Cooperation? Collaboration? Teamwork!

Do you know Webster? The American most-trusted dictionary?

Well, as per Webster, Cooperation is “the actions of someone who is being helpful by doing what is wanted or asked for”. This is not only a passive reaction to a request. It’s a set of actions that are required in a specific situation.

So, how is it related to the art of customers relationships management that involves the Customer Facing teams?

The Customer Facing teams play a crucial role in ensuring customers’ satisfaction and loyalty. They are responsible for understanding the needs of customers, and addressing their concerns, challenges, and issues. In addition, they help them to achieve their desired outcomes with the company's products and services. In this context, working together side-by-side with other teams in the firm is essential and crucial in successful value delivery to customers.

In this view, we can mark 3 major interfaces:

- CSM Team and other teams in the firm collaboration

- Collaboration between Technical Support team and other teams in the firm.

- Intra Customer Facing teams’ collaboration - CSM Teams, Technical Support, Professional Service and other.

As a side note - this article concentrates on CSM and Tech Support teams inter and intra interfaces.

CSM Team Relationships and Collaboration

The CSM team is responsible for managing customer relationships and ensuring that customers are achieving their desired outcomes with the product and services.

Let’s focus on some of the key interactions between the CSM team and other teams within the firm:

• Product teams: The CSM team works closely with the Product team to understand the features and functionality of the company's products or services. They provide feedback from customers on what they like and dislike about the product, what features they would like to see added or improved, and how the product can better meet their needs. The idea is to provide feedback that will improve the product and services.

• Sales teams: Cooperation with The Sales team ensures a smooth handoff of customers from the sales cycle to the post-sales cycle. In this way, we make sure that the customer's expectations are correctly defined during the sales process, and that the customer will receive the support he needs to succeed with the company's products or services. In some cases, the CSM also participates and contributes to the pre-sale cycle. This increases the customer’s confidence that whatever was promised by the Sales will be delivered. In another direction, the CSM also provides input for new opportunities that can lead to upsells and cross-sales.

• Marketing teams: This is the way that customers become aware of new products or features and understand how these products or features can help them achieve their goals. Both teams collaborate to develop marketing materials and campaigns that resonate with customers and provide them with valuable information. The marketing team helps the CSM, for example, to set and provide added-value activities to customers in the post-sale stage. Those activities increase the customers’ confidence in the product, in the services, and in the company.

Technical Support Team Relationships and Collaboration

The support team is one of the success keys of any organization. This team is responsible for providing technical assistance and resolving customers’ issues. They respond to customer inquiries, troubleshoot problems, and provide solutions to technical challenges.

As such, effective connection with other teams in a firm is critical to ensure that customer needs are met, and their issues are resolved in a timely and efficient manner.

Here are some examples of how support teams may interact with other teams within a firm:

• Product teams: With product teams, the Support group identifies and resolves technical issues related to the product. They provide feedback from customers on features they would like to see added or improved, and work with the product team to prioritize and implement these changes.

• Sales teams: Setting expectations is very important (if not critical) in the relationship with customers. Support might assist the Sales team during the sale cycle by providing testing and POC environment. By that, the firm ensures that customer expectations are met. The support team also assists with the onboarding of new customers.

• Engineering teams: The support team works with the engineering team to identify and resolve technical issues with the product. They may collaborate to provide customers with bug fixes, patches, or other technical solutions. The engineering team is the escalation level of support. Both teams are combining efforts to increase the customers’ satisfaction.

• Marketing teams: Support team also works with marketing. The support group helps to develop customer communications or support materials. They may also provide feedback on customer needs and preferences, which can help the marketing team develop effective messaging and campaigns.

Overall, the relationship between Support teams and other teams in a firm are one of the key assets for customer satisfaction. By working together, the firm can ensure that customers receive the best possible experience with the company's products or services, which can drive customer loyalty and ultimately, business growth.

Intra Customer Facing Teams cooperation:

Customer Tech Support, Customer Success Managers, Professional Services, and other Customer Facing teams are the face of the firm in front of customers. Their collaboration ensures that customers’ issues and requests are resolved quickly and effectively. Together they can set customers’ expectations and lead them to success while providing ongoing follow-ups to their successful operation.

Let’s make it simple:

Those intra relationships are very important to secure customers’ satisfaction and success.

For example, if a customer contacts the support team with an issue, the support team may escalate the issue to the CSM team if it appears to be related to the customer's overall experience or desired outcomes. The CSM team can then work with the customer to understand the issue and provide additional support, such as helping the customer set up a new feature or providing guidance on best practices.

Additionally, the CSM team can provide valuable feedback to the support team on customer issues. Together they can evaluate customers’ trends and provide feedback to the development teams in the company. This feedback provided by CSMs can help the support team improve their processes and procedures in a way that better addresses customer needs and concerns. Of course, the feedback is also used to improve the product and the services the company provides.

Conversely, the support team can provide CSMs team with insights into common customer issues and challenges, which can help the CSM team proactively address these issues and prevent them from becoming larger problems. In other words, predict the expected and eliminate it.

In some cases, special efforts are needed. Such efforts can be additional training, special configuration modification, additional micro features (outside the product) and others. Those efforts can be provided by the professional services team and led by the CSM.

To summarize: the Support team, the CSM team and other Customer Facing teams work together closely to ensure that customers receive the best possible experience with the company's products or services. By collaborating and sharing information, these teams can help customers achieve their desired outcomes and drive customer satisfaction and loyalty.

...and remember:

"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much." Helen Keller