The Importance of a Customer Success Plan
Why Bother with Planning At all?
A fine old saying that is often quoted within the armed forces is ‘If you fail to plan then you’re planning to fail.’, meaning of course, that if you just go out there and do stuff rather than taking the time to create a plan first, the chances are you will either fail entirely, or at least not get where you wanted to in the shortest timescale and with the greatest results and least resistance. Another saying that is on similar lines is that a poor plan that is well followed, is better than a good plan that is poorly followed. The idea here of course is to illustrate and reinforce the notion that planning is an essential element of doing and that it is only through such planning activity that your actions will really start to reap the regard you are hoping for.
Is this Always True, and if so, Why?
Perhaps “always” true is a little strong, but for the sake of general discussion I think we can probably rest assured in the knowledge that a little bit of planning at the start of most if not all projects will really help you to perform well. Where perhaps it’s not needed is where the complexity of the project is very low. For example, I may not need instructions for building a shed at the bottom of my yard, in the same way, that I would definitely need detailed architectural drawings, materials lists, and a step-by-step, best practice assembly guide to follow if I was attempting to construct an office block. In other words, complexity is key here. The more complicated the project is, the more it will be likely to benefit from having a plan.
What Should Plans Contain?
My own recommendation is that Customer Success Plans should provide the following sections (leading to the benefits shown):
Focus:
They help us to determine what is within and what is outside of the remit of the project and therefore to focus our time and attention on the right things.
Activities:
They document all of the activity that needs to be completed into one place, making it easier to validate for completeness.
Order:
In addition, a plan by allows for a natural flow of activity from start to finish, enabling activities to be placed into the best order to ensure each can be accomplished (since some activities may depend upon other being completed beforehand, for example).
Expertize:
An important aspect of the plan should be to list what is required in terms of knowledge, skills and experience at each stage. This proves invaluable as we work the plan, since we will always know ahead of time who we need to make sure is available both at this stage and who we need to get lined and prepared for the next stage.
Resources:
Knowing what needs to be done in advance of doing it allows us to pre-assemble everything we need so that it is either handy and available right from the start, or at least it becomes available at the time it will be needed. These resources may include materials, expertize, finance, or indeed anything else.
Standards:
By containing standards, our plan allows us to compare the reality on the ground with the pre-determined standard to ensure that what is actually happening is of sufficient quality to meet our project’s needs.
Progress:
By pre-determining major milestones and the anticipated completion date we can compare actual progress on the ground with our planned timeline to ensure that we can measure actual progress against that which was planned to make sure we complete the project on time.
Testing:
Finally, the plan should give us some indication as to how at completion we can go about testing the completed project to make sure that it can achieve whatever goals or accomplishments it was designed to attain.
Who is a Customer Success Plan For?
The value of a good Customer Success Plan should be evident for both the customer and the supplier.
For the customer, it enables them to get where they want to go as quickly and easily as possible, with the minimum of hassle and wasted time, energy and money. Ultimately, this should mean that they get better results and faster results than they would otherwise be likely to attain.
For the supplier, it provides reassurance that the customer knows what to do and how to do it so that the likelihood of a successful initiative is greatly increased, leading to greater chances of service renewals going ahead. It also allows suppliers to plan for and offer their support to customers since their needs are documented and known in advance.
Who Creates the Customer Success Plan?
In an ideal world, the customer should create a Customer Success Plan. After all, it is the customer’s plan and the results of completing the plan will be of direct benefit to the customer, and no one else. However, not all customers (especially new ones) will necessarily immediately perceive the purpose and value of sitting down with a supplier to workshop through the process of creating a Customer Success Plan. The evangelization of the value of creating a Customer Success Plan should be one of the core processes that Customer Success managers (and salespersons and account managers as well) should be assigned to achieve,
Who Owns the Customer Success Plan?
Ownership tends to convey commitment. By getting the customer to own the ongoing management and maintenance of their own Customer Success Plan, we are far more likely to see this commitment transpire. Without such customer commitment, Customer Success Plans are doomed if not to abject failure then certainly to at best lacklustre performance.
Conclusion
In all but the simplest of implementations where it simply is not necessary, a Customer Success Plan is a powerful way to engage with customer stakeholders and help them both get the results they wish from their initiative and to help you to help them to do so. Many Customer Success teams are directly measured and evaluated on (amongst other things) how many Customer Success Plans they complete within a given period and/or what ratio of the total cohort of customers they manage to convince to complete the Customer Success Planning process with.
