Customer Success Leadership Community

Forgive my long response which may or may not address part of this question. It hits on something near and dear to my heart.

Measuring value is the million dollar question. This tends to be one of the bigger challenges Customer Success teams face. It really begins in the sales cycle. In an ideal world sales works with the client to get very clear on what their business outcomes are and how they plan to measure that. The Customer Success team would then carry that work forward in helping the client measure their success and determine the value they are receiving from the solution. Unfortunately what we often find is this value step is either missed completely by sales or has not been defined clearly enough in the sales cycle which is why when the Customer Success teams engage with the clients, the clients aren't clear on how to measure their success.  

Ideally any markers for determining true value should be defined by the customer. If we are the ones defining it we may or may not be measuring the right thing. Adoption does not always translate into value though it is an indicator. In the absence of input from the client all we really have is whatever data we have access to. 

if you are trying to have discussions with your clients around what value looks like to them here are some questions you may want to ask:

- what metrics do you currently track that will help you determine your success with the solution?
- what changes in these metrics are you expecting to see?
- how quickly are you expecting to see the changes? When will you first know that you are on the right track?
- how will you know if this has not been successful?
- how can I support you moving forward in measuring these outcomes?

if the customer cannot answer these questions it's going to be a challenge and could be a red flag. You may want to offer up other metrics that clients are using to help get them thinking about it.  There is a reason they bought the solution and I would suggest going back to what prompted them to look for a solution. What was wrong, not getting done, too painful, taking too much time, etc. that caused them to want to buy this new solution?  What metrics are these pain points attached to and how can you quantify the impact of your solution on these metrics?

Forgive my long response which may or may not address part of this question. It hits on something near and dear to my heart.

Measuring value is the million dollar question. This tends to be one of the bigger challenges Customer Success teams face. It really begins in the sales cycle. In an ideal world sales works with the client to get very clear on what their business outcomes are and how they plan to measure that. The Customer Success team would then carry that work forward in helping the client measure their success and determine the value they are receiving from the solution. Unfortunately what we often find is this value step is either missed completely by sales or has not been defined clearly enough in the sales cycle which is why when the Customer Success teams engage with the clients, the clients aren't clear on how to measure their success.  

Ideally any markers for determining true value should be defined by the customer. If we are the ones defining it we may or may not be measuring the right thing. Adoption does not always translate into value though it is an indicator. In the absence of input from the client all we really have is whatever data we have access to. 

if you are trying to have discussions with your clients around what value looks like to them here are some questions you may want to ask:

- what metrics do you currently track that will help you determine your success with the solution?
- what changes in these metrics are you expecting to see?
- how quickly are you expecting to see the changes? When will you first know that you are on the right track?
- how will you know if this has not been successful?
- how can I support you moving forward in measuring these outcomes?

if the customer cannot answer these questions it's going to be a challenge and could be a red flag. You may want to offer up other metrics that clients are using to help get them thinking about it.  There is a reason they bought the solution and I would suggest going back to what prompted them to look for a solution. What was wrong, not getting done, too painful, taking too much time, etc. that caused them to want to buy this new solution?  What metrics are these pain points attached to and how can you quantify the impact of your solution on these metrics?

Great posts all around.  At Quorum we've developed 4 value propositions for each product that effectively define why the client is buying that product.  Those value props are identified in the sales cycle and then during the kickoff call with the CSM we stack-rank those with the client.  That aligns objectives explicitly.  The stack rank then defines the onboarding experience in terms of how/when we train and the level of involvement from the CSM.  We've established product usage thresholds (by product feature and use case) to determine when a client is 'exploring' a product (value prop) and when it has been fully 'adopted.'   Those first, second, third, etc adoption milestones are built into our customer journey and give CSMs a roadmap for how and when to engage.  It also helps us during business reviews as we can go back to the stack rank of the kickoff call and review how and when that value was achieved.  

Admittedly this has taken us the better part of a year to put together, and it's still very much in its' infancy.  But it's completely changed how we view client health.  

Forgive my long response which may or may not address part of this question. It hits on something near and dear to my heart.

Measuring value is the million dollar question. This tends to be one of the bigger challenges Customer Success teams face. It really begins in the sales cycle. In an ideal world sales works with the client to get very clear on what their business outcomes are and how they plan to measure that. The Customer Success team would then carry that work forward in helping the client measure their success and determine the value they are receiving from the solution. Unfortunately what we often find is this value step is either missed completely by sales or has not been defined clearly enough in the sales cycle which is why when the Customer Success teams engage with the clients, the clients aren't clear on how to measure their success.  

Ideally any markers for determining true value should be defined by the customer. If we are the ones defining it we may or may not be measuring the right thing. Adoption does not always translate into value though it is an indicator. In the absence of input from the client all we really have is whatever data we have access to. 

if you are trying to have discussions with your clients around what value looks like to them here are some questions you may want to ask:

- what metrics do you currently track that will help you determine your success with the solution?
- what changes in these metrics are you expecting to see?
- how quickly are you expecting to see the changes? When will you first know that you are on the right track?
- how will you know if this has not been successful?
- how can I support you moving forward in measuring these outcomes?

if the customer cannot answer these questions it's going to be a challenge and could be a red flag. You may want to offer up other metrics that clients are using to help get them thinking about it.  There is a reason they bought the solution and I would suggest going back to what prompted them to look for a solution. What was wrong, not getting done, too painful, taking too much time, etc. that caused them to want to buy this new solution?  What metrics are these pain points attached to and how can you quantify the impact of your solution on these metrics?

Great posts all around.  At Quorum we've developed 4 value propositions for each product that effectively define why the client is buying that product.  Those value props are identified in the sales cycle and then during the kickoff call with the CSM we stack-rank those with the client.  That aligns objectives explicitly.  The stack rank then defines the onboarding experience in terms of how/when we train and the level of involvement from the CSM.  We've established product usage thresholds (by product feature and use case) to determine when a client is 'exploring' a product (value prop) and when it has been fully 'adopted.'   Those first, second, third, etc adoption milestones are built into our customer journey and give CSMs a roadmap for how and when to engage.  It also helps us during business reviews as we can go back to the stack rank of the kickoff call and review how and when that value was achieved.  

Admittedly this has taken us the better part of a year to put together, and it's still very much in its' infancy.  But it's completely changed how we view client health.  

Forgive my long response which may or may not address part of this question. It hits on something near and dear to my heart.

Measuring value is the million dollar question. This tends to be one of the bigger challenges Customer Success teams face. It really begins in the sales cycle. In an ideal world sales works with the client to get very clear on what their business outcomes are and how they plan to measure that. The Customer Success team would then carry that work forward in helping the client measure their success and determine the value they are receiving from the solution. Unfortunately what we often find is this value step is either missed completely by sales or has not been defined clearly enough in the sales cycle which is why when the Customer Success teams engage with the clients, the clients aren't clear on how to measure their success.  

Ideally any markers for determining true value should be defined by the customer. If we are the ones defining it we may or may not be measuring the right thing. Adoption does not always translate into value though it is an indicator. In the absence of input from the client all we really have is whatever data we have access to. 

if you are trying to have discussions with your clients around what value looks like to them here are some questions you may want to ask:

- what metrics do you currently track that will help you determine your success with the solution?
- what changes in these metrics are you expecting to see?
- how quickly are you expecting to see the changes? When will you first know that you are on the right track?
- how will you know if this has not been successful?
- how can I support you moving forward in measuring these outcomes?

if the customer cannot answer these questions it's going to be a challenge and could be a red flag. You may want to offer up other metrics that clients are using to help get them thinking about it.  There is a reason they bought the solution and I would suggest going back to what prompted them to look for a solution. What was wrong, not getting done, too painful, taking too much time, etc. that caused them to want to buy this new solution?  What metrics are these pain points attached to and how can you quantify the impact of your solution on these metrics?

Forgive my long response which may or may not address part of this question. It hits on something near and dear to my heart.

Measuring value is the million dollar question. This tends to be one of the bigger challenges Customer Success teams face. It really begins in the sales cycle. In an ideal world sales works with the client to get very clear on what their business outcomes are and how they plan to measure that. The Customer Success team would then carry that work forward in helping the client measure their success and determine the value they are receiving from the solution. Unfortunately what we often find is this value step is either missed completely by sales or has not been defined clearly enough in the sales cycle which is why when the Customer Success teams engage with the clients, the clients aren't clear on how to measure their success.  

Ideally any markers for determining true value should be defined by the customer. If we are the ones defining it we may or may not be measuring the right thing. Adoption does not always translate into value though it is an indicator. In the absence of input from the client all we really have is whatever data we have access to. 

if you are trying to have discussions with your clients around what value looks like to them here are some questions you may want to ask:

- what metrics do you currently track that will help you determine your success with the solution?
- what changes in these metrics are you expecting to see?
- how quickly are you expecting to see the changes? When will you first know that you are on the right track?
- how will you know if this has not been successful?
- how can I support you moving forward in measuring these outcomes?

if the customer cannot answer these questions it's going to be a challenge and could be a red flag. You may want to offer up other metrics that clients are using to help get them thinking about it.  There is a reason they bought the solution and I would suggest going back to what prompted them to look for a solution. What was wrong, not getting done, too painful, taking too much time, etc. that caused them to want to buy this new solution?  What metrics are these pain points attached to and how can you quantify the impact of your solution on these metrics?