The Power of Partnership: Making the Most of the People on the Other Side of the Table
Amy Jo Plummer
I’m pretty sure every Customer Success presentation ever created has included some version of:
“We don’t want to be your vendor. We want to be your partner.”
There’s probably a stock photo of two people shaking hands involved.
It’s become such a standard line that partnership risks becoming one of those business words we all use without really thinking about what it should mean.
Because calling something a partnership doesn’t make it one.
A real partnership shows up in what both sides know about each other, the conversations they’re willing to have and, most importantly, whether that relationship actually helps either organization make better decisions and actions that help their bottom line.
I’ve spent much of my career working with enterprise customers, and one thing I’ve seen consistently is that the closer two organizations are, the better decisions they both tend to make.
Table stakes, right?
But what does close actually mean?
It’s not just a steak dinner and drinks. Although I genuinely love taking you, my customer, out to dinner and love spending time with you. If you’re not a customer and love to do that too, by all means let’s get that on the books! There’s always good conversations to be had in that regard.
What I mean by “close” is understanding what our customer is trying to accomplish, where they’re struggling, what’s changing in their business and where they’re headed next. The most valuable conversations I’ve had with customers have had very little to do with the product they originally bought from us and more about the issues they’re looking to solve. Don’t leave your CSM in the cold as far as sharing future plans-it’s pretty incredible how much they can contribute to ensuring you have the right tools, at least pertaining to what they offer, that can help.
Better Relationships Create Better Business Intelligence
When you know each other’s businesses well, you stop guessing and start talking.
If adoption is low, we can talk about why. We can help you solve that.
If a workflow isn’t working, we can understand what someone is actually trying to accomplish and maybe suggest a “best practices” session rather than immediately jumping to a feature request.
If your organization has a major initiative coming next year, knowing about it now gives us the opportunity to think about how we might help—or who else within our organization should be part of the conversation.
And when we understand your priorities, we don’t need to throw everything and the kitchen sink at you hoping something sticks.
Instead, we can say:
“You told us this was important. We think this could help.”
That’s a much more useful conversation for everyone. It also means problems tend to surface earlier and we can inform our roadmap in the ways our customers believe is valuable.
Customer Success teams sit in an interesting position inside an organization. We hear what customers are trying to accomplish, where their teams are getting stuck, what competitors are talking about, what capabilities are suddenly becoming important and what problems keep appearing across completely different businesses.
When that information makes its way back into the organization effectively, Customer Success becomes much more than a department responsible for adoption and renewals.
It becomes business intelligence. But business intelligence not just for us, for the customer too.
Problems = Future Roadmap
Some of the best product ideas I’ve seen don’t start in a roadmap meeting. They start with a customer saying:
“Here’s what we’re trying to accomplish.”
There’s an important distinction there, though. And my Product friends would not be happy with me if I didn’t say so!
Customers shouldn’t dictate a product roadmap. Building every feature someone asks for is not partnership—it’s a very expensive way to lose focus and eventually end up with a diluted version of something that used to be great.
But those same Product partners would also say that not listening is expensive, too.
The greatest Product leaders I’ve worked with haven’t been afraid to say no to customer requests. What makes them great is that they want to understand the why behind the request before they do.
That’s where strong Customer Success relationships matter. We get them the “why”. We love linking up our customers and our product teams. That’s where the fire ignites!
Instead of forwarding a ticket that says Customer X wants Feature Y, we can get the right stakeholders together and understand the problem underneath it. And, when multiple customers start describing the same challenge, that’s even more meaningful.
Now Product isn’t just looking at a list of requests. They’re seeing-and hearing- a market signal. And your best CS teams get the customers in front of Product teams to let them hear it directly.
That leads to better prioritization and ultimately better products.
It’s not always sunshine and rainbows-because sometimes the answer is no. Sometimes there’s another solution. Sometimes what seems obvious from the outside would create unintended consequences elsewhere. Or, what the customer wants would only serve them and we must think about a broader picture. Informing our customers how their peers are solving similar issues helps them have eyes and ears outside of their own organization. Again, an informed Customer Success partner relationship is powerful here-and what your CS partner knows can likely help you figure out a best path.
Sometimes the Most Valuable Conversation Has Nothing to Do With the Product
This is my favorite part of strong customer relationships (aside from the dinners, of course).
When you understand someone’s business beyond how they use your product, you start seeing opportunities neither side would have found otherwise.
A while back I had a conversation with the CEO of a large banking institution.
We were talking about his business, and he mentioned that he needed to find more ways to generate revenue while continuing to cut costs. Everyone is so lean, you can’t just cut people anymore.
He laughed and said he was just waxing poetic. He didn’t expect me to help solve that problem. And, he pointed out, it wasn’t part of our agenda. But, it’s a problem literally every single one of my customers needs to solve, I told him. I also told him to let us think on it. I don’t think he left that conversation thinking that we’d actually come back with some solutions.
But-his feedback-along with many others saying the same thing-lead us to a few pretty incredible ideas that are changing the game. And it’s completely outside of what a point of sale has been able to do. Because we listened.
A couple months ago we finally were able to introduce something powerful to him-opportunities that can help significantly reduce costs. And not only that-we also had a way to actually bring additional revenue to his door that literally cost him nothing to put into place.
Neither had anything to do with the reason he originally became our customer. Neither are typical offerings from a Point of Sale.
But suddenly we were having a conversation that could genuinely impact his bottom line.
And, because we don’t just wait for a QBR to stay connected, I could bring those ideas to him while his organization was actively planning for the following year—not 6 months later whenever we have those meetings on the calendar.
Our Senior Customer Success Manager, Michele Lillis, has built this same depth of relationship across the organization. Those relationships continuously open doors to conversations that go far beyond whether someone is successfully using a point-of-sale system.
Maybe calling it a “Partnership” Isn’t the Point
Customer Success has spent way too many hours, LinkedIn posts and conversations trying to convince customers that we’re partners. I certainly have-because I truly believe it! But the title doesn’t really matter; the value of the relationship does. The best customer relationships I’ve been part of are the ones where both sides are willing to share what’s actually happening in their businesses, are comfortable saying when something isn’t working and give each other enough access to understand the real problem—not just the data that shows ROI.
For us, that means taking what we learn back into our organization and actually doing something with it. It means connecting our customers with the right people, advocating for what matters to them and bringing forward opportunities that can help—even when they sit outside the neat boundaries of the product they originally purchased.
So, call it Customer Success. Call it account management. Call it a strategic partnership if you want to. Just make sure it earns the title.