face it, some customers make attaining those mutual vendor-customer goals a whole lot easier than others! And that’s what I want to talk about today: what can customers do to be a great customer?
In my experience, great customers - and in this case I am mostly speaking about SaaS vendors and their customers, though I imagine these traits can transcend beyond SaaS - have the following 4 traits in common:
Ownership & Accountability
Deep Clarity on Purpose and Goals
Curiosity and Open-Minded Problem Solving
Calmness to Conflict
OWNERSHIP & ACCOUNTABILITY
This is self-explanatory and would seem to be a staple for success when anyone purchases a product, but tough relationships with vendors and customers occur when there’s a lack of ownership and accountability.
Without ownership and accountability, there’s confusion and a misalignment in expectations of who does what, and when on the vendor and customer side. A great customer has an owner over what was purchased, in this case the software, and that owner is held accountable, through metrics, to the success of the implementation and ongoing use of the product. For example, an owner of a CS platform might be a CS Ops manager. That manager is responsible for ensuring that the software is successfully implemented initially and in an ongoing way. In other words, he or she should be working cross-functionally to implement changes as the product evolves, and his or her success should be tied to CS team goals like net retention, gross retention, or product adoption.
Many times, I’ve observed customers sign up for a product without a product owner to implement, drive strategy, and drive internal use and execution. It happens more often than I can count. And you know what? I’ve even been that customer before!
Twice now, I’ve joined organizations where we literally didn’t have someone who owned our own CS platform, and my CEO was confused as to why we didn’t have consistent customer journey execution or visibility into our customer health.
Customers are great customers when they indeed have ownership or utilize the resources a vendor offers, when the customer isn’t ready for that responsibility internally. We’ve all heard the phrase, “when everyone owns it, no one does”, and this is the kiss of death for most software and product vendors.
DEEP CLARITY ON PURPOSE AND GOALS
Being a great customer also means having deep clarity on purpose and goals for whatever you’ve purchased. In the case of say, a software platform, there can be multiple goals, but are you clear on what’s most important? How will you know you’ve gotten there (i.e., what’s the measure of success)?
A great customer maps out what success looks like, prioritizes what is most important, and shares this with the vendor. These goals have clear metrics and measures associated with them. These goals are shared at all levels on the side of the customer – from strategy to execution.
Nothing is harder than a customer who doesn’t have clarity on purpose and goals. When I worked for an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) company, it was very common to hear a customer say, “My goal is to drive more traffic.” This is not clear enough. It’s too broad. Imagine you’re an apparel company. Is the focus shoes? Shirts? Shorts? Is the company strategically focused on the launch of a new product? When there isn’t clarity or answers to these questions, the vendor can use data to make best guesses, but that may not align with the strategy and direction of the company. This can lead to misaligned expectations and create a situation where value isn’t realized.
Clarity is critical.
CURIOSITY AND OPEN-MINDED PROBLEM SOLVING
A great customer is a problem solver and open to a multitude of paths to get to the result. Even if it’s not the ideal way or would require change in the customer organization, a great customer thrives in understanding the options, weighing them, picking one, and moving forward to execute.
All software (and products for that matter) require some level of change or adjustment in habits to use them and get value. Even product-led tools like Zoom or Slack require some level of change and internal adjustment - let’s all salute the woman new to Zoom, who accidentally turned herself into a potato for her team meeting during Covid - and great customers don’t shy away from that fact.
Most software that exists today solves very complex problems, and while we wish they were all as simple as Slack or Zoom to use, they aren’t. They require more effort to get the real value. That effort and change is not one-way: vendor to customer. Instead, it’s symbiotic and requires two sets of thinking to solve how to use the product in the way the customer will get the most value. When a customer possesses curiosity to work on these problems together and an open-mindedness to different ways of thinking, the vendor-customer relationship can thrive.
CALMNESS TO CONFLICT
Finally, a great customer stays calm when conflict arises. Whether this conflict stems from the vendor or not, a great customer takes a calm approach. This does not mean the customer can’t express disappointment and frustration. Quite the contrary. Instead, the customer articulates it in a way that allows both parties to find a path forward. Customers who approach problems and conflict with yelling, demanding, and anger shut down the conversation, kill the creativity to solve the problem, and cause more tension and less ability to get the partnership back on track.
I’ll admit that there are times when I’ve lost my cool with a vendor because I’m frustrated by misaligned expectations – product, scope of work, not serving needs, or more. It happens. The key is to take a step back, take a breath, and assess what options we must progress. And to find the right time to have the discussion. If emotions are hot, reschedule the session. The point here is great customers work through conflict in the calm, not the storm.
Vendor and customer relationships can be complex. As vendors, we work hard to create a value-driven environment. But the real magic happens when customers possess the “great” traits that enhance that journey and experience. I’m curious what you think. What traits make a customer great? Share in the comments!
The Success League is a customer success consulting firm that offers a CS Leadership Certification program containing classes such as Mapping Customer Journeys and Designing an Onboarding & Enablement Program. Visit TheSuccessLeague.io for more on these and our other consulting and leadership coaching offerings.
Lauren Costella-Reber - Lauren is a change agent, communicator, leader and passionate champion for Customer Success. When she’s not working as the VP of Customer Success for GoodTime.io, you can find her serving as an advisor for The Success League, a board member for the Customer Success Network, and blogging on the CS Playlist. Lauren has her MA and BA from Stanford University. She was a former USA National swim team member and enjoys staying active in the Bay Area.
