Customer Success on Display at Totango's Global Executive Forum

After a three-year COVID hiatus, Totango brought the industry’s premier customer success leaders together in person at its annual Global Executive Forum, part of Totango’s Customer Success Summit series.

Not only was it a delight for customer success (CS) thought leaders to reconnect personally, but the three-day summit enabled them to spend quality time sharing their CS experiences, brainstorming new innovative ideas and getting inspired about democratizing CS.

With many companies optimistic about the potential of CS, Extreme Networks’ Stephanie Comardelle, VP, Global CS & Services, shared her experience in building a thriving, comprehensive CS function from the ground up in just nine months. As a CS innovator, Aruba’s Carlos Quezada, Head of Customer Success & SaaS Operations, talked about how the rich customer data that Totango holds is fueling digital-first innovation in their business.

Another summit highlight was the demo of Totango’s new, no-code Customer Experience Canvas, during which Product Manager Nate Richardson revealed the days of siloed designs and static, outdated journey map diagrams are a thing of the past.

Calling Canvas a “one-stop shop,” Richardson used SuccessBLOC templates to design, build and run a customer onboarding journey map in minutes — from kick-off and discovery to implementation and going live.

Along that journey, he easily added tasks, SuccessPlays, and campaigns to each journey segment, along with a whole new Onboarding Risks segment. He concluded by quickly customizing a “Thank You” campaign template and then clicked to run it. There was audible awe as audience members found the personalized emails delivered to their inboxes faster than they could open their apps.

Here is the video of Nate’s presentation.

The CS Journey Is The Product

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With CS as a fast-growing field, Totango CEO Guy Nirpaz also challenged summit guests to change the way they approach the customer journey.

“The customer journey is the product of CS, so it must be managed as a product,” Nirpaz asserted during his keynote. “It has a roadmap. It has a backlog. It has iteration, with new releases. It’s no longer a preset, wholesale mindset. It’s broader, and it’s shared. Everyone needs to be in concert to design, build, measure and improve the customer journey.”

That means CS teams must think about the customer journey holistically, which can be challenging when that journey usually crosses many silos of an organization. Companies must break down these silos and work together for the customer, all while iterating and improving quickly and continuously to deliver value earlier, which customers have to come to expect.

To manage that and then be ready to scale, you need technology that unifies your teams, allows them to collaborate and visualize the journey together and automates across every aspect of your customer base.

“That’s where we come into the picture, with our all-in-one digital execution engine,” Nirpaz said. “Totango’s shared customer OS allows you to design, run and manage a unified customer journey that is intimate, while the templates and automation save your teams and your customers valuable time without sacrificing quality.

“We've created the tools to allow you to go beyond what you've been doing — so now, we challenge you to own the customer journey, treat it as a product and think bigger!”

Totango has shared Summit videos and knowledge via our blog and Everything CS YouTube page. We’re also already planning our team event this September in Miami, the next phase of the Totango CS Summit series. In the meantime, with so many ideas shared, I thought I’d leave you with three big takeaways about how to approach CS today:

1. Champion the customer. The world has moved from putting the product first to putting the customer first — and boards of directors and executives get it! With the customer in control, the customer journey has become a product that must be continuously upgraded and improved.
2. If you don’t treat CS as a team sport, then you are due for some change management. With customer focus driving a shift in the pre-sale vs. post-sale mindset, successful companies must begin delivering value before the deal is even signed. It’s time to break down those silos and collaborate for the customer!
3. Just do it! Start mapping your customer journey with the understanding that it’s okay if it’s not perfect. Once you begin, you can define tangible outcomes and then iterate quickly and often to continuously improve your product.

Sign up for free today so you can experiment with Canvas and begin unleashing CS across your company!

About the Sponsor

Jamie Bertasi is President and COO of Totango. She leads the go-to-market, customer success, people and business operations teams at Totango.