The customer journey and the buyer journey are very similar, but separate events that can offer a business plenty of insight into respective behaviours. Often once purchases have been made, all support and customer success management goes out the window, with the exception of basic retention strategies. But customers deserve and need the same level of attention and care at all levels, in order for them to become repeat customers or brand advocates.
So if you can align customer success and product management, what would it look like? These four points look at where successful alignment occurs and how it can benefit the customer even further.
1. Customer Touchpoints
Both teams will have different parts of the customer journeys to deal with, but this doesn’t mean that they can’t work together at certain points. In most situations, product teams and customer success teams work disparately and even manage their workflow in separate applications. By combining their forces, they can work towards a common goal that enhances all areas of the customer journey.
2. Analysis Tools To Understand Customer Data
As per the above point, many product and customer success teams work with a siloed approach. This means that their insights are not aligned to one another and they’re often working in separate applications, without any overlap. Employees from different departments will find it difficult to gain access to important data that can benefit their own processes. By aligning analysis tools, both teams can go deeper into their own responsibilities using information gleaned from the other department. Having one common source of information will help prioritise the customer’s needs and the ability to act on the data where necessary.
3. Clear, Valid, Long-Term Strategies
If teams are working in different directions and have diverse objectives, they can never achieve the same unified goals for their customers. Both teams should have a unified voice when making reference to the ideal customer and what their needs are. Without aligning on these points, there is room for slips ups that lead to a negative customer experience. Prevention will be in the form of meeting to discuss strategy and areas for improvement that will have long-term effects for the customer.
4. Consistent Communication On Shared Metrics
Product managers generally don’t engage with the customer and have little influence on their needs. In many cases, they will refer to the customer success team to get answers to questions or uncover information about their target customer. This can be a key point contributing to a negative customer experience as again, it opens up room for error. By specifying shared metrics that are measured by both teams, each is invested in the same outcomes.
How are your product and customer success teams aligning for the same common cause?
Let Interact RDT help you set up the basic principles and strategies for ongoing improved customer satisfaction.