Growth for B2B is hard.
It used to be that you could accelerate growth with huge customer acquisition.
Ramping up your sales and marketing is not enough to sustain growth. Today, the best companies are growing through customer success.
That’s why I interviewed Kia Puhm (@kiapuhm), CEO at DesiredPath, to talk about customer success.
Kia’s got a fantastic perspective on “how do we accelerate and grow our existing customer relationships,” which is something that many companies don’t focus on nearly enough.
Can you tell us a little bit more about your background?
Kia: Thanks, Brian. Happy to be here. I come to software from an educational background in computer engineering and practical experience background of 22 years in the industry working at rapidly growing, very dynamic software companies.
I guess I’ve built every post-sales function, and always the common denominator has been how the organizations I led get customers to adopt software so that they are using it and get value out of it. Moreover, it translates into loyal customers that can translate into additional revenue at some point in time.
I had to do that with a finite, limited amount of budget and resources. So I always try to figure out how to drive that adoption equation while doing what I could or what I had available to me and use that most efficiently, if possible, to do it.
What’s the most significant trend affecting your work?
Kia: Great question. I’m going to have to say disruption. With all the changes happening out there to businesses, with technology and data and information we have, and artificial intelligence, and just the way the world is changing, it’s changing how we operate.
So, the biggest trend in the work that I do with my customers in helping them understand their customers and how to support that is how do you do that in a continually disruptive environment where things are always changing?
Vendor-centric vs. customer-centric
Kia: There have been many studies done and much research that shows that companies operating from a customer-centric viewpoint (that deliver amazing customer experience) far outperform their competitors that aren’t customer-centric.
So, I think that that is where companies are moving toward, and that is how we adapt to all these changes that are continually happening.
The reason I think that’s important is not only the obvious (customers stay loyal when they have good experiences and that the product is delivering on the promises that it says it’s going to deliver) but also as our customers keep evolving and changing, so too are the ways that we operationalize that and support those customers.
If you are customer-centric, it means you are observing that evolution that’s happening to your customer base. You’re able to be very agile and nimble in responding to that as a business.
If you keep using that information, that observation of a customer, either passively or through active engagement with them to find out that information, you could feed that into your organization and continually change and respond to that to continue to drive that value for customers and that loyalty that you need to keep growing your own business.
Using journey maps to improve customer success
Kia: I know you, and I have had conversations at other times and have completely aligned regarding the type of approach that we use.
I use customer journeys to facilitate customer-centric thinking to make sure that an organization understands empathizing and understanding what customers are trying to accomplish when purchasing your products.
When you understand it from the customer viewpoint, specifically, as it relates to software,