In my last post, I introduced the concept of an Effectiveness Model as a framework for engagement with your customers. I introduced it in the context of four other steps to delivering value, but since it’s so fundamental to value delivery, I’d like to drill down on what it is and why it’s so important:
The Concept
The Concept is straightforward. As a provider of a solution, you should be doing more than just throwing software over the transom to your users. In fact, as a SaaS provider, you need to be proving value to them on an ongoing basis. That’s today’s reality. If you don’t, you risk losing your customers to competitors who will. Harsh, but true. Providing a framework for mapping your customers’ progress, comparing their behavior (and results) to “best in class” companies, and showing a path of progress to best practices will help your customers remain engaged with you. The idea isn’t new. The “Maturity Model” concept has been around for years in a heavier weight format, and while more complex models and engagement levels apply in B2B, B2C solutions can also benefit from defined models that encourage additional types of usage and provide your customers with a roadmap to become more effective at using your product.
In the image above, each box represents a stage in an example Effectiveness Model for CRM. The bullet points next to the boxes each represent behaviors representative of each phase. The process of creating a maturity model for your industry and solution isn’t complicated, but it isn’t just something you can churn out quickly without some careful thought.
Identify 3-5 phases that are indicative of customers’ implementation of your technology. You may want to start with the bookends. For your first phase, identify the basics that someone absolutely needs to implement in order to get value from your application. For your last phase, identify what the absolute, best-in-breed, thought leaders who have, or will implement, your type of technology are doing. Then map out 1-3 interim phases that are indicative of how companies would progress through the phases. The CRM Effectiveness Model I put together above is an example of what that might look like.
The concept is simple. Getting it right, however, will take iterations, critical review, and more iterations.
The Name (Effectiveness vs Maturity)
While “The Industry” has traditionally referred to models like this as Maturity Models, I’ve stopped using that term in customer interactions and internally. I was once in a meeting with a large, strategic enterprise customer and presented the concept of a “Maturity Model” that my team and I had created. I thought nothing of it for a split-second, as these types of things had been called Maturity Models for years. My team and I had spent a good amount of time developing and iterating on a model specific to my company’s industry and showed them characteristics of “mature” vs “less mature” companies. As I listened to the words come out of my mouth, however, and observed my customer’s body language, I realized that the term “maturity” sounded arrogant and condescending. From that point on, I’ve referred to these as Effectiveness Models given that we’re simply trying to make our customers more effective. It’s ok for me to use the term “maturity” when talking to my kids about assuming more responsibility as they get older. It isn’t ok for me to imply to my customers that they are immature because they aren’t using automation and deep analytics. Trusted advisor trumps arrogant vendor. Every time.
Giving Context to Your Customer Communications
Your customers are busy. They’re struggling with priorities just as you are. Whether you know/like it or not, you’re competing for their attention every time you reach out to contact them. I think any customer facing team needs to be aware of two golden rules: 1) Make sure the customer goes in to the call looking forward to getting value from their interaction with you; and 2) Make sure you’ve delivered that value by the end of the interaction so that they are looking forward to their next meeting with you. An Effectiveness Model sets you up for success. Your conversations with your customers are framed around objectives that you’ve set out with them. Your standing meetings and conversations with them can then be framed around what they’re doing (and how you can help them) to make progress.
The Value of Demonstrating Progress
There’s always a need to justify ROI, and to the extent you can do it with hard data, by all means, continue to do so in a way that is meaningful to your customers: Point out how many transactions they’ve performed in your system; if there’s a way of quantifying end objectives, like e-commerce transactions that have resulted from use of your application, then be sure to communicate those. In addition to those concrete numbers, or in cases where the concrete numbers are difficult to capture, it’s important to show your customers progress towards stated objectives. The Effectiveness Model provides a picture and path with clearly defined behaviors and objectives to map that progress. You can use this as a way to both map progress over time as well as identify activities and strategies to achieve the next phase of Effectiveness. Demonstrable progress, together, is a great foundation for a loyalty-based relationship.
An Opportunity to Position Key Features of Your Solution
As you create your industry/company’s specific Effectiveness Model, you have an opportunity to define how key features in your product can help your customers advance along the model. Be extremely careful, however, to avoid being overly self-promotional here or to “force-fit” your features into the model. An Effectiveness Model is just a tool to help advance a trust-based relationship with your customer. The model needs to be genuine and in your customers’ best interests. The reality is that if you have a great product and if you understand your customers, you can make some wonderful, insightful recommendations for them that will provide them with significant benefits, increase their use of your product, and make them more loyal in the process.
If you’ve been using an Effectiveness Model with your customers, I’d be interested in hearing about your learnings and feedback from them. If not, what have been your obstacles to developing one? Send me a dm on Twitter: @nfranco. Thanks!
Nello Franco
Nello Franco 
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