Primary Use Case: CS & Ops Collaboration

Background Overview

Customer Success (CS) and Operations teams must work together seamlessly to deliver value and maintain customer satisfaction. Without collaboration, opportunities are missed and customer issues go unaddressed. This primary use case describes collaboration workflows, shared visibility, and joint accountability for customer outcomes.

Goals & Value

• Unified View: Single source of truth for customer status and needs.
• Collaboration Tasks: Joint accountability for customer success.
• Report Outreach: Proactive communication and status updates.
• Value Delivery: Improved customer outcomes through collaboration.

Participating Roles

• Customer Success: Manage customer relationships and outcomes.
• Operations: Execute strategies and operational initiatives.
• Sales: Coordinate on upsell and expansion opportunities.
• Product: Gather feedback and prioritize improvements.
• Management: Monitor collaboration effectiveness and results.

Primary Scenario User Story

As a customer success manager, I want to collaborate with operations on customer initiatives and track joint outcomes, so that I can ensure consistent value delivery and customer satisfaction.

Sub-scenario Details

Sub-scenario A: Joint Customer Planning

• Roles & Triggers: Need to plan customer success initiatives.
• Main Process:
  1. CS and ops teams review customer status and needs.
  2. Jointly develop success plans and initiatives.
  3. Assign responsibilities and set timelines.
  4. Track progress and adjust plans as needed.
• Success Criteria: Comprehensive plans; clear responsibilities; good progress tracking.
• Exceptions & Risk Control: Plan conflicts; resource constraints; timeline adjustments.
• Metric Suggestions: Plan completion rate, collaboration satisfaction, customer outcomes.

Sub-scenario B: Shared Visibility & Dashboards

• Roles & Triggers: Teams need visibility into customer status.
• Main Process:
  1. Create shared dashboards with customer health metrics.
  2. Provide real-time visibility into customer status.
  3. Enable cross-team communication and updates.
  4. Alert teams to at-risk customers or opportunities.
• Success Criteria: Real-time visibility; accurate metrics; actionable alerts.
• Exceptions & Risk Control: Dashboard accuracy; data freshness; alert fatigue.
• Metric Suggestions: Dashboard usage, alert accuracy, response time.

Sub-scenario C: Proactive Communication

• Roles & Triggers: Need proactive outreach to customers.
• Main Process:
  1. Identify communication opportunities and needs.
  2. Coordinate messaging across teams.
  3. Deliver proactive updates and value communications.
  4. Gather feedback and measure communication effectiveness.
• Success Criteria: Effective communication; coordinated messaging; positive feedback.
• Exceptions & Risk Control: Message consistency; timing coordination; feedback integration.
• Metric Suggestions: Communication effectiveness, customer response rate, satisfaction scores.

Sub-scenario D: Value Measurement & Optimization

• Roles & Triggers: Need to measure collaboration impact.
• Main Process:
  1. Define value metrics and success criteria.
  2. Track collaboration outcomes and customer value.
  3. Identify areas for improvement.
  4. Optimize collaboration processes and workflows.
• Success Criteria: Clear value metrics; measurable improvements; continuous optimization.
• Exceptions & Risk Control: Metric definition; data accuracy; improvement tracking.
• Metric Suggestions: Value achievement, collaboration ROI, improvement impact.

Scenario-level Test Case Examples

Test Preparation: Prepare collaboration platforms, shared dashboards, communication tools, and measurement systems.

Test Case A-1: Joint Success Planning (Positive)

• Prerequisites: Customer needs strategic planning session.
• Steps:
  1. CS and ops teams meet with customer.
  2. Jointly develop success plan.
• Expected Results:
  • Comprehensive success plan created.
  • Clear responsibilities assigned.
  • Progress tracking initiated.

Test Case B-1: At-risk Customer Intervention (Negative)

• Prerequisites: Customer showing signs of dissatisfaction.
• Steps:
  1. Dashboard alerts team to at-risk status.
  2. CS and ops collaborate on intervention plan.
• Expected Results:
  • Swift response to customer concerns.
  • Coordinated intervention plan.
  • Customer satisfaction improved.

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