Hakan

What do you think about customer success being defined as the everything department? Do you agree with that? What could be the main issue within these organizations so that they end up, calling the CS organization, the everything department?

Prithwi

I partly agree and partly disagree. CS is a philosophy.. one, and it is a function, which means it is a set of roles and I’ll get to that set of roles slightly later… which enables a much smoother and faster path to shareholder value.

The smoother and faster path is because of NRR.. growth contribution.. leading to higher value and stuff like that, right? Now this set of roles is different in different organizations dependent on the type of business you are in, your business model, what products you are selling, who you are selling to, who is your end user, and stuff like that.    

So organizations have to sit down and define what these set of roles are.. who they are going to involve in what they call CS operations. It need not be roles only from the CS function, and we are seeing more and more. Sales can participate in CS operations… Account management can participate in CS operations.. Marketing can participate in CS operations… Product can participate.. of course.. implementation.. onboarding.

So now I think that clarity when it is not there, leads to this confusion.. and you know, whilst the expectation is of everything, but then nothing, sort of comes up.. and people say, oh.. CS doesn’t work. But it doesn’t work because you don’t have this clarity of structure more than anything else.