Strategic Conversations: How To Take Action After Your Client Conversations

If you’ve read our guide, you know that being “strategic” in Customer Success is broad. There isn't one thing you need to do to get it right.

In the past, we've discussed the role strategic conversations play in our journey towards becoming more strategic. If you're already asking more thought-provoking questions on your client calls, go you!!! 

Keep practicing, keep digging, and keep probing on those calls. And when you feel confident, start layering on more heavy-hitting questions. Here's a resource to help you level up some more. 

And now, I want us to turn our attention to what to do with the information we gathered in these conversations 👀

Taking Action.

If you want to keep your stakeholders engaged, you’ll need to go beyond getting them to answer your questions. With each insight shared, the expectation the client has is that you’ll do something about it. 

So in this post, we're diving deep into the "how" of taking action post-strategic conversations. Let's turn those insights into impactful outcomes 💪🏽

#UpSkill | Taking Action After Strategic Conversations

Part 1: Extracting the Actions from Strategic Conversations

Not everything your stakeholder shared with you is actually important. 

The first step is to sift through the information you gathered during conversations to identify actionable insights. 

This process should be systematic and thorough, so you don't miss out on subtle cues or critical information. Here's how to approach it:

MECE Framework (Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive): Use the MECE framework to categorize insights. This means breaking down the information into categories that do not overlap (mutually exclusive) and covering all possible options (collectively exhaustive). This method ensures you've considered every angle and potential action without redundancy. BTW, this is the method they use over at large consulting firms like McKinsey. 

Actionable Insights Identification: Focus on insights that clearly indicate a need for change, improvement, or reinforcement. These insights often come in the form of expressed challenges, goals, or feedback on the existing process/products.

Prioritize Actions: Not all actions will have the same level of impact or urgency. Use criteria like potential impact on customer satisfaction, revenue impact, and implementation complexity to prioritize your actions.

Part 2: Managing Expectations with Stakeholders

Once you've identified the actions, you want to make sure you’re managing your stakeholders' expectations:

Clear Communication: Inform stakeholders about the actions you’ve identified, why they're necessary, and how they align with overall goals. For the ones that didn’t make the cut, give a clear explanation as to why. 

Set Realistic Timelines: Where possible, share realistic timelines for each action (and don’t forget about accounting for potential roadblocks).

Continuous Updates: Keep stakeholders informed about the progress, especially if there are any delays or changes in the plan.

Part 3: Documenting the Objectives (and Actions Needed)

Speaking of continuous updates, you’ll need tools to track your progress on the actions you’ve taken. 

Success Plans: If you have a success plan in place, be sure to integrate the actions into what already exists. If a new goal has been identified through your strategic conversation, aligning with the stakeholders on the priority of the objectives/actions will be essential. Your success plans serve as a roadmap for the implementation of these actions and a reference point for measuring progress. #receipts

Part 4: Low-Hanging Fruit for the Win

Back to McKinsey, they are very pro low-hanging fruit.

“PLUCK THE LOW-HANGING FRUIT

Sometimes in the middle of the problem-solving process, opportunities arise to get an easy win, to make immediate improvements, even before the overall problem has been solved. Seize those opportunities! They create little victories for you and your team. They boost morale and give you added credibility by showing anybody who may be watching that you’re on the ball and mean business.”

Source: The McKinsey Way by Ethan Rasiel

Quick Wins: Find the actions that require minimal effort but can quickly improve customer satisfaction or address a pressing issue. These wins not only help you flex your skills, but also show your commitment to taking immediate action. It’s about building momentum for more complex tasks you’ll tackle next.

Part 5: Communicating Actions Taken with Stakeholders

Closing the loop with your stakeholders is key, so make sure you’re keeping them up to date: 

Regular Updates: Provide regular updates on the actions taken and their outcomes. This should include any immediate results, blockers, and next steps. Email or check-in calls work best; don’t reserve your QBRs/EBRs for project management conversations. 

Show The Impact: Highlight the positive impact of the actions on customer satisfaction, product adoption, or any other relevant metric. This reinforces the value of strategic conversations and the actions that follow – a perfect setting to do this… QBRs/EBRs. 

If you follow these steps, you’ll be closing the loop on the conversations you’re having and the actions that result from these conversations. Remember, the goal is not just to act but to act in a way that aligns with your client's needs and expectations.

Can it be measured? 

Yes, it can, and you absolutely should! Since we’re talking about direct actions you’re taking, it’s important that you’re not just measuring your personal growth but the impact of your actions. Here’s how: 

Action Implementation Rate: Track how many identified actions from strategic conversations are implemented within a given timeline (use your success plans). This rate will give you a clear picture of your efficiency in turning conversations into tangible outcomes.

 Stakeholder Satisfaction: Use surveys or ask for feedback directly to gauge stakeholder satisfaction with the actions taken. 

Customer Success Metrics Impact: Monitor key customer success metrics before and after the implementation of actions. These could include:

• Customer Health Score: Changes in the customer health score (i.e., product usage and seat utilization) can indicate the effectiveness of actions taken based on strategic conversations. 

• Net Promoter Score (NPS): I know we have a love/hate relationship with this metric but an increase in NPS can reflect higher customer satisfaction as a direct result of actions taken.

• Renewal Rates and Expansion Revenue: Improved renewal rates or increased upsell/cross-sell success can indicate that your actions align with customer needs and contribute to business growth.