How To Nurture Customer Success And Create Customer Advocates with Allison Pickens, Episode #63

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Why is customer success so important for sales organizations? It’s because 50% of the company’s job is getting a new customer, the other 50% is keeping that customer – and keeping them happy. That customer happiness is what enables them to become a customer who keeps on giving via renewals, upsells, and referrals. Said that way, it’s easy to see how customer success is a critical part of every company’s growth engine. Allison Pickens, CCO at Gainsight is a pro at making customer success a high priority throughout entire organizations. Listen to this episode of #SellingWithSocial to learn how the Gainsight team fuels customer success in their own organization and for many of their clients.

This podcast is being brought to you by The 10th Annual AA-ISP Leadership Summittaking place this April 3rd – 5th, 2018 in Chicago, IL. Register Now by using the Vengreso only discount code “Leadership1095” for your deeply discounted rat

Customer Advocacy And Customer Success Begins During The Pre-sale Process

People often refer to the customer success team a “post-sale” team. But really, the CS team needs to be involved in presales, especially in enterprise deals. That involvement might mean quantifying the ROI the customer is expecting to achieve from using the product or service, or it could be clearly describing what the customer can expect to experience once they are actually using the product. The CS team can speak about the onboarding process in the same way the sales team might talk about a roadmap for a product. It’s part of what convinces a prospect that now is the right time to buy. Insights like these are exactly why I invited Allison to be on Selling With Social, so don’t miss this opportunity to learn how to improve your customer success numbers. Listen now.

Customer Advocacy Is The Natural Outgrowth of Customer Success

Allison Pickens says that if customers are not transformed into advocates for your company, you will have a pipeline problem. That’s because an effective pipeline must include an intentional focus on growth via customer success. In this episode, Allison describes how to leverage customer success efforts and turn them into natural customer advocacy opportunities. Her advice includes best-practices, the use of systems to keep your finger on the pulse of existing customer health, and an explanation of how customer advocacy actually begins in the pre-sales process. You won’t want to miss this one!

This podcast is being brought to you by The 10th Annual AA-ISP Leadership Summit taking place this April 3rd – 5th, 2018 in Chicago, IL. Register Now by using the Vengreso only discount code “Leadership1095” for your deeply discounted rate.

What Is The Right Structure To Maximize Customer Success And Advocacy?

Once an organization is dedicated to making their customers as successful as possible, a system has to be put in place to ensure it actually happens. When I asked Allison about the right structure to use she shared very practical advice. First, she says you need to make sure that a senior executive is in charge of leading the customer success department so there can be a voice at the table to keep customer success front and center. Next, you need to identify and establish a variety of specialized functions unique to your organization that work in concert to help customers be successful with your products and services. Finally, be very clear about who owns renewals and who owns expansion. There is not a definite “right and wrong” on that last one, but it’s certain that without clarity about it, you will have major problems. Allison shares a ton of great information on this episode, so make sure you budget some time to listen and learn.

How Can Customer Success Organizations Prove Their Value?

Customer Success Teams want to be able to prove their impact on growth retention and net retention, but what’s the best way to do it? In this conversation, Allison suggests that CS teams prove their impact by putting their reputation and efforts on the line in a financially tangible way. Here’s how… when it comes to budgeting time, commit to a higher growth retention target in order to get a larger budget. Then, use that budget to hire the A-players who can make good on your commitment. Imagine the reaction of the board and management when you make that kind of commitment. You’re talking their language – higher profitability and increased bottom line. Then imagine the confidence they will have in your customer success team when you deliver on that commitment. Do you see how you can powerfully prove your impact on the success of the organization?

Outline of This Episode

• [1:49] What you need to know about Allison Pickens, guest on this episode
• [5:43] What is “customer led selling?”
• [8:50] How this approach can be implemented broad-scale
• [11:26] Should companies bake in customer referrals as part of the contract?
• [13:29] What’s the best way to create a customer advocacy program?
• [17:43] Who within the organization should handle customer advocacy?
• [21:01] The benefits of having an idea of the health of your customers
• [23:20] How are CSM and Sales Managers supposed to work together?
• [27:31] The growth of customer success directly relates to renewals and growth
• [30:41] What is the right organizational structure to maximize customer advocacy
• [34:09] Customer success teams need the recognition they deserve

Resources Mentioned

• Gainsight
• The Customer Success Podcast
• NameDrop
• SalesForce
• Sangram Vajre CMO of Terminus
• Allison’s all-time favorite movie: The Matrix
• Social Business Engine Podcast – Bernie Borges

The 10th Annual AA-ISP Leadership Summit – April 3-5, 2018 – use the code “Leadership 1095”

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