Untangling the myth that a customer success team is enough to ensure great CX.
In 2020, more and more organizations that we encounter have talented internal teams dedicated to customer success. This is excellent news— ensuring that your customers are able to achieve their goals and that your products deliver on their promises is essential for any company to create meaningful and lasting success.
However, there is one issue we’ve noticed in many organizations, and it’s a major problem. Usually, it begins with an exchange like this:
“Who do you have in place that’s in charge of your customer experience?”
“Oh, we have a great customer success team!”
Uh-oh.
It’s time to stop thinking about customer experience and customer success like they’re the one and the same. Doing so will not only cause you to miss out on opportunities to make customers love your products, but it may eventually lead them to choose another product altogether.
A Tale of Two Joggers
Imagine two people who love to go jogging. Each wakes up in the morning and decides they want to go for a five-mile run. The first person lives in the dry wasteland of Death Valley, California, which regularly sees daytime temperatures over 120 degrees. Their running trail is marked with holes and cracks that cause them to stumble every few steps.
The second person lives on the California coast, where the air is a pleasant 75 degrees and their trail overlooks stunning cliffs, dozing seals, and lush greenery in the valleys below.
By the end of the morning, both runners might have completed their 5-mile run— a success. But did they both have the same experience?
Conflating customer experience with customer success is like treating both of these runners the same way. Both may have gotten a workout and completed their run, but the feelings and perceptions they had along the way were likely dramatically different.
Building Success from Experience
Great companies deliver success to their customers, but they do so by beginning with their experience. Why? Because customers who genuinely enjoy using your product, interacting with your team members, and working within your ecosystem are more likely to produce their desired result.
With that in mind, it’s important to understand that customer experience and success aren’t completely independent, they’re simply two important elements that build off one another. Give the runner somewhere beautiful and pleasant to run, and they’re more likely to complete the run they planned.
The Relationship Between CX and CS: A Framework
At Talentfoot, we recommend taking a holistic approach to customer experience and customer success. Both are equally essential to delivering value to your customers, which is the goal of any great brand.
Customer experience is focused on how your customers are using your product today. Is it an enjoyable experience? Can they find everything they’re looking for? Is it easy for them to get help from members of your team if issues do arise?
Customer success is focused largely on the future. Will your product help customers ultimately achieve their goals? What barriers can we remove that will make obtaining those goals easier than it is now?
As you can see, customer success alone isn’t enough. You might know exactly which needs your product is designed to fill, but if the path you create for your users is marked with holes and winding diversions, they may never reach that goal. If you want them (and your company) to achieve success, you have to improve their experience along the way.