There exists probably no more despised phrase in the Customer Success lexicon than “one throat to choke”. Ironically, it’s often used in a positive, inspirational way, as in, “This is critical. You’re our best and we need to prevent that customer from defecting. We’re going to give them one throat to choke. You.” As if what customers really desire is to commit an act of murder. They don’t. What they really want is for the products to work and that they live up to even half the...

You’re a customer of business software. Your company spent a lot of money on a product it hopes will improve the speed with which you do your job. Um, great. Pressure. Spotlight. Those things you try to avoid. You think to yourself, “Why is it me who’s under the gun?” Which leads you to ask, “Isn’t this a two-way street?” Then you say, with some irritation: It would help if the vendor would improve the speed at which I could learn their product. It would help if the...

You’re a customer of business software. Your company spent a lot of money on a product it hopes will improve the speed with which you do your job. Um, great. Pressure. Spotlight. Those things you try to avoid. You think to yourself, “Why is it me who’s under the gun?” Which leads you to ask, “Isn’t this a two-way street?” Then you say, with some irritation: It would help if the vendor would improve the speed at which I could learn their product. It would help if the vendor’s...

As a customer success leader, how many times have you been in a meeting where the VP of sales asks what you’re doing to get strategic customer, ACME123, out of the ditch so that her salespeople can more smoothly pursue and close a growth deal? Once? Twice? Dozens of times? From an industry perspective, product problems are often cited as a primary reason customers find themselves in that ditch. That’s followed closely by poor responsiveness of support and a perception that the...

We in the vendor world like to talk about ourselves. A lot. We like to talk about how our products are so smart, so user-friendly, so useful, so valuable, and so mission-critical. So many pats on our own backs. I find it educational and humbling to sit back once in a while and observe the vendor activity on my Twitter and LinkedIn feeds. To be fair, my company is as guilty as any other company in the way product information and its importance to business is trumpeted across...

There’s a great line in this Wall Street Journal article about airlines and the way they structure and price their fare classes. The CEOs of Delta Airlines and American Airlines were interviewed, and at one point, were each asked to comment on the size of the seats in coach or economy class. Here’s the reporter’s line: “Neither apologizes for packing in more, skinnier seats. Their message: If you want more space, buy it.” Being a frequent flier myself I know that’s the choice...

In a talk I delivered last week about our new service model at the Customer Success Summit in Toronto, I referred to customer success as a function that should be seen in the age of the cloud as a company’s most vital instrument for transformative change. It’s a bold statement since that’s not how companies typically view the function. For sure, customer success is seen as important and as playing a pivotal role in helping customers survive business-impacting crises of one...

Interpreting what you customers mean from their interactions with you is key to creating valuable digital experiences that will make them return to your site. Let me elaborate on this from an experience of mine. I tried to book a hotel room at the website of a global chain for the upcoming wedding of a niece. She had given me the code for the block of rooms she and her fiancé had arranged to be set aside at an attractive discount. The process to choose a room was simple and...

Learning seems like a straightforward proposition. You want to achieve something; let’s call that something A. To achieve A, you need to understand, and make use of, some other important thing; let’s call it B. Once you learn how B works, you can use that knowledge to accomplish A. Pretty clear, right? Sure – until something muddies the water (i.e. time, money or other people). Think of it another way. If there was a world where time, money, and other people didn’t matter,...