I recently finished reading “The Start-up of YOU” by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha.
The book inspired me to find practical examples of “ABZ Planning “and Customer Success. Not all of us are entrepreneurs. However, adopting an entrepreneurial mindset and best practices is an effective tool to add to our toolbox.
“The Start-up of YOU” shares various ideas and tips to “accelerate your professional career and take control of your future – no matter your profession.”
This is the main theme, and the authors' examples prove that an entrepreneurial mindset is essential for everyone, not just for the LinkedIn founder and his colleagues.
Let’s start with a short explanation of ABZ planning. I quote the definitions from the book:
Plan A is what you are doing now - implementing your competitive advantage.
Plan B is what you pivot to when you need to change your goal or the route to achieve it.
Plan Z is your fallback position, your lifeboat.
These concepts resonated well with me as the book deals with the impact of such planning on the individual's career path. At some point, I found it applicable to Customer Success, and here is the CS “interpretation ”of ABZ Planning.
Plan A is your customer journey plan. It was designed and built to leverage the organization’s competitive advantage and provide value to customers. They follow this plan to achieve their objectives and targets, which will guide them as part of the vendor-client engagement.
Plan B is the “escalation” path triggered when the metrics and KPIs (measured during the customer journey) indicate a risk. It could be that the customer does not acknowledge the value or achieve the expected results. This is “the change of goal” scenario, i.e., adjusting and redefining how the customer perceives and understands the value. Plan B can also indicate a change of route.
In this case, we change certain Plan A elements to reach the same target. It could be attention given to the expected outcome, a focus on a new stakeholder, a different set of reports, or changing the way QBR or EBR is conducted. A well-defined customer journey based on milestones reflecting the customer’s objectives and solid monitoring practices can allow CS leaders to consider Plan B promptly.
And one more interesting insight from the book. Once you divert to Plan B, it effectively becomes your new Plan A.
Plan Z – Plan Z becomes effective “when all hell breaks loose!” This is the time for emergency actions. It can be a conference call with the main stakeholders to present an improvement plan, or there may be a need to catch a plane and meet customers in person. It can also be the time to speed up a feature request that has been pending for months in the pipeline. When facing continuous product performance, followed by customers’ complaints, there might be other consequences, such as SLA penalties or other commercial matters.
A prominent “global” Plan Z was put together by many vendors during COVID-19 when they had to keep customers engaged during quarantine. The constraint of working from home, coupled with technology and automation, drove new initiatives to retain customers and save the business.
Based on the unexpected global events and subsequent changes in recent years, I conclude that Plan Z can become a solid plan for Customer Success.
Yes, playbook processes, milestones, metrics, and best practices exist. Most of them fit Plan B as the scenario is close enough to the one in the “business-as-usual” playbook. Plan Z is the action we must take when running out of options (listed in A and B plans) or when reality changes unexpectedly. Notable examples are the global financial crisis, a global pandemic, regional conflicts between countries, and customers experiencing economic instability.
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