When a customer decides to license your enterprise platform, it is valuable to consider the long view of the journey that lies ahead. Vendors often focus on “implementation” as if it is a monolithic single step. In reality, implementation has several discreet components, and beyond what is typically seen as implementation, the buyers journey has many more phases. Vendors that are savvy about managing their customer base for extended lifetime value (LTV) and ongoing license renewals are typically looking out beyond the initial implementation and plotting the entire journey. These vendors understand that success will require them to become the customer’s long-term partner in order to ensure customer retention. The team that made the buying decision may stay with the project, but there will likely be new participants, and as the journey passes through inevitable milestones, the jobs and the participants will evolve. Savvy vendors anticipate the changes and design their Customer Success offerings accordingly.
Licensing is just the start of the journey. The first job is to configure the new platform and turn it on. This is the implementation step that sets the stage for the jobs to follow. The vendor’s services team will work with the customer implementation team to define the flow, look, and design. Next, the jobs shift to filling the system with content. Encouraging buyers to discreetly think about this step of creating and loading content from the beginning will help them to recognize that it is distinct from making the platform work. Early on, it is imperative that the customer’s team become trained and proficient with the platform so that they are prepared for the next phase of the journey. Launching the new environment to their internal peers and the broader team within the customer is a discrete job. The vendor needs to ensure that the customer’s team has become experts, and that they have a viable plan to train their peers to gain internal engagement. Success requires engagement and spread within the customer’s teams, so the platform vendor must have a plan to facilitate this phase of the journey.
If the ultimate users of the new platform are external to the customer, then the next phase is to roll out the platform and drive uptake in the field. An engaged vendor will recognize that success lies in the adoption of the platform by the ultimate users, either internal or external to the buyer. The vendor needs a clear understanding of the value their platform is providing, and the customer success team needs to see it as their job to drive toward that value.
Expanding on the concept of taking the long view, vendors have to guide customers to understand that nothing is static. All enterprise platforms require continuous improvement and enhancement, and that requires ongoing investment. If we think about implementation as winding up a clock, then we can envision that during the customer journey the clock slowly winds down. The system will become stale and satisfaction, if not engagement, will start to drop off. The ‘clock’ will need to be ‘wound up' again and again in order to remain relevant for the long run. The Customer Success team will need to drive customers to allocate resources and budget to refresh the platform, and this is best accomplished if you enter the initial engagement with an explicit long-term plan.
If we are clear from the start that a prospect is embarking on a long journey, and we articulate the major phases of achieving success, then we open the door to position our range of value-added services to augment their team and guide them through the journey. We can clearly differentiate implementation from creating and loading content. We can create a space for training the customer’s team, and position it as a prerequisite to launching internally and if appropriate externally. And, we can open the customer’s eyes to the need to receive feedback and keep the site fresh with dynamic ongoing investment.
Too frequently, vendors mix it all together in a single soup called implementation, and prospects always try to negotiate to minimize the cost of implementation when they are buying. If a vendor presents it as a mechanical step to turn the system on, then the buyer is insufficiently aware of the challenge that lies ahead to actually achieve value. As they progress through the project, the scope of the journey will start to become clear and they will see the project demands and investment expand. At some point, the customer will become unhappy because it is taking too long and requiring more effort than they anticipated. Helping the customer to appreciate the journey and the unique jobs along the way will create a positive path to success. A vendor that demonstrates expertise and best practices in a way that shows they know what it takes for a buyer to be successful will build confidence during the sales cycle, and if the vendor holds its head up high and acts like the experts that they are, customers will recognize the value of their guidance and realize that this is the vendor that can help make them become heroes.