When customers buy from you, a pact is created. It says: You’re not only committed to delivering your products or services, but also the positive outcomes the customer is seeking in their own business by leveraging that investment. For customer-centered companies, the journey to value realization is a critical bridge between the initial transaction and having a long-lasting customer.
While the idea of ensuring value realization and verifiable outcomes for customers is well-established, the path to achieving this at scale is an entirely different proposition. When first launching your Customer Success (CS) program, it’s common for organizations to offer personalized attention and tailored strategies that can deliver value to individual clients. The challenge, however, magnifies when it comes to extending consistent value delivery across hundreds or even thousands of customers.
In our final episode of the Titans of Scale series, Kelli Greenberg, Associate Partner at McKinsey, shared perspective and advice related to how value realization at scale can be, well … realized.
Value Delivery IS Customer Success
The most impactful indicator of renewal and growth with customers is ensuring they receive value from your company’s products and services. Regardless of whether you are applying a high-touch or Digital Customer Success model, CS teams must proactively identify customers who may require additional assistance in realizing value.
Early on, strategies like adoption check-ins and quarterly business reviews can play a vital role in helping customers achieve success and boost retention rates. However, as businesses grow, and the customer base expands, the art of custom craftsmanship must evolve to extend across the masses.
Delivering value at scale demands a different set of instruments—automation, data-driven insights, and strategic frameworks that ensure every customer’s journey is guided toward verifiable outcomes.
Starting an Effective Outcome Management Program
When seeking to scale value realization for your entire customer base, the first step is to make sure you’ve outlined a clear value proposition for your products and services that is tangible for customers. Defining measurable and realistic actions and metrics in the Success Plan helps Customer Success Managers (CSMs) focus on delivering those tangible results.
While the digitization of playbooks and touchpoints is essential, companies should avoid rushing the process. Pick specific areas of the customer journey such as customer education during onboarding and set a plan to scale back human touch over time in favor of automation.
Investment in automation and technologies such as generative AI will be imperative. Be sure to have a clear roadmap about how you will leverage features of your Customer Success technology platform as you work to scale outcomes at different phases of the customer journey.
Making a Consistent Impact
At the core of scaling outcomes is the ability to replicate and amplify the impact achieved in smaller, more focused touchpoints. In a scaled CS program, companies can ensure that customers who don’t have direct access to CSMs still receive necessary support by leveraging technology and automation. Self-service resources, such as knowledge bases, tutorials, and online communities, empower customers to realize value independently and foster peer-to-peer knowledge sharing.
Furthermore, collaboration between CS teams and other departments, such as Product Management and Marketing, enhances the value delivery process. Product telemetry data enables teams to understand customer behavior, address pain points, and continuously improve products. Then, Marketing, Sales, and CS teams can orchestrate expansion-driven personalized campaigns based on this data.
Solving how to deliver outcomes at scale will help achieve what McKinsey describes as The 3 “Rs” of Customer Success:
- Retaining customers: Delivering iterative value throughout the customer journey builds bridges to long-term customers.
- Referring opportunities to Sales: Customer Success can work with Sales to pioneer growth and help expand a company’s product footprint with your customers.
- Realizing value: The true benefit of value realization and outcomes at scale is the virtuous cycle it creates for renewals, advocacy, and compounding revenue growth from existing and new customers.
The journey to scaling any aspect of your CS program is a process. It won’t happen overnight, BUT it also won’t happen unless you’re intentional about setting out to achieve it.
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To learn more, watch the full episode, Operationalizing Outcomes at Scale.
