Customer Success Annual KO - The perfect opportunity

The Customer Success internal kick-off meeting is the perfect opportunity to align with the company strategy, present the team’s objectives, and lay out the expectations to the team members.

The Annual KO has multiple benefits:

?? It “forces” the CS leader/s to be more structured and plan their activities for the rest of the year.?

?? It allows the leaders and team members to lift their heads up from the day-to-day activities and take a broader look into their organization's landscape and strategy.

?? It is the opportunity to perform a retrospect of the previous year, including highlights, lowlights, and lessons learned.

?? It gives everyone time to address challenges and identify opportunities at an early stage of the year (assuming the KO is performed in Q1)

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The underlying assumption is that the KO occurs physically when the team meets in the same room. In-person communication is much needed to strengthen the bonding between the team members. ?If a face-to-face meeting is not feasible, the virtual “team conference” should be shorter and split across a few days to avoid digital “fatigue.”

Here are key topics to cover during a Customer Success team internal kick-off and proposed activities:

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Company strategy and plans

This is the opportunity for the CEO/CRO/CFO to meet the team and re-enforce the company strategy, provide updates based on the previous year’s results, and present this year’s key financial and business metrics.

Keeping the CS team aware of the overall direction and management expectations is crucial in translating the strategy to successful customer management and CSM’s objectives. In addition, it helps the team understand “Why we do what we do” and the overall purpose of the CS team.

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CS objectives and KPIs

This is the right occasion for the CS leader to present the objectives set out for the team.

These could be the standard KPIs such as retention, upsells, NRR, and other financial metrics. ??

These could be more CS-focused KPIs such as shortening the onboarding, improving automation, improving knowledge level, and increasing collaboration with the other teams.

Retrospect of the previous year

As part of the preparation for the KO, CSMs should prepare a summary of the former year. ?The summary includes their major wins, lowlights, lessons learned, and suggestions for improvement.

This team can split into groups and discuss their insights, allowing everyone to express their observations and learn from each other’s experiences. ?Moreover, the CS leader should consolidate the feedback and relate it to the critical areas of improvement and planned activities for the coming year.

?? Tip: Nominate a few CSMs to present as individuals or group representatives. ?Choose the ones who tend to be quiet. This is their time to “shine” in front of their colleagues.

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Customer Segmentation and Customer Journey

CS KO is the right time to explain the segmentation and customer prioritization criteria and discuss potential changes based on CSM feedback. In addition, CSMs should share their experience managing customers in different segments and measuring their efforts vs. The planned effort.

One or more sessions should be allocated to revalidate the customer journey (per segment) to be more efficient and improve customer experience. ?This session can help review the effectiveness of customers' existing touchpoints with CMSs and the product.

??Tip: A friendly and supportive customer testimonial can positively impact the motivation of the CS team. Some stakeholders will accept the invitation to speak to the CS team and share their perspectives and experiences. I found such a session to trigger meaningful discussion, new ideas, and improvements.

Knowledge mapping and gaps

This is a byproduct of the team’s retrospect and flagging knowledge gaps. Considering that the product evolves and the customers' expectations and needs change, the KO allows the team to prioritize knowledge needs. By the end of the day, they face customers and should position themselves as trusted advisors. ??

?? Tip: There is no need to wait for the KO to start identifying knowledge gaps, and CSM can list their requirements earlier. During the KO, the team can prioritize the more critical knowledge areas and agree on the following steps to address them.

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Product Updates

A few knowledge gaps can be bridged with proper updates from the product team. They can share more information on the latest features and enhancements. They can also present the roadmap and hear additional feedback from their CS colleagues representing their customer’s future needs.

The CS-Product team collaboration is instrumental in maintaining a customer-first mindset. In this regard, both CS and Product leaders should encourage formal updates and informal talks to help them out to maximize their time together. This is even more important when the teams are distributed globally and hardly spend time together in the same room.

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Collaboration with Sales & Pre-sales

Leverage the meeting with Pre-sales to re-align the value messaging and how to position the product and its value in the best possible way. ?Pre-sales and CS also share common challenges, such as product knowledge and know-how, and both teams can benefit from this collaboration.

Sales leaders can share their strategy for this year and the expected targets for new logos with CS. CSMs can provide feedback about handing over from sales, ideal customers, bad-fit customers, and how teams can partner to retain and grow customers.

?? Tip: CS leaders should proactively present their plans to identify more opportunities to the sales leaders before the KO. The team should feel that Sales and CS leaders are coordinated and build solid partnerships with one objective: customer growth.

?? Tip: A few companies “merge” some of the Sales and CS KO sessions. The idea is to have a unified “Goto Market” approach, align all customer-facing teams to use the same terminology, and consistently promote value.

Monitoring customer engagements and measurements

CSMs are in an excellent position to reflect on the effectiveness of existing dashboards and reports as they are one of the primary consumers of these tools. They can also propose additional measurements and usage metrics based on their experience. ?The team can collectively list additional requirements for CS/sales operations and the product/engineering teams to improve product usage monitoring to identify risks and opportunities in earlier stages.

And one more important note to remember…Have Fun! ??

?The teams should enjoy the time they spend together. It is not an everyday experience for them. Therefore, besides the professional aspects, they should have friendly meetings, team-building activities, and the time and space to have fun together.

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The CS annual KO is the stage for formal and informal discussion with the team and allows individuals to broaden their horizons beyond the day-to-day job. The CS leadership should make the most of this occasion to address the topics mentioned in this article and set a solid foundation for the coming year while inspiring motivation and a sense of purpose among team members.