The executive guide to launching new customer success initiatives

Best Practices and Proven Methodologies
TheExecutive'sGuideto
CustomerSuccessInitiatives

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Visit csmpractice.com
Contents
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About This Guide
The purpose
Challenges of ever evolving customer success
The impact on your organization
Clients’ Resistance to Change
Best practices for launching new playbooks
The CSM Launch Plan Framework
Key Success Factors
Customer Success Checklists
Your Client Mindset
Leveraging Technology
About CSM Practice

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The process of adopting to new playbooks or adjusting to technology changes brings a
change within the organization.
Following proper change management principles
and a proven methodology, will help overcome common
challenges most organizations face as their Customer Success
practice continues to evolve.
About this Guide
Our firm, CSM Practice, has been helping dozens of organizations go through a similar transition period
and gained some learnings from this process. Our learnings are shared in this guide and make up the
basis of formulating a key set of principles as the baseline to launching any Customer Success initiative
effectively at scale.
The mission of this book is
to provide you with best
practices on how to
launch new customer
success initiatives
effectively

The Purpose
As your Customer Success practice is
established, organizations and their
customers must grapple with change.
Customer Success teams need to
quickly shift from support ticket
escalations to delivering on business
outcomes. Clients need to understand
the new ‘customer success manager’
role definitions and how to align their
resources while resetting
expectations.
How to drive acceptance and adoption
of your new Customer Success
playbooks?
What are the common challenges most
customer success programs encounter?
How to leverage cross-functional
collaboration to drive business outcomes
faster?
What should you do pre- and post-
launch to avoid adoption issues?
Why technology plays a key role in a
successful launch of key CSM initiatives?
If executed effectively, proper launch
of your Customer Success initiatives
will lead to higher net retention
rates and open additional
opportunities for your organization.
This guide sets out to
provide 'best practices in
launching new initiatives’ by
answering a few key
questions.

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T
he introduction of a new customer success framework is a
challenging experience. In most organizations new initiatives
result in lack of adoption to new playbooks and cause latency
in your ability to demonstrate a full return on investment.

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The need for Customer Success
Management (CSM) in every organization
is essential. Without Customer Success,
most organizations lack the ability to
retain and provide clients with the right
information, at the right time. Whereas,
those organizations who have a large
number of customers, may not be able to
proactively and effectively engage with
them in a manner that is also scalable.
Many organizations not only invest in
setting up the Customer Success program,
but they continuously launch new
initiatives to address identified customer
facing challenges. However, most
initiatives tend to either fail or bring along
a myriad of internal issues and new
challenges with clients.
Challenges of Ever
Evolving Customer
Success

Inefficient Coverage of Risk mitigation
Too many accounts are assigned for each CSM
Same Engagement For All
Poor definition of how we should
adjust the CSM engagement model
for various customer segments
No Access to Client Data
Data is the greatest opportunity and challenge for most
large companies: usage data, product portfolio
(purchased vs used), various milestone dates, etc.
Success criteria is vague
KPI definitions are kept at high level.
Creation of an early warning system is
a complex task
X-Functional Silo-ism
No clear path of how teams will
collaborate or how to increase
visibility to client priorities
IT Involvement
Merely informed of the decision to invest in
technology. Do not understand priority or
impact on business
Low investment in CSM Operations
Not enough CS templates and tools
to drive strategy discussions with
customers
No strategy for SMB
Many organizations start with high
touch, and lack appropriate definition
of engagement framework for mid
market or SMB
Many organizations not only invest in setting up the Customer
Success program, but they continuously launch new initiatives to
address identified customer facing challenges. However, most
initiatives tend to either fail or bring along a myriad of internal
issues and new challenges with clients.
Common Internal Challenges

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Most initiatives would lack
clear definitions of success
indicators. When key
Performance Indicators
(KPIs) are not fully and
clearly defined by the
organization (or are set too
high to reach) New
customer success
initiatives will be less
effective. In addition,
developing an early
warning system to assess
client risks and lack of
customer engagement with
new playbooks become
harder to define.
The need for CSM operations
is typically not justifiable
when you first launch your
Customer Success program.
In fact, most organizations do
not have enough resources or
tools to fully support a CSM
operations team. However,
without setting up a
customer success operations
function for each initiative,
your organization will lack the
documents and templates
needed to drive a consistent
adoption of your new
playbooks that ultimately
enable powerful strategy
conversations with clients.
Most Customer Success
initiatives lack a clear
definition of how the
customer success
managers should
collaborate or increase
visibility to client
escalations and key
milestones. This often
results in a ‘blaming’
culture and could deepen
the sense of silos in your
organization.
IT involvement is a vital
part in the successful
launch of new customer
success initiatives at scale.
Proper and timely
involvement of IT resources
allows for a proper
alignment of resources and
technology investments in
your customer success
initiatives and increases
their chances of success.
Vague
Success
Criteria
Poor
investments in
Customer
Success
operations
Working
in Silo
Lack of IT
Involvement

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New Customer Success
programs often assign each
Customer Success manager
with too many accounts or
with an improper mix of
accounts. Customer
Success managers often
find themselves burdened
with too many touch-
points and feel unable to
fully execute against goals.
As a result, your customer
success initiative will lack
the impact it was intended
to have on your
organization.
Most executives make the
mistake of applying the same
engagement touchpoint
model to their entire book of
business. This not only results
in a higher exposure to churn
risks, a lack of proper
segmentation will dilute the
power of any Customer
Success initiative you launch.
Each customer cohort
requires a different
engagement model to ensure
desired impact is achieved
effectively.
While any initiative has the
potential to be extremely
impactful, without
sufficient access to
customer data, your
customer success
managers manual work
load increases with each
new playbook. Moreover,
lack of relevant client data
will make it hard to
understand the impact of
each initiative launched.
Many organizations start
with high touch, and lack
appropriate definition of
engagement framework for
mid market or SMB.
Defining your low touch
and tech touch
engagement model will
help scale your team and
provide meaningful
experience for your entire
customer base.
Inefficient
Account
Segmentation
Single
Engagement
model
Limited Client
Data Access
No strategy
for SMB

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10
15% 80% 5%
Only reach out
when they have a
question or a
tactical issue
(unable to
engage at the C-
Level)
The Fire Hose
Focuses on one
specific desired
outcome and
expect your team
focused a few
specific success
indicators
One Trick Pony
Didn’t finish
onboarding, were
oversold on
product features,
too many
technical issues
(hard to engage
with)
Hard to Get
Clients’ Resistance to Change
After launching your customer success program, you may
notice your customer base is comprised of three
‘problematic’ customer types

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Whether you are launching a new customer success program or
deploying a new playbook, your new initiative should help you move
towards achieving your organization’s goals. Many times, new
playbooks and programs don’t succeed as planned.
Ultimately, organizations that consistently launch initiatives in
less than a fully optimized manner, typically experience an
impact on their renewals and upsells:
Renewals: Lost renewals with ambiguity
Upsells: Limited ability and discussions
Decision Maker: Limited access
Competition: Becoming a commodity
The Impact
On your organization

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You launched a new customer success template, but your team
does not cooperate and lags in adopting your new strategic play.
This usually happens when executives fail to follow change
management principles to any adoption risks. The impact on the
organization will include:
• Lack of understanding of customer success concepts.
• Customer Success managers will have limited knowledge of
what the client deems as value
• Handling code red situations with limited resources or poor
collaboration with other teams will result in higher than
desired churn rates
Lack
of
Adoption
Culture
of
Blaming
When significant changes to your Customer Success Managers
areas of responsibility occur, other team members may get
either nervous or confused. If not managed properly, this may
infuse a blaming culture and deepen the silo between your
customer success team and other internal functions. The impact
to your organization may include
• Lack of account ownership in various stages or processes
results in poor customer experience and less than optimized
churn coverage
• Lack of transparency to client activities and touchpoints will
result in low accountability to follow up plans
• Handling Code Red and collaborating on mutual client
activities is inefficient and limited
The Impact
On your organization

Best Practices in Launching New
Customer Success Playbooks
Launching a new customer success initiative is never
without risks. Whether you are introducing a new
template, a new client touchpoint, or a customer success
enterprise software, it is critical to follow key steps to
ensure you can effectively impact advocacy, maximize
value and improve retention.

As a customer success executive, it
is your top priority to ensure
Customer Success becomes a
company-wide priority with clearly
defined goals and metrics. To launch
your customer success initiatives
while minimizing common side
effects, you will need to apply a
systematic approach that allows you
to apply thoughtful initiatives that
you can efficiently adjust and scale:
The CSM Launch
Plan Framework
Our CSM Launch Plan Framework will guide you through the
process of how to successfully launch your Customer Success
initiative. It considers how to avoid common pitfalls
encountered when launching new playbooks and how to
promote adoption within the organization. This visual shows
key steps that can be used during a new CSM initiative launch
across the touchpoints of the customer lifecycle. Use it as a
visual step by step guide to what’s necessary to launch new
initiatives successfully.
This launch plan framework is based on common ‘use-case’ in
Customer Success. All Customer Success organizations create
new templates, new playbooks and adopt new technology
changes to increase retention and provide the proper
customer experience to different cohorts. It’s significantly
important to follow when first launching your customer
success program and major new initiatives.
Planning properly will ensure you mitigate adoption risks,
define clear goals and set the stage for high adoption.
Creating a customer success plan for key initiatives empowers
you to collaborate with your IT organization and CSM
operations teams and to ensure resources are allocated
timely and effectively. For each new Customer Success
initiatives, set time to plan for both internal challenges as well
as potential client objections to change.

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CSM INPUT
Upfront input is vital by
both CSMs and Customers
CSM WIFM
Have to show “what’s in it
for me?”
SUCCESS STORIES
Show and highlight to customers at
QBRs how the Playbook has enabled
the CSMs to consistently deliver on
business outcomes
EASE OF USE
Has to be easy to use
FLEXIBLE DESIGN
Has to be able to simplify
the engagement across
many touchpoints
INCENTIVES
Align incentives per playbook
CERTIFICATION
Create an internal certification
program on playbooks
Key Success Factors
Every company is different. Every Customer Success team is different. But
every successful initiative has one thing in common: The customer success
executive had an effective launch plan and followed through with it.

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Checklist
Things To Do Before Your Launch
Here are a few key launch steps, you need to know and embrace
before your next new customer success imitative:
 Define a clear business case; clarify what is in it for your clients
as well as your organization
 Align the support of other business executives for your customer
success program prior to launch
 Incorporate customer and employee feedback into designing
new templates and playbooks
 Assess existing mindset and culture of your Customer Success
team to estimate possible adoption risks
 Create a ‘Change Management’ game plan to target the right
mindset/cultural shift to new changes
 Establish convergent touchpoints for all success warriors using
technology to foster transparency and collaboration
 Establish proper Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to drive
success behaviors

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Cross Functional
Collaboration Checklist
 Work on gaining upfront executive buy-in by all cross
functional teams is critical
 Define Management by Objectives (MBO) in the same
manner for all collaborators (for example: by renewal
rates, NPS scores, etc.)
 New Customer Success playbook should be signed off
by all collaborators and internal key stakeholders
 Demonstrate the benefits of recently launched
playbooks by having customers provide continuous
feedback and testimonials
 Adoption and consumption of your features, products
and services are critical to your ability to retain clients.
Continuously work on optimizing your collaboration
with other internal teams
To be hugely successful and earn your ‘seat at the
table’, foster cross functional collaboration.

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Preparing Your Internal
Stakeholders Checklist
As a Customer Success executive, you must anticipate and plan for the change your new
initiatives will bring to ensure your new strategy play is well adopted. Avoiding planning
for resistance to new playbooks is a recipe for disaster. Taking the right steps prior to
launch is key to ensuring a smooth transition. Here are some proven ways to prepare
yourself and your organization for the changes your new customer success initiatives
might bring with them.
 Conduct discussions and internal input from customer success
managers and other stakeholders upfront
 Clearly define WIFM (“what’s in it for me?”) for each key
stakeholder
 Prove value internally. During internal management reviews
demonstrate how your new initiatives enabled your customer
success managers to consistently deliver on business outcomes
for clients and your organization
 Ensure your New systems, templates or playbooks are easy to
use
 Design new processes or system changes to simplify the
engagement with clients across multiple touchpoints and cross-
functional teams
 Target your Management by Objectives (MBO) to incentivize
your organization to adopt to your new customer success
initiatives
 Consider creating an internal certification program to help
educate employees on new playbooks, cross-functional
processes, templates or recent changes to your Customer
Success enterprise system

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Your Clients’ Mindset
There are multiple ways to help your clients embrace changes in your customer
success organization. To effectively adopt to your internal changes, your clients require
that you communicate with confidence and inclusion during the transition period.
When you can take your vision and explain how it will impact them in a favorable way,
your clients will play along with you.
Step
01
Step
02
Step
03
Step
04
ROLLOUT
Roll out to regions rather than
big bang
WIFM
Important to first understand
the impact of the change – Is it
worth it?
Make the changes in the
Playbook and pilot to a few
customers – continuous
improvement
FEEDBACK
Measure and react to
feedback on changes
ENABLEMENT
Internally: enable all
stakeholders who collaborate
for the success of customers
Externally: Provide clients with
Video, Webinars, Communities,
Success Resources

Changing your Clients’
Mindset Checklist
 Start with a pilot to a few of your customers and use that experience to adjust
your new playbooks before launching it to your entire customer base
 After your pilot is complete, roll out your new customer success initiative by
regions, rather than taking a big bang approach
 Train all customer facing stakeholders to ensure they are familiar with your new
playbooks and can help your clients adopt to your new initiatives successfully
 Clearly communicate the impact of the change to your clients. This will ensure
your customers understand how your new customer success initiatives provide
additional value to them.
 Invest in enablement sessions for customers. This could include videos, webinars,
online community discussion threads and online Customer Success resources

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Leverage Technology
Evaluate, invest and continuously adjust your
customer success system to enable you to:
• Measure the impact of new playbooks and client activities on meeting your
client’s business outcomes
• Improve your ability to prove value delivered
• Increase your team’s productivity
• Foster collaboration and organization-wide transparency
• Place you in a position to adjust playbooks quickly
• Quickly react to feedback on new customer changes and implement
changes as needed

CSM Practice is a Customer Success
consulting firm that provides high quality
strategy and technical services. The firm
offers a unique methodology that
accelerates the adoption of best practices
and promotes customer success for entire
organizations in the most scalable of
ways. It is the mission of CSM Practice to
guide our clients to quick wins and
measurable impact.
CSM Practice specializes in the design and
implementation of best of breed scalable
customer success programs using a
combination of strategy, playbooks, and
automation. CSM Practice is the first to
develop accelerated methodologies for
customer success programs and is
continuously producing thought
leadership content for the Customer
Success community. The company was
founded in 2014 and is headquartered in
Sunnyvale, California. Learn more at
www.csmpractice.com.Additional
information can be found at
www.csmpractice.com or connect with
CSM Practice on Twitter, LinkedIn, and
Facebook.
Sources
[1] “The Essential Guide to Launching your Customer Success Program Successfully”, October 16, 2018, TSW Conference,
Chris Singh, Global Head of Customer Success, SAP Americas & Irit Eizips, CEO, CSM Practice
[2] Christina Augustine, CCO, BloomReach “Pillars of Product Value”, August 24, 2018, CS100– Innovator Award Finalist

The executive guide to launching new customer success initiatives

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