A success plan is not necessarily a CSM imperative, but a customer imperative. Having said that, it is important for CSMs to help customers define a meaningful success plan. CSMs are usually in a better position to provide inputs on adoption best practices, the KPIs, and measurement practices. While much of the inputs on why the customer has invested in your products should already be known. The idea of a success plan is to bring clarity and to include success measures/criteria with relevant metrics included.
Some challenges CSMs may encounter include,
- Customer maturity – The customer could be new to the implementation of your products (product function area) and may lack the necessary experience
- A success plan is a written record, and at times customers may find it difficult to put things on record. A reason could be customer maturity or the simply lack the confidence to define the necessary inputs.
- The customer POC may not have enough clout within the organisation to gather necessary data from participating internal sources and construct meaningful plan.
- Rare cases, customers do not fully understand the business context and the necessary goals. They simply do not know.
How to overcome these situations, or circumvent this with workarounds to ensure you have the right plan in place?
- Educate the customer: No one wants to fail, your customer too. Educate the importance of putting together a plan, with relevant goals. Use examples that could possibly connect and have better context.
- Find the right contact: Are you speaking with the right contact? Sometimes, it is important to go beyond your POC. This may not always be possible. The key is identifying the right contacts within the customer organisation who could provide better inputs.
- Use sales colleagues: Our sales colleagues often meet a number of business users during their sales cycle. Seek out these individuals with the help of sales.
