Why customer success starts with partner success

The traditional, indirect sales channel model has been a key part of the tech industry for decades - and for good reason. For IT vendors/manufacturers, it offers a platform to expand global sales reach and grow revenue at scale - without the need for costly investments. For partners such as resellers, distributors and service providers, it provides an extensive portfolio of solutions which they can take to their customers.

But channel sales is becoming more challenging than ever, with the transition to subscription and consumption-based business models. According Forrester Research, growth is now expected to come from driving adoption, deeper integrations and stickiness, and enabling cross-sell, upsell, enrichment of other parts of their portfolios and other innovations. As a result, vendors are having to shift their focus to lifecycle sales and customer success - but no vendor can achieve this without the help of their channel partners. Partner enablement is key.

So, if customer success is very much dependent on partner success, what can vendors do?

1- Make it Easy

As a vendor or manufacturer, are you easy to deal with or do your processes create a lot more work for your partners?

Think about the countless partner programs, portals, assets, certifications, tiers, rebates, deal registration and more which your partners must navigate through for each and every one of their vendors/manufacturers. It can be extremely time-consuming and cumbersome.

Which is why I recommend simplifying processes and implementing automation. Technology and automation can serve as a force multiplier for your business and your partners. It can help scale your customer success and retention programs, with minimal friction.

Below are some of the least efficient aspects of channel sales that could easily be automated and streamlined:

• Quoting: A quote should not take hours or days before it finally reaches the customer, yet this is common practise for most of the channel. Not only does it slow down quote to cash periods, but the extra admin work required can take precious time away from more important tasks.
  
  
• Renewals management: Identifying, pricing, quoting, approving, and reconciling data for renewal contracts is a complicated, lengthy process for many vendors and their channel.
  
  Standard ERP, CRM, and CPQ systems that are designed to handle net-new sales do not capture renewals-specific data effectively. As a result, a series of manual workarounds are developed by internal teams to help track and manage renewal opportunities. All too often, the default go-to becomes managing renewals through spreadsheets, the wrong systems, or attempting to build a custom solution in-house. None of these options work effectively - there is a better way!
  
  
• Expand Sales: A key contributor to customer success and indeed partner growth, is expanding customer lifetime value. This involves finding post-sale opportunities like cross-sell, upsell, add-ons and upgrades within your installed base that can be actioned immediately by your partners.
  
  The reason why I have listed this as a focus area is because many vendors are still manually analysing installed base data and running ad-hoc campaigns. But, in order for expansion programs to be successful, it really needs to be proactive, ongoing and scalable. This cannot be achieved without the help of automation.
  
  

2- Let the Data Flow

Data is your greatest asset when it comes to effective management of customer lifecycles. From Point of Sale (POS) information, price books, SKUs, part numbers, part descriptions, weights, cubic measurements, options, service or maintenance contract dates to consumption data - it can all be useful.

However, in todays’ subscription/consumption-based world, the volume of data that needs to be handled can be overwhelming. Having a single source of truth and enabling an ongoing exchange of data up and down the channel in real-time is essential. By breaking down data silos, consolidating data and integrating existing systems, vendors will be in a better position to gain customer insights and discover opportunities which they can take to their partners.

3- Be aligned

Customer success is all about the customer. It’s about demonstrating value, helping the customer achieve their business outcomes and ensuring maximum return on their technology investment. Which is why it’s imperative that vendors and their partners are closely aligned and work together to help achieve the same goal. Customer success and lifecycle sales is more than just a one-off initiative or campaign and it requires ongoing commitment, collaboration and transparency for it to work in the long-term.

For many vendors, this may require a complete overhaul of their processes, channel strategy and even partner incentives to support recurring revenue and lifecycle sales. The focus can no longer be about product sales targets and net-new sales, but rather customer outcomes and customer lifetime value (CLV).

It’s clear that the channel is changing and can no longer operate the way it used to. Speak to the iasset.com team about how our purpose-built platform can help you improve partner success in a smart, cost-effective manner.