jaymce

Customers are the best source for powerful marketing assets while lost prospects are sometimes a wealth of sales empowerment background.  Successful or not, it is important to collect as much information about as many customers as possible in order to build an arsenal of competitive information, customer success stories, how deals are won/lost and technical information.

In my current role, I manage the customer information collection process.  It is a challenge because we haven’t had this role in the past and I am establishing a framework and process where there was nothing.  With so many customer/prospect touchpoints and varying resources involved throughout a buying process gaining alignment is rough, however the rewards are well worth it.

In this post I will walk through what should be collected. In subsequent posts I will address how to package it for consumption, the process and how customer information will help drive cross team collaboration and ultimate success. 

There is a wide range of contributors to this process from sales to sales support and implementation. the information is gathered through informal interviews and collection of materials from throughout a customer lifecycle, such as sales decks, rfps and implementation guides. Everything is compiled using a customer information worksheet as outlined below.

What to Collect? 

We have built out a definitive guide for collecting information and assembled a worksheet that is used to guide the process.  It is a basic set of information that might be modified to your needs.  I will address how to store and access this info in the next section.  My template is available for download and each section is outlined below:

General Customer Information - This section outlines the personnel involved in the deal from both sides of the sale.  It also lists ongoing support contacts and provides a guide for how the information can be used.  We typically are looking to use customer information to build external case studies.  This requires customer approval and we track it here.  We also track whether or not they will be a reference, if we can list them on our website customer section and we add a status and list of all available assets and tools related to this customer.  I am a bit particular about logos and append a clean logo in this area as well.  I also outline “tags” in this section.  We will use tags later to store and provide easy access.

I also collect general information about the customer that will help the audience understand what they are dealing with.  For an external case study it helps the reader say “hey me too”, while the internal reader gets a ”hey, i’ve got a prospect just like this”.  I like to include fortune 500 stats, sizing (revenue, number of employees) and any awards or distinguishing characteristics.

Business value - In this section outline the reasons the customer is undertaking the project.  This section should demonstrate the problems the customer is having and should be mapped to business drivers and ultimately a corporate priority. Ask what is the business issue we solve?  When I build out quick case study slides, I typically outline the problem, our solution and a quick tech overview.  This value sets the stage for “why”.

Solution and Benefits - How does the solution address the business problem and extend value? Typically this includes a summary of how our technology is being used to solve the problem outlined in the previous section.  If there is a business driver, there should be a related technological solution.  It outlines which products are being used for what?  There is a completely separate technical section that outlines architectures and whatnot, so this is that map between business driver and technical architecture. 

Compile any stats from the customer that might be useful in “making it real”.  It goes without saying but measurable statistics dramatically improve case studies.  Ultimately a ROI number would be great but if this is not possible outline other metrics such as time saved, resources reduced and revenue realization. What were the success metrics for the customer?

 Competitive - This section is critical and is used to track the competitive nature of the deal. It answers who were the competitors in the deal and why did the customer choose us over them?  Ask your sales people to outline the traps and blocks they set for the competition.  Outline our differentiators that were important in closing the deal.  How did we overcome obstacles set by the competition?  If we lost the deal, identify why the prospect went with a competitor.  This ultimately outlines new differentiators and can help modify positioning to kill competitors going forward.

Anatomy of the deal - In this section outline the project timeline.  Ask the sales person to capture to outline a chronological history of the deal and collect as much information about every interaction that made a difference, including an outline of the key decision makers and influencers.  This section will help the oprganizzation outline buyer personas going forward.  Try to start at the leads source and work all the way through implementation and go live.

Some sample questions include:

·        How did we get the lead?

·        How did we get a first meeting?

·        Who did we talk to? How did we get to the right decision maker?  Who was this decision maker? Persona?

·        What were the meetings held to close the deal?

·        What were the key conversation points?

·        How long was it from first contact to close?

·        How long is implementation?

·        Was there a partner involved?  How did they effect the deal?

Technical overview - Finally, provide an outline of the technical requirements as outlined by the customer and provide a framework for understanding how the project was implemented.  Some items we collect include Products Licensed, Platform, Database, Surrounding Technologies, Implementation Timeline (phased?), an Architecture Diagram and other specific technical information that might be pertinent to your technology.

This is a quick outline of the items to be collected and is by no means exhaustive, however it provides a basic framework.  In subsequent post I will outline how to package customer information for consumption, the process and how customer information will help drive cross team collaboration and ultimate success. 

I hope it is useful…. jaymce.