Scenario: Sales just announced that they are going to add X number of new customers in the next quarter. If they succeed, what will that mean to your Customer Success organization? Do you know? And can you prove your answers? Here are some possible questions to be confronted.
Sales Engineering
If your CSMs get involved as Sales Engineers with new prospects, what will the anticipated increase in the number of new prospects do to your scheduling?
Onboarding
How many new Onboarding specialists will you need to handle the load? How much domain/subject matter expertise will they need to have? Will the positions be hard to fill? Do you have partners in your corporate ecosystem that could help you to cover the load?
Customer Success
How many new CSMs will be required? How much domain/subject matter expertise will they need to have? How many interactions with the CSMs are to be expected from a new customer of A, B, or C sizes in their first 90 days after being onboarded?
Customer Support
What will be the likely increase in the number of new Support cases for next quarter? And the one after that? Will the Support staff need to be increased to keep to the Service Level promises you’ve made to your customers? On average, what is the number of support requests to be expected from a new customer of A, B, or C sizes in their first 90 days after being onboarded? During the onboarding process?
The Budget
What will the increase in NRR look like? Will it enable you to afford to increase your team? Will the CFO and other CxOs agree?? If you get the budget to add the additional headcount, how long will it take them to become fully competent in their new roles? Are there existing employees in other departments that might be interested in a transfer?
Surprises
Oh, and by the way — two of your most experienced CSMs and the head of your Support team just informed you that they are moving on… What effect will these departures have on the overall workload of your organization?
What You Know vs. What You Can Prove
Many Customer Success executive team leaders could answer the above questions about their group very quickly from their experience — and those answers would likely be correct. But answers from experience without the data to back them up are not likely to be convincing,
Questions like these can definitely cause grey hair and sleepless nights until you are prepared to answer them and are confident of your data. As a beginning, meet with your team and put these questions to them. How confident are they of their answers?
The Definition of Customer Success: Customer Success is a long-term, scientifically engineered and professionally directed, business strategy for maximizing customer and company sustainable proven profitability.
Or: “We make more money better/faster for our customers and our company, And We Can Prove It!
Recommended Reading
The Questions of Customer Success
The Customer Success Case Studies
