Bridging the Gap Between Marketing and Customer Success

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Hey everyone, I'm Dan Darcy, Chief Custer Officer at Qualified and what a crazy

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year

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it's been.

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I mean, it's highlighted one of the things that I'm most passionate about,

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which is

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really around customer obsession and delivering a differentiated experience for

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our customer

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success.

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Now, one of the things you have to know is that success obviously just doesn't

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do it

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alone.

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I mean, we do our best work when we're working with our marketing counterparts.

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And you know, as a former marketer myself, I look for every chance to work with

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marketing

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to really drive that differentiated experience for our customers.

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And today I've got a special treat for joined by one of the best B2B marketers

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out there,

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the Chief Marketing Officer from Dialpad, Morgan Norman.

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Morgan, welcome to the pipeline summit.

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Thanks, Dan.

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I'm thrilled about this series and I'm thrilled to be here.

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Let's talk about the landscape right now.

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And as a marketing leader, what are you thinking about what's top of mind for

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you in the second

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half of this year?

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So one of the things at Dialpad, we're obviously in the AI space as well.

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If you're not familiar with Dialpad, we're an AI powered customer intelligence

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platform.

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We get all our information from voice video messaging and contact center.

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So the top of mind is actually, how do you stay in front of this industry?

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How do you disrupt it with messaging?

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And how do you actually help your customers go for that transformation of AI?

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Where do they get started?

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Where do they actually need to get their customer service teams to adopt AI,

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sales

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teams?

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Those are the big motions we're thinking about.

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You know, customer attention is really an important strategy and it's become

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even more

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important in today's market.

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How are you guys thinking about customer attention at Dialpad?

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And like, what is your customer success organization really look like?

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Yeah.

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So we actually have customer success.

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We have a new Chief Customer Officer, an amazing gentleman that's come on board

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And we actually have customer success driven down by a variety of segments

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because we deal

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with very small business, SMB, mid-market, and to the biggest companies in the

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world like

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Randstad, they have 160,000 employees.

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So we have to divvy that up in a lot of different ways.

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The other parts of customer success we have on top of that is, and we work with

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this in

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marketing is we have self-service onboarding because you can actually try and

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deploy our

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products by yourself.

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So we do a lot of stuff that's online, help center, videos, learning paths, if

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you will.

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And then we have specific CSMs as you get into larger accounts where they're

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really

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hand-holding them not only through deployment, but are they getting the value

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out of Dialpad

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as fast as possible?

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Are they getting the usage and adoption?

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Yeah.

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Now what role does data play in all of that alignment between marketing success

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Yeah.

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Well, we're a PLG model and a sales side model.

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And where we look at data instead of just the initial ways we looked at it

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maybe 10 years

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ago, we look at heavy adoption down to the feature level.

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So we look at high adoption accounts, medium adoption accounts and high usage

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accounts,

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if you will.

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We're also taking that down a layer where 96% of our customers have AI enabled,

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but

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we need to go down a layer and say what features are they using?

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And what are the high value features based off of the different roles?

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So how we work with our customer success team, because we run a lot of the

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product metrics

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on that side is, let's educate you where there's a gap.

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How can we actually change some things within our existing lifecycle?

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What content, I mean, you have a great background in creating content all

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throughout your career.

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What can we surface to the user to educate them?

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So a lot of it is more about how do they interact with us across the entire lif

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ecycle?

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And then we really kind of help produce kind of world-class content along with

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the brand,

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make sure it just looks super engaging for the users.

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How can a strong alignment between marketing and success really help drive

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revenue growth?

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Great question.

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Full transparency back in the day wasn't really customer-centric.

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I mean, it's very hard when you have so many demands on the marketing side to

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just be customer

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love every moment, every day.

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But when growth marketing kind of transformed how we operate, it really

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transforms everything

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you're trying to do.

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I think the pieces that I look in marketing is sometimes customer success teams

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are not

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as modern as the way a marketer might be.

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And sometimes a marketer will try to skip steps with customer success, what

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they need

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to do, build a self-service signup that doesn't work for them or not really

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kind of pop up

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the right messages.

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So it's really a mind-melting of like, what is their process?

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Do we understand their process?

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How they actually believe a customer is going to deploy and be successful?

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And do they understand the tools that we have and what are quick tools we can

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adjust

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versus big motions and retooling something for them?

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So what we kind of look at is actually how can we help you build that lifecycle

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A very small business SMB lifecycle is very different from enterprise.

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You might not want us to do a lot of automation in enterprise.

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It might be talked to an expert, but all that has to be designed in partnership

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with them.

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And it's a lot of education on both sides.

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All right, Morgan, what are some of the biggest challenges you see between

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marketing and success

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and how do you navigate around those challenges?

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The largest challenge I see from a marketing perspective is content creation,

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honestly.

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And I don't mean that just onboarding videos.

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I actually have to look at the entire Help Center and say, what's the bounce

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rate of this

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specific article?

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Do we need a video in this article versus just text?

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How can we actually get this specific Help article on brand?

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Do we need a different blog article that's actually a little bit more education

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prior

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to them going to the Help Center or down a learning pathway?

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The other largest piece is the learning pathways.

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Do you understand the learning paths of different types of users by role?

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And this is where it gets super complex is saying, what do we want them to

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learn?

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What is kind of level one, level two, level three?

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And typically you don't have the materials for that.

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So you have to juggle like level one materials are going to work for these

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different audiences

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and you have to really decide what are your big bets there.

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Outside of that is getting awareness that you are customer centric.

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And that is very hard for most CMOs to do outside of like customer wins and

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cases.

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But you want to really help market the team and their philosophy and their

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approach to

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transformation.

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Let's talk about marketing narratives for a little bit.

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What are some strategies, you know, your team is utilizing to really understand

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and drive

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a better marketing narrative understanding the learning from customer success?

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Well a lot of it starts from the web.

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I believe in how do we actually understand the behavior of the web?

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Where do they engage with?

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What is their entry point?

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What are their exit points?

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So we spend a lot of time understanding that down to what your user profile is.

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You know, what if you think your admin is going to have a very different entry

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point

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than a specific power user or an individual user that is learning the product.

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The challenge is a lot of CSMs don't care about that.

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They're like that doesn't matter.

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And this goes back to what I was saying earlier.

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There's a learning path from a web page to what a blog article might be that's

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very surface

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level to actually how a function works.

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Like the job they're trying to achieve into oh do I want to see a quick, you

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know, five

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minute onboarding video and they start to trust that we have the tools to help

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you be

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successful.

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From there, what we also focus in is a lot of automation.

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You know, can we take that data and you asked a lot about data and can we

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create any specific

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triggers based on it or suppress certain triggers.

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And that gets into another world down to the industry, down to actually what

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level of user

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they are, what features they've used.

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So we use a couple pieces of technology that help us fire different emails.

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If the if the user hasn't logged into the app and X time will fire a specific

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pop up

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that will drive into a help article that the CSMs are saying we don't have

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adoption on.

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Another thing we do with CSMs that is really critical, maybe we want to spend

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time to talk

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about this is how do you do a launch with CSMs?

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You know, I think you and I know we've all made tons of mistakes as marketers.

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We launched stuff.

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We don't have the right materials to educate people.

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So that's a big area that I've always working on perfecting, but I've never

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gone perfect.

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So that would be the areas that talk a lot.

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It's an interesting topic that you bring out because when you think about it,

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we think

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about it here all the time.

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And I sometimes think customer success is always left off the enablement path.

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And so when we're launching a new message because we have to enable the

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customer success

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managers because they are the first people that customers call.

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And so, you know, how are you?

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I mean, you even mentioned it just right now.

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CSMs, you know, don't think in the marketing way.

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How are you?

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What strategies are you driving to help think more around getting the CSMs to

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have a market

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mindset?

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Yeah.

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I love that you mentioned enablement.

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And sad for a lot of folks out there.

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I think that's true.

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It's a little bit of enablement, biosmosis or the top CSMs are going to educate

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the other

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folks out there.

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What we do a little differently now is we've kind of matured as a company.

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You know, we're over 200 million in revenue and scaling quickly.

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We actually partner with the CSMs throughout the launch.

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So when we meet with the product team and we're trying to define and really,

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you know,

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dumb down what the launch might be, we're then working with the CSMs on the

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messaging.

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And we create a couple of docs where they can say, "This isn't going to make

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sense for

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us because they don't have the bandwidth to pitch these things."

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The other thing I've learned in this is, is you have to create tools they can

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forward.

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So they're not going to understand and be able to pitch these things at a

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launch perfectly

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on the phone or on a quick, you know, a video meeting.

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So what do they have to forward afterwards?

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And a lot of times in marketing, we're lacking there, as you mentioned.

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We didn't give them everything they need.

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You know, is it a couple slides that someone would present internally why we

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should adopt

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these features versus a one-pager?

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So thinking more in a customer-centric way, what would the admin need to kind

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of educate

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maybe the sales team or other folks that's saying, "This is a feature that

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could drive

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this type of value?"

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So what we do is build that kit of parts.

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We don't. I think we can always do more with the enablement side.

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And I think that's a great call out.

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You know, some of the things I think about when I'm also thinking about

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marketing messaging,

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what's great about here, you know, I work with our marketing counterparts.

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You know, sometimes a lot of our customers really want to learn more about

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value, customer

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value, right?

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And so I'm like, how do we drive more value as opposed to the features and

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functions of

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whatever product we're launching or whatever?

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And what value is that going to bring to the customers?

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So, I mean, how do you guys think about that?

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I, you know, even my interactions, you know, doing a shameless plug with my

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experience

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and qualified, you know, we solve value very quickly.

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And I want to talk about that as a segue to what about DialCAD.

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The pieces of value that I see the challenge for CSMs is they can explain the

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value to

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a subset of users, but it can't be passed on very well.

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The difference is if they can articulate that value to the C-suite quickly in

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seconds.

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And if you don't have that kind of quarterly or QBR review, if you don't have

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materials

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where that's kind of always top of mind reporting-wise, it's challenging for

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them and we need to

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do their job for them.

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That's not their job to calculate the value of something, you know, we sold to

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them or

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partner with them on.

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So what I think is it's really probably one of the most important things that

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ROI, that

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value and then the steps to get to that value that marketing needs to agree

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with CSMs and

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sales needs to bake.

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So that's the other area.

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Well, let's flip this for a little bit here.

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You know, what advice would you have for success leaders out there too?

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I mean, me being one of them, obviously, we're just talking about I was a

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former marketer.

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You know, when you're working with the success teams, you know, what, you know,

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what more

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can we be doing?

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Well, you're never a former marketer.

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What's your marketer?

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You're always a marketer.

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You can't get away from us.

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So it's, I think that things with CSMs is there's a lot of pressure on them and

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a lot

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of times they're unable to convey what the challenges are with the company.

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What I would ask of CSMs that had helped me when I was, you know, deploying

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early on

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products is what are the top 10 things that are coming up every week, get

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together as

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a group, get that to marketing because there's a lack of clarity in the

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messaging.

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There's a lack of clarity in what we're offering or specific tools.

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I think the other piece is that CSMs, believe it or not, are not bad marketers

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because they

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have insights on the customer side that in marketing, you just, you don't have

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the bandwidth

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for it.

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So the way to first partner is obviously on customer stories and those don't

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always

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have to be external stories.

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Sales teams looking for internal stories where they can understand, oh, this

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person, this

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customer did X, they got this type of value.

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So I would say really help whether, you know, the company understand those

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points, those

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stories and eventually that will get into the external pieces.

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The other area is just like what content matters.

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You know, it's a different generation out there.

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It's more complex.

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We all have less bandwidth.

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Instead of listening to marketing and what the opinions might be of a CMO like

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myself,

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tell us what matters.

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We get criticized every day and just it's okay.

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But it would be great if we could say, let's build a roadmap of content

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together.

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Let's commit to actually how we develop that and we'd be pretty good.

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I love that because there are different altitudes of content that gets created

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for the prospect

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or the customer, right?

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And sometimes prospects, it's really around scratching the surface and our

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customers really

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want more of a deeper dive into whatever they're driving.

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And so how do you guys think about that?

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You know, yeah, it's a tough one.

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But I'm sure a lot of companies out there, you have Cabs and you work with

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certain folks

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that help shape how you pitch.

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I think that the pitches are never shaped ultimately around what the customer

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needs.

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That's not how I approach marketing.

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So how I grew up in marketing is a lot of the marketing tools didn't work for

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sales.

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So I created tools that if you drop the deck on the floor, someone can pitch it

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without

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us.

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So I think the main piece is you got to reverse it a little bit and say, okay,

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you presented

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all these slides, you presented all this information, all this value.

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What three slides could they present back like in seconds?

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And what you find is you probably overwhelmed them with too many slides.

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They're not sure which ones.

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There's a summary, but then what are they going to take to their boss?

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What are they going to take to their CEO?

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They have career objectives.

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Did we help them with that?

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And I think simplifying is going to be the big thing in this, in this wave.

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That's my feedback.

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And I think to that point, less is more as we always hear.

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And I think people consume content and the message in different mediums and

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ways.

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So that's why we have the explosion of podcasts and PDFs, events, webinars, all

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that other

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stuff.

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So do you involve a lot of your customer success teams in that whole design

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process as well?

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We do, we do actually.

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We involve them heavily into a lot of the webinars we do.

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And we actually push a lot of content under CSMs.

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They just have a different perspective.

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We do intake interviews and we always want to highlight more.

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And the way I approach it in marketing is I work with the first ones that want

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to be

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thought leaders and then everyone kind of gets greedy and wants to be out there

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Because we'll publish articles under them.

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We'll go straight with them, but they have strong opinions.

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And we'll just, another way I work with CSMs and this is a trick, we say, just

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request

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anything on your iPhone, record a 60 second message, a two minute message, send

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it to

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us, we'll turn it on our article for you.

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And then they can understand like they matter.

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I love that.

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I love that.

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I mean, because I mean, I think, you know, a lot of success is really on the

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front lines

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of working with the customer.

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They definitely have a strategic point of view and they want to be heard and it

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may

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be different.

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It may be different.

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So I love that.

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Yeah.

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So what's, you know, just wrapping this all up.

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What other, what, what other advice do you have to the marketers and

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potentially success

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folks out there watching around how to drive a stronger alignment between

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marketing and

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success?

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You know, your history, you folks have a big background of really shaking up

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industries.

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And that's what interests most CMOs.

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You want to be, either want to be the leader in this industry or break out from

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that into

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a completely new TAM.

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What I would say is we always struggle with giving the CSMs the messaging at

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the top level

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that will land in the industry.

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And that's one of the most important things I'm working on in this world of AI

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is like,

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how do we get them to take that narrative on for us?

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You have qualified champions.

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That's a great way of doing it.

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And I think it's absolutely critical.

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But when you think about like, what would the customer describe your company?

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How would they describe it?

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Those are things which the marketers and myself, we have to do always a better

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job of.

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And you can almost never stay on top of it.

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It's hard to stick to a message.

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It just is.

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But that's the main thing, enable them to tell that story.

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And then it's just a very simple way and enable it to tell it with value.

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Well, Morion, thank you so much for joining us for Pipeline Summit.

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And I really appreciate this chat.

17:12

It was great.

17:13

That's great.