Who's saving who? | Ep. 151

[Rob] (0:00 - 0:36)

We were like, we want to be your strategic partner and he was like, I don't need a partner I don't need a partner. I have a partner. I have a business partner.

I need a vendor. Okay, you are a vendor You must fix my tickets and we were like, okay Enough with the rhetorical I love it What's up lifers and welcome to The Daily Standup with Lifetime Value where we're giving you fresh new customer success ideas Every single day.

[Dillon] (0:36 - 1:01)

I got my man Rob here Rob. You want to say hi? hola And we've got JP with us JP, do you want to say hi And I am your host, my name is Dillon young JP, I don't know what you just said, but You told us you had something you wanted to bring to the table today.

Is that right?

[JP] (1:02 - 1:19)

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. So our good host Dillon here is always bringing in the Reddit I'm trying to find a better word than garbage, but Potential sponsor potential sponsor ready.

[Dillon] (1:19 - 1:19)

We apologize.

[JP] (1:19 - 4:55)

I think that there's also potential sponsor Bane Can either of you do a Bane voice? I was born in the dark There's nothing but blindness no, so All right. So listen, so yes Bane's doesn't decide they did come out with this article by the way It was around the end of September 2024 just to give you a little bit of a time that's when it was published and so I just saw this article and I thought that it was intriguing because it was Giving me sort of a panorama here on The Daily Standup.

We have lots of great discussions with guests I feel like a lot of times go into topics Feel like rarely do we look more at aggregates or maybe look at some numbers and different things So this one had some good stuff in it I'm just gonna read off a few of the things that stood out to me and then let's get into it guys So one of the first things I noticed in the article was they mentioned this mismatch Between the the support the vendor provides and what customers value, right? So there's this mismatch between Customers who really want more implementation help and being able to deploy the product versus what the CS team's sort of first priority is which is usually more around Let's get these objectives and get a success plan This was to me the crux of the article was really that there's this disparity between what the customer is prioritizing in terms of this technical implementation and It being like at the bottom of the list for CS folks But the rest of the list was pretty much aligned. So that's why I say it was the crux They also say that leading firms there develop a clear product and customer journey blueprint Which I mean know that that's the best way to do it But they also better define and coordinate post sales roles, which is like easier said than done Of course, I think we all want that They also talked about some of this belonging to a shift from subscription to more usage based pricing Definitely depending on the product that you have One of the stats that I thought stood out was they said that about 60% of enterprise software companies now have a CS team as opposed to 40% last year, so that's like a 20% increase so basically they're saying that there's been more investment in CS But of course part of the salacious part of the title of the article was that people are getting less in our are So there's this disparity between the investment and what people are seeing And they'll say lastly it said and I can see why customers would want this, but it says that customers prefer having someone who is a technical role as a primary CS contact as opposed to a non-technical CSM My non-technical ass was like hmm It got me thinking as someone who works with a product that is indeed very technical Well, I thought about that in a very practical sense I said when someone asked me a question despite me maybe knowing some basics a lot of times I have to go ask someone else and Then I have to wait for a response and then I have to communicate that back to the customer That's adding lag time and that latency does not provide an optimal customer experience So I can see how that could shake out, but let's see what you guys think

[Dillon] (4:55 - 6:35)

Can I ask some more questions just to set like a foundation? Did they talk about? the demographics of the companies that they surveyed was it B to B versus B to C.

Was it a certain size? They use enterprise software companies, but I don't know what that means Like is monday.com considered enterprise Because it's like a big piece of software or no because I can sign up for it self-sufficiently online So I guess that's the crux of all of my questions here is the accuracy of the data not the accuracy of the data, but the provenance of the data because we have Late last year. We talked with Stephen Wise twice about how you've Got to truly understand your product and what the customer needs from it in order to serve them best.

So this idea of heavy technical knowledge versus much more relationship based Immediately when you gave the example about wanting more technical expertise It makes me think who were they asking what sort of products were they using the idea of implementation, I think customers wanting more help with that and Companies or vendors wanting to provide as little of that as possible so that they can get to the the stuff that drives up NRR For them. Well, I think that totally depends on how you define implementation, right? What does that mean?

[JP] (6:36 - 6:46)

Product by the way, I think that's what rang true to me I think these are more technical products because how much implementation help do you need for some?

[Dillon] (6:47 - 7:28)

Yeah, and the last thing I'll say is as soon as we start making assumptions as data is worthless to me because how do I? Make decisions for my company my role the teams I manage if I don't know what the data is telling me So I'm not saying I mean look Bain very smart people But it is hard for me Personally and maybe this is just me to make decisions based off of data if I don't understand where it's coming from who's telling It to me so on and so forth, but we can still talk about what it all means I guess I just I have a ton of questions about whether it's Actionable from my perspective, but Rob you probably have more experience with actually dealing with this sort of stuff I'd love to hear what you have to say or questions you have about the report

[Rob] (7:28 - 9:51)

Yeah, no doing you hit on the key thing that I was looking for same thing I'm not finding enough about the research methodology Around like how big was the sample size who composed that and look this is probably the social science want to be social scientist in me that wants to understand the the survey methodology the Sample size and what companies made up the sample and that kind of thing before I'm saying it's representative But overall I think there are things we agree with in here that I know the three of us agree with in here Like around proving the return on customer success that's something we talk about all the time and it says like many vendors have hired excessively in customer success without validating their post sales model and I think we talked about a lot too Which is super important, but I think most of the article honestly look I'll put it this way I don't think we'd be reading this article if it was weren't written by some Prestigious source like Bain.

I think there's a lot of stuff in here. That's like super click, baby I think most of the findings to me. They don't seem totally internally consistent So JP, I think you brought up a good point That the article says from the customers perspective assisting with technical implementation is number one from the practitioner perspective assisting with technical implementation is bottom of the list like I don't totally think that's true in our actual lines of work, and I also think Like the funny thing is they say that from the customers perspective Resolving support tickets is last on the list and then from the practitioner perspective They don't even have resolving support tickets on the list And I'm thinking about there's this time here. I remember I had like one of the Angriest customers I ever dealt with we were like we want to be your strategic partner, and he was like I don't need a partner.

I don't need a partner. I have a partner. I have a business partner.

I need a vendor Okay, you are a vendor you must fix my tickets, and we were like okay Enough with the rhetorical stuff One last thing to the advice when you get to the advice part of the article like what to do with it Let me tell you what the advice is number one step into your customers shoes number two Redefine post sales roles to deliver on customer success mandate number three coordinate the front lines And it goes on like I said, I'm like what kind of trivial bullshit is

[JP] (9:52 - 9:55)

Like just lost Bane as a sponsor. I just sorry baby.

[Dillon] (9:55 - 10:52)

Yep. Yep. Sorry We were all born in the dark alright guys, we know what it's like to get your ass kicked by an angry customer I don't think Bane I Look I I think it's so hard even for the likes of Bane with their billions of dollars to Generalize what is Like a whole freaking profession that'd be like hey sales are down and Bane writes a report and says you should call more people.

That's like. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that makes total sense Bane.

Thanks How much money did you spend on that and by the way Bane can help you do that, right? That's what ends up happening is these reports are written so that people call Bane up and they're like, oh, I love that report Can you help me do that thing?

[JP] (10:52 - 11:09)

Like guys, this was all part of my plan You know what We have a part two of this topic. You didn't think so, but you know what it is. So we got a part two to this topic Rob what did you call it?

A piss the CS of piss?

[Rob] (11:09 - 11:11)

Oh epistemology of customer success.

[JP] (11:11 - 11:12)

Yeah.

[Rob] (11:12 - 11:21)

Yeah So know what that word means So like a theory of knowledge, like how do you know what you know, basically?

[Dillon] (11:24 - 11:32)

Thank you. Well, my love is my brain That's how I know what I know Actually, my brain can't be trusted JP do you want to take us out of here?

[JP] (11:34 - 12:08)

Yeah, listen this article I Thought it was the perfect jumping-off point really like clearly Yes, Bane is more reputable than reddit, right? but then reputable also does not necessarily equate to Providing a lot of value for lack of a better phrase. It's gonna be really interesting for people You've seen this but stick around because now we want to talk about something that really doesn't get I think talked about as much In customer success.

So stay tuned for part two, baby

[Dillon] (12:10 - 12:14)

the epistemology The epistemology

[Voiceover] (12:20 - 12:51)

You've been listening to The Daily Standup by Lifetime Value Please note that the views expressed in these conversations are attributed only to those individuals on this recording and do not necessarily Reflect the views and opinions of their respective employers For all inquiries, please reach out via email to Dillon at Lifetime Value media.com Find us on youtube at Lifetime Value and find us on the socials at Lifetime Value media until next time