Prithwi (33:52)

It almost appears that change management is a lens through which you can actually view most CS operations. Right from on-boarding to kickoff.. it should be through the lens of change management. I think one of the most common mistakes I have felt and seen and perhaps done myself is, look at this in isolation, right? That you treat this as a separate project. It is not a separate project… It has to be ingrained, in everything you do when you’re interacting with the customer because it’s that important. You agree to that, I’m guessing?

Sue

Absolutely. It’s something which should start, right… even before the customer has signed, right? So, even when the customer is shortlisting the software vendors, the stakeholders who are making that decision should already embed change management in their approach.

You know, I’ve seen so many times where a decision around a tool has been made by somebody who is probably sitting in an ivory tower… who does not unfortunately have an inside-out knowledge of what is happening on the field, right. So that is the biggest starting block disaster.. that you can have for the change management and the buy-in from, from bottom up.

Jason

And Sue, I think the two things that pops into my head. One, I think even during the sales process, you should be assessing the experience, capacity, and willingness of your prospective customer to have in place a full change effort in their organization and recognize that the least, if they don’t have the appetite or the resources for, or the experience to do it well, that’s a risk for you. That’s a risk that they will not get the value and that they will renew. It’s a risk that it’s gonna need more of your time and resources, not your cost to serve.

So maybe you wanna factor that into your pricing or your expectations for how long this customer will be around. So,I think, I think that’s definitely one thing.. I think the other piece is then using that to assess how much effort and time will you need to spend and how will you help your customer drive change and success in their organization.