In the previous chapter, “Defining the Journey to Customer Outcomes,” you were presented with the idea that collecting data on your customer allows you to manage your customers' outcomes with the use of tools such as the Journey Map. Combining a concrete Customer Lifecycle and a clearly defined Journey Map will result in delivering a complete Customer Journey.

With these assets, you can better manage and align expectations, goals, and emotional experiences because you have minimized any surprises. The experiences turn into customer lessons. They can be meaningful, reaffirmed, and even recorded, just like any other goal or objective. You can also, through monitoring and guidance, align the customer with the product expectations as to what it really can and cannot do, producing a positive emotional outcome.

Once you, the Customer Success Manager, know and understand the customer's objectives and the “why,” you can frame all of the post-sales tasks around those goals, including the experiences of what are called “Moments of Truth.”

Identifying Your Moments of Truth

Within the Journey Map, there will be multiple interactions and experiences with you and your product that the customer can identify with. For the sake of the Journey Map, you need to identify the most critical of these interactions and experiences called “Moments of Truth.” In the book Customer Genius, the author, Peter Fisk, wrote that these “Moments of Truth,” were “meaningful experiences [that] are about relevant and distinctive interactions.”¹ Instead of keeping the customer searching, you create an environment that gives them freedom and assurance to explore your product, its features, and other services you offer, enhancing the Customer's Journey.

These Moments of Truth are “make-or-break” situations, where a customer commits to the outcome emotionally, taking it as a sign of whether their partnership with you will be successful. Using these Moments, you can focus your team's efforts on achieving the intended outcomes for the customer's business at each marked moment on the Customer Journey. For each stop on the Journey Map, there must be desired Moments of Truth or MoTs.

Business-to-Consumer (B2C) companies have been thinking about MoTs for a long time. Checking into a hotel at the front desk is a critical MoT. It typically sets the tone for how you experience the rest of your stay at that hotel. Another example is when you experience issues with your cable-service at home and you call the cable company to resolve the issue. Their treatment of you and the situation helps you decide whether you will continue to be a customer or if you will recommend the cable company to your friends and family. In 2005, A.G. Lafley, Chairman, President and CEO of Procter & Gamble, a global B2C brand, revised the definition of Moments of Truth into three parts.²

1. When the customer is looking at a product. This can be in-store or online.
2. When the customer actually purchases the product and uses it.
3. When customers provide feedback about the product. They share it with the company as well as their friends, colleagues, and family members.

Many years ago, there was a pivotal business book written by Jan Carlzon, the former CEO of Scandinavian Airlines. Its title was the same title as our current subject matter, Moments of Truth.³ Carlzon believed that a company should be customer-centric. He stated, “Any time a customer comes into contact with any aspect of your business, however remote, they have an opportunity to form an impression.”

Lafley and Carlzon reaffirmed the concept that “ANYTIME” a customer comes into contact with your business, you have an opportunity to form a lasting impression that they will want to share with others. That should be an incentive to take every opportunity to create Moments of Truth.

The MoT should have nothing to do with your product or your needs. Peter Fisk put it this way. Moments of Truth are much more than “just consistent delivery across all the different touchpoints – they're about ensuring that the journey is connected and coherent, consistent and complete. On top of this, it's about bringing it (the journey) to life, making it distinctive, and relevant, and ultimately adding value at every point along the way.”⁴ In other words, the MoT will make sense to the customer, even if they had bought and were using a competitor's product. Also, when it happens, your customer will know and their perspective, in the end, is the most important one.

If this is your first time defining your Moments of Truth, start small. Identify just a few MoTs that you believe will resonate with both your company and your customer. Constructing a complete Customer Journey is a valuable but massive project. To aid you, there are eight MoTs that are critical and advantageous for long-term customer success (see Figure 8.1).

Sales-to-Onboarding Handoff

A prospective customer has been in a sales cycle with multiple members of your sales team for days, weeks, or even months. Now, they are ready to sign the contract and become a customer. Suddenly, they are introduced to a brand-new set of people – your company's Onboarding Team, Support Services, and CSM. The customer will go through a feeling of uncertainty. They will wonder if they can trust all the new people. They will question if the post-Sales teams know their business well enough. Even more, the customer will want to know if they will have to repeat everything they told the Sales team for the past few months. This feeling is very natural and very human. Your customer's anxiety and fears need to be calmed. You, as their CSM, will be responsible for alleviating their concerns quickly, so prepare accordingly.

A critical milestone is the Sales-to-Onboarding handoff. This first interaction must be done right to ensure a smooth transition for the customer. You want the customer to leave the first interaction with a feeling of confidence in the new relationships. There should be a sense of understanding and that they believe that all the new people involved “get” them. Moreover, your preparation efforts should give them the security of a “good start.”

Typically, as soon as a customer signs a contract, your Sales team will mark the deal or opportunity in your CRM as a closed-win. There are a few steps that you should follow as a Customer Success Manager. First, schedule a call with the Sales Rep who owned the deal and/or the Sales Engineer to understand the business context and customer stakeholders. You can also send an internal questionnaire to individuals in your company who were actively involved in the sales process. It will include relevant questions and topics about the customer that you'll need to capture before your first meeting with them. Here are some example topics that you should talk through with the Sales team as part of the handoff:

• General customer information like the company's business model, the target users (group and/or department) for your product, the definition of success for their customers, etc.
• Key stakeholders including the executive sponsors and adoption champions, the main points of contact, administrators if they have been identified, and their competency levels, if known.
• Data quality and availability, if applicable to your product or services.
• IT and security requirements including if the IT team has been involved or advised of the project, security requirements/processes required for data access, release process for new products (and any blackout dates), etc.
• Any business-imposed timelines/deadlines associated with this project.
• Sales contract details including the number of products, licenses, etc. that were purchased, if any paid support plan was chosen, any integrations purchased, if applicable, etc.

Lastly, capture the notes in a repository system where they can be stored for future reference and shared with others in the organization. While this may seem like a “no brainer” for anyone using a CRM system, the truth is that companies aren't collecting, storing, and using data to the best of their abilities. Without proper storage and sharing capabilities, the information will not be properly used and therefore it will not add value to your organization.

Welcome the Customer and Onboarding Kickoff

The first call or meeting with the customer sets the tone for future expectations. So, it is vital to get right. You want the customer to leave the initial interaction believing the process you have given them will achieve their desired business outcomes. You also want them to understand the next steps in their journey and who will be a part of it. Lastly, the customer wants to know that all new persons they encounter from your company have taken the time to learn about them beforehand, so they don't have to repeat themselves. Simply, it's not your customer's job to educate you if the customer has already invested time conveying pertinent information to your Sales Reps or others from your company. In other words, you have to nail the handoffs!

In the case of a high-touch engagement, the Customer Success Manager or Onboarding team will start by scheduling a call or meeting with the Executive Sponsor. The purpose of the call is to make sure you validate the key business outcomes and the project plan for onboarding your product or service to them. It is also important to invite the Account Executive to the call to maintain continuity from the pre-sales process. After the call, a welcome email should be sent from your CS executive and company CEO to the customer. The CSM or project manager should also send a follow-up email capturing the notes from the meeting, recapping the project plan, and the next steps.

Launch or Go-Live

After going through onboarding, the process culminates in your customer getting access to your software and logging in for the first time. It's a critical Moment of Truth because it shapes the initial perceptions of your product or service. Those initial perceptions are very hard to change. It is imperative, then, to make sure that your customers have a memorable launch experience. You want the customer's primary decision-maker to leave the launch stage with the knowledge that they are set up to achieve all their business objectives. You want them to believe that they will accomplish everything that was agreed upon. You also want them to be secure in the understanding of who is responsible for the next steps in their journey. Most of all, you want them to see the impact you, your team, and your product has on their business.

As your customers leave the launch or go-live stage, they should know how to use your product effectively. If they have questions, they should be confident that there is a process or a contact person to help remedy the situation. When using the product, they should experience a sense that it is going to make their work easier. Share usage data that will emphasize they are on the prescribed path of success.

Most go-live launches involve some type of training for the customers, often online or virtual. If the training includes some hands-on exercises, that's even better. Best-in-class go-live launches include some childlike joy to keep the end-users engaged. A favorite example of this is when a customer hid some “Easter eggs” in their implementation of Gainsight. These Easter eggs were simply small clues that users could find only if they paid attention to your training!

New Customer Executive or Champion

Changes are part of every business. One such change is when your primary or executive business sponsor at the customer leaves the company or changes their role. This should be considered an immediate risk to your long-term engagement. This type of change usually means a new sponsor will take their spot and likely have a new set of priorities that they care about.

Understanding when these role changes happen, reaching out to the new executive, and quickly identifying any new priorities can make or break the future of your partnership with the customer. You want the new executive to feel like your company is genuinely interested in their personal and business success. If you are going to create a long-term partner, then there are some steps to ensure this happens.

With a new executive comes new executive priorities. Invest the time to understand these priorities. Next, you must find a way to convey that you want them to achieve their business outcomes as soon as possible. Timeliness is critical in this situation. Contact the customer to verify the change to the executive sponsor's position. In that same call or email, ask for an introduction to the new sponsor. Now, make that call!

You also need to inform your own company. Update the CRM system with the new sponsor's name and role. Schedule a meeting between the new sponsor and leaders of all your teams involved in the customer's account. The point of the meetings is not to just introduce your teams. You want to reaffirm the relationship, inform them of all that was accomplished up to the current date, and identify their future goals. The new sponsor may have some heavy or unexpected demands. The new customer executive needs to know that you have their best interests at heart. Solidify the relationship quickly.

While you are working on building an alliance with this new executive sponsor, you should be investigating what happened to the previous one. If they left your customer's employment, find out where the former executive went. Notify Sales where and with what company the executive ends up, especially if they were having a favorable experience with your company. Leverage that connection. It can be a new sales opportunity for your company.

Business Reviews: For the Executive and More

Some of the most effective ways to advise your customers of their health status and overall progress are with Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs), Executive Business Reviews (EBRs), and automated health reports or value readouts. It shows your customers that they are moving toward the objectives and targets they defined with you. It's important to note that there is not an imperative for these types of meetings to happen quarterly. Many companies call them Executive Business Reviews, or simply Business Reviews. They are conducted sometimes once, or twice a year, or even as frequently as every month.

Health status reports, when delivered during EBRs, are an essential part of an effective Customer Lifecycle. There is real value in illustrating to your customer where they stand, especially when it's done well and with a clear purpose. The goal here is to get the customer to take recommended actions based on their health, and not just get them to read the report. Some CS teams reserve using health reports only during face-to-face meetings, such as EBRs, because reports often need interpretation leading to action.

Here is a scenario: you have worked diligently to onboard the customer with your product. You have been successful, thus far, at getting the customer to adopt your product. They may even be achieving at least part of the business outcomes that they desired from you. What if you haven't been able to make sufficient progress with your customer and now you need the sponsor's help to remove certain organizational obstacles? An excellent place to advocate for assistance is at an EBR.

Conducing the EBR

Right before the meeting begins, check to see that everything is live and working. Check the dial-in system, video connections, the projector, and the Wi-Fi. Make sure there are good whiteboard markers available. Many executive meetings can lose half of their designated time to technical problems. Start the session fast and with energy. Position yourself properly by standing up and moving to the front of the room. This move will increase the level of energy in the room. Try to skip the self-introductions. They can waste time if individuals decide to take ten minutes to give their LinkedIn biography. One creative way to accomplish it quickly is to have a mass introduction. You as the CSM or your CS executive should introduce everyone from your side, and one person from the client should do their introductions. You can turn 15 minutes of intros into a 2-minute drill!

First Course

The next phase can be called the First or “Appetizer Course.” Here is a really important tip. Let's call it a must-do! You will likely only get through one or two topics and maybe three or five slides with executives because most will leave within the first 30 mins of your meeting. A great way to efficiently communicate the most important points of your meeting is to use an Executive Summary. Think of an Executive Summary as your entire presentation captured on one slide. It allows you to convey the most important points in just a few minutes. Use a bullet list format because it is easier to parse through when people don't have much time.

There are many ways to write a great Executive Summary. A common situation in a CSM's life is when you are trying to highlight a major problem, your proposed solution, and perhaps wins from already implementing the solution. Write your Executive Summary with three sections that talk about:

1. Acknowledging the problem – the current situation, and associated facts that prove it's a problem.
2. Illustrating the impact of not solving the problem (potential cost or time loss or savings), root causes of the problem, and barriers to solving the problem.
3. Calling out the actions suggested to solve the problem; if you've already taken the actions, call out learnings or wins from executing the solution.

Generally, in the “Appetizer Course,” your senior executives and the Working Team are present. Utilize the first 30 minutes to articulate the company's strategic objectives related to the project. Advise and help your team, especially your own company executives, to prep in advance in an attempt to limit their “airtime” during the EBR. Most executives love to talk!

Next, have the customer project owner do an update in front of the customer executives. Hopefully, the news is good and affirms the positive momentum. If the report is not “great,” do not shy away from it. Your customer wants honesty and transparency. It will do more harm than good if you keep anything from them. Next, have the most senior person from your side of the partnership share news, especially regarding the customer's momentum. Challenge the exec, if necessary, with advice on what more both companies could be doing together to mature faster.

Second Course

The Second or “Main Course” of an EBR involves the Working Team only. Most executives do not have the bandwidth to spend hours in a meeting such as this. This part of the EBR can take between one to two hours. The Main Course is the part of the meeting where most of the Business Review happens. Most of the topics discussed above are typically on the agenda of an EBR.

Third Course

The Third or “Dessert” phase of an EBR is when the Working Team coordinates the next steps. This portion of the EBR, which should last no more than 20 to 30 minutes, is when you and your team take the executive's strategic objectives and convert them into actions. You want them to be implemented in your product in collaboration with the customer team. For example, Figure 8.2 shows strategic objectives for the customer on the left side. These are from the intro by the executive in the “Appetizer” course. The action-plan on the right of the graphic is from the “Main” course.

Follow-up

Finally, make sure you are using the momentum from the EBR to make rapid progress. Always send an email with a meeting follow-up report and a “thank you” note during the same day, if possible. Include a shared EBR deck in PDF form along with your notes from the meeting. You can also place these items in your CS platform, CRM system, or wherever you store notes that are shared across the company. Anyone who has contact with your customer should have access to that information.

One last step is to create a “Success Plan.” A Success Plan is a shareable set of tasks and next steps that both your company and the customer can jointly work on. We will cover Success Plans in more depth in Chapter 11.

Renewals

There's a common saying in the Customer Success world that if the customer is successful in adopting and receiving outcomes from your product or service, the renewal becomes a non-event. While the spirit of the statement is 100% true, a renewal Moment of Truth still requires careful preparation before and after the renewal commitment.

Let's go back for a moment and focus on what a renewal is. The renewal is and always will be a sales transaction. It can happen in one of two ways. The first is explicit, as with a signed contract. That means you need a signature to continue the customer's business agreement with your company. The second way is implicit, as with an auto-renewal or “non-opt-out” agreement. Auto-renewal is often referred to as an “evergreen” contract. It does not need a signature when the contract expires and will automatically renew unless your customer informs you they are leaving. Your job as a Customer Success Manager is to make the renewal a non-event by ensuring the customer will always renew.

Contemplate this scenario: your customer is a healthy customer, but they have not been communicating with you as much. You are certain, however, that the upcoming renewal will be a non-issue because of their past usage and positive NPS scores. They have an EBR a month before the contract expiration date. What should you do?

Don't wait until the renewal date to communicate on the commercial terms with the customer. At least 120 days before the renewal, reach out to the customer. One opportunity is to make it a part of an EBR and discuss the value delivered to date, as well as how the partnership can continue to flourish. If there are any concerns or red flags raised, you have some time before the actual renewal to course-correct. At scale, this can also be done by digital outreaches.

The ideal outcome is for the customer to believe in the value of the tool, product, or service you provide. The proven value enables them to make a case to their internal decision-makers for its continued use, or they will be able to make that case in two to three months. In the scenario above, the EBR is just a month before contract expiration. It is advised that in the future, you move the EBR to the recommended 120-day period.

After the renewal paperwork is completed, close the loop with the customer. You should send a short note to the customer's executive, and the Working Team, thanking them for their continued partnership. For your low-touch customers, you could use an automated email to thank the customer for their renewed commitment and offer a conversation to plan out details. You want the customer to feel excited about the possibilities of what they can achieve. They should also believe that you and your teams are ready to help make their goals a reality.

•••

This chapter gave you some actionable ideas on how to bring your Customer Journey to life by effectively managing your Moments of Truth. We shared some commonly seen Moments of Truth in the Customer Success world and how to best prepare and deliver those MoTs. See below for a step-by-step summary. In the next chapter, we'll discuss how to define your Health Scores and your tech-touch strategy to further increase visibility and insights into your customers.