London taxi drivers have to pass a test on “The Knowledge,” proving their ability to navigate throughout the city. The Quality community has an extensive body of knowledge that their professionals must master, as do Project Managers. That common foundation of knowledge is one of the key factors that distinguish a profession from a functional role, and it’s time for Customer Success to have their own set of defined concepts and terms.
Towards A Profession of Customer Success
One of the immediate major benefits of having such a body of knowledge is that hiring managers will have a solid, defensible base for their expectations of what a new hire should know as they walk in the door for the first day to begin learning about the company’s products and customers.
What should be in this basic set of required knowledge?
To begin with, the very Definition of Customer Success, and the Mission. What is Customer Success Technology, and what ought to be present in a good Customer Success Technology Suite? Which topics should be covered in periodic meetings with customers or clients? (QBR’s / EBR’s / Customer Value Reviews / Success Reviews, etc.) What is churn, and how should it be measured? What is an individual Customer Success Plan and how is it used in evaluating Customer Health and/or the performance of a Customer Success Manager? What are the functions of a Customer Success Operations person/group?
The Standards Committee
To bring this resource into being will take an international team of veteran Customer Success professionals — executives and practitioners — to identify and define the set of concepts and terms that all CS professionals should be thoroughly familiar with and able to comfortably explain to others at need. The first step is to build a consensus on the identification of the elements. The next will be to agree on their definition and to publish the results in an open knowledgebase on the Customer Success Association site.
A working group of The Customer Success Standards Committee has begun the task, using the CSA’s Slack channel for communication. If you’re interested in being a part of that team, please reach out through the Contact point here, or email me via LinkedIn
I’ll be reporting on the status of the project at the upcoming Customer SuccessCon events in London and in Berkeley.
Customer SuccessCon
Customer SuccessCon London — September 10, 2019
The CS Profitability Blueprint
To Register: http://bit.ly/CSCL2019
Agenda: http://bit.ly/CSCL2019-agenda
!! Early bird pricing ends soon!!
Customer SuccessCon Berkeley — 18 November, 2019
The CS Profitability Blueprint
To Register: http://bit.ly/CSCB2019
