How Vendors Can Improve Upgrades for Customers 2022

Clear Communication

Finding 1: Decisions about Future Development Should Be Determined by Volume of Enhancement Requests

Using customer requests to determine which features to include in future upgrades is more impactful than trying to compete with other vendors’ offerings. Enhancement requests can be tracked using various methods (e.g., using an online voting system, tracking enhancement-request tickets, or having customer success managers collect and share requests). Vendors that use request volume as their key decision-making metric consistently have higher customer satisfaction with the product’s overall quality. 

Finding 2: Different Forms of Communication Serve Different Purposes

Regularly communicating through different channels is necessary to establish appropriate expectations and position customers for success. Email communication and communication through customer success managers (CSMs) are table stakes. Additionally, the following methods all have a positive impact on various metrics:

• Newsletters: Vendors that use newsletters to communicate upgrades in the pipeline have customers who are more satisfied with the implementation.
• Executive webinars: Vendors that offer executive webinars to communicate upgrades in the pipeline see higher customer ratings for delivery of new technology.
• User groups: Vendors that significantly leverage user groups during development see higher customer ratings for driving outcomes and delivering new technology.

Vendors should leverage these different communication channels to establish regular communication with customers. Those that don’t have a communication timetable see lower customer satisfaction with overall product quality and implementations.

Training

Vendors should provide adequate upgrade training for their customers, with documentation being the bare minimum expectation. Leveraging a train-the-trainer model, video training, and CSM involvement drives higher customer satisfaction with training. CSMs play an essential role in driving ongoing training, both directly and indirectly—if they aren’t asked to conduct the training, they should still act as a support liaison during the upgrade. Vendors whose CSMs offer training or act as a training liaison have statistically higher customer satisfaction with the quality of training.

Proactive Assistance with Upgrades and Adoption

It is important for vendors to guide their customers down proven paths to success. Vendors that use a hands-off approach—e.g., having customers do their own QA testing and adoption-level reporting—have lower customer satisfaction than those who take a more prescriptive approach. Vendors can boost customer satisfaction with implementations by eliminating required testing/validation for customers. Additionally, vendors that use customer feedback to determine adoption levels often have lower customer ratings for the product having needed functionality. Customer feedback doesn’t always identify adoption levels and usability gaps; thus, vendors are better positioned to measure these metrics. With this approach, customers are more successful. Customers of vendors that use adoption-tracking methods—such as internal analytics and dashboards—rate the proactive service and product functionality higher than customers of vendors who rely on customer feedback.

All Customers on Latest Version of Product

When possible, vendors should move all customers to the product’s latest version. This leads to higher customer satisfaction with implementations, as the upgrade process is more seamless and all customers can take full advantage of the latest functionality. Vendors who allow customers to lag behind the latest version have customers who are less satisfied with product quality and implementations. Of the vendors whose entire customer base uses the latest version, many offer cloud-based solutions; vendors with cloud-based solutions who haven’t yet moved their entire customer base to the latest version have customers who are significantly dissatisfied with the implementation. Vendors can help customers transition to the newest version and get needed support by eliminating à la carte charges for upgrades or upgrade services (these charges can negatively impact customers’ perception of the product quality). Additionally, vendors that provide significant updates more than quarterly and minor updates weekly see higher customer satisfaction with the delivery of new technology.