Unlocking the Customer Value – Professional Services As a Key Driver of the Customer Lifecycle

Today, businesses understand that their relationship with the customer is not about the initial sale. That first transaction is simply the first stepping stone in what one hopes will be a long and mutually satisfying journey. To enable that journey – and ultimately the customer’s happiness – the entire organization must be engaged across the entire customer lifecycle in making that customer successful, including (but not necessarily limited to) sales, marketing, services, support, potentially research and development, and executive leadership. To borrow a phrase, it takes a village to raise a customer.

One of the observations I have made in my years working with customers is that services has become critically important in this customer lifecycle model. In the past, services was placed near the end of the line – responsible for implementing, configuring and integrating a product – perhaps with a few training sessions thrown in to hand the product off to the customer. Businesses have (fortunately) outgrown this limited view of the services function. The emergence of the ‘whole product’ and service-based selling recognizes that a consultative services function has responsibility at virtually every step in the customer’s journey. Indeed, in this model services becomes the “lead hand” in the customer relationship. Consultants on the team have the greatest degree of customer exposure, and highest degree of customer intimacy, and services has become a critical gateway into the customer relationship for other parts of the organization, from marketing, who may be looking for references, to product management wanting to understand market requirements, to the executive who is seeking to cultivate long term customer partnerships.

Let’s examine the way services drives value along the customer lifecycle:

• Services support the sales organization by participating in the sales cycle through involvement in discovery calls, assisting in the completion of RFPs, construction of proof of concepts and implementation planning. Time and again it has been proven that sales engagements involving services leads to greater customer understanding, and a higher win rate. I hear from our own customers all the time that our product capabilities are a baseline requirement – and it is our ability to “get them to value” through our consulting team that wins the day.

• Services ensure a smooth entry of the product into the customer environment through business process design, implementation, configuring the solution, integration into existing technologies and infrastructures.
• Services provide educational expertise through the delivery of on-site training, creation of train the trainer programs, and creation of training curriculum – videos, e-learning content, knowledgebase articles.
• Services can become the customer’s subject matter expert. Very frequently, consultants are “embedded” within the customer organization post-implementation providing critical product knowledge and ongoing administration.
• Services can work with the customer’s team to plan for the future, developing roadmaps that ensure the solution supports the company’s needs today, and aligns and supports future strategy.
• Services become the arms and legs of the support organization going onsite to solve complex challenges that cannot be resolved remotely.
• Services has a responsibility to properly represent the customer and to initiate a “customer handoff” to key stakeholders within the organization who are involved with the customer at a post implementation stage ie – client management and customer support.

With Services as the common thread and an ongoing “trusted advisor” through the customer lifecycle, everyone benefits.

Rules to Live By When Transforming Your Services Business

Many organizations continue with their evolution toward a more mature, customer focused model, and a services executive may find themselves in the midst of such a transformation of their business. To finish up, I want to leave you with some proven strategies, collected from our experience with services organizations around the world that you can employ to make your services team instrumental throughout the customer lifecycle.

1. Become sales savvy

To enable service-based selling you must develop with your consulting team an appreciation for the sales function and a solid understanding of the sales process. Ensure your team understands the stages of the sales cycle; the appropriate points for service engagement; and the services most appropriate to those stages. Through training of services staff you can develop discovery and diagnostic skills that allow them to identify the customer’s “pain chain” and extract critical information that allows your organization to problem solve better than any other.

2. Create industry experts

If your organization has a vertical-based sales strategy it is critical to your whole solution selling model that consultants have deep knowledge of the sector in question. Are your consultants conversant with the business drivers, technologies, regulations and other dimensions of the sector where they are focused? If you want your folks to be subject matter experts in a particular industry – you will need to train them as such. And recognize your team for both technical and business savvy.

3. Hone discovery skills

When hiring and investing in your resources, remember that more is needed than someone with technical knowledge. Focus equal attention on the soft consulting skills – proactive problem solving, discovery, diagnosis, relationship building, writing, planning, as well as modern delivery methods such as familiarity with e-learning, social media and other communication channels. Consultants working for long periods on site can gain valuable inside knowledge that can drive additional product sales and ongoing services revenue.

4. Build the right kind of accountability structures

Is your organization appropriately structured for this new services model? Do your team leaders have the appropriate authority and accountability to do the “right thing” for the customer? This success-based thinking is often reinforced through a different type of compensation model. Do you have in place feedback loops such as surveys, 360 degree reviews, so that consultants and team leaders are aware of their performance in the eyes of colleagues and customers?

5. Ensure you are constantly driving value

Add to your service portfolio offerings such as health checks, major upgrade programs, value checks, roadmap development, as well as embedded consultants to provide subject matter expertise and administration support. This will allow you to drive continuous value to your customer, and prevents any unnecessary frustration that may develop because there is a perception that the solution cannot solve the customer’s problem. And, begin and end every engagement with a discussion around measuring success. The customers’ measure of success should inform every decision, and should be part of every employees interaction with your customer.

6. Implement Professional Services Automation

A services team can only excel and become an advocate for the customer through its lifecycle if it has ongoing knowledge of that customer and all its interactions with the business. A professional services automation solution, integrated with CRM on the front end and ERP (or other financial system) on the back end, literally becomes the single source of customer truth for the organization and a knowledge repository that will allow your team, and your counterparts to deliver over the top customer service at every stage of the customer’s journey. It provides your executives with a big picture view of the customer relationship. It encourages knowledge sharing and collaboration among consultants separated by geography and time zones, and it allows your business to weather change. Customer information is captured and documented. There is no risk that the knowledge walks out the door if a consultant leaves.

In Summary

It takes a village to raise a customer. In today’s business the focus is not on the initial sale, but rather, on building lasting long-term relationships with a customer that ultimately result in greater customer satisfaction, higher revenues and increased profitability. The services organization plays a critical role in this scenario. As the “trusted advisor” services team members support every function of the business in their engagement with the customer, and serve to ensure the customer is satisfied and realizing ongoing value from their investment. This kind of services capability requires a different kind of services organization – one that is more customer aware, collaborative, and consultative in its approach.