Amy Bain
Head Of Customer Experience
“By the year 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key differentiator.”
– Walker 2020 Study
With outcome-based solutions fast becoming one of the most talked about topics in the IT Industry, here at Softcat we believe a customer success team is essential for ensuring service excellence in delivering solutions that successfully achieve an organisation’s outcomes.
What is Customer Success?
Customer satisfaction and excellent customer service have always been a part of Softcat’s DNA. This is one of the building blocks of customer success and is at the core of everything we do.
As the focus within the market shifts towards the importance of the customer experience, the need to truly understand what an organisation wants to achieve by implementing a solution is becoming vital. Once the desired outcome has been understood, it needs to be continually monitored and measured throughout the lifecycle of the solution to fulfil ‘customer success’ – this is why we believe a customer success team is crucial.
Why is Customer Success important?
In a world where business needs are consistently changing, a Customer Success function ensures that as the organisation’s requirements evolve, we at Softcat are agile enough to capture, deliver and evolve with them.
Our Customer Success Managers (CSMs) play a vital role in allowing organisations to form and maintain long-lasting relationships with their customers. They are fully focused on maximising experience and value at all stages throughout the customer journey. As we continue to develop our Services portfolio here at Softcat, this is more important than ever. We believe the below formula is the foundation for delivering true customer success.
Customer success = Customer Experience x Customer Outcomes
Example of this formula in action, linked to Softcat's four main IT Priorities:
Customer Experience
A key milestone is the customer journey such as...
- Implementation and onboarding – managed from the deployment to BAU stage, with regular communication
- End user training – to ensure that the solution is adopted within the business and used to its full potential
- Business Reviews & Satisfaction Surveys – with a view to both proactively supporting the organisation’s business with data, and using feedback for continual service improvement
- Continual Support - from a single point of contact for the solution, who can engage the right channels for the organisation
Customer Outcomes
A customer may want to focus on...
- Increasing Cyber Security – reducing risk across data, workspace and infrastructure
- Operating with intelligence – maximising assets, simplifying processes and improving cost/ time efficiency
- Enhancing Digital Workspace – enabling mobility, improving productivity, increasing efficiency and driving business transformation
- Hybrid Infrastructure – enhancing agility, cost control and ease of management
We take a proactive approach to simplify the channels of communication, acting as a representative for both customer and supplier, and turning feedback into productive process changes. We think this is the best approach to achieving the desired outcomes.
What does this mean for you?
By using this approach, we believe there are a number of benefits you will see.
Desired Outcomes Delivered – we establish this at the start of the customer journey, looking at your priorities and taking responsibility for monitoring, driving and achieving these through regular business reviews.
Improved Customer Experience – we proactively monitor the customer journey and provide you with a single point of contact for the purpose of the solution.
Tailored Service – we gather feedback from you so we can provide you with a bespoke service, tailored to your requirements and priorities.
Customer Lifetime Value - our CSMs don’t simply support the solution, they are part of the solution and play a vital role in ensuring its success.
One shared goal and vision
Every organisation seeks to realise the value of their investment. Our customer success team works to build strong, lasting relationships, working alongside you to deliver your priorities and objectives. We believe this is the best way to realise maximum value and achieve truly beneficial outcomes.
Get in touch
If you’re interested in finding out more about how our customer success team can help you, get in contact with your Softcat Account Manager, or complete the form below.