At ANVA Open up last June, it was announced: the Customer Success Team as an addition to our customer interaction. An initiative to make our customers even more central and to stay well informed about their needs. After all, by knowing and understanding each other's roadmap, we can make better trade-offs and help each other at the right times. Meanwhile, the first Customer Success Team has started at VCN.
As Daan wrote in his last blog, a Customer Success Team is built around a single customer. The team consists of an account manager, business consultant, service level manager and an architect. The fulfillment of those roles can differ for each customer, this way we look for the right colleagues at the right customer.
We chose to start with the ten largest ANVA customers. From these customers, the need is greatest to be involved much more and earlier in ANVA's plans. Conversely, it is sometimes difficult for us to assess how a choice will affect them. By working more closely together, we hope to meet both needs.
At the foundation of a Customer Success Team is a good introduction. In July, ANVA colleagues therefore visited VCN to get to know each other better. Not so much on a personal level - after all, we have been working together for a long time - but mainly on a company level. If you can look into each other's kitchens, you get the best recipes for success.
During this introduction, questions such as how do the teams work at ANVA, and at VCN, what are everyone's goals, and what does the roadmap for the coming period look like, took center stage. All topics that help us share challenges at the right time, determine impact. It also allows us to analyze possible alternatives and then include them in the planning for the next quarter. This way we can proactively help each other, rather than surprise each other.
The start of our first Customer Success Team is quite exciting. Because what if, after a visit from this team, a very large wish list emerges, with wishes that require many modifications in our software? Will we be able to deliver on that? Of course, there are plenty of challenges that our software can solve if we expand or modify it, but that wasn't the only outcome. Cooperation in the Customer Success Team also leads to understanding, a nice and open atmosphere.
Even during our first meeting, we therefore came up with a number of concrete points, with which we can make a difference within the customer domain. For example, the release letter does not always appear to be comprehensive enough. In order to properly assess the consequences of a new connection, it is, for example, important to know what data will be communicated. This is now often not described, because it is not useful information for all customers. Internally, we will investigate whether we can adjust the release letter in such a way that it remains readable for customers with small information needs, but also meets the wishes of VCN and others.
Gradually it also came up that our release planning could be better classified. Now releases often come later than planned, which has a big impact on planning at VCN. In addition, we discussed a number of possible software improvements, such as speeding up the calling of documents after prolongation.
Many of these points will not only make VCN happy. They can also make a difference for other customers. Moreover, this feedback provides baggage for the other Customer Success Teams to take to their customers, inspire each other and connect. We are therefore pleased that both we as ANVA and VCN look back on a successful start of the Customer Success Team.
"I experienced it as a constructive beginning. This helps to get more connected on a tactical and operational level and thus to work together on a partnership, instead of working side by side in a customer-supplier relationship. I am looking forward to the sequel," said Geert de Jong, Manager Functional Management at VCN.
