Perhaps you have heard the term “Customer Success Management” before, but what exactly is this? What does ”Customer Success Management” encompass? It could be argued that every business in the world now has an initiative like “Customer Success Management” or the same thing under a different title. And much like the title itself, businesses define “Customer Success” differently. At Dalet, that definition of Customer Success Management (CSM) embodies a corporate-wide discipline, driven by a dedicated team of Customer Success Managers that accompanies our customers through each step of their journey in order to help them succeed with our solutions and services. We began to develop our CSM team several years ago as part of the support offered with Dalet Flex. Since then, our ambition has been to accelerate and provide CSM services for all our products and platforms. CSM is an essential part of what we provide.
All Part of the Plan: Applying a CSM Strategy
CSM is instrumental in Dalet’s strategy. The CSM group has been built upon three main objectives to serve our customers and offer them a seamless experience:
- Elevating the conversation from features to business outcomes
- Moving with our customers from touch points to journey
- Contribute internally to promote the customer success mindset
Operating at a worldwide scale with a regional presence, our Customer Success Managers orchestrate the whole relationship between Dalet and its customers starting as soon as they subscribe to one of our solutions. This is the beginning of the customer’s journey with Dalet. Along this journey, our Customer Success Managers will represent both the customer and Dalet, acting as the main touchpoint for the whole client team (from C-level to operations and from business to IT) and for the entire Dalet organization. Hence, as our customers’ main interlocutors our CSMs will align and orchestrate their relationships with all groups within Dalet:
- Projects (our Professional Services)
- Product Management and Product Care
- Sales and Marketing
- Legal and Finance
- Support, CloudOpps, Documentation and Training
We Got Your Back: Working with a Customer Success Manager
Our Customer Success Managers are working within our global customer success framework, which includes processes and tools created within Dalet, allowing us to implement and align with customers on a joint success plan. This joint Success Plan ensures our customers get regular follow-ups and updates on the value delivery of their Dalet solution. We also help implement changes where needed to meet their expectations as soon as possible, optimizing their Time-To-Value.
The main idea with our CSM Framework is to define a complete set of activities to be performed, providing for each activity a list of tasks and associated check lists that can be completed. For each of their customers, a Customer Success Manager selects the most relevant tasks for each activity and builds a contextual success plan. While our CSM strategy was very well received by our customers, we at Dalet continue to investigate innovative approaches to improve this program, creating both initiatives and tools specifically tailored to our current and future products.
Looking ahead with Eyes on Target: CSM at Dalet
Now that you know how we are approaching our CSM strategy here at Dalet, you might wonder “What’s next?”. The CSM program has progressed well beyond our initial expectations, particularly in its scalability. We are thrilled with this, but are far from done. We are currently working on developing a “Customer Success Readiness Plan” which is part of an ambitious CSM strategy and timeline for Dalet.
Looking into 2022 and beyond, our overall plan will be to:
- deliver increased Customer Success Management at scale, especially to customers subscribing to Dalet’s SaaS solutions
- help customers who are migrating from a CapEx to an OpEx business model to do so seamlessly
Taking to heart the evolution of our “Customer Success Management” strategy and where we want to be in 2022 (which, we know is just around the corner), Dalet is also working to continuously refine our customer success mindset. With each customer, with each success story, this is becoming more than just a reality within Dalet, but the mindset of everyone here at the company. While we are looking ahead to where we want our CSM to lead in 2022, we are always cognizant of our clients’ needs, working closely with them in achieving success with Dalet’s products and solutions. We are committed to our customers’ success, and our CSM program is paramount in making sure their media workflows — from conception to delivery — are seamless and that our platforms are helping them meet their business goals.
Featured in: Customer Service | Customer Success | SaaS |
Marc is a champion of customer transformation. With more than 20 years of experience in the technology space, working both for startups and global companies in senior customer-facing positions, Marc has expertise in sales and post-sales processes. He has been involved in developing CSM strategy and organizations for years, and ,as the Head of Global Customer Success for Dalet, his objective is to create programs and services that increase satisfaction and drive a positive customer experience.
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