Maximizing CSM Effectiveness: Identifying Activities for Mission Success

This article is the second part (of a serie of six) regarding missions and activities in B2B After-Sales relationship, and review conceptualization of the functions of Success, Experience and Account manager. The goal is to help After-Sales organization to build strategies articulating functions, goals and resources. References are available on-demand.

In the previous article, 8 missions of the CSM have been identified: 1) Reduce business risk, 2) Develop the business, 3) Focus on value, 4) Manage customers goals, 5) Create mutual profitability, 6) Assure customer satisfaction, 7) Understand the customers, 8) Build relationships. This article focuses on the activities linked to these missions. It is notable that some of these activities may help multiple missions but, to avoid redundancy, they are not systematically highlighted.

1) Reduce business risk?

To reduce business risk (which is limited here to the churn) the CSM assures that the promises from the sales team are kept. For that purpose, the CSM may work with the project manager during the implementation, request extra resources such as increasing the number of technicians on the project, and follow up on the implementation with the client.?

Another part of the activities is dedicated to monitoring Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of the customer’s usage, also called Health Score. The CSM may help the client to create these KPIs, therefore influencing the perception of the value obtained. Deviations from agreed targets are analysed to offer solutions. Value-in-use monitoring measures should create transparency and reduce uncertainties on the customer side but also predict customers’ future value-in-use. To increase the user’s adoption, the CSM communicates the benefits of the offer through workshops.

In case of a concrete threat of leaving, the CSM engages the client intending to mitigate the impact and may offer risk reduction measures (for example by offering different contractual features).?

2) Develop the business?

To develop the business, the CSM may provide to the client metrics about “value-in-use enhancement”. Also, the CSM may be tasked to organize workshops to simulate functionalities or to offer consulting or service opportunities.

The CSM prioritizes efforts considering the relevance (revenue or potential) for the company, by for example advocating the development of specific features. The CSM is expected to provide feedback or a “heads-up” to salespeople about customers, but also to help directly in cross-selling and upselling, by for example working with sales counterparts during negotiations, but also by assisting the salespersons in contract renewal negotiations by creating value documentation and value communication material. To represent the company, the CSM may be invited to fairs and conferences and therefore will advertise the benefits of the product or service.

3) Focus on value

To demonstrate the value to the customer, the CSM focuses on metrics that are in service of customers and uses data to show what the customer organisation is gaining from the use of the product or service. To enhance the value-in-use perceived by the customers, four “subprocesses” may be used: 1/ value-in-use identification, 2/ value-in-use reporting 3/ reflection on opportunities for value-in-use enhancement and 4/ dissemination of opportunities for value-in-use enhancement.?

The CSM may utilise “streaming sensor data and other unstructured customer data to derive value-in-use insights”. Some specific examples have been provided: Life cycle calculation, by calculating the life cost for the solution; customer-specific calculation, defining KPIs that the solution should achieve; return of investment studies with the solution; indicators expressing economic value for the customer (for example supplier measure KPIs as sales volume); indicators with direct effect on economic value (for example measure the machine performance); indicators with indirect effect (for example brand awareness).?

The value-in-use may also be enhanced through the coordination of Marketing, Sales, and Service teams.

4) Manage customers goals?

The goal management is organized as a project (usually named success plan), with milestones, which could be measured. They usually involve technical integration and learning management.

The technical implementation is carried by the client, with the help of technical specialist(s) from the supplier, under the supervision of the CSM (to assure that the resources are used for the intended purpose).

The CSM assures that the customers make the best use of the suppliers’ equipment: (s)he manages the learning by onboarding users and helping them to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills to fully utilize the seller’s offering in their goal pursuit. The CSM helps customers to use the product efficiently through training, webinars, and documentation, but also personal resources, industry best practices and usage of the data and tools to achieve their business objectives. The CSM may be tasked to ensure that customers’ employees begin, continue and expand usage of data and visualization tools in the best possible way.?

5) Create mutual profitability,

If helping clients to reach their business goals should create mutual profitability, this is however uncertain due to the dynamic nature of the business (technical or feature obsolescence, lack of new projects, changes in client’s priorities, etc.). Therefore, the CSM may offer partnerships, such as building and testing specific features before a global rollout, or bidirectional advertising and referencing.?

?6) Assure customer satisfaction,?

To increase the satisfaction, the CSM should monitor, and, if possible and/or necessary, improve customers’ experienced value in use during the usage phase. The monitoring may be done through the measurement of the customer satisfaction or other KPIs, which the CSM could have helped to build. For example, the CSM may help to manage the “unintended effects” of an upgrade.

7) Understand the customers?

To understand the customer, different activities have been identified. The CSM engages the customers actively about usage, processes and plans and should know enough about the service or product to help them to use it more effectively. By reporting product usage and documenting outcomes associated with that usage, the CSM analyses the behavior of the customers. But understanding the needs may go beyond the usage and concern the environment of the customers. For example, the CSM may map out the customer’s organizational structure to understand the various entities that are using (or contributing to) the resources to the customer’s firm. The idea is that these different stakeholders may have competing objectives and must be somewhat appeased or they will withhold resources. To achieve such activity, the CSM may monitor changes within the customer organization and identify new stakeholders.

8) Build relationships

The CSM builds an external relationship, toward the customers and the client. Taking the ownership of the relationship during a “sales to service handoff meeting”, the CSM engages with customers, for example during “new customer kick-off meeting”. This would be an occasion to build personal relationships, set expectations and identify customer’s champion, who promotes the product or service usage within client’s firm. The CSM may explain the technical and contractual details of the offer, provide tools for reporting and should be an expert of the product or service. In order to establish common business practices for a complex offering, or just to improve the relationship, the CSM may visit the customer on site.

The CSM may be considered as a “man-in-the-middle” between the customer (or client) and its employer (the supplier) and is often in charge of the renewal planning but also, as a single point of contact, for technical, legal or billing questions, or related to internal stakeholders such as Support, Legal, Sales, Marketing, Engineering, Accounting, Consulting, Data Science, Product Development team, Product Deployment team.?

The CSM advocates the needs of the customer within the supplier’s organization. To assure this, the CSM performs regular exchange on operational basis (for example supplier employee detached within the client’s firm), on business basis (meeting with project team on both side), or on strategic level (meeting with C-level from both side). The CSM also provides a channel for complaints and escalation on behalf of the customer and may be first line support then transfer (or in-between) to Support.

In consequences of being a “man-in-the-middle”, the CSM build internal relationships by translating and communicating customer sentiment to various stakeholders and work with the Product Development team to create tools or services that customers need. It uses its influence to adjust internal processes and activities, with the goal to implement organizational structures and processes, within the supplier firm, that enable its performances related to customer activities.

Conclusion

To fulfill its missions, the CSM should develop measurable activities directly connected to them. Consequently, they should enhance their efficiency by measuring their impact on both clients and their employer. The challenge lies in the fact that some activities may be linked to multiple missions, which discourages a mechanical approach but underscores the necessity of a holistic methodology.