Saturday, February 15, 2020

Customer Success (not PM) is the role of the Future

Source: News Examiner

I feel that Customer Success teams have an opportunity to deal with humans where tech/products can't. As more people realize that how much ever user-centricity they build in the product, it's not going to engage people like people do - more folks will look for the right customer success guy.

Particularly in enterprise products, the stakeholder chain is large and includes user, customer, economic buyer, influencer, recommender, and in most cases saboteur. The stakeholder chain is also dynamic - people move, policies change. A technology product is far too passive to respond to the dynamism in real-time. It needs ultra-smart people to keep at the pulse of the relationship.

In fact, both CS and PM have a lot in common. Both roles have a very fluid definition across organizations, both require a very wide range of skills (more wide than deep), and are expected to fill a lot of white space. Product management has matured a bit in terms of definition, frameworks, and tools. It has gathered way more attention and popularity then it should and Customer Success apparently still hasn't caught the fancy of the right people. I believe as startups mature in their thinking and Customer Success matures as a field, this will be a very sought after role.

In many ways, CS is the CEO of the Client relationship (that limited business). They architect it, nurture it, rally resources (including product/technology/human), make decisions, tell stories, negotiate, persuade across the internal and external stakeholder chain - all with an intent to make sure the business improves. They are more likely managing P&L in most organizations and not the PMs. And I've seen founders wonder how they can make PMs own P&L, or should they even. It probably looks like the right approach but it doesn't seem natural to get this rolling.

It's because often product guys should do what they should - manage the product. Product success is definitely their responsibility, but, business success is way more than the right product. Business is about building trust and managing it. Customer Success very nicely placed between product and sales - just how product roles nicely sit between tech and sales.

If you are into CS or getting a chance to get into it - grab it. The future will need you more.


PM is a Double Agent

Most Popular on this blog