Author: Chloe Ann

The Milestones of the Recurring Revenue Customer Journey

Post author By Chloe Ann
Post date 2023-02-09
No Comments on The Milestones of the Recurring Revenue Customer Journey

Last week, we published a blog post in which Susan Nabeth Moore explored how Customer Success has changed the traditional Marketing and Sales revenue funnel and the way we conceive of the customer journey.

This week, Susan takes us for a brief trip through the main macro milestones of the “recurring revenue boomerang” customer journey.

DEMAND

Awareness

Potential customers need to know WHY they should invest. They will be aware that your innovative product promises to solve pain points, facilitate achieving business objectives or obtain business gains by doing existing tasks in an optimised manner. Potential customers will also be aware of the impact of not investing in your product.

At this stage of the journey, marketing teams do a great job generating, nurturing and qualifying potentially successful customers with a product-people fit. Potential customers are now pretty savvy about your product and those of your competitors. This matching of the potential successful customer and raising awareness of the gains from your product is an essential first step in orientating the rest of the customer journey on the right trajectory. It’s like that sporty kid “Maid Marian of Boomerangs” putting on an amazing spin!

Consideration

Now that the customer is aware of potential gains, they desire to move forward and consider themselves in the future state, savouring the benefits and related operational considerations.

Marketing teams work in relay with sales at this point qualifying and nurturing potential customers to take them the next step forward.

Trial

The customer’s desire to find out more encourages them to obtain pragmatic knowledge on HOW your product meets the promise. A trial period usually creates the “wow” effect and gives an initial glimpse of what future gains and potential ROI could look like. Here the customer appreciates more the practical “How to do” relating to your product.

Sales teams play a key role in having the customer define what are the expected outcomes for a successful trial. In certain organisations, customer success teams may also participate, e.g. in a POC (proof of concept).

Decision and Contract

After a conclusive trial where expected pre-requisites are met, sales teams convince the customer of the gains in closing the contract and determine the further “How to Do”and “How to Be”. These include a projection into a future vision of how the product fits into the organisation, processes, methodology, tool landscape and roles and responsibilities of impacted actors. It also engages customer sponsorship and management buy-in, defining what success means and how progress towards that vision of success will be measured. For that, measurable key performance indicators will be defined.

Sales and customer success teams work in relay to ensure that the customer context, vision of success and expected outcomes are clearly defined. To keep to our metaphor, the well-spun boomerang has now started to gain momentum on its outbound course.

TURNAROUND

Adoption

Customer “on-boarding” is the stage where adoption of the product should be firmly anchored.

Adoption is one of the biggest challenges in recurring revenue models. It impacts directly each individual user at their different speeds of changing their usual reflexes and routines. Swift initial adoption by all users will help ensure a smoother boomerang return for both customers and vendors. At this stage and in addition to the usual excitement, it’s here when the first hands-on impression is engraved. This will often leave a lasting emotional perception, even influencing subconsciously the later decision to renew the subscription.

Customer success teams play a vital role in partnering customers to help maximise adoption and generate added value. Customer management buy-in and engagement is key. Relevant and measurable adoption indicators are defined, measured, and celebrated. Our happy boomerang has now made a U-turn and is at the beginning of the return journey, symbolic of initial returns.

EXPAND

Performance

While each impacted individual adopts the product at their own pace, they’re all now up to speed rowing together in the same boat and “cruising” at a rate of knots where initial business wins can be celebrated as a team.

Key performance indicators have been previously defined, implemented and are now measured.

Customer success teams partner their customers to continually optimise their potential of boosting business performance. Added value performance stimulates the customer’s desire to expand current investment and/or purchase new offers. For that, customer success teams relay with sales and marketing, according to the organisation, processes and roles. Our boomerang is now gathering excited momentum on its return journey.

Transformation

At the transformation milestone, customers are now “sailing”.

They use your product as a reflex in a “business as usual” like manner. The product has most probably become sticky in their processes and methodologies as full gains and ROI are now proved and increasing. The contract renewal will just be a formality and the customer will most likely wish to buy more of the same or try new packages.

Customer success teams work in relay with sales and marketing to keep the customer sailing at high speed with their business transformation.

Our boomerang is now on it’s advanced success return trajectory, enjoying all the benefits of its flight path.

BOOMERANG

Advocacy

Your customers are now successful and have achieved their expected outcomes, so they not only wish to buy more or even invest in new packages but they also genuinely want to tell the world all about it. They have become natural advocates of your product, services and company and are “surfing” on the waves of their success. Their whole boomerang experience has turned them into becoming the best sales agents you could ever wish for. Customer advocacy, of course, can happen at any time of the journey in different forms (e.g. word of mouth referrals, reviews, business cases, participation in events, testimonials, NPS…) and as soon as the customer is thrilled and successful enough to want to spread the word.

Peer advocacy is worth gold. It not only creates credibility and legitimacy with potential prospects but according to McKinsey studies, peer word of mouth generates more than 2X the sales generated by marketing and advertising. The cherry on the cake, according to research by Deloitte, customers referred by other customers have a 37% higher retention rate.

Customer success teams partner advocates and relay with marketing and sales teams (depending on the organisation and processes) for advocacy programmes.

So now the boomerang has come full circle gathering on its trajectory all the health and wealth benefits for both customers and vendors.

In the recurring revenue model, the challenge is to proactively ensure the boomerang keeps a healthy flight path and is not grounded after collision with other boomerangs or self-flying objects or destabilised by external forces: churn is the cruel and costly curse of the recurring revenue boomerang!

As in all good sports, the competition continues and the boomerang will be thrown again to generate further win-win returns. As in all good fairy tales, all the “Merry Men” live happily and successfully ever after…

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The “Recurring Revenue Boomerang” and the Customer Success Journey

Post author By Chloe Ann
Post date 2023-02-09
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Customer Success Blog France: http://customer-success.fr/en/category/roi-and-performance

Click here to view the recurring revenue “boomerang” customer journey.

Once upon a time, in the heart of England near to Sherwood Forest, we kid “gamers” (no consoles then) would spend our time in outdoor adventures. With the kids on the block we’d invent new games, role plays and mini Olympics and we’d be recognised for our success. I was proud to be crowned “Maid Marian of Boomerangs”! I was fascinated by the deft of my boomerang whizzing through the air and spinning right back into my hands. It was magic and rewarding! The trick was mastering how to launch enough spin and orientation to ensure the boomerang would keep coming back gracefully into my hands.

Now that I’m all grown-up (well, in age at least), I’m pleased to be involved in yet another kind of “boomerang” activity, now more commonly known in business as “customer success”. Let’s face it, the role of the “boomerang team” would have sounded a little strange, don’t you think?

My enclosed infographic (above) revisits the traditional marketing and sales revenue funnel metaphor with what I have called the “recurring revenue boomerang”. In traditional funnel depictions, as soon as the bottom of the spout is reached, i.e. when the contract is signed, this is usually considered the end of the journey. To compare to my childhood pastime, it’s a bit like my bosom pal “Robin Hood of Arrows” meeting his bulls eye targets!

In those days of bows and arrows, a customer implementing a solution had to spend a huge amount of money for the implementation phase and had to keep it several years, irrespective of the success because the investment (software acquisition cost) was huge. Now in the recurring revenue model, there is no more upfront cost. A customer can easily decide to opt out of using a solution early if it is not giving returns.

In a recurring revenue model, the contract signature is just a part of the way through the customer journey. The customer experience starts right from the outset of their interaction with your company and continues across their on-going journey with your product, company and internal teams. While customers continually gain business value from their renewed investment, vendors increase their customer life time value (CLTV).

Research shows that loyal customers are worth ten times their first transaction value and it’s 65% easier to sell to them than first-timers. As my infographic shows, gained life time value is a recurring process where both customer and vendor benefit in a business win-win relationship of health and wealth:

Demand ‘n’ Turnaround, Expand ‘n’ Boomerang!

The recurring revenue boomerang maps the typical macro milestones of the customer journey and which vary in name and granularity depending on the organisation. The revenue boomerang also shows the role of the customer success team in the vendor relay to partner the customer with their expected business outcomes, create loyalty and generate health and wealth for both customer and vendor alike.

The left arm of the boomerang (demand and turnaround) illustrates the typical macro “hunter” funnel relay activities between marketing and sales teams. The right arm illustrates the “farmer” type activities of the customer success team in relay with sales and marketing teams to reinforce expansion and the boomerang effect of returned gains!

The product team covers the whole customer journey. While this team may not be directly client facing, they are the innovative backbone of all team relay interactions: client feedback and requests, user product experience, competitor benchmarking, market listening, product advisory council etc. It’s simple, no product innovation and the boomerang will plummet straight to the ground with a great big plump! The financial team is depicted from the signature onwards. In the recurring revenue model, depending on the agreed payment frequency and organisation, this team also works in seamless harmony with customer success and/or sales teams.

So what do we mean by customer success? Whilst the role of customer success may be perceived differently across countries, sectors, company sizes and business models, it is about vendors partnering customers to deliver a customer life time experience of business value and ROI to continually meet current and future expected outcomes. For positive returns and a boomerang effect, this is the result of vendor top down strategy, mindset and committed synergy between all company roles: marketing, sales, product, finance and customer success teams. This latter population is the name given to the actors who partner the client after contract signature to achieve their expected outcomes.

Depending on the company size, organisation, maturity and product implementation complexity, customer success can include several actors fulfilling different roles and names (professional services, delivery, support, on-boarding teams, account management, education, support, renewal teams, customer success…). To simplify my recurring revenue boomerang illustration, I have used the term customer success team to envelope all of the above.

For the customer to be successful and the boomerang to come full circle with returns, customer success starts right from the journey outset, when the boomerang is thrown with eagle-eye precision.

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From RIO Olympic Success to ROI Customer Success…

Post author By Chloe Ann
Post date 2023-02-09
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I’ve always been a sports fan and with the Olympic Games in Rio just starting, I’m excited to admire the performances of these great sports men and women. Whilst we watch the games as they’re televised around the world, let’s keep in mind the incredible determination and daily routines of practice, dedication and passion with which these sports people have prepared their ticket to success.

As we know, the Olympics were invented by the ancient Greeks and according to written records around 776 BCE. The modern Olympics were revived by a French aristocrat, Coubertin in 1896 following his concern about the lack of sportiness at that time of the French boules-playing population.

I’m glad that 120 years later, his concerns and investment have now truly paid off despite the fact that “boules” is not yet an official Olympic discipline! For those interested, you may lobby for their introduction in the 2024 Games!

The games have evolved since 1896 admitting more disciplines, more countries and even women! Female participants were first allowed to compete in the Paris games in 1900 where just 2% of participants were women compared to 44% in the 2012 London games.

Whilst the individual stellar performances have always captivated our imagination (Mark Spitz, Mohamed Ali,

Nadia Comaneci, Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt to name but a few), team sports earn our admiration for the magical synergy and euphoria of collective performance. The RIO games for example will see Rugby 7 for the first time. For those nations not familiar with the game (my US friends I’m impressed to also see you have a team in RIO), rugby is a passionate team game with core values comprised of teamwork, respect, enjoyment, discipline and sportsmanship. Basically, it’s 2 opposing teams (usually 15 aside) each running forward in opposite directions throwing backwards a squashed shaped ball. The aim is to run across the boundary line, dive on the ball and gain points (try), often squashing the ball even more. The winning team is the one with the most points, boosted with throws through a post (penalty) after doing a hen-like impersonation! (Johnny Wilkinson we love you!). Humour aside, rugby demonstrates the epitomy of team work and collective performance.

By the way, it was invented by the Brits!

Customer Success, Adoption and Performance

Although customer success has not yet been admitted as an Olympic discipline, the values it encourages in partnership with customers have all the ingredients: customer future vision of success, an expected business performance outcome, a plan of how to get there, discipline and determination to adopt new routines, behaviours and processes and of course the celebration of success stories.

As part of my approach to business transformations and for which customer success has an active role, I have coined the concept of A.M.P.M. This time, inspiration comes from the ancient Romans: A.M. meaning, ante meridiem (in other words before noon or morning if you prefer) and P.M., meaning post meridiem (afternoon for short). I have revamped the original Roman phrasing with the Anglo-Saxon term:

Adoption Measurement and Performance Measurement.

The underlying idea is that in any transformation where greater performance is the expected outcome (whether in business or sports or whatever…) we simply can’t just come out tops and nail it without first putting in all the adoption effort. So the saying goes, no pain, no gain! Naturally by the laws of science, we have never seen the afternoon come before the morning, right?

So whichever solution or service is being used to help achieve a determined greater business performance (however that may be defined), first a top-down plan of disciplined preparation and adoption needs to be implemented, controlled and measured. The RIO games participants have been carrying out such plans on a daily basis with blood, sweat and tears since the last London games in 2012.

A.M.P.M. Indicator Examples

The A.M.P.M. approach can be applied to any solution or service and implies defining adoption and performance indicators.

Adoption indicators are considered as the pre-requisite measurements to control that the path for the desired outcome necessary for success is being paved. This often implies new routines, reflexes and adaptations to organisation and processes. It’s no longer a question of doing business as usual but moving out of a known comfort zone. For sports people today, this can correspond to measuring the evolution or maintenance of their physical form, aptitude and mental state, e.g. number of practice hours per day, amount of sleep, number of kilos gained or lost in weight, etc… For ancient Greek athletes (they were all male by the way), this also meant keeping their bodies in great shape to show off their magnificent muscles to their opponents as an indicator of superiority and intimidation!

Performance indicators measure the improvement in expected outcomes as they are achieved. For sports people, this is for example the reduction in seconds for track races, the number of goals scored or medals won, the number of world records broken, or the number of squashed ball tries for our rugby friends! The ROI of sports efforts and investment is palpable.

The table below shows just some non-exhaustive examples of A.M.P.M indicators which can typically be used to measure adoption and performance in a business context where CRM solutions are deployed. Depending on the context, solution type and expected business outcomes, the A.M.P.M. indicators are adapted. The ROI of solutions can then be more easily measured thanks to the analysis of the performance measurements.

Team Performance

Whilst vision (dream of future performance) and determination (adoption needed to get there) is admirable for an individual sports person, when applying to a team, the effort is multiplied and accentuated by the added difficulty of getting everyone in sync. As we saw during the Euro football championship in France this summer, although there is often great individual talent, if the team as a whole is out of sync, then collective success is not au rendez-vous!

The A.M.P.M. can be applied to business team efforts and performance and it is interesting to detect any weak links which could potentially put collective performance at risk. Corresponding action plans can then be anticipated and addressed.

These A.M.P.M. indicators are of course just measurements. The real impetus for fabulous team performance comes from top-down management: sharing the vision of success, knowing how to drive a plan and create collective momentum to sustain the adoption activities which pave the way for team success.

To exemplify all this and to light up our Olympic flame, you’ll love the following short video and music* (5 mins). Although it’s a few years old, it makes a tribute to some all-time great sports men and women who have demonstrated the A.M.P.M. approach in the pursuit of their dreams for success. Sadly, Michael Schumacher has since been seriously injured and Lance Armstrong has demonstrated that non integrity never pays. This is a shame considering his fight to combat illness. On a brighter side, the video makes a final poignant tribute to Pelé, a very fitting Brazilian example of a stellar performer to nicely kick off the RIO games.

Enjoy and just imagine what would happen if each one of us displayed this kind of passion – everyday!

I dedicate this blog to all the RIO games participants as well as to all those embracing their next business transformation challenges. So A.M.P.M to you all and may the best sports performers earn their place on the RIO podium and the best business transformers on the ROI podium!

Just as a last minute inspiration from The Greatest :

“I hated every minute of training, but I said, Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.” Mohamed Ali

Que comecem os jogos no Rio de janeiro !

View here the 5 minute video : Everyday – Sports Champions Inpirational Video.

*If you’re wondering what’s the wonderful music: Vangelis–1942 Conquest of Paradise Theme (Christopher Colombus) 1992 Ridley Scott film

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Customer Success of Things (CSoT) – Part 1 – Some Definitions

Post author By Chloe Ann
Post date 2023-02-09
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What Do We Mean By Customer Success ?

Before we dig further into some common CSoT themes, a definition of customer success is fitting. The notion of customer success has different interpretations and maturity levels depending on countries, sectors, markets and company sizes. The role of customer success for example is quite different in a large enterprise organisation than in a start-up. There is however a common goal:

To fulfil the evolutive expected outcomes of customers through their multi-directional interactions around your company.

Customer success is a mindset and a series of on-going processes and interactions. A customer’s needs, expected outcomes and context at the beginning of their customer journey may change after contract signature or within the licence period. Proactive listening, observation and engagement is necessary to identify health and risk to ensure your solution and company services are constantly providing added value and adapting to signs of change. Customer success thrives on multi-directional positive engagement and communication:

1) Vendors towards customers

2) Customers towards vendors

3) Vendor customers between themselves

4) Vendor customers in exchange with other third parties (peers, prospects, stakeholders, competitors,…)

This CSoT series of posts will share some thoughts on customer success themes. The first one below continues the above definition:

“Customer Success” – Term With a Double Meaning

When On-Demand and SaaS first started (Salesforce.com being one of the pioneers), they observed that to retain client subscriptions it was necessary to proactively engage with customers to help them become successful with your company and solution. So they created the notion of “customer success teams”.

Customer Success Teams

The customer success team is commonly known as the group of actors who relay, usually after contract signature (though not always) to continue to proactively partner customers to achieve their expected outcomes. The foundations for success have already been laid early in the sales cycle by the marketing/business development/sales teams. The customer success team now continues the customer engagement and provision of added value over the whole duration of the licence period until renewal and beyond. Depending on organisations, renewal is also included as part of the role of the customer success team.

So whilst there is a group of people called “customer success team” dedicated to the contractual health and wealth of the customer, other teams have also played their part in the “customer success journey”.

This brings us to the second more holistic notion of customer success.

Customer Success – Company DNA and Global Objective

It has transpired that customer success is not about a team of people trying to please customers and reduce churn. The term “customer success” is a holistic cross-functional objective and responsibility. This means that across the entire customer journey, every single actor has a customer success role to play with clearly defined responsibilities. A customer success mindset is in the DNA of the vendor company running throughout the whole organisation, e.g.

Management to define the customer success vision, objectives and tempo
R&D to evolve the product according to customer input and market needs
Marketing to prospect ideal customers + personas with success potential

Sales to close and prepare customers ready for on-boarding to success
Customer success teams to provide proactive engagement and added value
Support to provide rapid and pertinent replies to customer queries
Etc…

All teams play a customer success role as customers progress across their journeys to achieve repeated success. For this holistic view of customer success, this often means that existing internal roles are revisited so that each player has clear objectives, responsibilities and engagement aims at each stage of the customer journey. In the recurring revenue model, the post contractual growth potential is so considerable that the traditional notion of pre-sales and post-sales activity is revisited. This necessarily impacts the internal organisation, responsibilities and internal relays.

Conclusion

There are 2 notions around the term “customer success”:

Customer success organisation = holistic responsibility and objective of the whole organisation to ensure the success potential and achievement of its customers as they move across the customer journey.
Customer success team = group of actors (usually after the initial contract but sometimes before) responsible for proactively partnering customers to reach their evolutive expected outcomes.

For this internal relay of actors across the customer journey, check out the boomerang recurring revenue flight.

Thanks for taking interest in this post. I look forward to joining you soon to exchange further thoughts in the “CSoT”series – Blog du Customer Success

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