Aligning Customer Health in a Technical Company

About Me

Bill Lapcevicbill@newrelic.com@billlap

My Background:

VP Customer Success – 2 YearsVP Business Development – 6 Years

Father of two, Husband of one, Fly Fisherman, A Cappella Singer, SaaS believer

CUSTOMER SUCCESSGame Contains:

• Complete Walkthrough• Cheat Codes for Wild Success• Full Color Cardboard Cutout of a Scorpion

• Blister Pads for your worn out thumbs• Hours of fun for your whole team

YOU!!!Desired Traits:

PersistenceTeamworkExcellent Timing and AgilityA Strong Point of View on Customer Health

Must be able avoid:

ScorpionsCrocodilesQuicksand

Don’t  worry,  it’s  a  simple  metric…what  could  possible  go  wrong?

Even simple metrics are challenging

Deployment %

Snapshot or Real-time?

Data from SFDC, Product, Marketo, other?

Rate of Change over time?

Which Product?

Etc.

Etc.Etc.

1. Get everyone into a room (Sales, Marketing, Product Management, Product, Execs, CS, etc)

1. Define the simplest possible version of the Metric

1. This becomes the BASE Metric and is agreed to by everyone.

2. Everyone who wants to expound on the Metric may do so (if they explain how and why)

1. Pro TIP: Be Prescriptive and don’t back down

QUICKSAND CHEAT CODE

I’ll eat you up, I love that metric so!

A partial list the top Metric for Customer Health at New Relic

• Deployment?• Monthly Active Users?• Number of products bought?• Number of users?• Monthly Active Users/Quarterly Active Users?• The Maturity of the customer?• What features are they NOT using?• What features ARE they using?• Did they clean their room?• How healthy did the last exec who thought about the company think they were?• And on and on and on…

PRESIDENT’S  Favorite

CEO’s  Favorite

Product  Marketing’s  Favorite

Adoption  Marketing’s   favorite

My  Mom’s  Favorite

My  Favorite

CROC CHEAT CODE

1. Focus on what the company needs most from Customer Success

1. Prioritize available metrics (1st order problem, 2nd order problem, etc)

1. Align with the rest of the org: gather the “experts” (product, Business Ops, Product Marketing, Sales, CS, etc) and get their buy in.

1. Start using the new health metrics – Make the data visible

2.Pro Tip: Don’t let your ego get in the way

©2008-­‐15  New  Relic,  Inc.  All  rights  reserved.

Our  point  of  view  on  Customer  Health

1. Deployment

2. Monthly  Active  Users

3. Features  and  Capabilities/Maturity   of  Use

4. Customer  Sentiment

CSM  ContextRisk  Assessment

1-­‐5

©2008-­‐15  New  Relic,  Inc.  All  rights  reserved.

New  Relic  Maturity  Scoreboard• Aligned with Product Org

• Behind each level are dozens of complex metrics

• Easy for an exec to see progress

• Every Exec has a little something for them in the score

• Black-Belt Pitfall Explorer!

• Pro Tip: Iterate to get here or your thumbs will probably fall off

We did it!! We beat Pitfall!

Uh Oh, better check your shoes….and take ACTION

SCORPION CHEAT CODE

• Find all the places the Scorpions may be hiding• (Economy, Product Gap, Terms, Price, Value Prop, Channel)

• Figure out which Scorpions you can exterminate• Track their movements so you know where they are!

• Develop Programs for each Category of Risk• Assign someone to “Catch” each Risk Category• Measure progress and Reassess Regularly!

Customer Success PITFALL Scoreboard

• Average Deployment across all of our customers is up more than 5% in less than a year

• CSM assigned accounts renew at 5 to 6% greater rate than those that don’t

• All the irritating questions and most of the fire drills are GONE!

• The Product Org is building the RIGHT instrumentation across all products

• Customers and our Sales Teams report our CSMs providing immense value

Take Aways for the Well Healed Explorer

• Alignment is HARD – but it’s CRITICAL• It’s a multi player video game: Force the conversation with your org• Keep it SIMPLE (they won’t)• Be prescriptive about your POV• Iterate – tackle the first order problem first, add complexity later• Force the Action and ensure the Outcomes

You can do it because you’re ALIGNED!!

Q&A