AMA: Customer Success Consultant, Jeff Beaumont on Product Adoption

Two examples, one SMB and one enterprise: SMB: Theme: work backwards from what you want: customer is well-trained —> product adoption —> high retention. A long time ago I worked for a company entirely focused on SMB (think single users up to 20). With that, we worked backwards from what "good" looked like (high retention) and then determined what they would need to do (use cases in the product) and then we saw the results. Put differently, we put together a list of customers who were hardly using the product, performed outreach campaigns of phone calls for 1:1 coaching, emails, and webinar invites, and many of those customers took us up on the offer and we met with them at least once, and then followed-up with email content. It was hit or miss because many of those users who struggled in the beginning also struggled later on because they were either 1) constantly distracted or 2) were intimidated by learning a new piece of technology. However, the ones who engaged truly outperformed their peers. This was measured by 1) logins and 2) each area of the product. Enterprise: At a different company, we put together a 'maturity model' for different use cases. With this, we were able to show the customer how they stacked up against their peers, and also where they stand in terms of adopting the product. Being able to show customers how they stack against their peer group is natural and extremely motivating. Then they developed internal plans to adopt more of the product.

A few: 1. Give them a call to focus on how they can improve their desired outcomes (not use more of your product, but how they can get their stuff done) 2. Deliver maturity models: have a way for customers to see how they stack against their peer group and/or against your internal adoption roadmap 3. Most of all: ask what their top 3 company objectives are and make sure you support them in that goal — product adoption will follow (unless they're a bad fit customer)

This isn't exhaustive, but can be a good starting point: 1. Annual survey results. It's a lot of work, but after gathering that feedback, share it back with your customers in a annual survey results PDF. For example, share some of the best practices, which tools have high adoption, success stories, or other items that could help your audience become inspired, motivated, and have a path to adopt 2. Internal feedback loop. If you aren't already feeding that information to your Product and Exec teams, now's your chance! Not just the NPS or CSAT scores, but what is a summary of the qualitative feedback? What are customers saying? (hint: use AI such as ChatGPT to aggregate themes...just make sure to anonymize your data!) This is incredibly helpful for executives and Product Managers to get involved, listen to customers, and respond with substantial changes 3. Contact your customers. This should go without saying...but when a customer submits feedback, try to respond! Thank them, ask them clarifying questions, let them know "that part of the product annoys me too and I'm sharing your feedback with them tomorrow afternoon in our next sync meeting!" There are plenty more, but this takes the feedback to share with customers globally (annual results), to your teams (internal feedback loop), and in a more intimate manner with customers (contacting the user who submitted the feedback). These are all ways to demonstrate to customers you are really listening.

I get worried a customer isn't going to adopt when: 1. No internal champion. Without this, the account could lose internal support to roll it out. 2. No decision maker. Decisions will stall and won't be implemented. 3. No one is identified as who will implement or project manage it. Lack of resources to do the operational work to get it to production. 4. They haven't logged in. If a customer hasn't logged in within the first few days (sometimes minutes depending on the product!), this can be scary for onboarding teams. 5. They don't understand how the tool helps them. If they don't know the "why" then they won't care about the what or how. 6. It does not clearly solve one of their top 3 company needs or initiatives. If it solves a need, but it's so far down the list of priorities, it won't receive funding, attention, or championing. 7. They aren't interested in onboarding or implementation. They think "we got this" which is especially dangerous for a complex product. 8. They do not have a path to adoption/rollout. E.g., more of an enterprise level implementation. This matters if it's something complex and time-consuming to roll out or requires adequate change management. 9. They are doing it on the cheap and expect the vendor to offer free professional services but aren't willing to pay for it. I've seen this where they expect the vendor to do all the work for them and do it for free. This almost never ends well.

This become highly complex based on the user persona, the complexity, of the product, and the time to adoption, among other things. However, a few things to consider are: 1. Knowledge Base: Do you have a solid, robust knowledge base? Is that knowledge base actively referenced in your product, website, by Support, by Sales, etc.? 2. Identify the ideal path: If you could meet with a user face-to-face and walk them through that adoption, what would that look like? What does it look like currently for self-serve? What is the delta between the two? 3. Identify 1-3 critical use cases: After identifying your top use cases, what does "great adoption" look like? Then build analytics, documentation, training guides and videos, and other content around ensuring those use cases are clear, capable of being easily adopted, and aligned with Marketing. Then track their adoption to ensure what you designed is, in fact, working in the world. 4. Support team: Does your Support team engage with self-serve customers? What is their process? Are they geared and ready for a high volume? Are they well-trained to respond with a friendly, thoughtful approach? 5. Insights to drive product improvements: Do you have analytics and insights on what customers are doing so you can improve the experience for the next cohort of onboarding customers? 6. Executive buy-in: This is off the beaten path, but are your executives bought into self-serve AND the support and onboarding required?