While every company and industry has something of a community, I’ve paid particular attention to the slow development of the Customer Success Ecosystem over the past 15 years. Where once there was but 3 fledgling technology firms and one consultant (me), The Customer Success Association’s Registry pages now show 300+ Customer Success Platform and assorted CSTECH vendors, over 100 established CS consultants, 43+ training firms, 18 recruiters, and 18 outsourcers. There are 61K+ members in The Customer Success Forum on LinkedIn. Total number of experienced Customer Success Executives (group leaders)? CSMs (practitioners)? The number of power-users, domain experts and other individual resources? Your guess is as good as mine, but we know there are a lot of them spread around the world. That’s what we have; how can we use it?
There are several established conferences that happen every year, plus an ever-changing array of local meetup groups in various cities around the world. I’ve long been researching the connections between these points, but only a handful of companies in the space seem to be aware of the potential power that is available for increasing leadgen, brand advocacy, market presence/awareness, and the effectiveness of marketing/messaging overall. This is not limited to the Customer Success ecosystem. What could CS professionals learn from our ecosystem that could be applied in their own companies and markets? A lot. But you have to ask the right questions.
The Corporate Communications Strategy
The starting point for building a corporate ecosystem is the company’s communications strategy. What conversations are necessary at which phase of the customer-company journey? Marketing? Prospect qualification? Closing? On-boarding and beyond? Where and how are these conversations handled?
With a draft communications strategy/map in hand, what other parties share your company’s interests? To what degree? Tech alliances? Consultants? Influencers? Power-users? What resources will you need to connect these points? What will your pitch to them be?
There are strategically substantial opportunities to be gained by building and leveraging your corporate ecosystem. Are you going to take advantage of them? Let’s talk about it.
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