Day 2: Drill Down on Customer Success Priorities
Over the past eight months there has been tremendous progress made in terms of integrating two great companies and cultures, yet much remains to be done. Day 2 was focused on drilling down on the key priorities for Customer Success in 2022.
We organized those priorities around three key themes this year:
Finish the Job: In order to maximize the value and the efficiencies of bringing NWN and Carousel together to form the market leading Cloud Communications Service Provider (CCSP), we need to complete the great work that has been on-going in the areas of systems, tools, automation and process. The integration of our ERP systems (NetSuite), CRM systems (Salesforce.com) and ITSM systems (ServiceNow) are all nearing the final phase of completion, which will enable the Company to streamline operations and process and to increase overall profitability of NWN Carousel.
Master the Model: “Making sure everyone on the CS team understands our financial model as well as our operating model is critically important to ensure that we can deliver on our commitment to our customers, our teams, our board, and our investors,” said Jack. Discussions focused on executing the business through internal handshakes to ultimately provide a framework for smooth customer service.
Making NWN Carousel a Great Place to Work: “We want to make this the most attractive place to work and for others to really want to be a part of our team,” said Jack. Goals were set around improving individual communication, alignment, development, and training.
Day 3: Set Big Aspirational Goals & Focus on Measurement
Day 3 was built around using two core frameworks that the entire company utilizes: Value Framework and OKRs to organize the priorities and activities of the Customer Success organization in achieving its three key themes. We organized into six working teams, and each team developed a Mantra using the value framework for each of our three key themes – Finish the Job, Master the Model, and Great Place to Work.
Teams defined the current state and identified issues and pain points. They then defined the desired future state and identified the positive business outcomes achieved when we get there. The teams then identified the required capabilities to get us from where we are (current state) to where we want to be (desired future state), and importantly, they defined how we will measure it. This value framework is the same process our sales and go-to market teams use in our customer engagement process.
“My favorite part of this process is making sure we have our engineers in a good spot to deliver the best, highest level of quality services that we can hand to our customers.”
Jen DeFazio
Senior Director of Operations, Professional Services, NWN Carousel
Objectives & Key Results (OKRs)
Based on the required capabilities and the measurements defined in the value framework exercise, each team developed a set of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) for each of our three key themes. These OKRs will each have a set of initiatives underlying them that will be tracked on a weekly cadence. Companies large and small use the OKR technique to align, measure and achieve better results. Under Jack’s leadership, utilizing the OKR process to align to company objectives and drive personal accountability will help us achieve success in 2022!
“The team is really hard at work around developing a mantra, setting initiatives, and creating a set of OKRs to measure success. One of the things about OKRs is you make them visible. We will communicate our goals to the rest of the company. You announce it to the world, then you communicate your cadence of progress,” said Jack.
It’s no secret that one of the core principles of NWN Carousel is to create a happy workforce that will drive objectives that ultimately benefit our customers!
