The Customer Success Economy

12Services: Go from Hours to Outcomes

Every service should increase my gross margin.

—Old-world services leader

Every service should be automated.

—Product-oriented startup founder

The rise of recurring revenue business models is causing an existential crisis for PS teams as they confront challenges from divergent, extreme points of view represented by both quotes above. Older companies are questioning long-held beliefs about the charter of their PS organizations. Newer companies, often led by founders who believe that their product should automate services, are questioning the value of PS teams, period. PS teams can be a critical part of the story for driving subscription growth, but they're undergoing massive changes in order to deliver on that promise.

The Old World of Services

Let's bring back Anthony Reynolds, the CEO of Altify who showed up in Chapter 8:

The traditional world of software would say, you buy an on-premises license and then you implement in your own datacenter. And you buy a maintenance contract so you can perpetually have access to that software that you hope returns you benefit. That's the old world. The new modern world is you buy a subscription, and you buy that on the belief that it's going to provide you value. But if it doesn't start providing you value within months or after the first year, then you turn it off. From a vendor perspective, your interest is in making sure that the promise of the sale is followed through so that the customer ...