Implementing Customer Success - An Organizational Balancing Act

Following from our previous article on the importance of strategic foundations for creating a customer-centric culture to successfully implement customer success (CS), we’re pleased to follow on here about the company organization itself. We’re still aligned with the chronological OPT-IN2 framework to which we previously referred, an acronym meaning: Organisation - Processes - Tools - INformation - INtegration.

While we saw in our previous article the strategic pillars of customer-centricity and service alignment, the organization of the company (the black bull's eye of the above infographic) is the supporting backbone which will structure the progressive operationalization of customer success, allowing it to adapt and transform to a customer-centric and CS-championed company.

Without the organizational backbone firmly in place, there is a high risk that the CS strategy and tactical efforts will crumble.

We like to think of the fundamentals of the CS organization like a 3-legged stool, permanently supporting and keeping in balance CS operationalization as it is progressively implemented.

If all 3 organizational legs are not firmly balanced at all times, then the supporting framework topples over, bringing down the operational CS efforts supporting the customer-centric strategy. We consider that the 3 supporting legs are as follows:

1. Charter
2. Responsibility
3. Executive Buy-in

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