Transition / Hand-Off Calls

Hey-Yo! 

Our organization does something similar.

• General intros to their CSM
• Discuss why our product was purchased and the focus of the onboarding project and confirm with the client we met and delivered their expectations
• The CSM will then dive into next steps and action items

The goal for each CSM coming out of the handoff call is to have a clear line of site to the next 2-3 months worth of work with the client. Part of our success criteria for the handoff is to ensure the CSM and the client have a follow up meeting scheduled to get started prior to ending the handoff call. 

A big enabler to the meeting success is the pre-handoff. We have our onboarding team fill out a survey so the CSM has all the information they need to know going into the call. 

Great Question!

I think the best strategy that I have seen is creating a template for the CSM journey specifically. Much like with the customer onboarding phase, there’s a standard experience and pitfalls that the team is aware of. Why not be more proactive about this experience?!?!

By creating a first 30 days CSM led experience each of the milestones then become things that customers care about:

• Optimization
• Additional Training
• Dashboards & Reporting
• Change Management
• Expansion & Growth
• Renewals

By creating this experience, you’re driving home the value that this new individual is bringing to the table. And their checkins are now centered around these different topics / best practices. So when you get to Renewals - the client can honestly see and say this person has brought me value. 

Without this process and playbook, it’s hard for CSMs to showcase their work and areas they’ll be collaborating with the customer on. 

Additionally, if the customer only hears from your CSMs when renewals come up then they don’t really trust them and think of them as merely bill collectors. 

Thanks, guys! Love the pre-hand off survey idea as well as the 30-day plan. This gives me a lot to think about! 🙏🏻

Not at my current org, but at a past org we had a great video that helped customers understand the relationship they would have with their new CSM or Support and also what other resources were available to help answer questions moving forward to help them try those resources as a first option. 

At my current org, we just developed a self-service checklist that goes through each of the “jobs to be done” that they might experience in the future (product updates, contacting support, technical questions, etc.) and mapped it to what resource we have that would help in that situation. We’re really trying to provide more self service resources, and this was a great way for us to focus on what the customer needs instead of what we offer. Also works as a great bookmark for them later when a problem/concern arises. 

We are still ironing out this process, so can’t claim to be an expert. But some things that we do…

• Customer Competency Survey… Opportunity for our PM to rate the client’s skills with each area of functionality in the tool. Not Interested / Interested by Not Using / Using But Not comfortable / Capable / Mastery
• Sign Off Letter… simply written summary of contract items delivered, and any IOU’s out of the project (priorities can change during implementation

The Survey results are for internal use to guide topics in first CS sessions. The Sign Off Letter is our line in the sand that they’ve transitioned between Implementation and CS. And we have a similar meeting to what’s noted above in other posts for handoff.

One thing we’ve learned - even if you tell them CS is coming during the onboarding kickoff, they are going to forget about that resource while they are focused on onboarding. So constant reminders that “you have help even once we wrap this initial project” has really helped avoid paralyzing anxiety for clients who are juggling onboarding and a heavy daily workload.

@JustaCSM I’m working on developing this pre-handoff and handoff process between Implementation (Onboarding) team and the CSMs. Would you be willing to share some of the questions that are asked in the survey?

Sure thing @lydiaanderson! Our survey format covers the following:  

• Who are the main points of contacts and their roles? 
• Does the PM or onboarder have any concerns about the account? If yes, what are they? 
• Were the users trained as part of the onboarding or does training need to be discussed in the handoff? 
• Core objective/outcome focused on during onboarding (why they purchased)
• Next steps or recommendations for the account and CSM to be successful