Customer Success Summit Breakout Session Presented by: J.R. Storment, Chief Customer Officer, Cloudability

1. Going from passively to actively
managing the customer lifecycle

2. About Me
• J.R. Storment
• Chief Customer Officer at Cloudability
• Lives in Portlandia (via Hawaii and San Francisco)
• Twin 5 year old boys
• jr@cloudability.com

3. Signed some customers!
…offered reactive support

4. Signed a whole bunch more!
…started proactive outreach

5. Then had some churn…
Time for something new.

6. The Climate
• A lot of customers growing organically on the platform (opportunity)
• Customers needing to see increased value as spending scaled (challenge)
• Friction caused by auto-renewals happening unexpectedly
• Complex customer needs, complex data, complex product
• Revenue team doubled in size

7. Goal: Increase renewals

8. Why do they matter
so much?

9. Because we’re a
subscription based
business, fueled by
recurring revenue.

10. The beauty (and curse) of SaaS
The cloud bill nearly always grows due to increased use.

11. Enter CRML:
Customer Relationship
Management Lifecycle

12. What We Did
Move from passively hoping renewals
happen to actively managing them.
In the process, freed up TAMs to focus on
deeper dives with engaged customers to
make them stickier

13. Who does what?
•Sales Reps act as Quarterbacks:
•Own the customer relationship, contracts and push toward renewal
•Schedule & ensure key meetings (like QBRs and check-ins) happen
•Ensure there’s always a customer on the other end to engage
•Technical Account Managers act as Running Backs:
•Create content for and run the customer kick-offs and QBRs
•Do customer trainings and deal with the technical details
•Focus on increasing adoption of Cloudability in the organization
Sportsball Analogy —>
Quarterback
Running Back

14. Customer Milestones
The key milestones for each customer:
…rinse and repeat.
•0 days — Discovery & Goal-Setting Kick-Off
•90 Day — Onboarding Plan to get to Value
•3 Month QBR — Confirm Value and Goal Progress
•6 Month QBR — Goal Review + Roadmap
•9 Month QBR — ROI and Value against Goals
•12 Month — Updated Discovery and Kick-Off

15. The backbone of the system: NOTES!!!
During the meeting the Sales rep records detailed notes. They are posted to
Salesforce and key ones (like QBRs) are shared with revenue leadership.
• Who was there
• Wins uncovered
• Objections or Problems
(Impediments to engagement or usage)
• Follow-ups and Action Items

16. The Supporting Pieces

17. 1. A Combined View of the Customer
• Combine CRM, usage data, billing, support, marketing, NPS and
Surveys into a single view.
• Key to moving from reactive to proactive and data-driven
customer management.
• Salesforce, Totango, etc.

18. 2. Consistent Onboarding
• Structured 90 day kick-off and training to drive better adoption.
• Apply the same intensity to onboarding as you do to closing deals
• Two main areas of focus:
1) Reduce Time-to-Value (TTV)
2) Aim for all users get the experience—not just the new ones.

19. 3. Health Scoring
• Accounts scored based on 30+ criteria
• Usage based information (logins etc) as
well as subjective data (sentiment) from
the account team.
• Result is a red/yellow/green state that
provides a roadmap for next steps with
the account

20. 4. Always On Training
Added end user and admin training available at all points in the customer lifecycle.
For example:
•Bi-weekly training sessions in key time zones
•Custom training options and train the trainer option for large customers
•New release training coordinated with Product team

21. 5. Asynchronous Escalations
• Weekly account reviews became status updates and burned time
• Moved to asynchronous escalation process based on health score
• When customer health changes an alert is triggered to account team and
revenue leadership with change reasons for immediate remediation
• Weekly account highlight email sent by TAMs then summarized for leaders

22. Results
• Took about two quarters to get framework in place
• First quarter implemented churn dropped
• Customers were surprised we weren't doing it before
• But… higher-touch can accelerate some ‘zombie
accounts’ churn

23. Take-aways
• Focus kick-offs on customer goals so that QBRs can be about ROI
• TAMs love it because it gives their work structure:
The focus on goals gives them a roadmap for interacting with customers.
• Salespeople loved it because it made renewals easier

24. Don’t forget:
The demand for TAM
resources is bottomless

25. We’re hiring
Technical Account Managers
in Portland & San Francisco!
Looking for TAMs with:
• Cloud experience
• Analytics or Data Experience
• Account Management-fu
• Email jr@cloudability.com

26. Q&A