In today's competitive business landscape, organizations are increasingly recognizing the importance of nurturing existing customer relationships to drive revenue and ensure long-term success. Customer service and support leaders play a pivotal role in this endeavor, as they transition from solely resolving issues to actively building successful customers.
To pivot from basic issue resolution to customer value delivery, organizations should adopt a mission centered on cultivating successful customers through the Successful Customer Profile (SCP) methodology. This involves establishing personas, outcomes, and attributes, aligning them with the customer life cycle, and creating a measurement framework to assess progress. By analyzing and collecting data, organizations can identify existing successful customers and understand the factors contributing to their success.
The transition from prospect to customer marks a significant milestone in the customer-organization relationship. The company's value proposition is embedded in its products or services. However, customers often face obstacles in realizing this value. Customer service and support leaders have traditionally focused on low-effort issue resolution, but this approach is no longer sufficient. As competition intensifies and artificial intelligence reshapes the service landscape, leaders must embrace a future beyond issue resolution, contributing to revenue by building successful customers.
Successful customers trust the organization's direction, remain loyal, purchase more, advocate for the organization, accomplish their purchase intents, and realize value or ROI. The SCP provides a common definition of a successful customer, comprising personas, outcomes, and attributes. Personas can vary from users to executives, while outcomes are measurable and attainable through the organization's products and services. Successful customers share specific attributes that create the conditions for their success.
Personas
In B2B contexts, multiple personas exist within the customer's organization, ranging from buyers to users. B2C organizations might have a single person assuming different personas. Understanding these personas through demographic, psychographic, and behavioral data allows organizations to tailor their strategies effectively.
Outcomes
Outcomes represent the expected value and desired results customers seek from organizations' products and services. These outcomes can include achieving purchase intent, ROI, or specific business objectives. By analyzing successful customers' journeys, organizations can identify key touchpoints and interactions that lead to positive outcomes.
Successful customers share common characteristics that foster their success. These attributes include the following:
- Having clear and measurable goals;
- Being prepared to consume change;
- Valuing learning and proficiency, engaging with resources;
- Identifying hurdles;
- Maintaining their products or services.
Organizations should design strategies to cultivate these attributes throughout the customer life cycle.
Service and support leaders can adopt the SCP methodology by setting a mission focused on cultivating successful customers. By aligning the SCP with the existing ideal customer profile, organizations can create a customer engagement strategy that delivers value throughout the customer life cycle.
Historically, the service and support mission centered on reactive issue resolution. Shifting to a mission statement of "We build successful customers" transforms this posture into proactive guidance for customer success.
The ICP identifies ideal customers, but organizations must move beyond a "more likely" strategy by actively shaping ICPs into successful customers using the SCP. This alignment enhances customer acquisition, cultivation, retention, and growth.
Embracing the SCP mission establishes a framework for organizational operations and priorities. By aligning SCP attributes with customer life cycle stages, service and support leaders can tailor activities to cultivate success.
With a clear vision and mission, service and support leaders must develop a metrics framework to evaluate outcomes effectively. This ensures that strategies implemented throughout the customer life cycle are guided by data-driven insights.
Moving beyond issue resolution to build successful customers is a transformative journey for organizations. By adopting the SCP methodology, customer service and support leaders can align their mission with customer value delivery, ultimately driving organizational revenue and success. Embracing this proactive approach ensures that both organizations and customers realize the full potential of their relationship, fostering loyalty, growth, and advocacy in an ever-evolving business landscape.
Jennifer MacIntosh and John Quaglietta are both vice president analysts at Gartner.