by Why the superhero model of customer engagement does not work in the age of Cloud IT, and how to fix it.
It seems like every other movie coming out these days contains some daring do-gooder flying, running, or jumping onto the scene to save the day. Usually there are children, or puppies, or the entire world at stake, and nothing can save them but some external god-like being with super-skills and an open slot in their calendar. The movies portray a default supine behavior by those in distress, incapable or unwilling to help themselves. But is this how people truly react when faced with a challenge?
I think the superhero movie is painting the wrong picture of the human spirit. Customers reach out to you for help, but are they truly incapable of helping themselves? What if they stopped needing your help? Uh-oh, there goes the business…or does it? Here are five examples of how to shift your thinking away from being the superhero, to giving your customers super-skills of their own.
Redefine Your Role in Customer Success
Companies of all different shapes and sizes share one important fact: they are made up of people. Big or small, every customer has individuals that will carry your work forward after completion. Sometimes it’s only one person, other times large global teams, but ultimately, everything you touch/build/design will be turned over to someone else to use or maintain.
As a software developer, my goal was always to “code myself out of a job”. To me this meant bug-free, efficient, readable, and optimized code that would work and play well with others and require no maintenance unless the design changed. A lofty goal indeed, but one which led to above average results that stood the test of time and use.
As a software developer, my goal was always to “code myself out of a job”.
As a consultant, continued support of a product or implementation is NOT one of my project goals. Don’t get me wrong: there is a time and place for support, but it should not be a key part of the profit model for doing business. The quality of your solution is important to success, but the quality of the customer team is what ensures success. Once you understand the part you play in helping the customer develop a quality team, you must do the work to empower your customers.
Smarter Customers are Better Customers
Everyone in the IT industry has the yearly burden to keep up to date with new products and services. Change is constant in the field of cloud technology, and this can feel like a never-ending cycle of learning and forgetting. For many individuals this learning becomes a distant second or third to the demands of daily operations. On and on the cycle goes until staff knowledge is outdated and the ability to bring in new technology and solutions is almost impossible without detrimental staff turnover.
Fortunately, this is not an insurmountable situation. Individuals who are entrusted with new knowledge tend to be happier and more engaged in their work. If your solutions introduce new technology or concepts to a customer team, it is your responsibility to ensure those individuals are trained to understand and to work with the new tools. Instead of selling support to your customer, sell hours to be spent in hands-on training. The old saying is true: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.
Instead of selling support to your customer, sell hours to be spent in hands-on training.
When you empower individuals with the knowledge and ability to overcome situations on their own, you ultimately contribute to their success. Where some consultants bolster their profits by selling support contracts, you must be different. Offer the customer deep hands-on training using the solution itself as a learning tool. Work with your customer’s team to deploy a training sandbox, and use it to build the necessary skills to successfully manage the systems that support their business.
Sharing is Caring
Superheros rarely share their problem-solving knowledge. We see this played out daily in professions the world over. Once an individual or group gains trade-specific knowledge they want to retain control of it. Some would argue that this system is for the customer’s own good. The knowledge one must possess to leverage a certain trade or skill may take years to gain and tremendous experience to employ. This is a valid argument for some trades. To be clear, I would not fancy a shade-tree doctor performing my heart bypass surgery. However, in matters less lethal and more attainable to the individual, this is largely a lie.
“All professions are conspiracies against the laity” – George Bernard Shaw
I say this is a lie because I fundamentally believe that the majority of people can do anything, provided they put in the effort to learn and grow. Access to training is greater than at any time in human history. Watch tutorials on YouTube, read blogs, apply your learning, then try and retry until you get a result. Learn to code, learn trade skills, file legal paperwork to start a business. You can learn anything to become more valuable to yourself or your employer than you were yesterday. We must understand that mastery is not as important as working knowledge to most users of technology.
A consultant with deep and focused experience in a technical field should be well-positioned to pass their knowledge on to customers. Understandably, some may feel uncomfortable teaching, or have fears about leading people, or public speaking in general. The good news is, you can learn how to teach and mentor people in this way by joining local tech groups, presenting material, and engaging in small learning opportunities with peer groups. Practice your teaching skills and you will be better equipped to empower your customers. This in turn builds their confidence with the technologies you deploy.
The True Cost of Technical Support
When things go wrong, gut instinct is to look for someone or something on which to focus blame. In fact, this reaction must be trained out of most people. When consultants build a solution that experiences failure, uninformed customers almost always focus that blame on the consultant. However, finger-pointing will never solve the problem, and usually delays resolution by wasting time. No solution is perfect, and no person or team is perfect, so why not give the customer the tools they need to troubleshoot and resolve issues when they come up? If you can put out a fire yourself, why wait for the fire department to show up while the fire spreads?
Take the time to identify key individuals on the customer team that field internal support requests. These should be the most important people to you, because their ability to troubleshoot around a solution you helped build can make the difference between success and just plain sucks. Spend time with these individuals, learn where they are technically weak and then train them. The better an asset they are to their company, the better they are as an asset – and advocate – for you.
Empowerment is the Key to Success
I believe we are all best judged by the impact we have on others. In a consulting practice, this should be measured not only by the solutions you produce, but also by the effect you have on the success of others. Although difficult to quantify, positive results are apparent in the attitudes and interactions of the people affected by your engagement.
When I was at Microsoft, one of our core measurements for success was “How did you contribute to the success of others?” This value impressed upon me the importance of seeking satisfaction in my work through empowering others, rather than just serving my own self-interest. But this is not just a feel-good “modus operandi”. Empowering others helps increase your visibility to the business decision makers and therefore increases the opportunities for continued engagement. After all, happy customers are more likely to be repeat customers and to make referrals.
Summary
When you teach others to help themselves, you empower them with the skills and tools to become successful on their own. More hand-holding upfront means less headaches down the road. The goal is to make your customer smarter and stronger at handling the daily operations of the solutions you help build and deploy. See the success of others as the key to your success, and someday you may get to retire the cape, tights, and sleepless nights for a few well-deserved vacation days without a support call.
Jim Rosengarth is President of Skylight Cloud Consulting
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