Decoding the Customer Success Plan

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This blog post was co-authored with Charlotte Arroyo, Customer Success Excellence Leader for Europe at Schneider Electric

Charlotte Arroyo – Customer Success Excellence Leader for Europe at Schneider Electric

Charlotte Arroyo works with clients all over Europe, in industries that range from healthcare to manufacturing, data centers, and smart cities of the future. Her team provides advanced service plans to critical infrastructures, from the largest factories to the tiniest semiconductors.

But the key to deliver outstanding services, she insists, is to leverage intelligence.

“Right now, hardware is becoming a commodity,” says Charlotte. “Where you really bring value is all the intelligence that you put behind the equipment. This is where you help customers reduce costs and be more effective.”

That’s where the Customer Success Plan comes in.

What is the Customer Success Plan?

The Customer Success Plan sets out your goals and action plan to reach your success target agreed with Schneider Electric. It is meant to lay out your expectations and to track effective service delivery through specific milestones and KPIs.

Research published in 2019 found that the most innovative companies shared five characteristics:

• An attitude of constant improvement.
• A deep understanding of customer needs.
• Active cross-pollination of ideas, within the company and with outsiders.
• A willingness to experiment.
• Empowered employees.

Charlotte and the rest of the Customer Success team help EcoCare* members innovate by ticking all of those boxes. The Customer Success Plan is continuously updated with new feedback, insights, actions, deadlines, and ideas for improvements. It highlights opportunities to improve day-to-day operations and empowers you to keep raising the bar.

“Our Success Plan, just like our customers’ evolving goals, is a dynamic roadmap and living document. It is highly flexible, not set in stone, always in motion, ensuring continuous alignment and progress towards their desired outcomes” , Charlotte sums up.

What goes into a Customer Success Plan?

 Onboarding meeting between the Customer Success Manager and a new EcoCare member

Every time that she creates a new Customer Success Plan, Charlotte starts with the same four questions.

Where is the customer, in terms of business success? Where do they want to go? When do they want to get there? And how can she help make it happen?

As well as talking to the customer and catching up with Schneider’s Sales and Project Managers, she carries out background research to round out the service plan.

“We’ve done the homework,” she says. “We understand the company and how they’re evolving their industry, and now we’re going to give them room to tell us about their problems and challenges.”

She breaks each goal down into short-term and long-term objectives. It’s important to have regular milestones to keep projects on track – and stakeholders on board.

Once she’s outlined the customer’s objectives, she can start connecting them with the services and opportunities they need. “I’m a facilitator,” she explains, “the glue between all the teams that interact with our clients.”

It’s also important to talk to the right people on the customer’s side. A key step during the success planning phase is conducting a stakeholder relationship mapping exercise to identify all key decision-makers and influencers involved in the decision-making process. This comprehensive understanding ensures we maintain open communication channels and alignment, regardless of any shifts in the customer’s team structure.

 “You always want to have your champion, the influencer in the group,” she says.

However, it takes time to build that kind of trust.

“The worst possible thing that a customer could do is to hide information from us,” says Charlotte. “If we don’t have all the necessary information to support them, then there’s no way that we can fully meet their targets.”

That’s another reason why the Customer Success Plan is a living document. Over time, Charlotte updates each plan to stay in touch with changing goals, industry trends, and new information.

The longer she works with a customer, and the more trust they share, the more ambitious the plan becomes.

What’s the most important data in a Customer Success Plan?

Example of Customer Success Plan

There are several metrics that Charlotte tracks in each Customer Success Plan.

First, Charlotte looks at her customers’ overarching challenges and key objectives. Whether they’re focused on growth, hiring people, breaking new markets, or beating the competition, she looks for ways that Schneider can support their mission.

“There’s a lot of things that are not directly linked to our business,” she notes, “but thanks to our digital services, we are going to either directly or indirectly help customers towards achieving their company objectives.”

“That’s where the Customer Success Manager plays a pivotal role,” Charlotte explains, “in identifying when a customer is ready for growth. Because of that close relationship that we have, we know exactly the right time to discuss new opportunities when their objectives or challenges have evolved.”

Next, she reviews key metrics directly tied to their operational goals. She defines corresponding key performance indicators (KPIs) and success criteria to monitor the quality of service, ensuring we consistently meet and exceed customer expectations.

For most customers, top priorities revolve around safeguarding their business operations and ensuring the safety of their personnel. This includes achieving 100% uptime to prevent disruptions and potential shutdowns, while also maintaining a secure environment with high-quality products monitored 24/7 through our EcoCare membership. Cybersecurity is a top priority, as are the growing concerns surrounding sustainability for many of our customers.

“In the early days, most companies were focusing on profits, efficiency, and cost reduction,” recalls Charlotte. “Now people are much more cautious about their impact on the planet. Schneider is really well positioned to support them because we have strong ESG targets ourselves.”

How do you track the Customer Success Plan?

The Customer Success Plan, a living document, actively tracks every KPI. We establish milestones, gathering feedback throughout each quarter to proactively address issues and uncover growth opportunities.

Regular Customer Business Reviews, tailored to customer needs, ensure alignment and progress. These reviews can be conducted on-site, remotely, or through a combination of both, depending on the customer’s preference. More complex installations may require monthly reviews, while others may meet quarterly or even biannually.

During these reviews, we delve into the Success Plan’s details, as Charlotte explains: “[We look at] the actions we agreed on, the due dates, the milestones… We also discuss any roadblocks or risks encountered and celebrate achievements made.”

Ultimately, our role is “really about building the customer up,” ensuring the full value of their contract is delivered on time.

* Please verify the availability of EcoCare in your region through a local services sales representative. If EcoCare is not yet available, you can start leveraging EcoStruxure Service Plan.