Marketing Automation — The Road to Success is Lined with Great Support
Don’t let poor support ruin your implementation & use
Whether your company is investing in a new CRM or an email marketing automation platform, you’re likely to experience a range of emotions from excitement to frustration and potentially even dread.
In most cases, there’s always a unique high that helps to kick start a new technology project. With the lure of promises and a shiny new product that will help you and your team reach new heights, it’s difficult not to get excited. Who doesn’t want to pad their Linkedin profile with a new skill?
Though once the paperwork is signed and the real work begins, the length of that high will depend greatly on how well the execution goes and whether the technology partner is doing their part to ensure a successful implementation. On your side, it’s equally important for your business to ensure you have the right people on your team with the necessary skills and time to devote to the project to help make it a success.
Beyond the actual implementation and initial training, the real determination of whether you’ll be rewarded with riches from all the promises will come down to how quickly your team learns how to use the platform and make it a part of their daily workflow. To improve usage, it’s critical to have access to tutorials, resources, community support and the ability to chat with a knowledgeable technical support team when you hit a roadblock. Without the right tools and access to the right people in a timely manner, you’ll likely start to see your investment begin to smolder.
Having suffered through a few horrible enterprise technology executions myself (one due to the vendor and another due to a third party partner) I now make support a high-level requirement for any new platform throughout the launch period as well as ongoing use of the product and where possible try to ensure it’s included in the Master Service Agreement.
Ideally, you want a vendor that will not only be available to help with implementation but also execute on your long term vision. Without a plan, in place, the chances of success are greatly diminished.
The Cost of Poor Support Adds Up Quickly
While many enterprise platforms like to sell the cost benefits of their solution, there are inherent costs that are rarely mentioned and may only turn up months after implementation.
Some of the obvious ones include training, on-demand resources to help your team learn new features and access to a reliable support team should all be considered in understanding the true cost of using the product across a typical life cycle. For your business to get the maximum value over the long term, it’s critical that you have access to a support structure to cover any issue that arises or train new staff.
Regardless of whether there are product issues that prevent your team from doing their job or poorly written support documentation, the costs can add up quickly whether it’s hard costs due to downtime or soft costs due to minimal or lack of usage. Whether real dollars are involved or not, the end result affects the bottom line.
More recently, I’ve experienced phenomenal launch support that was second to none only to be disappointed with the ongoing support by the same company once the project was live. Not only did I feel let down but it also means future challenges may be left to linger as the team looks for workarounds rather than another disappointing result with the vendor.
The Three S’s in Success
It’s often said that the key to success in retail is location, location, location. Without the right location with plenty of foot traffic, success in the retail space is an uphill battle.
The same is true for enterprise software. Though in this case, it’s the 3 ‘S’ in Success which comes down to support, support, support. Support during implementation, ongoing support when issues arise and training support to keep the team up to speed on new features or to assist employee onboarding.
The problem with many tech investments is that they lack committed support across all areas of the product life cycle. Though implementation may be great, if there’s no one to support your business post-launch or the support via a third party is cost-prohibitive you’ll never reach the lofty goals your company set to maximise the investment.
Some companies are happy to wine and dine you during the sales process and stick around for the onboarding in case you run into challenges with an implementation partner but then pass you off to their partner for ongoing support. Ultimately, you’re left relying on a partner who has fewer reasons to keep you happy, especially if you can’t afford their going rate.
As most of the profit is made during the implementation and software license, there may be little upside for the vendor’s partner to continue providing support, unless you’re willing to sign up for a premium support package.
Ultimately if the support costs are outside your budget your left to your own devices to drive value from the platform. While the upfront training, if provided, may provide your team with the knowledge to operate the platform efficiently to start you’ll likely run into challenges if your staff leave or new updates change your work-flow. The end result is additional training costs just to keep using the product.
A Solution for Every Stage of the Product Life Cycle
Ultimately for any platform vendor to keep your business long term, their system needs to be easy to use or requires a high level of support including online resources and one-on-one training to maximise the long term value of the solution.
Ideally, a great marketing automation platform should include easy to access support and training. Today’s forward-thinking platform providers are investing in training resources to help their clients maximise the value of their platform.
While some businesses leave it to third party vendors to provide ongoing support for their products the ideal solution based on my own experiences is when vendors own the entire process from sale to implementation and support. While it’s possible to have a good outcome with a third-party support specialist, the success rates increase dramatically when the technology providers are invested.
Here are examples from four technology platforms that go above and beyond. Though the strategy for each is slightly different, they all provide a level of support that I believe is second to none in their space.
As an ecommerce focused email platform for small to medium customers, Klaviyo provides a rich level of online resources including video and instructional how-to-guides combined with fast turn around on any questions or issues you have via chat support. In addition, their yearly conference gathering brings together Klaviyo experts with customers for one on one learning opportunities.
One business with exceptional support from start through to ongoing use is Looker, a data analytics platform recently bought by Google. Looker provides specific one on one training during the implementation phase, low-cost onsite group training if requested, support forums and excellent online resources combined with a support response that is typically answered in a few minutes or less (yes minutes) during business hours. Whether you are onboarding a new employee, struggling to take advantage of new features or even trying to sort through a unique requirement, the Looker support team is there to help. Support is not just an unnecessary evil, it is clearly part of the overall package and success that keeps the client happy, usage growing and more importantly acts as valuable insight for the product team.
Another great example, Taguchi, an email marketing automation platform based in Melbourne, Australia, provides numerous support resources to help their clients learn how to use the platform including updates on how to make the most of new features and provides ongoing training at no extra cost. Whether a team member leaves your business or your onboarding a new member of a growing team, Taguchi makes it a point to provide free training to help you get them up to speed as quickly as possible. As an enterprise software company, Taguchi understands the unique need to incorporate support into the entire product life cycle and sees it as a valuable way to reduce every SaaS B2B’s nightmare, churn. Though their Marketing Automation Implementation guide is focused on implementing a marketing automation platform, this helpful resource is a worthwhile read for any type of technology implementation.
Finally, at Adacado, a dynamic creative platform for large advertisers like Dell and the National Basketball Association, technical support was a necessary requirement as most companies generally lacked the required resources inhouse to maximise the value of the platform. In cases where the client had the technical inhouse staff, customized training was provided to ensure it fits the client’s unique needs. Though support was sold as a necessary extra, it was always covered upfront as part of the buying decision so customers were able to make a decision with a full understanding of the true costs of the platform.
Make Support a Top Priority
So to ensure your next marketing platform implementation process is a success, it’s important to make support a priority throughout the product lifecycle and ideally written into the contract. This is especially critical for larger enterprise deals where support is defined beyond just guaranteeing uptime.
Though it may increase the cost of your overall implementation, the difference can have a dramatic impact on the success of the initial project, ongoing usage and the overall value from your business receives from the investment in the years to come.
