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Customer Success Management Research
Contact Center Management Technology

Friday May 24, 2013





Through the Lens

Progress Report: The Customer Success Management Initiative — November 2011

In the past six weeks, there has been a lot of participation in the CSMI Research Surveys, both by companies who have established CSM groups and by those who are planning to do so in the near future. Two new Sponsors, CSM technology vendors ToTango and JBara Software, have come on board to join Apptegic and The HotLine Magazine.  Over on LinkedIn, The Customer Success Management Forum has seen a substantial increase in membership and a couple of very interesting discussions.

Early Trends and Indications

Under the heading of Strategy, there are a variety of labels being applied to the role, and an even greater range in how the role itself is defined. Customer Success, Client Success, Client/Customer Engagement and/or Retention — even Customer Success Advocate.  The more interesting information, however, comes from the answers to the questions: Where does the CSM first engage with the customer? Where do they disengage? In some companies, CSM is essentially another name for the Implementation Team. In others, it’s the “fire-fighters” brought in to try to save an at-risk account. But in many companies, the CSM group is becoming the authentic owner of the ongoing customer relationship, chartered with the responsibility for customer retention and maximizing per-customer profitability.

Process: Where do the bulk of the customer-CSM interactions take place? The phone line. Some teams have regular on-site visits, others never do. Email is the second most common method.

People: Where do companies look for CSM candidates, and what kinds of salary levels are offered? Generally, CSM’s tend to be well-paid, and are recruited from a variety of sources — including some surprises. Where is the group located on the company organization chart? Some CSM groups are headed by a CxO, others report to Sales or Ops. As the new profession develops, expect to see a good deal of organizational migration along the way.

Technology: Surprisingly, most companies do not have the ability of monitoring which specific features of their applications are actually being used by their customers, a core requirement for effective customer success management. Some developers have gone back and added this capability themselves, while others have opted to buy it from 3rd party vendors. Metrics is another sensitive issue. How should a company measure the effect of its CSM group?

Keeping Up To Date

Progress reports for The Customer Success Management Initiative research will be sent out to the CSM mailing list no more than once per month. If you haven’t joined the mailing list, here’s the link to the signup page. Participation in the CSMI Forum on LinkedIn is another good source of up to date intelligence about the developments in the emerging profession.  Information about the Forum may be found here.

Links to The CSMI Surveys

Both Research surveys are still open; those who fully complete a survey will receive a complimentary copy of the Report.  All responses will be kept strictly confidential; only aggregate data will be used in the Report.

If your company has already established a CSM group or role, click here to take the Survey.

If you are planning to build a CSM group or role, the 26 questions of the survey will be of value in the planning process.  Here is the link to the second survey version.

Questions?  Post them here, or join us for a complimentary Office Hours session.

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Mikael Blaisdell & Associates Inc. have been conducting specific research projects for a variety of clients for all of the company’s history.  In every Assessment engagement, we include carefully designed conversations with the client’s customers.  One of our first major commissioned research projects was in the mid-1980′s, when we were asked to conduct an extensive study of the community built around a particular computer operating system, analyzing the needs, interests and motivations of its business users, VARs, ISVs, hardware manufacturers and distributors.  Our tracking and analysis of the contact center management technology sector has been continual from its inception.  As new players arrive, and existing ones merge or depart, keeping up to date with what is technologically possible and authentically available is a key aspect of our practice.

A New Focus

Under the MicroscopeIn the spring of 2006, we recognized that the advent of what has come to be known as the Software As A Service business model represented a tectonic shift in the high technology industry.  Microsoft’s Bill Gates described the change as a tsunami, a tidal wave that had the potential to sweep away old fundamental concepts and approaches to software.  (If anything, his perception was an understatement.)  Since then, we have refocused our ongoing research and analysis program on the SaaS ecosystem, zeroing in on the needs of the ISV sector as it continues to develop.

Contact Center Management Technology

There have been a number of significant transitions in the CCTECH community since the early days of its beginning, and we are now entering another one.  By January of 2008, a number of software companies were beginning to offer technologies for the customer contact center market that were SaaS-based.  We conducted a specific evaluation to determine the status of the change in this sector, with particular attention to the availability of enabling technologies for the authentic operation of a contact center on a P&L basis.

The SaaS & Support Project

tssp-printCustomer acquisition is only the beginning of success in the on-demand world.  Winning requires customer retention and increasing profitability — and the key to both is found in mastering Customer Retention.  The purpose of The SaaS & Support Project was to begin to build a foundation of knowledge about the best practices of Service & Support in the on-demand sector, and then to use that insight and data to design the future of the profession of customer relationship management  Click here for more information about The SaaS & Support Project.

The Redefinition of Customer Support

Mikael Blaisdell & Associates have been at the forefront of advocating a complete redefinition of the profession, role and practice of Customer Support since the late 1980′s.  In published articles in the technology industry trade press and in delivering  professional conference presentations, the case for the necessity of change has been consistently made.  Break/Fix support offers no real economic value to either company or customer; it never has, and never will.  Unfortunately, the traditional product-centric perpetual-license business model of the software industry has largely been resistant to the idea that Support could play a strategic corporate role.  The emergence of the SaaS/Cloud business model, however, has opened the door for something new.

The coming shift in the profession of Support will be a sea-change, touching every aspect of strategy, process, people and technology.

Published: August 29, 2009

Revised: November 3, 2011

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