Join the Discussion: Are Customer Success Teams Unnecessary? Former CEO Frank Slootman in his recent book "Amp It Up" has sparked a hot debate in the tech industry. Slootman argues that Customer Success (CS) teams are an unnecessary fad. Thomas Lah of TSIA has penned an open response, highlighting the increasing importance of focus, specialization, and complexity in organizational evolution. Lah argues that while Slootman’s assertion may be true for SOME technology companies, most CS teams do not exist simply because it’s “the cool thing to do.” Read the blog now: https://lnkd.in/emNaPJVV Who do you agree with? Tell us what you think in the comments 👇👇👇 #TSIATakes #AmpItUp #FrankSlootman #CustomerSuccessAnalysis #JoinTheConversation #FactsFirst #CustomerSuccessMatters #snowflake
Jenny Berarducci
3mo
The structure and charter of Customer Success organizations is highly dependent on the pressures that a company is experiencing in their journey. Some companies have sticky products with low churn rates, other companies have evolving products that require more implementation support and there are countless scenarios in between. Every company has their own goals and seeks to meet them in different ways. For some, driving value through a Customer Success organization gives them an advantage, but there is no one size fits all.
Colin Murphy
3mo
I admire Frank Slootman on so many levels and he is a legend in enterprise software. And the perspective on Customer Success as a discipline not being necessary… I get it — especially when you think about it from a purist product point of view. If you design even a near perfect product — easy to understand, frictionless to buy, intuitive to use & adopt — then you don’t need either a sales team or a customer success team (or other teams). BUT, that unique confluence is not common. Given that it’s not common, most* organizations trying to scale need many forces to work together to be successful. As Thomas writes, the specialization of those functions is what’s most important. Product mgmt focuses on staying ahead of the market, solving existing customer needs and anticipating future customer desires. Marketing focuses on ensuring the market knows about the product capabilities, and understands how the product uniquely solves customers problems. Sales focuses on building new relationships and driving more value for customers through more product. Customer success focuses on practical usage of the product, adoption and outcomes. All of these forces must work together to create a durable, sustainable business. Period.
I take Mr Slootman’s point that customer success is vital to a company and that it should be woven into the fabric of the entire organization vs being a slam on customer success teams. Organizations that need a group to handle the internal coordination of a company to serve it’s customers success would seem to have lost some of that fabric. Focusing sales on the prospects where the solution fits well is an example of customer success focus. Selling to prospects where the solution is stretched and it is known to not be a fit seems to be a loss of focus on customers in favor of highly discounted revenue. Where does the account management team play? Sales? Would seem the coordination need for post implementation adoption and success to drive consistent renewals and referrals is a core mission of this team, yes? After all, if adoption and satisfaction is high, the renewal is much smoother. Sounds like customer (and company) success to me. How about an engineering focus on customer usability and available tools for strong adoption? Enabling services to perform on-going optimization? I interpret this to be Mr Slootman’s point, and one I agree with in this context.
Conrad Funnell
3mo
Interesting debate yet it does surprise me. There is one thing more important than selling licenses - getting them renewed. Now whilst that may occur any day of the week if things are going well with a customer, after 11 years in a SaaS company, I have rarely seen a customer going well. Is it adoption, is it value, is it technical complexity or architecture - there are many ingredients for a customer being successful with any new piece of software and the bigger they are the harder it is. Even products designed in the most frictionless way (a good thing!) will require a customer to need more than a training manual and a few workbooks when it is introduced at scale. Apple will now schedule a call with you when you buy an iPad to help you adopt it; who would have thought...! Is it down to a Salesperson or Software Engineer to understand how to orchestrate a project to introduce change to a business. I would personally hope an engineer would stick to what they are good at and indeed what they enjoy. Similarly a Salesperson. contd...
Ty Raia
3mo
For what is is worth, here is my take. When I hear someone say customer success is a fad, it suggests to me they might not fully grasp what today’s customers expect or how to invest in growth and expansion effectively.
Johann Diaz
1mo
Having worked with Frank briefly whilst at ServiceNow I have huge respect for his thoughts. And to a large degree I agree with him, but the problem I usually see in companies of all sizes, is one of silo's, which Thomas, you speak about regularly. If enterprises were able to provide seamless, end-to-end service to their customers - and by 'service' I mean service throughout the lifecycle (not just as an after-thought to sales), there may be no need for #customersuccess. But most organizations don't. Someone, some team, some 'brain', somewhere within, needs to ensure the customer, or indeed prospective customer, doesn't fall between the silo's and does finally achieve their desired business #outcomes. The Customer Success team seems to fit this requirement, though to varying degrees of success (themselves!). As someone who has worked both inside and outside client, consultancy and vendor organizations, I have seen and experienced good examples of customer success collaboration and poor ones. Currently, my vote goes for keeping them. And now, with the onset of great #AI technologies, significantly increasing the performance of such teams.
Agree - 100% with TSIA! There is just confusion across organizations what is customer success's role overall and how should customer success help drive adoption and value of the products for customers!
Senior Vice President Customer Success & Services, Vertex | CHIEF Founding Member | CX Leader | Founder & Investor
3moNextgen customer success teams are not one note nor should they be taken for granted. With the right strategy, leadership and team a high performing CS team will execute well, align with the financial goals of the business and deliver on the promise of developing deep and long-lasting customer for life relationships - a win win win for the customer, your people and your business.