The Customer Success Economy

18The First Step: Launching CS in an Established Business

Many leaders at established companies look at Customer Success and think, “Yeah, that's great if you founded your company in the last few years. But how can I make this transition in an existing business when I don't have venture capital dollars to fund me?”

Chris Bates is a great example of a leader who has succeeded in threading the needle of transformation. Bates is the GVP of Customer Success at Tableau Software, a visual analytics software company. He was given the tall order of launching Customer Success in an established business. And he made it happen.

Our CEO joined in 2016. We moved to subscription in 2017. And that was a big change, since we've been a perpetual license company. Now just a few short years later, the bulk of our customers are purchasing via subscription licensing. As part of that progression, our CEO asked three questions: “What does it take to make customers technically successful?” Then he broadened the question and asked, “What does it take to make customers successful in general?” And then he asked, “How do we create customers for life?” Those three questions provided a galvanizing call inside the company. Over a six-month period, we assembled a cross-functional team to provide answers to those questions, which ultimately formed the bones of our Customer Success strategy. In 2018 and 2019, we added over 100 Customer Success Managers around the world. We invested in Gainsight as our Customer ...