Scaling Your High Touch Customer Success PLAYBOOKS

Summary

In this insightful video, Ryan Dumet, Customer Success Manager at PandaDoc, shares her expertise on streamlining and documenting customer success processes to enhance scalability and efficiency. She discusses the initial challenges faced by her team, such as inconsistencies and time-consuming manual work, and how implementing templates and automating data integration into key documents like QBRs (Quarterly Business Reviews) has drastically improved productivity, customer health, and team satisfaction. Ryan also highlights the importance of aligning with clients through workflow consultations and continually iterating on metrics to drive high-value conversations.

Takeaways

• 📚 The importance of documenting and optimizing customer success processes to make them scalable and repeatable was emphasized, highlighting the need for consistency and efficiency in customer interactions.
• 🚀 Ryan Dumet, the Customer Success Manager at Pandadoc, shared her experiences in streamlining workflows and the challenges faced initially due to the lack of standardized processes.
• 🔍 The initial challenges included inconsistencies in messaging to clients, inefficient use of time in preparing for calls, and the difficulty of managing data spread across different platforms.
• 📈 The team at Pandadoc started by creating templates for monthly, quarterly check-ins, and QBRs (Quarterly Business Reviews) to standardize their approach and reduce manual effort.
• 🛠️ Workflow consultation was introduced as a key process to understand and align with the client's software usage, ensuring that the product fits seamlessly into the client's existing processes.
• 🔑 The concept of 'WISE metrics' was introduced as a way to identify and focus on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that add value to the customer's business.
• 🔄 The process of templatizing and automating the QBR was detailed, showcasing how it transformed from a time-consuming task to a quick and efficient process.
• 💻 The integration of Pandadoc with Salesforce and other tools was highlighted to automate data retrieval, making the QBR creation process faster and more accurate.
• 📈 The impact of these process improvements included significant time savings, increased customer health, and enhanced employee satisfaction and happiness.
• 📝 The script stressed the continuous need for iteration and improvement, gathering feedback from both internal teams and clients to refine processes and templates.
• 🌐 The potential for further automation in low-touch customer interactions was discussed, suggesting the use of email campaigns to deliver key data points from QBRs.

Q & A

What is the main focus of the video discussion?

The main focus of the video is to discuss the process of making business processes better, specifically in the context of customer success management, by reinventing, documenting, and scaling these processes using software systems.

Who is Ryan Dumet and what is her role in the discussion?

Ryan Dumet is the Customer Success Manager at Pandadoc, and she is the guest speaker in the video, sharing her experiences and best practices in documenting and optimizing customer success processes.

What challenges did Ryan face when she started at Pandadoc?

When Ryan started at Pandadoc, she faced challenges such as inconsistencies in the messages delivered to clients, lack of templatized materials, and time-consuming preparation for calls due to data being scattered across different places.

What is the significance of documenting customer success processes?

Documenting customer success processes helps in achieving scalability, repeatability, and profitability by ensuring consistency in client interactions, reducing manual work, and allowing customer success managers to focus on high-value conversations.

What were the first templates that Ryan and her team started with?

The first templates that Ryan and her team started with were a monthly check-in deck, a quarterly check-in deck, and a Quarterly Business Review (QBR).

How did the team approach the process of templatizing and automating their workflows?

The team approached the process by identifying key areas that were time-consuming and manual, such as the QBR, and then worked on creating templates and automating the data population within these templates to streamline the workflow.

What is a Workflow Consultation and why is it important?

A Workflow Consultation is a meeting aimed at understanding and aligning on how a client is using the software, where it fits into their process, and identifying opportunities for optimization. It's important because it helps ensure that the software is being used effectively to meet the client's needs.

How did Ryan demonstrate the automation of the QBR process?

Ryan demonstrated the automation of the QBR process by showing a live example of generating a QBR using Pandadoc's software, which included auto-populating data from various sources into a pre-designed template.

What has been the impact of these process improvements on the team and the customers?

The process improvements have led to significant time savings for the team, increased customer health by about 4.5%, and improved employee happiness, as indicated by a rise in employee NPS from 58 to 100.

What are some of the future steps that Ryan and her team are considering to further optimize their processes?

Ryan and her team are looking to further optimize their processes by expanding and refining their metrics, ensuring they are capturing all valuable data points that can enhance customer conversations and outcomes.

How does the team ensure consistency in the messages delivered to clients?

The team ensures consistency in messages by using standardized templates for documents and email communications, which helps maintain a uniform approach across different customer interactions.

What role does collaboration play in the process of optimizing workflows?

Collaboration is crucial in optimizing workflows as it involves multiple teams such as customer success, operations, and data science working together to integrate data from various software platforms into a cohesive and automated system.

How does the team handle personalization in their automated templates?

The team maintains a balance between automation and personalization by leaving certain sections of the templates blank or editable, allowing for the inclusion of personalized information specific to each client.

What strategies are being used to engage low-touch and tech-touch customers?

For low-touch customers, the team is considering semi-automated or fully automated QBR experiences, while for tech-touch customers, key data points are leveraged in email campaigns to provide valuable insights without overwhelming them with information.