This is my personal blogsite where I share some:
-
thoughts on the technologies I have worked with.
-
software tools I recommend and why.
-
blog articles on a variety of different topics.
-
and a little bit about me in case you're interested.
Continue below for a quick introduction on my guiding principles, and thanks for visiting.
Welcome!
Experience
I can sum up the overall theme of my career as:
"Operations & End-to-End Service Delivery with a Customer Success Focus"
In case you do want to continue, I've noted a few of my key learnings from a career spent in operational service delivery and customer success.
Customer Excellence
If I had to try pick the most important aspect of business from my experience then, on most days, I would say that it's about providing excellence in what you deliver to clients - running far beyond just having a great product or solution.
The follow-up service that you provide to your clients is your most valuable tool and is often overlooked or not considered with the gravitas that it deserves.
Along with a great product, providing excellence in service is the key to getting renewals and reducing churn - and overall - enabling your clients to feel happy and reassured; a win-win all round.
Below are my 4 recommended pillars for delivering Customer Excellence.
Communication
Honest and open dialogue with clients promotes trust and good rapport to encourage a long-lasting and fruitful partnership
Speed
Responding with quick action to requests, particularly support, provides confidence and assurance to clients
Quality
Delivering a high quality service promotes client retention and minimises reasons to potentially cancel service
Diligence
Being diligent across all client-related activities helps to develop a strong reputation as a reputable service
The End-to-End Service Delivery Model
I believe there is a clear and repeatable lifecycle for onboarding new customers, scoping requirements, and delivering an effective solution.
Below I briefly summarise some of my previous roles based around establishing and managing technical teams through this lifecycle to deliver complex projects and achieve customer success.
Own Image (obviously)
Pre-Sales
Similar to a Solution Architect, I worked closely with Sales teams and Engineers to define technical solutions for clients whilst being mindful of budget, typically culminating in an SoW proposal.
Customer Success
After some time of the client using the solution we can gather success metrics to temperature-check how the client is progressing, and identify clear areas of improvement / further development to increase success.
Service Delivery
With an agreed and signed SoW the focus then turns to delivery of the solution, from roadmap and milestone planning through to the deployment of the solution and associated services.
Enterprise Support
Deploying a solution is one thing but as part of BAU service the customer must have access to a mechanism to receive support. The ITIL framework is a clear and useful reference in designing Service Management.
Client Operations
Having an amazing solution means very little without ensuring the end client knows how to use it, and my direct work with clients helps to ensure that they know how to get the best out of the solution.
Technical Operations
All the while of providing solutions to clients there is also the company's own evolving operations to refine and improve, to introduce and streamline process efficiencies and ensure effective internal operations.