For many CX groups in SaaS, the implementation course of is a one-way road. Your staff directs their consideration outward to concentrate on the client, their wants, their knowledge, their stakeholders, and their timetable. And, actually, that’s the way it must be—with one exception.
To the client, implementation handoffs are virtually a formality. An introduction from their gross sales rep to the implementation staff begins the method, and a handoff from implementation to their CSM concludes it.
On your CX staff, nonetheless, every handoff level is a chance to construct and switch buyer information to profit your buyer, their strategic targets, and your staff’s operational effectiveness too.
Due to this, as ChurnZero’s implementation chief, I wish to put an excessive concentrate on sharing as a lot buyer data as potential. The aim is to equip each division to study as a lot as they will, as effectively as potential.
Right here’s how we turned ChurnZero’s sales-to-implementation handoffs right into a strategic asset for our CX and different go-to-market groups—and how one can too.
Our “Readiness for Implementation” loop, and easy methods to use it.
Your organization begins studying a couple of future buyer from the second they turn into a prospect and transfer into the gross sales cycle.
The extra you recognize, the smoother your implementations go, the higher your prospects are arrange for fulfillment, and the extra you possibly can enhance your processes. That interprets to smoother product adoption, quicker worth realization, and a decrease danger of churn.
This makes it important to make sure a strong switch of information out of your gross sales staff to your CX staff after they shut the deal and formally turn into a buyer.
At ChurnZero, we name this course of the Readiness for Implementation suggestions loop. It advantages our CSMs and CX leaders in addition to our implementation staff, and it advantages our gross sales and product groups too.
Step 1: Excellent your sales-to-implementation information switch.
This step is the place you switch all information from the client’s gross sales rep to the implementation or onboarding staff who will help them.
A gross sales rep learns a lot a couple of buyer in the course of the prospecting cycle, which presents a documentation problem. I extremely advocate a 15-minute, in-person (or Zoom) sync along with your gross sales rep to switch as a lot information as potential.
At a minimal, this could embrace:
- The shopper’s targets, and motivation to buy.
- The shopper’s tech stack to be built-in.
- Different opponents thought-about by the client.
- Timelines for the client to satisfy (go-live or transition off one other device).
- Factors of contact concerned in buying choice
You may additionally embrace….
- Detailed notes from technical gross sales conversations about deployment.
- Historical past of buyer’s use of opponents’ methods.
- Factors of contact to be concerned in rollout of the device.
- Nuances to pay attention to (personnel or group smart).
- Anticipated roadblocks to profitable adoption of the system.
For environment friendly documentation, be certain that your CRM has fields that feed into your buyer success platform, enabling your gross sales staff to enter the small print on your implementation/onboarding staff to make use of later down the road.
Step 2: Create a readiness dashboard.
At ChurnZero, our Implementation staff scores a buyer on the “Readiness for Implementation scale” to open one other stage of the suggestions loop. Reasonably than scoring by ICP (Splendid buyer persona) attributes, our scale scores every buyer from 1 to five utilizing a multi-selection checklist of readiness elements that mirror how our groups ready them for implementation. Elements embrace:
- Does the client have the suitable POCs able to implement?
- Is the client’s tech stack able to go, with primary implementation wants met?
- Is the client’s staff prepped for change administration with a brand new system coming?
Accounts and income (redacted) segmented by readiness.in ChurnZero’s Readiness Dashboard.
Step 3: Distribute your dashboard to gas operational insights.
To assist us enhance our course of, we arrange a ChurnZero customized dashboard that pulls in these scores, which is distributed out to gross sales and CS management bi-weekly. This helps us establish areas the place we might not be qualifying prospects and put together them appropriately for the implementation course of.
For instance, are we fighting prospects in a sure trade? Is there a sure gross sales rep who wants assist, or a tech stack merchandise that’s extra nebulous than others?
Bonus characteristic: figuring out staff capability
As an implementation chief, the readiness dashboard additionally helps me decide staff capability appropriately.
If I’ve somebody with 5 “not prepared” prospects of their guide of enterprise, they’re most likely expending extra effort and time chipping away at these than their colleagues with extra “prepared” prospects. I’ll use that information to tailor their subsequent few assignments.
Step 4: Lead a recurring, cross-departmental readiness dashboard overview.
As soon as a month, our CX, gross sales, and product leaders meet to overview the readiness dashboard and establish actionable themes. For instance:
- Are particular gross sales reps struggling to qualify ICP prospects?
- Are particular staff members knocking it out of the park in bringing probably the most certified prospects?
- If we’re seeing non-ICP prospects, is there one thing that product can establish as an space to construct or enhance upon to fulfill these prospects?
- Do we have to zoom out and re-assess one thing about our handoff course of to work collectively?
The alignment we’re attaining right here on the management stage must be your aim too. By operationalizing your sales-implementation handoff into an informational asset, you possibly can affect these groups in the direction of the identical targets. In flip, each member of those groups will really feel the influence of this optimistic collaboration between their leaders.
Yet another factor: get your management on the identical web page.
It’s vital on your management to be on the identical web page to encourage cross-collaboration as it’s going to trickle down into your groups. That is extraordinarily vital for Gross sales + CS groups to be in alignment in supporting your prospects. When leaders reveal the worth of this strategy, and maintain their groups accountable for doing the identical, your insight-sharing initiative will likely be on a quicker monitor to on a regular basis adoption.
Within the subsequent article of this sequence, we’ll discover easy methods to construct a suggestions loop on your implementation staff, CS, and help groups to share insights on the time of implementation launch.
