Customer success: Winning for the long-term

Many years ago, I learned a profound lesson about implementing products for customers in the capital infrastructure space: We may have sold our product, but if we are unable to see our customer’s issues with great clarity, we are still bound to fail. Selling and implementing a product is just ten percent of the customer’s journey with us. We want the customer to stay with us for the next twenty years or more. That is customer success. It happens after the implementation of a project. Large, traditional ERP companies now adopting the SaaS model know this better than anyone else. The type of customer success that spans decades is critical from the viewpoint of the customer and the provider. Given its importance, both parties need to bring a laser focus to the process that ensures customer success. 

The capital infrastructure space makes customer success especially tricky. Some owners may take anywhere from 9–18 months to assess the product they need. When we started working with owners, we realized that many did not have defined standardized processes. On the other hand, we created standardized methods for owners to utilize and take advantage of through our many years of working with them. This also enabled us, as providers, to configure their platforms to meet varying needs. Success lies in balancing the customer’s needs and staying true to the product. Our challenge begins with the tradeoffs between long-term benefits and short-term needs. 

There is another reason why customer success tends to be on a slippery slope: Customers need more time to be ready for the product. 

There is often a large gap between an identified customer need and the solution selected for implementation. This is due to the nature of the open procurement cycle that’s prevalent in the industry. Such a cycle makes it harder for public agencies to predict how long it would take to implement a solution. This timing and resource allocation challenge also applies to the solution provider. Customer needs could have evolved, and the Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) might have changed since identifying the needs. These issues pose a challenge to implementation readiness and could be obstacles during the customer success journey.

Organizational Change Management (OCM) is a critical aspect that customers often don’t plan for. Without OCM, the implementation journey is an uphill task for both the customer and the implementer. Without the organization’s awareness and buy-in to the solution, product adoption may not meet its intended goals. 

Experience says product fit is not the most crucial thing: planning is. 

Unfortunately, customers sometimes generalize or oversimplify planning. Involving SMEs from the beginning plays a significant role in improving the chances of customer success. Standardization, on the other hand, can be extremely powerful. It allows the enterprise to implement the product globally, leverage economies of scale, and reduce the costs of managing and sustaining the product. Clearly, there needs to be a balance between customization and standardization, and the goal must be simple: The product must solve existing problems and be a great fit for the enterprise. Product fit is an essential aspect for customers to examine. Does the product solve the problems faced by the enterprise? Does it provide users with a predictable and desired experience? Is it easy to maintain? It doesn’t matter how sophisticated a product is if it fails to serve its intended purpose or is too expensive to maintain. 

As technology partners and implementers, we need to look at the problem from the customer’s point of view. There is a high possibility that the customer has been using legacy software. Therefore, we must examine their processes: 

• How do they get from Point A to Point B to Point C in their business workflow? 
• How can the workflow reach its intended business outcome while taking advantage of business best practices?

As simple as it sounds, this isn’t easy. SMEs in the capital infrastructure space have spent their lives doing what they do. They can provide a solution when reaching this impasse. The customer needs to ensure that the key stakeholders or the SMEs are given enough time to dedicate to the project so that they don’t get consumed with their day jobs and run out of time for the project. When key people are not involved as needed, the project may appear to progress but will eventually stall. Decisions may be questioned or reversed, and configurations may require modification midway. I would advise having a consistent team with the right authority and the right expertise on the customer and the partner side for smooth implementation. 

Senior leadership at public agencies needs to be involved in the product assessment and implementation process; their involvement will get internal teams to collaborate, plan, and implement ideas faster and with a deeper business focus. When they begin to embrace a solution and lead the change, the message goes down the rank and file of the enterprise, and product usage is maximized. Experts, when hired, can support the reconfiguration processes. This enables public agencies to make the best use of the product and gain the maximum ROI from it. 

As technology providers, we are continually learning. One critical task is to assign a customer success manager who acts as a customer advocate early in the process. Customer success managers are the customer’s voice and should focus on delivering the objectives from the outset. At Aurigo, we understand what it takes to create customer success- our job is to help owners deliver world-class infrastructure and facilities to their people and communities.