Hello and welcome to the growth workshop podcast. So, wow, Jonny, what a fantastic conversation that we just had there with Chris Regester from PlanHat. He shared some really fantastic insights with us around the importance of long term customer management and client centricity. I'd love to get your takeaway. What was the key thing that stood out to you from our conversation?
Thank you, Matt. And, I can only echo what you say and have said about the time we spent with Chris from PlanHat, really interesting and something I resonated with as a consultant myself, we are really focused on customer outcomes. Focusing around what is the return of the investment that our clients make?
And Chris made a fantastic point about really shifting cultures towards a customer approach, really focusing on the organizational shift, where teams understand a prioritize the customer outcomes and that focus possibly in some locations across the world is not as prevalent or a priority. So Chris mentioned about how to achieve that customer centricity by really pushing that cultural change from top down with clear communication and alignment across all departments.
It's something that we resonate with importantly, across all of the commercial engine is having all of those. Important departments wired together with that common narrative around customer centricity that will really drive cultural change. So yeah, echo what Chris was saying there and full as a valuable point, Matt, from, from your side, what was something of interest?
It's building on what you said there, Jonny. I think a lot of what Chris talked about was And how he redefined customer success is actually long term customer management, I think is so important and looking at customer success or customer management as a ongoing motion in your business. And hence your point around why that's so important culturally and to build that culture within your, your wider business, not just within a siloed part of it, i. e. your customer success team.
And I think one of the interesting stories that Chris shared around the B2B organization that really prioritized sales velocity over anything else. And the CRO then wondering why, you know, ARR was still going down. And it's this kind of leaky bucket analogy, right? Where we keep filling in the bucket at rapid pace, but the holes in the bucket get bigger and bigger and more and more flows out the other end.
And I think it's really fascinating to think about what that means and how that relates to long term customer management. And I think, you know, when we talk to customers about this, we talk about having a well defined ideal client profile and truly understanding the client that you're going after that makes sure that you're bringing the right clients or partnering with the right clients in your business to demonstrate the value and provide them with the services that they need.
And I think that's one way that you can help maintain that high sales velocity and continue to serve your customers well, but I think the other thing that stood out to me is. Well, how do you then also look at this from a handover transition? And how do you effectively onboard those customers into your business? How do you effectively partner with them?
How do you truly understand their business challenges across their entire business and across your entire business so that you can really, truly partner with them and continue to support them for the longterm? I think that was a really, really fascinating bit of insight and a really great story that he shared with us as well, that shows that we can't just focus on one end of the customer journey. We've got to look holistically across all of it.
So many insights in this discussion with Chris and he talks so eloquently about, about this topic of customer management and how PlanHat support their customers in achieving this and, and helping them achieve this for their own clients. , We'd love to thank Chris again for being part of the podcast and we look forward to you joining us again soon . For more insights, make sure you subscribe. And if you enjoy the journey, don't forget to leave us a review. Your feedback fuels our growth.
Until next time, keep up that forward thinking mindset. Goodbye.