Episode 092: Importance of Customer Success

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Welcome to another episode of the Fleet Success Show. I'm your host, Jeff Jenkins. We're on episode 92. Can you— I can't believe we've done 92 episodes. It's crazy to me. And we still have people listening, so apparently we add some value. It's great. Today we're going to add a lot of value. So we've got a special guest, and we've got Gina here with us who is our Director of Customer Success at RTA. Gina, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Jeff.

You're welcome. It's great to have you.

Glad to be here.

I see you all day, every day. So it's like, it's like being over at our desks. But I want to talk about customer success. I want to, first of all, I'm going to give you the definition of customer success. It's customer success is a method for ensuring customers reach their desired outcomes when using an organization's product or service. So I kind of liken this to like our pillar of stakeholder satisfaction, which we've talked about a lot. On this show. But kind of in your own words, Gina, tell us like what customer success means to you.

You know, for me, one of the things that I, that I love about customer success and what it really means to me is really partnering with the customers, right? And making sure that whatever it is that they see in your product or service is the value that you deliver for them. Right? Like, what is it that they're trying to create or what is it that they're trying to do? And then how does your product help them solve that? The one acronym that I've heard throughout my career, and I'm not sure if you're familiar with it, is, is WIFM.

WIFM? So that's like someone pitches me a baseball, I swing and I whiff and I miss it completely. Is that what we're talking about?

It's a little bit different than that. So WIFM stands for what's in it for me. Okay. And when I say me, I mean the customer. So customer success is really looking at how do I make the customer successful? And really like the way that we deliver that value is that the customer sees a value for themselves and for their organization.

Right. So we're all selfish by nature.

Yep.

We look out for number one. That's just the way humans are made.

Yep.

So in this instance, you're talking about like from your perspective or the customer's perspective or both?

I think from the customer's perspective and finding from like as the business or as the, you know, person selling or product or service, You want to find out, like, you want to put yourself in the customer's shoes.

Okay.

So you want to understand, like, if I was a fleet manager, for instance, what are the things that would make me successful as a fleet manager? And customer success is really designed to help them achieve those things, right?

Right.

To help them, however that product or service can help them achieve those things.

So how is customer— so I'm going to back up a second. So customer success is relatively new in the business world. It hasn't been talked about for a long time. So we've heard of customer service, we've heard of customer support, but customer success, it really came on the scene, you know, like, gosh, it's been less than— it's probably about 5 years ago, and it's gained popularity since then and built up. So like, what's the, I guess, the major difference between customer success and those other—

the way that I see it is customer service to me is also providing value to the customer, but a little more reactive, whereas customer success is designed to be proactive.

Okay.

I'm looking to guide the customer along what we call a customer journey, right? We're, we're making sure that at every step of the way that we're getting them what they need in order to be successful. So some of the stops along the way, like when a new customer comes on, is onboarding, right? And you can think about this for your new employees as well, right? Like you onboard them into the organization, or the new customer, you onboard them into your product or service.

So an onboarding, right, is that— and we all know, like, when we've taken a job, what the onboarding is, right? You go through the HR, you do the documents, right? You learn learning about their benefits. Basically, you're learning about whether it's the company or the role that you're going to end up doing, and that's kind of that onboarding process. So you're saying that's similar in customer success?

Yes, I would say that customer success takes it a little bit of a step further and starts to develop that relationship with the customer.

Okay.

So part, one of my favorite quotes, and I believe it's by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, is, "Nobody cares how much you know until they know you care." And I feel like customer success is that opportunity to really show the customer that you want to help them succeed with whatever it is that they're trying to do, whether that be a new customer coming on to utilize your online platform, or whether that be that they're going to use a product that you've sold them. In addition, you can also look at it from employee— you know, your, your employees are also stakeholders, right? To your point, stakeholder satisfaction. So you can also use that as way of sort of making sure that your employees know that you're, you're in their court to make sure that they're successful as well.

Yeah, so, you know, I like how you differentiate success versus support or service, right? Talking about the proactive approach versus the reactive approach, because businesses for the longest time, they Everything's great, right, until they get a phone call. They don't think anything's wrong, but a lot of people, um, they don't necessarily reach out when something goes wrong, when they're dissatisfied. What happens? They just cancel their service, they go shop somewhere else, they do something different. Yeah, right, because someone doesn't want to deal with waiting on hold. I mean, hell, I called, uh, I called, uh, Southwest Airlines last week. I was on hold for an hour and 20 minutes before I talked to somebody. Wow. Wow, right? Which is absolutely freaking ridiculous. And all I wanted to do was change a flight for myself off of a group booking, which they don't allow you to do online. You know how like pissed off I was to wait on for like— but so I was upset that I had to do that, right? The lady I talked to, she was great, she was pleasant, she did a great job, right? But she was reacting to what I guess an issue was. But if I like had my druthers, like I wouldn't wanna book Southwest just based on the fact that I had these issues, like just the whole process of actually having to rebook myself, waiting on hold for an hour and 20 minutes. Like there's gotta be a better way to do that. There's not a proactive approach that they can take, right, for that. But the fact that I had a bad experience makes it so now I don't want to book with Southwest anymore. When you talk about customer success, right, you're talking about someone reaching out prior to an issue that you know about arising, hoping to find out whether they're satisfied, what help they need, like those sort of things to keep that business. Yes, essentially.

Yeah.

And it's popular in the SaaS world, right?

Yes, very popular in the SaaS world. And, and I, and I definitely think that you're pointing to a really great opportunity for customer success professionals, right? Is You know, providing— like, you're right, you know why people leave, right? In the SaaS world, right? People leave because they went to a competitor, or they didn't utilize the product that you had for them, or, you know, for whatever number of reasons. So if you can address those issues in the customer journey, then you, you can potentially keep your keep more repeat business, right?

Right.

So, um, yeah, in your example with Southwest Airlines, you know, there's not a lot that they can do proactively to make sure that— other than maybe they could have more staff on the phone so you didn't have to wait for an hour and a half, right? Like, it could be a little more proactive. But, um, but what's really nice about customer success and that proactive piece that you're talking about is it gives you the opportunity to create that relationship and then be able to develop and understand where customers are. So having those consistent touch points along the way. Here's, you know, where this could go any number of ways. Like somebody doesn't get their system set up. They haven't added all the information that they need to be able to utilize your system, for instance, right? So keeping the customer moving forward and keeping showing them that value is part of customer success as well, like that proactive approach.

So that proactive approach can be through multiple methods.

Yes.

Right. Obviously we can call and reach out, which is my preferable method. Yeah. Right. Because a lot can be misinterpreted via email or without having that direct communication, but there's also the emails. So I'm not a fan personally of getting an email from a company asking me how they're doing or to take a survey, right? I ignore them. I never do them, right? I just think that that's kind of a— I don't know, I think a cop-out, a cheap way to get out of having that type of communication with someone, right? Um, and I don't know, I would imagine a lot of people feel the same way that I do. Yeah. When it comes to that, you know, but there's— because there's not a lot of companies that actually make that outreach by phone with the intent of, hey, are you satisfied? Are things going the way you want? Do you need help? Do you understand? Right. But that's the whole intent of customer success.

Yes. Yeah. And, you know, it's great that you bring that up because I think it could be a huge differentiator for our company is making that actual phone call. I think in today's world of like text messaging and emails and all that stuff, like people just don't pick up the phone and connect with other human beings. Right?

Right.

And it really, I think, makes a difference to create that relationship. That's part of customer success. So I'm going to create that relationship with you, and it's solving your problem, but it's also connecting with you, right? Connecting with you in a way that doesn't happen as much anymore, which I think is a real value to a customer. I had one customer who was a Dallas Cowboys fan, and That's too bad. Being from the, uh, being from outside of Philadelphia, I was definitely an Eagles fan, and it was always great to just get on the phone with him and really like talk, you know, like 2 minutes of football and then let's get into the things that you need for your organization. But it really developed that relationship between the two of us that, you know, now if I send him an email and say, hey, I need this from you, it's not really a big deal for him to respond back to me, right? We've developed that connection or that communication back and forth via phone, that makes a big difference. So then I think other forms of communication are easier as well. But I totally agree with you and value the pick up the phone, have a conversation, connect human to human. Yeah, we just— it's, it's, it's harder and harder to do that in today's world.

It is harder and harder. So as you and our audience knows, I— my career was— is in trucking, right? So I was a dispatcher. And when I got— when I like grew up and went up the ranks and I got into leadership and I was like managing different dispatchers and whatnot, I used to get so angry at the dispatchers that would do nothing but use their like mobile communication device, their in-cab device, to send message to the drivers and never talk to them on the phone. Yeah, because you can't get that type of relationship if you— if you don't have conversations. Like, you can't know them. So anyway, so that would— that would bother me, So I think about that in the method of customer success, but also like we would have drivers that would, they'd up and quit and they'd leave. And, you know, I'd be like, why'd this guy leave? Well, I don't know, he just left his keys in the truck and I can't get a hold of him. Oh yeah, right. Okay, well, were you having that proactive communication before? Because if you had a relationship with somebody, they're not going to leave their keys in the truck and walk away. No, right? They're actually going to have a conversation with you and tell you why.

Right?

And a lot— and the reasons were different, right? But, you know, to tie it into, to the industry we're now in, fleets, like, there would be a truck that would break down and have a lot of issues, and he'd take it to the shop and, you know, they'd put a temporary fix on it, whatever. He'd go back out and break down again on that same trip. So the guy's not making money, spending all of his time in the shop, so he's going to quit and he's going to leave. But without us having that communication with him and actually talking we wouldn't know what that issue was, so we couldn't resolve it.

Yeah.

All we know is, oh man, you know, Steve's broke down again over in so-and-so. I guess he's, you know, he's going to be late on that load. We got to figure out how to take care of that. And that's the end of that conversation, as opposed to that proactive, hey, I'm building a relationship. Because relationships, they matter, right?

Yeah.

Relation— the relationship is what gets you to better understand somebody. It's what gets you to have repeat business. It's what gets you to understand what's wrong. Like, having that people open up versus not having it and then just saying, staying very standoffish.

Yeah, yeah. And I, and I don't think it really takes a lot to develop that kind of a relationship, right? Like just having a few, you know, key questions like, hey, what's your biggest pain point right now? Or, you know, hey, um, what are you seeing in the industry? Like, what are your, what are your current challenges, right? Like, it just, it doesn't take that much for people to start opening up and then that back and forth dialogue to just let it go wherever wherever it goes, right?

Right.

And you create that natural relationship with somebody, and then all of a sudden you're like having a conversation about an enhancement on your product, or like, we can do more for you, and they're a little more interested to talk to you about that, right? Like, it opens that door. Yep. To have that relationship with them. Um, yeah, so I think that there's, um, different ways that you can do that within the customer, like what we call the customer journey.

Right. So, kind of walk us through those steps. What are, what are the customer journey?

Yeah, so depending on your product service, you know, there's first, there's the implementation or the onboarding process, like getting the customer set up, ready to go, ready to utilize whatever product or service you have. And then for some companies in SaaS world in particular, there's training. So, how do you utilize this, right? And what kind of What, you know, ways are you going to go in and use the system? Who's going to be using the system? Really trying to understand, like, how the customer is going to take your product and use it and then provide them with training so that they can then engage with the system. So engagement is the next one. So the first, onboarding. Second, training. Third is engagement. And when you— and then that's a matter of, are they using it? Like, are they going in there on a day-to-day basis or a monthly basis, depending on how often and that you want them to use that. And if they are, they're probably finding some sort of value at it, which allows them to go then to the next level, which is advocacy, right? Where they're like, oh my gosh, this is like such a great product. It's helping us solve these needs. It's really trying, it's really making a difference for my organization. And if a customer can see that, then finally the final step is the repeat business, right? Then they're like, okay, well, now I've gotten value out of this. I'm going to keep using it. And then you start that sort of process again. Like, you're, you're, you're— but it doesn't end. It's a circular process, right? It's like, maybe you don't go back to onboarding. Maybe, maybe you do because you have a new administrator, right? But you'll definitely keep wanting to go through that engagement and that advocacy and then the repeat business. So it becomes a cycle that you're working on consistently. Yeah.

And really, in any business, those last two are what you're working up for, right?

Yes.

You want the advocates, you want people who are evangelizing for you as your business, as your service, right? Because referrals are the best source of new business.

Oh yeah, right.

So if you have an advocate, then that's great, right? And then you get that repeat business because they love you, they get value out of your service, they get value out of the relationship. So they stick around.

Yes, yes. And not only that, but also you get those like case studies and the, you know, quotes from the customer that other customers can see like themselves and what is being presented, right? Like, I feel like somebody getting a value out of a product is like the best way that you could advocate for it, right? And get those referrals that you're talking about. Um, but one of the, um, and one of the ways that you can develop that is, um, through what, uh, I like to call moment— well, that I've read about in The Seven Pillars of Customer Success by Wayne McCulloch, um, and they're called moments of truth, right?

Okay.

Like, there's, there's I think a lot of companies ask the question like, who owns the customer? You know, you have customer service, you have customer success, you have different operations, right, that are like working with the customer at various times. But what they say in the Seven Pillars of Customer Success, which I really think is a great way to look at it, is you have these moments of truth. So you have, um, no one owns the customer. Everybody owns the customer.

Yep.

And the moments of truth are any interactions that you have with a customer that can create a positive, you know, interaction with them for your company or a negative one. But everybody in your organization can own those moments of truth, right, at any point in the customer journey. Or before the customer journey, right? But every interaction is a potential moment of truth. And so having your employees know about this and really kind of look for opportunities to really like increase that value, I think makes a huge difference for organizations.

So I would agree. You know, it's funny, I recall a time I was shopping and I don't remember where I was at. I think it was Target or something like that. And like I couldn't find something. I was looking for something and I just stopped someone that was wearing, you know, the, the khakis and the red as they were walking by and asked a question. And they, they, they said, yeah, I'm not really sure, but let me see if I can help, you know. So like we're kind of walking around together and this person's boss came up and was like— I don't remember the guy's name— is like, hey, you know, what's going on? Oh, I'm trying to help find this. Like, oh, it's over an aisle here. And then she like kind of dressed down that person for helping me because it wasn't their job and they didn't know what they were doing. Wow. Which was really, really odd, right? Like, to me, that was like— I mean, I already don't like shopping there just because I think it's a little pretentious, but that's just my opinion. Um, but that like turned me off to it, right? Here's someone that's trying to help me as a customer, right, with that, that journey of success. Hey, I'm like taking you around, I'm trying to help you, like of having a good conversation.

Yeah.

Just to be told, hey, basically this isn't your job, you don't know what you're doing, so quit talking to them.

Yeah, right.

Like, yeah. And, and that, that manager probably thought that they were helping because this guy didn't know what he was doing, right? And they like stepped in and did it. But I just got a very negative opinion of that place because of what had happened with that experience.

Oh yeah, yeah. Um, two things on that. One is don't ever wear a red polo and khakis, right? Target. Because I've done that before and people have stopped Um, we should do that just for fun, just for an activity, right?

Let's just go to a Target all dressed in—

group activity.

We all walk around, see how many people stop us and ask us for help.

But yeah, but, but how many times— I mean, retail is like the perfect example, right? Like, how many times do you go into a retail establishment and people, you know, employees just aren't interested in helping you, or they are, or, you know— and how big of a difference does that make in whether or not you want to go back? To that establishment, right? We had a, we had a local mom-and-pop restaurant that my husband and I used to eat at up in Portland, and it wasn't, it wasn't, I would say, the best food that I've ever had in my whole life, but the couple who owned it made us feel welcome every time we came in. They told us stories, they remembered who we were. Like, to me, that was like well worth going back any number of times to, like, you know, eat there, whether the food was the best in the world or not the best in the world. But the service really, for me, made a difference.

It's amazing how that can be, right? Because you can have a mediocre experience when it comes to the food or the product.

Yeah.

But the person, if they, like, you're engaging, right, you enjoy them That makes all the difference in the world. Yeah, like, we— yeah, I, I like— I like Mellow Mushroom pizza personally, right? But I've had this waiter there twice when I've gone, and the dude is just awesome. Like, he, he makes us these mystery shots, right? Which— and then he just brings them over, and like, you're— anyway, he's just great because he's interactive, right? He's always cheerful, asking how, you know. And, and I want to go back, and I want him to be my waiter every time just because I enjoy that experience with him.

Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, I think locally, um, I'm not sure, I saw it on a news station or something, they have the Server of the Week in Phoenix now. So I guess they're picking a Server of the Week who gets like promoted on TV, which is really awesome because servers can make such a huge difference.

Oh yeah, right, like absolutely.

And, and it goes the same for anybody in your fleet organization, right? You're like You know, parts clerk interacting with either customers or other employees, right? When you bring in the vehicle to have it serviced, right? Like any point along that way is a moment of truth that somebody can own. And it makes a difference for how the customer then interacts with you in the future. For sure.

I agree 100%. Yes. Any final thoughts on this?

You know, I think the best thing that I always say about customer success and why I really enjoy it is because I get to put myself in the customer's shoes, right? Like, I get to be like, what would make a difference for me and really lights me up at the end of the day? Like, to really sort of have an interaction with a customer that makes a difference for both of us. It's really energizing. So my last word of thought is to own that moment of truth. Just really put yourself in the customer's shoes. Like, how would you like it to go? And, uh, and just go from there.

Perfect. It's great words of advice. Thank you, Gina. We appreciate you having you on here.

Thank you.

You taking the time out. Uh, don't forget everybody, the Fleet Success is coming up in March. We got the summit, 12 speakers talking about leadership, how to help you become successful in your fleets. So don't forget to go and sign up. We also have our playbook, the Fleet Success Playbook. If you'd like a copy, shoot us an email at podcast@rtafleet.com. We just got the second printing ordered. It actually should be delivered in the next couple of months. So we're going to have a fresh batch for those of you out there that have not got them yet. Fleet Success Summit. Don't forget the copy of the playbook, podcast@rtafleet.com. And until next time, thanks, y'all.

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