Staffing Service Teams – Part 1 – Evolution of a Service Team
Phase 0 – Pre-Services Teams
Initially, most SaaS/Software companies don’t “start” with a dedicated Service Team. With a heavy focus on Product Design/Development closely followed by Sales/Customer Acquisition . . . Implementation and Customer Success teams are typically the “next” priority in terms of hiring and staffing.
Additionally, for the first few Implementations, the Product and Processes are typically in a rapidly evolving state with customer requirements heavily informing the organization’s priorities and the product’s features and capabilities. In many cases, Customers are driving the Roadmap and product “launches” often coincide directly with customer milestones. Early-stage products often have minimal “configuration” capabilities with software developers not only building the product, but writing actual code to implement early stage features.
During this Phase, “Implementation” typically falls to the Product team who engages directly with the customer, capture requirements and works closely with Engineering to guide the feature set. Sales typically plays the role of “Account Manager”; until customers are live on the software, the standard “Customer Success” is not in high demand.
Phase 1 – Project Managers
After the first few successful Implementations, the expanded burdens of Customer engagement will start to distract the Product Team from their core responsibilities and strain the organization. Also, the Product core features will begin to stabilize and an “implementation approach” will take shape.
At this point, the company will typically hire their first “Implementation Manager”. This hire will be typically be responsible for:
Leading all future Implementations (Customer Engagement, Solution Design, Testing, Training, Post-Launch Support)
Defining/Refining the Implementation Process
Working directly with Product Management and Engineering to define feature
Offloading Sales from transactional Account Management
The Implementation Manager will typically be an experienced, senior resources with 5+ years of experience managing customer relationships and as well as hands-on experiences implementing software. Although they will be supported by multiple internal teams, they will be the primary face to customers, be able to navigate ambiguity well and quickly step into a “trusted advisor” role with Customers.
This model is typically scalable up to ~5 Implementation Managers as each will operate autonomously with their assigned customers. However, as the customer base and Service Team expands, expect to see the following challenges:
Autonomous Implementation Managers develop similar (but inconsistent) processes
Difficulties prioritizing issues due to lack of coordination in services
Capacity constraints as Implementation Managers divide their time between “new” customers and previously launched customers
Role fatigue as Senior Implementation Managers tire of transactional work such as testing, customer support and documentation
Phase 2 – Junior Support
With an established “senior” team of Implementation Managers, the typical next hire is to augment the team with more junior resources that can offload the transactional work that is blocking the senior team from launching more customers.
These resources typically meet the following profile:
Less than 2 years of professional experience
Moderate customer-facing experience (but demonstrated interest/skills)
Low or moderate software experience
A learning-based mindset with the desire to develop and expand skills
The new hires will provide a supporting role and typically be “paired” with one or more Implementation Managers for mentoring and take on Technical Support, System Testing, Documentation and other related Tasks. Implementation Managers can be leverage for training and mentoring to help accelerate transition.
Depending on product complexity, this model will typically work well for supporting up to ~25 implementations/customers. Additionally, these hires will develop the skills to become Senior Implementation Managers, simplifying future recruiting efforts.
Phase 3 – Customer Success
For Phase 1 and 2, Services team members are typically execution and milestone focused. Teams can be directed to quickly/efficiently design and launch software on behalf of customers. However, the very skills that make Implementation teams effective do not always translate to the more operational-focused Usage, Adoption and Expansion areas that are critical to ensure future renewals. This can be identified when Implementation teams are frequently prioritizing launching a new customer and supporting an existing customer.
For this phase, it’s appropriate to hire (or internally recruit) the first Customer Success Managers into the Org. Although there are many similarities between effective Customer Success and Implementation roles, the are some key differences:
Customer relationship skills are critical; Establishing and building a long-term partnership that goes
Industry/Customer research is valuable as these resources will be expected to anticipate needs and make recommendations
Reporting and analysis are also valuable as data and effective interpretation is critical to drive adoption and demonstrate value
Strong process, operations and efficiency focus is also important as being able to scale to multiple customers without increasing headcount linearly is necessary for effective operations
Effective Customer Success processes, will enable the Implementation Team to transition launched customer “out” of day to day management, reporting and support tasks and free up capacity to support new launches. Additionally, this transition provides an opportunity to consolidate and establish consistent processes under a dedicated team.
In many cases, Customer Success team members can be recruited from the Implementation team (especially if recruiting and mentoring efforts are designed for this purpose).
Phase 4 – Solution Design
At this point, the Services Team has typically developed a deep expertise in the product as well as experience solving a wide range of customer issues. Where the Product Management team was initially the “expert” for supporting Sales, the Service Team is now in a position to establish credibility and accelerate Sales.
However, this can create an operational burden for the Service team as supporting highly-interrupt driven Sales requests can disrupt aggressive implementation workstreams. As informed Service teams will recognize the value of future sales, they will work to prioritize these requests (and potentially impact current customer priorities).
An effective way to address this is issue is establish a dedicated Solution Design Manager (or sub-team). The skills needed for this role include:
Strong sales-facing skills; Ability to quickly understand customer needs and map them to viable solutions
Ability to establish credibility with both Sales (enabling deals) and the Product team (managing customer scope and expectations) as this resource will often have to balance the objectives of both of these teams
Deep understanding of the product, business processes and implementation processes/effort
These resources are difficult to “hire” into the role (given the deep product and organizational knowledge requirements). However, in most cases, these skills are already being developed in the existing Services team enabling the Team to identify and internal candidate.
Success in this role is measured in three areas:
Reducing Implementation Team randomization from Sales
Reduced effort (and/or accelerated close dates) for Sales
Reduced complexity for Customer Implementations (or Engineering) based on informing the Solution prior to contract signature
Phase TBD – Customer Support
A potentially critical Team Addition is that of Customer Support. At some point in the evolution of the customer base, a dedicated Customer Support team will be critical. However, there are many factors that go into establishing this function, including:
Product Complexity – Products have a steep learning curve that cannot be easily addressed through training
Large End-User Base – If the product is leveraged by thousands of end users (who are expected to contact the Software provider directly)
Extended Hours – If customer require 24x7 coverage
Depending on answers to these questions, it may make sense to introduce this function prior to the Customer Success and Solution Design roles.
Summary and Next Steps:
In our next Article, we will present the best practices that can be used to support the above the implementation, development and overall success of the Services Team.
