#general

General Discussions & Topics

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Ashley Ward November 13, 2024 at 07:19 PM

Hi Everyone! I'd love to hear about any Executive Programs people have found success with!

One of my primary goals for 2025 is to help up level relationships w/in our customer accounts. Our users love us, and today that's where most of our CM programs focus. But we want to make sure execs understand the value we bring to help with NRR, Expansion and Advocacy.

Kevin Lau November 14, 2024 at 05:23 AM

Im building this as a 7th pillar of our Customer Engagement team - components include CAB, Exec Sponsor Program, Exec Forum, etc.

Emily Gover November 14, 2024 at 06:56 PM

Following — we have had similar interest from leadership at our company, too

We built a CAB this year of primarily managerial and executive leadership roles (Directors, VPs, and one C-Suite) and are re-thinking what content we discuss with them at our meetings. To date we have done a mix of messaging and product feedback, but I think we need to zoom out a bit to bring more value to them

It's an interesting situation for us, because most of our advocates are (obviously) day to day users, who are usually ICs or lower on the totem pole. But we need the attention and buy-in from execs if we want to sustain growth in our new business areas — and I'm sure we're competing for their time and attention with every other vendor they work with 😅

Kevin Lau November 14, 2024 at 07:03 PM

You’re totally speaking to the biggest challenge in most orgs - how do you drive stickiness across all levels of a customer account from practitioner to exec so it influences adoption, retention, expansion

Kevin Lau November 14, 2024 at 07:08 PM

This is how I’ve structured it within my team to drive buyin and stakeholder alignment tied to the customer journey.

Practitioner includes things like community, lifecycle and adoption programs, education and training

Influencer is developing brand evangelists and customer evidence

Exec: thought leadership / exclusive tailored communities etc

I believe I’m doing a session with @Mary Green (Owner CMAweekly) in a few weeks where I can explain this further

Ashley Ward November 14, 2024 at 07:49 PM

@Kevin Lau Thank you and that would be amazing! This is so closely aligned to how I'm building this out. I would especially love to hear more about the influencer programs - I was thinking about having Influencer + Exec together, hoping we could tap into the Execs to build out the influencer program.

Currently we've been trying to build out an influencer program but it lives in DG and it's just not aligned to our teams priorities but I think there's huge opportunity to move this into CM and build both out together.

Kevin Lau November 14, 2024 at 08:00 PM

Depending on how you're resourced it could start as a shared program across several teams or departments that have similar goals - essentially an MVP and as it matures, you'll prob find that naturally it will move in the direction where the program best aligns to supporting the customer and you can make the case of a COE. It helps remove the territorial bickering to get started and just solve a customer problem

Emily Gover November 14, 2024 at 08:16 PM

Love this visual @Kevin Lau — thank you for always sharing your insights with us 💙

Amy November 15, 2024 at 03:45 PM

This may be helpful as well.

Colleen Gauthier November 20, 2024 at 01:38 PM

I'm in the same boat and would love any and all ideas around exec/decision maker engagement. We've found CAB and events work well, but the struggle is how to engage them in between. Giving our CS teams a "reason to reach out" in between EBRs, events, etc. I'm thinking offering advocacy opportunities can be one way, but for those that maybe aren't seeing measured success (thus accounts more at risk), it's a struggle.

Colleen Gauthier November 20, 2024 at 01:40 PM

@Kevin Lau you mentioned 7th pillar of your team. Can you share how you structure your whole strategy (all of the pillars?)

Kevin Lau November 20, 2024 at 04:11 PM

I posted a visual of my team charter somewhere in here a few weeks back but this is how it's structured - it's purposely designed to be a CoE engaging customers across their entire journey to drive stickiness and create raving fans
• VoC
• Community
• Customer Edu
• Advocacy
• Lifecycle and Retention
• Customer Comms
• Exec Engagement

Colleen Gauthier November 20, 2024 at 09:28 PM

Thank you! I'm a recent-ish member of the community but I'll poke around and see if I can find it! What does your VoC team own?

Kevin Lau November 20, 2024 at 11:54 PM

Pretty much everything qualitative and quantitative feedback - 1:many surveys (NPS etc.), customer interviews, advisory councils, CAB, closed loop feedback, insights aggregation etc.

Kevin Lau November 20, 2024 at 11:54 PM

I have a 25 page brief that goes into the details that I could walk you through at some point