This article comes from Kevin Lau’s talk, ‘How to build the case for a customer-led COE’ at our 2023 Las Vegas Customer Marketing Summit, check out his full talk here.
Customer marketing often falls into the trap of focusing merely on increasing numbers, looking for more testimonials, more references, and more merchandise.
But as customer marketers, we need to remember to take a step back and look at the bigger picture, focusing on the deeper impact, fostering genuine relationships, and prioritizing customer retention.
Luckily, within the customer marketing space, we are uniquely positioned to manage this, driving growth and expansion, if we harness our strategic potential effectively. So today, I’d like to discuss how to position for greater success and the different steps needed for establishing a center of excellence (COE)🎖️.
Having navigated the high seas of the corporate world, from the realms of Adobe to the territories of Marketo, and now holding the helm at F5, I've been extremely fortunate to gather a treasure trove of experiences. A common theme across all with the most significant impact? The power of prioritizing the customer.
I'm here today to break it down into six key steps to building a successful customer-led COE from scratch. We'll be talking about everything from asking yourself the right questions, identifying the customer friction points, focusing on impact versus activity, to finally rolling out a comprehensive success system.
So, whether you're just dipping your toes in customer marketing, or you're a seasoned professional looking to innovate and shake things up, there's something in here for you. Ready to take the leap and explore how you can lead the change in your organization? Let’s begin! 👇
- Step 1: Asking the real questions
- Step 2: Building with data
- Step 3: Aligning your program
- Step 4: Identifying friction points
- Step 5: Impact over activity
- Step 6: Creating a success system
Step 1: Asking the real questions
This is the starting point to everything important, and it’s usually the most overlooked step - asking the real questions about yourself, the resources you have today, and what you need to accomplish.
It begins with what are specifically the jobs that need to be done and what are we trying to solve here within this team?
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Then, what is it ultimately that your CMO or your executive leadership team cares about? How can you make your boss's job easier?
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Following on from that, how can you execute your programs within 90 days? And how can you get those quick wins?
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Then finally, and arguably most importantly, how do you measure your impact and success for your team?
Step 2: Building with data
Once you’ve worked through those questions, this should give you a good foundation for creating your COE charter. Think of your charter as a roadmap – it helps you to understand where you're headed and what you need to do to get there.
The second piece of this is really looking at the data. It’s crucial to build strong relationships with folks that have the insights, whether it's data, it's the finance team, or it's marketing operations, these are the people that can help you unlock the untapped potential sitting in your data.
From sharing the actual win-loss reports, and the churn models, and allowing deeper understanding, these teams can highlight the gaps for you, discussing things they’re hearing from their field.
Therefore, by fostering good relationships with the people who understand the data best, you’re able to harness the power of these insights, giving you even more opportunities to scale and learn from customers 🤝.
Step 3: Aligning your program
And now, onto our third step, actually talking to our customers and aligning our strategies with their desired outcomes.
In an industry built on relationships, we're already pros at this! But there's always room to fine-tune our approach. When I venture into a new company, one of my favorite starting points is to create various avenues for customer communication, be it one-to-one, one-to-few, or one-to-many.
Now, the golden question: what keeps our customers up at night? Unearthing their pain points and challenges is an invaluable opportunity to align our strategies with their specific needs.
But it's not just about identifying the issues; it's about crafting a vision that resonates with them. We want to enroll our customers in our initiatives, ensure they see the value we see, and validate that vision against their expectations, ultimately making it effortless for them to get involved.
Step 4: Identifying friction points
The next key step is identifying the friction points, taking the insights you’ve learned directly from your customers, and starting to circulate that information internally.
Drawing from my experiences at our company, but also from my time at Adobe and other organizations, one thing is clear - there’re always some challenges that you need to figure out.
Let's take the onboarding process, for instance, the handoff process could always be a little bit better, don't you think?
Then comes the big leagues of renewal, upsell, and cross-sell opportunities. Sometimes, our demand teams can jump the gun a little, pushing the next shiny product before our customers have truly extracted value from their current one.
So the challenge at this stage is to map out the 'now' and the 'where-to'. What's our current state, and where do we want to head?
Think of it as enrolling everyone into change management. For example, if your teams are working in silos, how do you seamlessly transition from disjointed experiences to a fully integrated center of excellence, covering every customer touchpoint?
Picture it - you're bolstering their personal brand and reputation, unlocking more potential, and making them want to expand and grow with you over time. Isn't that a vision worth pursuing?
Step 5: Impact over activity
I want to stress that this step is all about focusing on impact over activity, zeroing in on those actions that bring the most value to the customer journey.
This means enriching their onboarding, lifecycle, renewal discussions, and upsell and cross-sell initiatives, which are all areas where we can make a substantial impact on the customer journey. We've noticed that this customer-centric approach not only helps in retention but also drives growth within our organization.
Aligning our priorities with those of the leadership team is another essential strategy. To do this, I recommend tuning in to analyst calls to better understand leadership and organizational priorities, getting a clearer picture of our goals and how to align customer marketing efforts effectively.
When it comes to reporting success, it's high time we moved away from simply reporting numbers, such as advocates or reviews generated. Instead, we should be discussing the impact our customer marketing efforts have on the company's bottom line. For instance, how have our initiatives influenced churn? Have we managed to create more customer advocates?
I can't overstate the importance of retention in the current economy. Doubling down on customer retention can have a substantial impact, and I advocate for launching initiatives that focus on customer needs.
When I joined Marketo in 2017, we concentrated on three key pillars: customer advocacy, community engagement, and customer adoption. I found these pillars invaluable as they served as a blueprint for our customer marketing efforts, even as we expanded into Adobe.
In building our "Advocate Nation", we drew inspiration from successful customer programs from other organizations. We focused on creating excellent experiences for our customers and developing a strong fan base, which was hugely successful and helped prove value to our internal stakeholders.
Building a successful COE, in my view, should center on community programs, retention initiatives, and customer advocacy. By using this language and framework, you can start to build your case and rally your teams around your goals.
Step 6: Creating a success system
Lastly, it's time to tie it all together by creating a predictable, repeatable success system. This system should focus on the customer journey, from onboarding to advocacy, to support your NRR and boost overall company growth.
Remember, your success system isn't just a set of processes. It's a reflection of your commitment to your customers and of your dedication to enhancing their journey. It's about creating a customer-centric culture that permeates every level of your organization.
When my CMO asked me to pinpoint one area of this lifecycle that would be most impactful for customers, I said 'onboarding'. Without a solid onboarding experience, the likelihood of a customer churning within the first 30, 60, or 90 days is high. Hence, the most significant impact we can have is in close partnership with our customer success team, support, and product organizations.
The challenge is how to build scalable customer success initiatives. From the first day, a customer gains access to the technology, they need clear steps to start seeing immediate value. This could be complemented by sharing tips and tricks over subsequent weeks and months.
The big picture involves not only measuring success but also being very clear about what you need to build your dream team. Make a case for how customer marketing sits within the organization and its potential growth.
I firmly believe that retention is the new growth driver, and this is something we need to rally behind as an organization and as an industry. The journey is long and complex, but with the right steps, partnerships, and understanding, it's possible to build a robust customer marketing team that not only drives success but also sustains growth in the long term.
Final thoughts
Building a customer-led COE isn't easy, but the rewards are well worth the effort. A robust, well-structured COE can save your company money, improve the customer journey, and become a rallying point for your C-suite executives.
Remember, at the heart of a customer-led COE is a commitment to your customers. It's about putting them at the center of everything you do, understanding their needs, and striving to meet them.
Building a customer-led COE is an exciting, rewarding journey. I hope that you found my insights helpful and that you're now inspired to take the first step toward creating your own COE in your organization.
Remember, the customer is always at the center of every successful business. It's time to let them lead the way.
