Today’s question: “why is it difficult to use the same team for implementation projects and ongoing customer success?”
I have had the opportunity to run implementation projects, and be the customer success manager. I’ve also led teams who do both. One of the biggest differences between those project managers who oversee implementation projects, and customer success managers who manage value creation day to day, is the sense of urgency. To demonstrate, let’s dive into each of those scenarios a little bit more.
Implementation Projects
An implementation project is the implementation of a major undertaking, in my case software or data projects. These are either new customers, or customers who are upgrading from an older version of the software. Customers in this position are investing quite a bit of money in their future, while also supporting their existing infrastructure. For the duration of the project, the customer is hyper-focused on this duplication of cost. Further, there are pressures to get rid of the old equipment and software as soon as possible.
The major investment of these times of projects often means that there are additional focus on how the project is going, and how it aligns to the agreed upon schedule. The tendency to pay for these implementations as capital expenditures also adds pressure. Let’s also keep in mind that the day to day business problem, your data or software solves is still occurring while the project is underway. This can often mean within the customer, there are conflicted resources and
Day to Day Success Projects
Once a major onboarding or migration project completes, there are still financial and other pressures. Pressures to deliver value, pressures to prove the right decision was made, the pressures of conflicting business interests, etc. That said, the major implementation cost has already been incurred. The focus has shifted to the general value creation for supporting the day to day business.
This doesn’t mean that the day to day contacts will put less pressure on you. Often time, the day to day business pressure and the close knit relationship of a CSM can mean that the customer team will be even more vocal about their needs. It’s your job as that CSM to help drive that customer value so you lean towards the customer who is in the biggest fire drill, using their voice the loudest.
The Conflict
For a single person filling both the roles, it can be difficult to find the balance between the immediate fire drill, and the longer-term, but often more strategic implementation project. The reality of these types of implementation projects is that the focus should be first on the implementation project, then secondarily on the day to day customer issues. The day to day customer issues will constantly popup as the customers’ business changes, which in today’s fast paced environment can be incredibly difficult to keep up.
If you have done your job well, the implementation project is finite in scope, with a defined methodology for capturing requirements or a set course of action. The bottom line is that it’s a matter of execution. If you constantly enable yourself to be pulled in other directions, you can often succumb to the chaos. The goal is to control the chaos as much as you can. Ultimately it means that the implementation project first, the day to day second. This is an incredibly hard lesson to swallow when you have a day to day team in your face constantly.