Customer Success

Chapter 17

Where Do We Go from Here?

This is where we talk about flying cars, right? Doesn't every story that looks to the future have flying cars in it? In this case, perhaps those flying cars are actually Google self-flying cars. And, of course, they will be carrying customer success droids that, at a cost of a penny apiece, will come on-site with every single customer of our products and guide them through the perfect use and the highest possible ROI. Churn will be a distant memory. Every customer will be a customer for life. The next generation always has it so much easier.

Okay. Time to awaken from that dream and spend some additional time here in the real world. No doubt the future will bring dramatic changes to every part of our lives. Customer success will not be left behind. In fact, because it's still in its infancy and because of its dependency on technology, the pace of change is likely to be significantly higher than in most disciplines.

Predicting the future and what will and won't change is a dangerous business, although it's always a no-brainer to simply say “everything will change.” I know for sure that many of the elements of customer success we've discussed in this book will continue to morph and mature and many others will take their place in the spotlight at various times. If this book is not completely out of date in a couple years, I'll be surprised and disappointed. Greater things lie ahead. Here are a number of areas of change, or further change, that ...