Driving Success with Early Customers

In last week’s post, we discussed the process of identifying the right customers to target. Let’s assume now that you have the right customers. What does success look like working partnership actually look like?

It’s hard work, but quite simple. As a founding team, remember that you are the customer success team. When it comes to early customers, you are accountable. The only objective with early customers is to make them wildly successful and to disseminate that goal across your entire product team. As someone who has been the founding customer for a number of companies, there are ways to go about doing this.

Build Relationships

Place significant emphasis on executive alignment. Now that your prospect is an actual customer, it’s as important to be strategically aligned at the top as it is with your day-to-day contacts. Schedule meetings with the VP of IT or CIO on a quarterly basis, get to know their EAs and be extremely friendly. Be conscious of time, and make your schedule as flexible as possible for them. Think of these people as executive sponsors. I had this experience with a number of founders where we were the first customer. It made all the difference. 

Equally important is posture and the positioning of the relationship. As we’ve discussed, early customers are not just customers, they are partners. The balance you need to create is to identify which feature requests are relevant to the future of your product, and which are not. Many startups will try to shoehorn in a feature for an early customer that just doesn’t fit, and typically it doesn’t work. The key here is education. IT directors and VPs of IT need to understand why something is difficult in order to best utilize the solution. It both reinforces the importance of what you’re creating, and helps them define their own strategy. 

People want to be a part of creating their own solution.

Once a trust and rapport have been established, bring them further into your thought process and leverage your best customers as a feedback loop. Be able to provide a caring, thoughtful forum — not just an online survey, but an in-person meeting. Take them to lunch and ask for their thoughts. Consider too that through successful implementation you can directly assist a person with their career development and advancement. 

Finally, show some old-school appreciation. Most people in our line of work have enough vendor t-shirts. Give a real thank you. Record a video message from you and your team. Ask how you can help them solve problems that aren’t directly related to your product. Random acts of kindness go a long way. Life is short, and people want to interact with nice people. So be one! Customers who like you personally are certain to be more forgiving when, inevitably, there’s a glitch. 

Time to Deploy. 

A few years ago, a startup we partnered with would be deploying their solution company wide. I remember my IT team and the few members of the start up huddled in a conference room preparing. Executive presence of any kind makes some people nervous so I made it a point to only briefly check in and let them get on with it.  I asked myself some questions. What could possibly go wrong? What would most definitely go right? Is this something I am going to have to explain to the executive team with joy or with apologies? No matter the scenario, I was ready as a CIO and felt the collective team was ready because we had a plan and assessed the risk. 

Think about deployment like a production or perhaps air traffic control aiding a plane to land safely and directing it to the right gate. Give it the level of depth and importance that it deserves. Make sure you’ve tested the environment to its fullest extent. Be physically on site unless it’s absolutely impossible to be - or be at a venue nearby. Have a clear action plan in place in case things go wrong. The playbook is not just about how to deploy, but how to fix anything that might crop up.  Here’s a simple action - set up a Zoom bridge for everyone to call in. Even if they just listen in, carry out the run book for deployment. The objective is to give assurance and confidence that all is going to be well.

Have a Plan, Communicate the Plan, And Drive it to Conclusion. 

Keep in mind too that most startups don’t provide a standard deployment plan with early customers - I think this is a mistake and it drives some of us customers absolutely nuts. Be ready to guide the customer teams with your own plan, and be able to articulate clearly what happens before, during and after they deploy. Schedule a series of go / no-go meetings in the days and weeks leading up, and make sure the executive sponsor is looped in on all communication and plans. Once the deployment launches, queue up a virtual call or meeting room with the customer’s team so that they can ask questions, view early metrics, and co-evaluate support tickets with your team. Treat it like a true team effort.

Respect for early customers is key. Do not take them for granted as you grow!

Have The Back up Plan ready

Most startups don’t plan for those situations that require founders to accept that things have not gone right. Your customers - especially CIO’s - are thinking about a possible failure even if they don’t mention it. Depending on the product offering, I would recommend being able to outline a clear roll back / back up plan. Outline the scenarios clearly and what the action is. Most importantly, signal these in the deployment plan. Be sure to talk about timings and the people involved. 

Post Deployment Support

Post-deployment, clearly articulate what your support engagement looks like. Make sure they know who to call to get an immediate response. They know you and your product better than anyone, and from a human perspective it doesn’t feel good to take a backseat to bigger customers. Make sure that the level of support and guidance they get on day one extends throughout the entire term of your relationship. 

Continuously Grow and Evolve the Partnership

As you achieve success together, you can start to think about how to keep them happy long term, and how to approach renewal. Early customers are often brought on board at an introductory price, and a mutually beneficial way to continue without price increase can be to ask for a reference instead. Potential investors are always most interested to hear directly from users who have benefited directly. Or, ask them to interview potential candidates as you hire and grow.  Your customers should feel like they are essentially building the product with you and are part of this early stage of company building. Maintaining a feedback loop short and regular is absolutely essential to not just acquiring key customers but keeping them for the long term.