客户成功的使命是为客户和公司增加可持续的被证明的价值。

一、挑战

在全球范围内，建立一支客户成功团队并能够持续拥有显著效果的最大障碍，是人们对客户成功团队及他们在整个公司中的角色拥有不恰当的认识。

沮丧的客户成功经理们总是一直在抱怨：“客户高管似乎不明白我们在说什么。”

另一方面，当讨论客户成功团队的直接可归因结果时，总会发现：客户中的高管（原文中用的C-level，以C开头的CEO、CFO、CTO等高管）的期望往往得不到满足。

大家在聊业务时虽然谈论着同一个术语，但其实却讨论的并不是同一个东西，这样的情况就会让问题变得更加复杂。

问题的核心原因就是：大家对于客户成功的使命没有可执行的共识。

这种情况的结果是不幸的。

由于大家对客户成功没有共识，所以，当高级管理层决定采取某些方法来解决他们自己所感知到的“重要问题”时，一些客户成功团队就被解散了。

此外，个人和团队的指标也都定的非常随意，团队的经费预算也会受到限制，对于客户成功非常重要的一些工具也无法到位。

那些专注的、积极性高的客户成功团队被随意地限制在仅仅是他们所能完成的事情上，他们被行政命令束缚在一些任务上，而这些任务往往对客户成功的效果是最差的。

在客户成功的管理层中，普遍存在非常严重的人员流动。

我们需要为客户成功这一新职业制定一个坚实的基础——一个明确的、可实现的、大家一致认同的使命。以此为基础，我们就可以在流程、组织、人员配置、衡量指标、预算和技术支持方面为客户成功团队建立起合适的框架。

否则的话，在整个行业内，客户成功的各个方面都将五花八门，没有标准。浪费的、错失的机会所带来的损失将还是那么巨大；而且，这些在很大程度上都是看不见的。

二、宣言：客户成功的使命

客户成功的使命是为客户和公司增加可持续的、被证明的价值。

其本质体现在三个核心词上：可持续、被证明和价值。目标是增长，受益者是客户和公司。

关键词1：可持续

（可靠-可依赖-一致-可确保-稳定-持续）

第一个核心术语是可持续，让我们从它开始，仔细看一下客户成功的使命宣言。

可持续的一个必要属性是平衡，不平衡的交易不可能长期维持在一起。

为了使公司向客户提供价值，公司也必须能够收获价值。如果顾客觉得他们为他们所得到的付出了太多，他们就不会对你保持忠诚了。

如果一个客户成功团队只关注客户，而忽略了他们自己的公司也是需要服务的客户这一事实，将会不必要地危及他们的未来。

关键词2：被证明

（清单-确认-证明-证实-批准-认证-见证-验证-承认-真实）

第二个核心词是被证明。

仅仅向客户或公司保证他们正在从这种合作关系中获益是不够的。关键是让客户承认并确认他们所期望的价值实际上已经真正得到了满足，然后设定下一个可衡量、可实现的目标。

关键词3：价值

（收益-利润-价值-优势-好）

第三个核心术语是价值，它也有一个必要的属性。

• 这个价值是对谁的？
• 价值是谁眼里的价值？
• 价值如何被衡量？

许多人可能会说“结果”一词可以和“价值”互换，但一个睿智的客户成功专家将会看得更深。

• 客户为什么购买产品？
• 客户愿意继续保持这种合作关系的动机到底是什么？

随着时间的推移，购买的决策可能会有几个层次，虽然并非所有这些层次都可以立即宣布或确认。但所有这些层次都是非常重要的，我们必须加以发现、分析和记录。

这正是客户成功团队正在进行的工作。

在另一个“客户”——公司管理者眼中，公司的高级管理团队和董事会将会用商业属于来描述“价值”。

建立和养一个客户成功团队所花费的金额的投资回报率是多少？

同样，这种价值也需要定期进行沟通，应该把“被客户认可”当作被证明的价值，并且形成他们对下一阶段的合作的期望（这样就在自己的公司高层那里形成了对于客户成功团队存在的被证明过的价值）。

三、客户成功：从使命到专业

“客户成功”作为一个“职业”，存在一个必要的内容，要有核心的共同的价值观、道德、技能被信奉。而这些，又都是与共同的目标和目的高度一致的。

以“增加可持续的证明价值”作为个人和团队绩效衡量的目标和坚实基础，可以设计出对应的组织和运营战略战术，并对它们进行实施和测试。

在此过程中，将会确定并获得所需的技能和知识。

使命（Mission）是一个开始。以此为基础，在战略、流程、人员和技术等方面都有大量关键问题需要仔细考虑和回答，只有考虑并回答清楚了，才能建立和管理起真正的客户成功团队。

所有这一切，都是基于现代商业模式的一个现实，那就是——客户获取仅仅是一个长期的、科学设计的、专业指导的战略的第一步。

附英文原文

The Mission of Customer Success

The Mission of Customer Success is to increase sustainable proven value for both the Customers and the Company.

The Challenge

Worldwide, the biggest barrier to establishing and maintaining effective Customer Success teams is an inappropriate perception of the group and its role in the overall company process. Over and over again, frustrated Customer Success executives continue to quote a common complaint: “Senior Management doesn’t seem to understand what we’re about.” On the other side, C-level expectations are often unmet when it comes to directly attributable results from the Customer Success group. The problem is compounded by the fact that everybody is using the same terms to describe what are frequently very different things. The core of the problem is that there is no actionable consensus about the mission of customer success.

The results of this scenario are unfortunate. Some Customer Success teams have been abolished entire when Senior Management decided to take a different approach to solving their perceived priority. Metrics for both individuals and teams are haphazard. Budgets are constrained; vital tools cannot be put in place. Dedicated and highly motivated CS groups are being arbitrarily limited in what they can accomplish, shackled by orders to focus on tasks and interventions where the likelihood of being effective is smallest. Serious levels of turnover in Customer Success executive ranks are very common.

What is needed is a firm basis for the new profession, a clear, achievable and agreed-upon mission. From such a foundation, an appropriate structure of process, organization, staffing, performance metrics, budget and supporting technology can logically be built for the customer success team. Without it, industry-wide, all aspects of Customer Success will remain “all over the map” and the loss from waste and missed opportunities will continue to be huge and largely invisible.

A Statement of Purpose: The Mission of Customer Success

The Mission of Customer Success is to increase sustainable proven value for both the Customers and the Company. The essence is found in three core words: sustainable, proven, and value. The goal is increase, and the beneficiaries are the customers and the company.

Sustainable:  Dependable – Reliable – Consistent – Assurable – Steady – Continuing

Let’s take a closer look at the mission statement, beginning with the first of the core terms: sustainable. A necessary attribute of sustainability is balance. Lopsided deals don’t tend to stay together over the long term. In order for the company to deliver value to its customers, there must be value to the company as well. Customers won’t remain loyal if they perceive that they are paying too much for what they receive. Customer Success teams that focus exclusively on the customers and ignore the fact that their own Company is also a customer to be served are needlessly endangering their future.

Proven: Manifest – Confirmed – Demonstrable – Substantiated – Ratified – Authenticated – Witnessed – Verified – Acknowledged – Real

The second core word is Proven. It’s not enough to merely assure a customer or the company that they are receiving benefit from the relationship. The key is to get the customer to acknowledge and confirm that their desired value was in fact received to their satisfaction — and then to set the next measurable, achievable objective to be accomplished.

Value:  Gain – Profit – Worth – Advantage – Good

Value is the third core term, and it, too, has a necessary attribute. To whom? In whose eyes? How measured? Many may say that the word “outcome” is interchangeable with “value,” but wise customer success professionals will look deeper. Why did the customer purchase the product? What is the motivation for continuing the relationship? There may be several layers to the buying decisions over time, and while not all of them may be immediately declared or acknowledged — all are very important, and must be discovered, analyzed and documented. That’s the ongoing work of the Customer Success team.

Value in the other customer’s eyes, the Senior Management team and the Board of Directors, is going to be expressed in monetary terms. What is the ROI for the amounts spent in establishing and maintaining the Customer Success group? That value likewise needs to be communicated on a regular basis, and also acknowledged by the customer as proven — together with the expectations for the next period.

Customer Success: From Mission to Profession

A necessary aspect of being a “Profession” is having something to profess, a core of shared values, ethics and skills aligned towards a common goal and objectives. With “To Increase Sustainable Proven Value” as a goal and firm foundation for individual and team performance metrics, organizational and operational strategies and tactics can be designed, implemented and tested. In the process, required skills and knowledge will be identified and acquired.

The Mission is the starting point. From that foundation, there are a number of key questions in the areas of Strategy, Process, People, and Technology that must be carefully considered and answered in order for authentic Customer Success groups to be built and managed. Underlying all of them is the reality of the modern business paradigm: Customer acquisition is only the very first step in what must be a long-term, scientifically engineered, and professionally directed strategy.

原文链接：https://www.customersuccessassociation.com/library/the-mission-of-customer-success/

作者：赞德，腾讯产品经理，ToB方向；公众号：xander_talk；个人微信号xanderfriend

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