The Customer Success Professional's Handbook

7Defining the Journey to Customer Outcomes

We live and work in the age of data. The ability to use the information gathered on customers for insight into your relationships with them is more important than ever before. Data is a powerful asset. You could say that data, next to your customers, is your most precious resource.

It is interesting that customers willingly provide you with this kind of access. They permit you to watch and analyze their usage of your product. They even give responses to surveys and participate in other data-gathering techniques. Why do they allow such intrusions into their business information? Your customers do this because, first, they feel safe and their information is protected. Second, they expect something in return. They have the rightful expectation that your company will safeguard their information and utilize all the data you have gathered to accelerate the delivery of success for them.

With all the knowledge provided by collected data comes serious responsibility. As a Customer Success Manager or the leader of the Customer Success team, you must harness the information, convert it into actionable insights, and proactively engage with your customers to achieve their outcomes and goals. Most of all, you must do this in a human-first manner, ensuring the safety of all the knowledge gathered and protecting your customer's vulnerabilities.

Using the knowledge and insights driven by data, you can draw out the expected path for your customers to ...