“What has helped me most in my career at Drift was partnering very closely with sales and building trust with them. Expectations are initially set during the sales process. This means salespeople need to be very clear with prospects on what the customer success story is, what the implementation process looks like, what's the timeline. We also work hand in hand with them to ensure they have the right success stories to share with prospects”.
“What I found to be the most effective when you’re trying to set expectations with sales is to make sure you have the following - a tight story, content behind it, and data to back it up. Then you can work with the sales leaders, conduct small group training sessions and follow up one-on-one. That way you can create the alignment and build the trust that makes onboarding most successful in the long run”.
Another very important partnership that the customer success team at Drift has is with the marketing team.
“We partnered closely with our VP of Content and Community, who developed a maturity model to describe the level of adoption over time. This model reflects the results that customers should expect at each stage. This model is a strong driving force that came out of this great collaboration. We have a lot of content around it and I can honestly say it's our blueprint for how we onboard”.
Cronin finishes up with the role of leadership during onboarding. “At Drift, management also has some touchpoints with new accounts. For example, we send out automated emails from the CS directors that encourage customers to reach out to us if they need anything. That has really resonated with customers. Building those additional relationships can take you a long way with certain accounts. Again, onboarding is a team effort”.