I recently got a quiet alert that a very large European company just laid off their entire Customer Success team of around 100 people. Zap! Gone. This is unfortunately far from the first large scale group wipeout in the global profession, and it won’t be the last. While there is a lot of chatter these days about Customer Success groups owning revenue and increasing value to the customer, when you start to zero in on exactly what that means in practical terms, the conversation quickly goes fuzzy. You can’t afford that scenario. The clock is ticking and the CFO’s — yours and your customers’ — are running the numbers. If you are not providing them with proven numbers that show your direct and necessary connection to significant levels of profitability, then your team, your job and the customer relationship are all at-risk.
Connecting Activity to Value
Whoever made the decision to lay off those 100 people clearly did not consider them or their functions as being necessary for the continuation of the income streams from the customers. Perhaps Senior Management thought that an agentic ai could be installed to replace the bulk of the typical CSM activities, with the balance of the tasks being transferred to other departments. Maybe they thought those tasks could simply be dropped altogether. The bottom line was that the Customer Success group was perceived as being unnecessary.
The lesson is clear: for every activity, there should be a definite and *necessary connection to tangible value for the company and for the customer. For example, the preparation and delivery of standard QBRs isn’t a value outcome by itself, you have to show how that event brought value to the customer and therefore to the company in the form of increased renewal and expansion sales. Quick test: would the customer be willing to pay you to prepare and present that “QBR?”
Show Me The Money
The famous quote from the movie Jerry McGuire should be a mantra for both Customer Success groups and individuals. It isn’t safe to assume that either your company or your customers perceive your worth. You need to show them the value you bring to the table consistently in different ways, and be sure you have your audience’s agreement to your points. Your CS group may not be formally recognized as a profit center, but you can do the reporting as if you were. Instead of doing QBR’s, prepare and present regular CVR’s — Customer Value Reviews — to your customers, giving them actionable insights that they could not otherwise easily get. Listen carefully to what they say when you speak, and pay even more attention to what they do afterward. Do conversations about renewals and expansions flow easily? When you go to your own Senior Management to talk about budget allocations, what’s the reaction? Is the outcome what you wanted?
Talking directly about money can be uncomfortable. Do it anyway. So you cut a customer’s processing time for a certain function by 20%. What’s that worth in dollars and cents to the customer? How did it affect their profitability? Would their CFO agree? That’s a value conversation worth having.
