#TDSU Episode 262:

⏱️ Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:02:04 - Introducing the fab five

00:04:05 - Star Trek character analogies

00:06:23 - Khan as churn

00:07:27 - Implementing the strategy

00:09:26 - Funding the Starship Enterprise

00:11:51 - Vision for customer success

00:12:42 - May the force be with you

📺 Lifetime Value: Your Destination for GTM content

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🤝 Connect with the hosts:

Dillon's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dillonryoung

JP's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanpierrefrost/

Rob's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-zambito/

👋 Connect with De'Edra Williams:

De'Edra's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deedraswilliams/

[De'Edra] (0:00 - 0:24)

So you obviously have not seen my post about Khan. Khan represents churn. So do not fear the wrath of churn was my post.

So for those of you that have not seen it, please go back. But most definitely Khan, because think about it, Khan was this super intellectual, super strong, almost like unhuman person. That's what churn is.

[Dillon] (0:33 - 0:44)

What's up, lifers, and welcome to the Daily Standup with Lifetime Value, where we're giving you fresh new customer success ideas every single day. I got my man JP with us. JP, do you want to say hi?

[JP] (0:45 - 0:46)

Just got out of the bakery.

[Dillon] (0:48 - 0:54)

And we have De'Edra with us. Welcome back. De'Edra, can you say hi, please?

[De'Edra] (0:54 - 0:56)

Hello, everyone. Thank you very much.

[Dillon] (0:56 - 1:06)

Hello. You're welcome. And I'm your host.

My name is Dillon Young. De'Edra, in case they didn't hear your first episode, which is a shame if they didn't, can you please introduce yourself?

[De'Edra] (1:07 - 1:22)

Oh, yes. De'Edra Williams. I am the chief customer officer for a company called D-PAL, and I am all about customer success and how we can make it better.

And more importantly, I love customer lifetime value. So I'm excited to do a repeat on this show.

[Dillon] (1:22 - 1:27)

So let me… you were not a CCO the last time we talked, I don't think.

[De'Edra] (1:28 - 1:29)

Is that a…

[Dillon] (1:29 - 1:31)

that's a level up. Congratulations.

[De'Edra] (1:32 - 1:38)

I don't know if it's a level up, but it's a level. I will tell you that. It's definitely a level up.

It's a level up.

[JP] (1:38 - 1:40)

It's a level. I understand. It's a level.

[De'Edra] (1:41 - 1:41)

Yeah.

[JP] (1:42 - 1:44)

It's definitely a level. Okay.

[De'Edra] (1:44 - 1:48)

Yeah, so this is new. This is new. I'm about on day 90, roughly.

[JP] (1:49 - 1:50)

Oh, wow.

[Dillon] (1:50 - 2:03)

That's, yeah. Exciting. Okay.

De'Edra, you do know what we do here. We ask every single guest one simple question, and that is what is on your mind when it comes to customer success. So can you tell us what that is for you?

[De'Edra] (2:04 - 3:56)

You know, it's all about… last time I was on, I was talking about the fab four, and I went for the audience with that. You guys go back and listen to the recording.

It was epic. I have to say that. But this time I'm talking about my fab five, and I've been coupling it with two things.

I've actually been putting it in parallel with Star Trek, because this year the International Film Institute made Star Trek The Wrath of Khan. It added it to its film registry. And so I'm tying the characters in Star Trek, and I'm talking the original series, so for my Trekkies out there, don't come hating me, okay?

This is the original series, all right? For those of you that are into the different realms, go for it. But to my fab five, and I'm going to break that down if that's okay for you.

All right, fab one, it is customer-led revenue growth. And that means that we are focusing on the customer when we're talking about driving revenue. Fab two is cross-functional collaboration for the go-to-market team, meaning that all of us need to play well in the sandbox, sales, marketing, product, and customer success.

Fab three, AI-driven personalization. That is making sure that we tailor the customer experience and using generative AI to do that. And then fab four is revenue-centric metrics for the C-suite.

You mentioned earlier that I'm technically in that level now. I needed to up my game to make sure I can have that conversation with the C-suite. So does every other CS leader.

And then my favorite fab that I am carrying over from my original four is elevating the employee experience or EX, making sure that we recognize the value of customer success. So fab five, I'll stop there and let's open up the conversation from there.

[Dillon] (3:56 - 4:04)

You said these were all related to original characters. So do you have characters for each one of those five? Can you rattle them off real quick?

[De'Edra] (4:05 - 4:17)

Yes, I will do that. So obviously Captain James Tiberius Kirk is customer success leadership. You're laughing.

That's his name. James, you do not know that he's good for Tiberius. Come on.

[JP] (4:17 - 4:19)

I don't know why I think that's funny.

[De'Edra] (4:20 - 5:54)

You're always laughing at me. You guys, you bring me on this show to laugh at me. So yeah, James T.

Kirk represents customer success leadership. Absolutely. And then, of course, my kindred spirit.

Yes, it is Spock. He represents the data scientist. So when I talk about data and I talk about AI generative-led growth, we can't do that without data.

So Spock is our data scientist. And then, of course, Ahura, the lady after my own heart. She's marketing communications, of course.

So if you're looking at the go-to-market team, you got to go to Ahura because you can't communicate with the other planets without her. And then there, of course, is Scotty. He represents the account executives because, of course, he's engineering.

And he's always trying to make things happen that really can't sometimes. That's what sales does. Sorry, my sales guys, but you know I'm right.

You know I'm right. So that would be Scotty. And then, of course, there is product.

And that's going to be Sulu because, you know, he's a navigator. And they're navigating us. They're trotting the course.

And then there's Cheka, who represents engineering. And I'm sorry, onboarding and implementation. And last but not least, my favorite is Doc Bones, who obviously is support because he obviously is triaging everything that happens from a customer journey.

So yes, I think I have effectively done an analysis or made an analogy between all Star Trek characters and the entire customer journey. And that's my fab five, and I'm sticking to it. JP's got this look on his face.

[JP] (5:54 - 6:16)

Go ahead, JP. Jump in. Well, you mentioned a certain movie.

You're not just talking about Star Trek, right? You talked about a certain movie getting into the registry. So if you already know where I'm going, yo, that sounds great.

We got Chekhov. We got Sulu. We got Captain James Tiberius Kirk.

[De'Edra] (6:16 - 6:17)

We have Spock.

[JP] (6:17 - 6:22)

We have all these people. So what do you do when Khan comes aboard?

[De'Edra] (6:23 - 7:05)

So you obviously have not seen my post about Khan. Khan represents churn. So do not fear the wrath of churn was my post.

So for those of you that have not seen it, please go back. But most definitely Khan, because think about it. Khan was this super intellectual, super strong, almost like an unhuman person.

That's what churn is. Churn represents that one thing that we all fear. But if you notice in the episode and in the movie, we were able to overcome churn.

And we did it by working collectively. So yes, Khan represents churn. He does this.

He's like speechless.

[Dillon] (7:06 - 7:26)

I am speechless. I don't know about JP. It is such a well thought out and well shaped idea.

I have no notes. I'm not sure. So I guess how are you implementing this on a day to day basis, particularly as you lead a team?

[De'Edra] (7:27 - 9:20)

Oh, no, absolutely. I love that question. Thank you for that.

So first and foremost, we are focusing on two things. We're focusing on renewals, which of course ties into the churn because we got to avoid that in any way that we can. And then we're also focusing on expansion.

So from a go to market perspective, Kurt, which I feel like I align myself with as a CS leader. I really spend a lot of time working with Scotty, my account exec, because I work very hand in hand with our CEO. And then more importantly, I really, as a go to market function, working with my, basically with Ohura, which is my dream team from a marketing standpoint.

So we actually have a very, I would consider, tight customer journey that we've built out. And where we're implementing that is we put a renewal practice into our CRM system that has an early warning system. So I can track any, based on my customer's usage, I can track any customer that's not hitting a certain usage level.

And then we put them on a journey that's tied to a red, yellow or green. So it's like an early warning system. Or you think about a galaxy.

It's a warning system. And then when I look at the rest of my team, because support functions roll up into me. If I'm looking at phones, anytime I have an escalation, we put in an escalation process where if we have any customer support ticket that is out for more than 30 days, it escalates all the way up to our leadership.

So we put that into place. So we've got phones taking care of that from a triage. And then our product team, we put in a feedback loop where any customer feedback is leveled up from my customer success team.

And it goes directly through our support ticket system all the way to our product team so that they can make sure that they're either addressing enhancement requests or bugs and defects. So I've incorporated the entire Star Trek character mantra into what I'm utilizing for my go-to-market team and my go-to-market strategy. I hope I didn't forget anybody.

[Dillon] (9:23 - 9:25)

JP, why don't you, do you have any other questions?

[JP] (9:26 - 10:12)

Yeah, I mean, running that enterprise is expensive. You know what I mean? The Federation always want to talk about a budget.

And so it got me thinking, you know, you're the Captain Kirk. You have a vision, baby. You got a vision.

You're trying to go somewhere. But you need some gas. You need to fuel up.

You know what I'm saying? And Bones, he's a doctor. He needs to send something back to his grandmother back in whatever the planet is.

He needs to send something back to his babies. So how do you get the Federation to really buy in on funding this enterprise? Or are they just blank-checking it?

[De'Edra] (10:13 - 11:50)

No, they're not blank-checking anything because we're obviously in a certain mode with regards to the company. But it's a very legitimate customer. And one of the things that I did when I first started was I brought in my entire executive leadership team, which represents the Federation, if we want to do it analogous, is the Federation.

And I laid out my vision. And what my vision has is three very unique things. It's focusing on customer value optimization, meaning that we are looking at what the customer is trying to achieve.

So if I think about the enterprise, we're going to all these galaxies, and we're trying to understand what other galaxies are trying to accomplish. That's exactly what we're doing for our customers. So that's the first thing.

The second thing is, again, I have my team really focusing on customer-led growth. So we have incorporated customer-led qualified opportunities or SQL. And that means that when they're interacting with their customers where the opportunity is appropriate, and I use opportunity appropriately, pun intended, they're making sure that it's tied back to our customers' use cases.

And then the third thing is making sure that we're enhancing that customer experience so that those customers are retainable, that we can have them as references, and we have a very strong customer advocacy. So when I went to my ELT, I said, this is the things that I want the enterprise to support. These are my goals, because I am a revenue-driven, or actually a revenue architect.

I'm an ambassador, to be more precise. But it's kind of where Spock moved from being the data scientist to being an ambassador. That's kind of a role that I actually assume as well.

I'm bringing it in there. I'm just telling you.

[JP] (11:50 - 11:50)

I love it.

[De'Edra] (11:51 - 12:22)

It's something that's very important to me is that I went to my leadership and I said, it's not just going to be about those traditional things around what I consider customer success. One, two, three, dot O. You guys remember me talking about that.

It's not just sentiment. It's not just adoption. It's really driving revenue growth, but making sure we have that value.

And then we ultimately have customers that are referenceable and that are advocates for us. So that's what I presented to my leadership. And so far, I'm still here.

So, working hard works. But that's how I get them to fund the things that I need to have done. I hope that answers your question, JP.

[Dillon] (12:23 - 12:24)

This is airtight.

[De'Edra] (12:25 - 12:26)

I love it.

[Dillon] (12:26 - 12:42)

I love it. This is fantastic. Deidre, that is our time.

But if you're not already doing a full road tour with this, you ought to be. And I would love for you to come back in the future and tell me how that tour goes. But for now, we do have to say goodbye.

[De'Edra] (12:42 - 12:44)

May the force be with you guys.

[VO] (12:50 - 13:26)

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