#TDSU Episode 194:

⏱️ Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:19 - Customer success starts with strategy

00:01:46 - Breaking down business silos

00:02:56 - Legato vs. staccato: rhythm in success

00:05:22 - Who owns the customer journey?

00:07:17 - A firsthand look at silo struggles

00:09:34 - Don't let customers feel your org chart

00:10:13 - AI: the future of customer success?

00:10:32 - Wrapping up

Credit where credit's due - Rob first heard the phrase "don't let the customer feel your org chart" from Michael Maday: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-maday/

📺 Lifetime Value: Your Destination for GTM content

Website: https://www.lifetimevaluemedia.com

🤝 Connect with the hosts:

Dillon's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dillonryoung

JP's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanpierrefrost/

Rob's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-zambito/

👋 Connect with Donna Weber:

Donna's LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/donnaweb

[Donna] (0:00 - 0:26)

It's not just about a touch point here, it's not just about a great experience there, it's really about creating a value journey where everyone knows their part. It's just like, you know, a well-rehearsed orchestra, you know, you don't just start playing your instrument whenever you want. Everyone is not a soloist, you need to, everyone needs to know kind of when they come in, how they work together to create a great experience.

[Dillon] (0:36 - 0:47)

What's up lifers and welcome to The Daily Standup with lifetime value where we're giving you fresh new customer success ideas every single day. I got my man JP with us. JP, do you want to say hi?

[JP] (0:47 - 0:49)

Hey, I'm elated, not nickel plated or jaded.

[Dillon] (0:52 - 0:56)

And we have Rob with us. Rob, do you want to say hi?

[Rob] (0:57 - 0:58)

I can't follow that.

[Dillon] (0:58 - 1:11)

Yeah, really? I feel like he had that ready. Is that a rap lyric, JP?

He got from somewhere. Just google that real quick. And we have Donna with us.

Donna, can you say hi, please?

[Donna] (1:11 - 1:11)

Howdy.

[Dillon] (1:12 - 1:18)

Howdy.

And I'm your host. My name is Dillon Young. Donna, thank you so much for being here.

Can you please introduce yourself?

[Donna] (1:19 - 1:32)

Yes. Well, I help high growth companies who want to keep their customers to grow their business exponentially. I specialize in customer onboarding, enablement, adoption, and value realization.

[Dillon] (1:33 - 1:46)

You are uniquely positioned. Do you know what we do here? We ask every single guest one simple question.

And that is what is on your mind when it comes to customer success. And so I would love to hear what that is for you.

[Donna] (1:46 - 2:34)

You know what? I'm working with a company right now that is so siloed. Everyone's just really all about their own internal metrics, their own internal programs.

We need to orchestrate a harmonious experience for the customer. And so that's what, you know, for lifetime value, it's not just about a touch point here. It's not just about a great experience there.

It's really about creating a value journey where everyone knows their part. It's just like, you know, a well-rehearsed orchestra. You know, you don't just start playing your instrument whenever you want.

Everyone is not a soloist. Everyone needs to know kind of when they come in, how they work together to create a great experience.

[Dillon] (2:34 - 2:55)

Period. I love it. I love the way you just stopped right there.

That is exactly what we need in order to make it a statement. JP, you're nodding along while Donna's talking about this. And at one point you looked like you were even stringing together the touch points in the journey.

What does this look like for you? And I know you have a part to play. You're a member of the orchestra.

[JP] (2:56 - 4:21)

I am a part of the orchestra. I think a lot of times I'm listening very closely because if someone drops a note, if someone sort of gets out of rhythm, I have to be able to play a note and sort of cover for what's going on because, you know, depending on the piece of music, I think a lot of times we want things to be more legato than staccato. You know what I mean?

Because if you're getting staccato, that means you're getting stuck, right? Good point. But if you're moving legato, you know what that means?

That means you got a leg up on the competition, right? So we want to get things going real legato, real smooth, real, you know, we don't want a cacophonous mixture. We want a mellifluous mixture, right?

We want something that's really going to come through and tantalize and really, you know, capture the imagination of our customer. We want them to come in and we want them to sit down at Sydney's Opera House. Even better if it's Sydney Sweeney's Opera House, right?

Really get their attention. It's not just classical. It's neoclassical.

We got something for our audience of today, right? We're going to do what's working for this customer. If they want some Vivaldi or if they want Wagner, we're going to play what they need to hear within reason, because someone may be at the wrong opera house.

[VO] (4:22 - 4:22)

Subscribe.

[Dillon] (4:23 - 5:22)

Donna, JP brings up a really interesting point that I'd love to get your feedback on. He said it early on in this string of analogies that he created here, but he said, I have to listen and I have to be ready to respond if somebody drops a note. And I heard that and I thought, isn't that funny that even in this sort of silly little analogy, JP's a CSM, he feels the need to take responsibility for other people's failures.

And we talk a lot about how that is often not a fair thing to put upon the shoulders of a CSM. And so my question to you, Donna, is, first of all, do you agree with that? Do you think I'm being a whiny baby?

Or if you maybe do, then who do you think owns this orchestration? Who is the master of the journey?

[Donna] (5:22 - 7:16)

I think we're in an interesting period of customer success. I went to a great customer success meetup in San Francisco last week, and it was all about consumption models. And with consumption, who cares?

Is it a CSM? Is it an account executive? Is it a sales engineer?

Who cares? If we're driving new use cases, if we're driving real business value and expansion in the customer and the company's doing well, I think we need to get out of those swim lanes. There is an element in customer success where we feel like, oh God, we got to pick up the slack for everybody, and then we're exhausted and burnt out and bitter.

Part of the work I do with companies is really define those swim lanes so everyone knows when they're engaging and not. I do think in customer success, we can start pointing fingers and feel really responsible. Some companies I'm working with are creating pods.

That's more of a higher touch, so that there is this team effort to guide customers. Customers don't care who they're working with. They don't care if I'm reading a knowledge article or a training in a learning management system or a support person or a CSM or a sales rep.

They don't care. They just want a great experience, and they just want to get results. Companies have a lot more responsibility to get everyone working together for the customer to be truly customer-centric.

Part of that may be having a North Star metric that all those teams are working together towards, so it's not like this company I'm working with now. Professional services are measured on projects, and renewals are measured on this, and customer success. All the teams are measured on very internal and team-specific metrics.

They're all just trying to hit their metrics every quarter, not looking at the big picture.

[Dillon] (7:16 - 7:17)

Rob, what do you have to add to that?

[Rob] (7:17 - 9:31)

Look, I'm not a musician. You talk about legato. I thought we're talking about rigatoni, ordering from the pasta menu.

I don't know. Look, I'm not a musician, but I do know what it's like to be a customer of a company with silos. I've been this customer recently.

In fact, there's a payroll provider that was selling to me, and they call me repeatedly after I had this awful churn. They messed up all my payroll. It was the first payroll they ever ran for me.

They messed everything up, and then they're calling me to try to upsell me. I was like, do you have notes on my account? Can you just pull those up right now?

They're like, actually, we can't. We don't have access to that. I'm like, oh my god.

This is the worst customer experience. To the contrary, I've been in orgs on the vendor side where I've been very siloed. I'm to blame for that in large part because I was directly working with the founders.

We implemented a system called Lattice. I don't know if you guys have ever used Lattice, but future sponsor Lattice. We started the executive level, established the top-level company goals, OKRs, KPIs, all the other acronyms.

Then we watched them trickle down to different departments. This process took four weeks and a lot of iteration. What happened was by the time we finished that process, we had such great alignment.

Honestly, we just treated each other better because we knew a little bit more about what it was like to be in sales or in marketing. Donnie, you and I, I think we both get this privileged role of being on the sidelines slash sort of being in the audience slash sort of being the conductor. We don't really have a place in the world as consultants, but we do get to be a really cool catalyst for some of this journey.

I'll just remember his name. I don't want to quote him without remembering his name, but somebody said at a conference, he was like, don't let your customer feel your org chart. I was like, that is what, isn't that good?

I got to find the guy's name. It was Mike something. I wouldn't want to quote somebody without citing them.

Mike Jones. Mike Jones. Who?

[Donna] (9:32 - 9:33)

Don't let your customer what?

[Rob] (9:34 - 9:36)

Don't let your customer feel your org chart.

[Donna] (9:37 - 9:38)

Feel your org chart, yeah. They don't care.

[Rob] (9:39 - 9:52)

Yeah, exactly. The last thing I'll just say is like a lot of us are complaining about churn being a company problem and not a customer success problem. I was like, you know, maybe, maybe that's actually an issue with silos and not really an issue with who owns churn, but an issue with silos.

[Dillon] (9:53 - 10:13)

Feeling the org chart, seeing the org chart, no matter what it is, it's a company that's not operating at its highest and best. I mean, even if it wasn't your fault, you shouldn't be out there airing dirty laundry, so to speak. You would have a process for how it is you resolve that.

Donna, that is our time, but you can see that you kind of got all of us riled up with this.

[Donna] (10:13 - 10:20)

Yeah, I want to like, we got to talk in the next session. Let's talk about how AI is going to solve all this.

[Dillon] (10:20 - 10:32)

Cool. You just did my job, which is I try to segue into inviting you back into the future. So write it down, come back in a couple of months and talk to us about how you're using AI to solve this.

But for now, Donna, we do have to say goodbye.

[VO] (10:33 - 10:35)

Bye bye.

[Rob] (10:35 - 10:35)

Thanks Donna.

[VO] (10:41 - 11:12)

You've been listening to The Daily Standup by Lifetime Value. Please note that the views expressed in these conversations are attributed only to those individuals on this recording and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of their respective employers. For all inquiries, please reach out via email to Dillon at lifetimevaluemedia.com.

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