Recap: NYC Customer Success Meetup on 7/25/18

On July 25th, a group of Customer Success leaders from the NYC ecosystem convened for the NYC Customer Success Meetup hosted by the incredibly knowledgeable, Stephanie Bell of Alice Financial. When Stephanie and I first met a few months ago we found ourselves discussing the challenges that arise when attempting to apply customer success methodologies across different functions within a company and avoiding data silos.

I asked her if I could present at the next session and given my experience building and selling enterprise technology products, I thought I’d cover the topic of ‘Pre- and Post-Sales: Bridging the Gap” and how to facilitate better alignment between different teams that are at one point or another attached to the customer’s journey.

Turns out this is something a lot of companies are thinking about. Some key takeaways:

• If you think you’re company is managing the pre- and post-sales process poorly, you’re not alone! A lot of CS leaders are entering new territory and oftentimes unsure of the best way to navigate this unexplored world. Events like this are a great way to bounce ideas off of other folks and or validate what what your company is currently doing. We discussed everything from who should handle renewals, products for CS teams, transitioning a customer from pre-sales to onboarding, and best practices for training.
• Reading material: Never Split the Difference and Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning. Both great resources for CS teams that need to first enable their customers through education and or negotiate — whether for a contract or for some additional skin in the game from a customer.
• Many of the CS tools available today are creating data silos and most of them benefit from having distinct functions — CS, sales, and ops — within a company. At the end of the day its all about your customer so avoid additional products and tools when you can because they tend to isolate teams and or data from the rest of the organization.
• Get CS engaged earlier in as many deals as you can and incentivize sales to stay involved through onboarding to ensure a smooth transition.
• The fewer points of contact, the better. Again, don’t create silos. If you can, get the post-sales point of contact engaged earlier and in a meaningful way, not just a quick hello over a call.
• Company-wide customer presentations done on a consistent basis. One team that works at a well-known NYC company said that they have a customer come in and present to the entire company once every quarter. Sometimes the feedback is positive, other times it surfaces some serious issues the customer is having. It’s a great way to keep the entire company engaged and or feel like they have some skin in the game with their customers.

Stephanie and I are planning an even bigger session for the fall and will send out updates as we formalize everything. If you have any questions are or feedback, we’d love to hear from you!

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Edward is the CEO and founder of Mergeable (mergeable.io), the world’s first Customer Performance Platform.

Previously, he spent almost a decade at the forefront of business development, sales, product management, and customer success for leading enterprise startups including Actifio and CloudHealth. His contributions led to millions of dollars in revenue and numerous strategic partnerships. Most recently, he worked directly with Fortune 500 senior IT executives as the General Manager of the Velocity Network (General Catalyst & CRV), a forum for connecting emerging technology companies to the enterprise.