A summary describing the value and status of customer success services to cloud based software vendors and why Customer Success used to be optional but now it's pretty much the whole game.

1. IB9CC0: Introduction to
Consulting
Customer Success. The biggest
consulting industry you’ve never
heard of.
Léon Benjamin
Professional Services Director, Bluescape
Acknowledgments: Bluescape (USA), Adoptt Ltd (UK)

2. Léon Benjamin
Currently Professional Services Director for
a US visual collaboration software vendor,
Blusescape
Co-founder of two successful workplace
transformation businesses providing
professional services to a wide variety of
organisations to change the way people
work. Clients served include; Virgin Media,
Boston Consulting Group, Cisco, Tesco,
AstraZenca and Ralph Lauren.
Recently for Ernst & Young provided
excitement, fresh thinking, advice and
guidance on a wide range of adoption
challenges related to its global deployment
of a Modern Workplace platform.
Previously spent 25 years designing and delivering
complex IT transformation programmes, managing
business change and agile software development for
blue chip companies, counting Accenture, Union
Bank of Switzerland, Dresdner Kleinwort Benson,
Barclays Capital, Going Places, Opodo, Tesco, Argos,
Carphone Warehouse, British Airways and Aviva.
Published author.
Wrote a book called
Winning by Sharing in
2005 on the future of
work accurately
predicting workplace
trends and themes in
use today.
CONTACT
leon.Benjamin@bluescape.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in
/leonbenjamin/

3. What’s the story?
• The shift to the consumption of business applications in the cloud has
created the need for services that ensure they are full adopted by
customers and their employees
• In the near future almost all business apps will be hosted in the cloud
• Customer Success (CS) is a series of consulting motions with the goal of
achieving high adoption of a vendor’s cloud app
CUSTOMER SUCCESS
USED TO BE OPTIONAL
BUT NOW IT’S PRETTY
MUCH THE WHOLE GAME
CUSTOMER SUCCESS IS
THE BIGGEST
CONSULTING INDUSTRY
YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF
• Cloud apps are sold on a ‘pay
as you use’ model that makes
it attractive to buyers because
they only pay for active users
(per month). Also called:
› Recurring offers
› Subscription or annuity
pricing
• 70%-80% of a SAAS vendor’s
revenue is derived from customer
renewal of their software licences
• Customers don’t renew unless most
of their licences are in active use
• Renewals rely upon high levels of
adoption

4. Cloud based software consumption drives
professional services revenues
*Source: Gartner
Cloud spending 2018*
Cloud spending 2022*
Total spend by 2020
19%
28%
$2.4
trillion
Cloud shift refers to the movement of IT
spending from traditional (non-cloud)
markets to new, public cloud alternatives
By 2022, cloud shift across key enterprise
IT markets will increase to 28%
(up from 19% in 2018)
By 2020 new technology investments are
expected to reach $2.4 trn.
Source: Global Center for Digital Business Transformation,
a IMD/Cisco initiative

5. Cloud Market Growth Is Stunning
Source: Cisco, 2016
Premise UC
$8.7B
-2% CAGR
Cloud UC/PBX
$27.7B
10.5% CAGR
The market for non-cloud
unified communications is in
decline
Cloud unified communications
market is growing by over 10%
annually
To compete and stay relevant
vendors and their partners have
been transforming their
business to anticipate the shift
to subscription based pricing for
the last six years

6. What is adoption?
Why do we need it?
SAAS applications need organisation wide
changes in behaviour to achieve digital business
transformation especially when voluntary,
discretionary effort is required from employees
How do we get high adoption?
Delivery through the lens of achieving business
outcomes and treating change as a continuum,
rather than a single event
Adoption is the behaviour change effort
required to create high levels of use to
ensure the benefits of investments in SAAS
technologies are realised.
of digital transformation
projects fail because of lack of
integrated change management
84%

7. Everyone gets value from high adoption
Customer
gets ROI from high levels of adoption e.g.
▪ More sales
▪ Higher engagement
▪ Reduced property foot print
▪ Higher productivity
Partner
gets increased licence revenue,
expand opportunities and high
rates of renewals
Vendor
gets greater market share, higher market
capitalisation, share price growth
▪ High customer retention
▪ Attractive to partners
▪ High partner retention
▪ More sales through the channel
Vendor
Partner
Customer
Adoption
Employees
get better work experiences,
more efficient business
processes and opportunity to
improve their work/life
balance,

8. What CS/CX means for sales
Amount of effort & traditional strengths of technology providers
Land Adopt Expand Renew
Adoption must be sold
here…..
…... so Cross Sell & Renewal is Effortless
$ 1.07 to acquire $1 of
revenue from new
customer
$0.18 $0.12
Land Adopt Expand Renew
“Technology Service Providers are starting to
get it. Doing [adoption] the right way doesn’t
get you 5% growth, it gets you 200% growth!”
J.B. Wood - CEO, Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA)
“A customer is 4 times more likely
to defect to a competitor if the
problem is service related rather
than price or product related.”
- Bain & Company
“Wall Street loves subscription
based revenue models”
- Anon
“68% of customers leave because
they think you don’t care about
them.”
- Rockefeller Corporation, 18 Customer
Facts Marketers Can’t Ignore

9. A Shift To Customer Lifetime Value Model
Old transactional
model has evolved…
…to a customer
lifetime value model

10. Customer Success
Software Ecosystem
A new category of customer success software has emerged to
help vendors manage their customer lifecycle has become an
industry in its own right. Market leader, Gainsight recently
acquired for $1.1B (700 employees).
From high touch to no touch. Digital adoption platforms are
emerging to automate stages of the adoption and customer
success lifecycle with ‘in app’ contextual learning.
Adoption Automation Software Software
CRM Software

11. Customer value and outcomes
Cisco case study landscape
Reduced Property Footprint
Process Imp.
Faster comms.
Reduced absence
Intangible
Profit/
Revenue
Operational
Savings
Virgin Media.
Flexible Working Pilot with
Cisco WebEx & WebEx Social
→ Employee engagement
scores jumped six points.
Largest jump ever
recorded.
Source: Thomson Reuters &
Elisa Nardi, Chief People
Officer (Virgin Media)
Virgin Media
Workplace Transformation
Program.
WebEx deployment to 5,000
knowledge workers reduced T&E
expense 20% YOY
Source: Colin Miles, Director of IT
Services (Virgin Media)
Reduced Travel Expense
Faster Info Search
Faster People Search
Peer-Peer Support
Reduced Email
Faster time to market
Innovation
Customer Satisfaction
Higher Productivity
Increased Sales
Nationwide
Cisco Video Collaboration
→ Boosted mortgage sales
performance by 66 percent
→ Improved customer net
satisfaction by 70 percent
→ Cut costs of sales by 66 percent
Source: Cisco & Nationwide Building
Society
Employee Engagement
Flexible Working
Wellness
Culture Change
Vodafone
20% savings in travel expense and £400m
saved over 10 years. In Cisco TP .
Employees avoided 100 trips per month
per location, saved 200k hours of employee
time over 3 years
Source: Factor Five: Transforming the
Global Economy (book)
Lloyds Banking Group
Cisco Video Collaboration
→ 95% of customers said they got a better experience
→ 33% of mortgage appointments using video
→ Increase sales and higher conversion (figure not stated)
Source: LBG Press Release

12. The shift to fee paying Customer Success
The age of free
will be over soon
75% of SAAS vendors
consider CS business
critical
Consulting motions
Source: Deloitte.
Enterprise Customer
Success Outlook, 2009
ROI
91%

13. Shift to outcome based sales & customer success
BUSINESS OUTCOMES

14. The difference between free and fee
SERVICES
• Activation
• User training
• Self-learning content
• Train the trainer
• Playbooks
• Discovery
• Programme management
• Service delivery
• Communications
• On demand coaching
• In life support
• Product upgrades
• Fresh content
MONTHLY
ACTIVE USERS
Customer Led Adoption Vendor Led Adoption Network Effects
Customer Success Manager
0% 20%
FREE
60%
CHANGE MANAGEMENT
FEE
100%
Customer Success Manager
FREE

15. Customer Success Methodology Example

16. Careers in Customer Success
Leadership of All
CX/CS Resources in multiple
theatres
Sets CS vision, strategy, methodology
and execution
Understands
Customer Stratgic Goals
Realizes Business Value From Customer
Engagements
Customer Success
Executive (VP)
Renewals
Manager
Partners with Sales & CSMs on
Renewal Opportunities
Manages Recurring
Revenue
Owns Deal Strategy
for Renewals
Drives Renewal
Execution Across
Products and Services
Customer Success
Manager (CSM)
Executes CS adoption motions and
manages the in-life relationship with
customers
Possesses Deep
Product Knowledge
Accelerates Usage
and Adoption
Delivers Training & Coaching
Partner Success
Manager (PSM)
Drives Scale
Programs in Theater
Builds Local Partner Communities and
Practices
Manages and Delivers
CS Capability To partners
Manages Relationships With Partners

17. • Median Base Salary: $88,500
• Job Openings (YoY Growth): 2,000+ (80%)
• Career Advancement Score (out of 10): 9
• Top Skills: Customer Relationship
Management, Salesforce, Software-as-a-
service, Customer Satisfaction, Cloud
Computing
CUSTOMER
Success Manager
CS & CX roles are in high demand
4.2M
Jobs 2021 2019
5th/6th
place

18. Thank you.
Room for questions?