Michael Redbord, General Manager of the Service Hub at HubSpot, joined Helping Sells Radio to talk about making customers successful. Software companies have to focus on building trust, adding value, and helping people do their job better. But how far should we go in helping our customer be successful? Asked another way, "Should the gym employee come to my house and throw away the cookies?" While Michael doesn't think the gym should go to people's houses slapping cookies out of their hands, we should try to help customers do their jobs better, not just get them to log into our software. Just think about how HubSpot does his. A lot of it is with education: educational blogs, HubSpot Academy, and the book "Inbound!" Speaking of books, Michael thinks the topic of making customers successful more than warrants a book. We agree. Write it, Michael.
Are you making your customers successful?
People buy your software because of some promise you make...a promise that if someone buys your software, they will achieve some outcome. Do you know what promise you are making to your customers? And how that promise is delivered? In the gym example, you should think about whether the promise the gym is making is that you will lose weight or fit fit or enjoy a place to socialize. Then you need to figure out whether you are fulfilling that promise. Redbord describes that simply as "the point of success." Your goal then should be to help a customer get to that point of success.
Redbord suggests we ask ourselves, "What promise have we made and have we delivered on that promise?" If we answer yes, it opens up new opportunity for grow in the relationship.
The Redbord customer opportunity model
If there is an opportunity to grow the relationship, it is natural to ask by how much? We discussed a model for how to think about that. It is a simple four box matrix.
What do we have: On one axis is a continuum of your product offerings and what your customer has already purposed. So, if you have four products (or services) and your customer currently has one product, you can map out an opportunity to expand the relationship with this customers by three products.
How open is the customer to contact: On the other axis is the customer's willingness to grow the relationship with you. If they are not open to it and are happy with only the one product they purchased, you know who to treat this customer. However, if the customer is opening to purchasing more from you over time, you can use the model to track that as well and create a better account plan.
This type of a model can help you more accurately match how and how often you touch your customers with calls, emails, QBRs, sales calls, etc.
I guess we'll just call this The Redbord Model.
Putting these two concepts together, Redbord helps us think about how helping customers be successful we can grow our relationship with them. It begins with fulfilling the promise we made and understanding how open our customers are to growing the relationship.
Sounds like a book Redbord should write. I bet you'd read it. I would.
Learn more about Mike
- HubSpot ServiceHub
- Oh and here's that Malthusian Hierarchy
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