A Comprehensive Guide to Creating a Joint Success Plan in SaaS

In today's competitive business environment, achieving Customer Success is paramount for sustained growth and long-term partnerships. A joint success plan is a powerful tool that aligns the goals, resources, and efforts of your organization and your clients to ensure mutual success. 

In this article, we’ll delve into the intricacies of creating a joint success plan with a specific focus on Customer Success and explore its key components, development process, benefits, and how Velaris, a leading Customer Success platform, can streamline and enhance its creation and management.

What is a joint success plan in Customer Success?

A joint success plan in Customer Success is a collaboratively developed strategy that outlines the mutual goals, roles, responsibilities, resources, timelines, and performance metrics agreed upon by both the Customer Success team and the client. 

This comprehensive document serves as a detailed roadmap for the partnership, ensuring that all participants are aligned in their objectives and coordinated in their efforts to achieve shared outcomes. 

By fostering a sense of shared purpose and mutual accountability, a joint success plan facilitates effective collaboration and maximizes the potential for Customer Success.

Benefits of a good joint success plan

1. Enhanced collaboration

Simply put, a joint success plan ensures both the Customer Success team and the client work together towards common goals, leading to stronger, more effective partnerships. 

This alignment minimizes misunderstandings and conflicting priorities, which can derail progress and contribute to the overall success of the partnership. As a result, both the Customer Success team and the client work towards the same outcomes, such as increasing product adoption or enhancing user satisfaction. 

2. Resource optimization

A joint success plan facilitates a collaboration between the parties involved, ensuring efficient use of resources by coordinating efforts and avoiding duplication. In Customer Success, this means that both the Customer Success team and the client can leverage each other's strengths and resources to achieve their goals. 

For example, the Customer Success team may provide expertise and support, while the client offers valuable insights and feedback.

3. Improved outcomes

Improve the success rate by having a clear, well-defined plan which provides a structured approach to achieving goals and optimize resource utilization by coordinating efforts and avoiding duplication that lead to better outcomes and increased efficiency. 

In Customer Success, this means that both the Customer Success team and the client have a clear roadmap to follow, and can leverage each other's strengths and resources leading to higher success rates.

4. Accountability

A joint success plan establishes clear roles and responsibilities, making it easier to track progress and hold parties accountable. 

This culture of accountability means that both the Customer Success team and the client are committed to their respective roles and responsibilities, which include tasks such as regular check-ins, progress reporting, and addressing any issues that arise, contributing to the overall success of the plan.

5. Risk management.

A joint success plan helps identify potential risks and develop strategies to address them proactively, implementing measures to minimize their impact, ensuring smoother execution. 

This means identifying potential obstacles that could hinder the achievement of goals, such as technical issues, lack of user adoption, or changes in the client's business environment leading to both parties developing contingency plans and strategies to overcome them, ensuring the success of the partnership.

When does your SaaS business need a joint success plan?

A joint success plan is essential for a SaaS business during several critical stages to ensure mutual success and long-term customer satisfaction. 

• Onboarding: During the onboarding of new customers, a joint success plan clearly defines the steps, resources, and timelines required for successful product implementation, aligning both your Customer Success team and the customer on expectations and objectives from the outset. 
• Product adoption: As customers begin to use the product, a joint success plan can help you increase product adoption by setting specific milestones and strategies to engage users, ensuring they utilize the product effectively and realize its value.
• Retention and renewal: In terms of customer retention and renewal, a joint success plan enables proactive support by identifying potential risks and challenges early, allowing you to address issues before they escalate and demonstrates ongoing value to customers, making renewal decisions smoother. 
• Scaling: When customers plan to scale or expand their usage, a joint success plan provides strategic planning and resource allocation, supporting their growth and ensuring successful scaling.
• Customisation and integration: Addressing customers with complex needs, such as customization or integration, a joint success plan offers a structured approach to manage these projects, facilitating close collaboration to implement tailored solutions effectively. 
• Reporting and analytics: It also promotes continuous improvement by regularly reviewing performance metrics and adjusting plans as necessary, fostering joint accountability and commitment to achieving defined objectives.
• Collaborating: During major product updates or changes, a joint success plan ensures a seamless transition with clear communication about the changes, timelines, and required actions, minimizing disruption to the customer's operations. 

Key components of a joint success Plan

If you’re interested in carrying out a joint success plan with your clients, here are a few key components you’ll need to consider:

Objective setting

• Define clear, and measurable goals by establishing specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals that align with the overall vision of the Customer Success partnership and provide a clear direction for all parties involved. Some of these goals include, increasing user adoption rates, improving customer satisfaction scores, or achieving specific business milestones.
• Ensure objectives are specific, achievable, and time-bound: by breaking down broad goals into smaller, actionable objectives with clear timelines to track progress effectively. For example, a broad goal of improving user adoption can be broken down into specific objectives, such as conducting user training sessions, providing onboarding support, and implementing user feedback mechanisms.

Roles and responsibilities

• Assign specific roles and responsibilities to each party involved to prevent overlap and ensure everyone knows their duties, to help prevent any overlapping. For example, a Customer Success Manager should be responsible for providing ongoing support, while the client should be responsible for implementing the provided recommendations.
• Document and communicate roles and responsibilities to all stakeholders, and review them regularly to make necessary adjustments. This can ensure accountability of specific roles in the plan.

Resource allocation

• Identify and allocate necessary resources (financial, human, technological) needed to achieve the plan's objectives such as dedicated support personnel, training materials, and software tools to track progress.
• Optimize resource use through collaboration and coordination to avoid duplication and ensure efficient use, maintaining regular communication about resource needs. For example, the Customer Success team might provide technical support, while the client allocates internal resources to implement changes and monitor progress.

Milestones and timelines

• Establish key milestones and timelines aligned with the joint success plan objectives, to track progress and ensure timely task completion such as, completion of onboarding, achieving a certain level of product usage, or reaching a specific Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT).
• Regularly review and adjust timelines based on actual progress and unforeseen challenges. This will ensure that the plan remains on track and that any issues are addressed promptly.
• Integrate project management tools like Asana and Trello into your workflows, or software like Velaris with specialized project management features.

Communication plan

• Develop a communication strategy outlining how information will be shared among partners, including regular updates and feedback mechanisms such as, regular meetings, progress reports, and feedback sessions to ensure that both parties are aligned and informed.
• Use various communication methods (meetings, emails, collaboration tools) to ensure both the Customer Success team and the client are on the same page and can address any concerns or challenges as they arise.
• Monitor all your communication channels with customers manually or by using a Customer Success platform like Velaris to unify collaboration in one place.

Risk management

• Identify potential risks both internal and external, like technical issues, changes in the client's business environment, or lack of user engagement, impacting the joint success plan through risk assessment.
• Develop mitigation strategies to address identified risks, including contingency plans and regular risk reviews so that both parties can respond quickly to any challenges and ensure the success of the plan.
• Utilize churn risk detection tools like Velaris to get immediate information on your customers’ health.

Performance metrics

• Define key performance Indicators (KPIs) like user adoption rates, customer satisfaction scores, and retention rates, directly tied to the objectives to quantitatively measure the success of the joint success plan.
• Calculate and track these metrics either manually or by using automated reporting and analytics tools like Velaris.
• Regularly monitor and evaluate performance against KPIs to identify areas for improvement and adjust the plan accordingly.

How to develop a successful joint success plan

Initial planning and preparation

Stakeholder identification:

• Identify all stakeholders who will be involved in or affected by the joint success plan, including internal team members, external partners, and any other relevant parties.
• Engage stakeholders early in the planning process to ensure their input and commitment. This helps build buy-in and ensures that all perspectives are considered.

Needs assessment:

• Conduct a thorough needs assessment by understanding each party's needs, expectations, and constraints, including qualitative and quantitative data.
• Use these insights to inform development of the joint success plan, ensuring that it addresses the identified needs and aligns with stakeholders' expectations.

Goal alignment:

• Facilitate discussions with all stakeholders to align their goals and objectives, ensuring that everyone is working towards the same outcomes.
• Ensure all parties have a shared understanding of success because it helps maintain focus and drives collaborative efforts.

Collaborative planning

Workshops and meetings:

• Organize interactive workshops and meetings encouraging open dialogue, to collaboratively develop the joint success plan
• Use these sessions to gather input from all parties, address concerns, and build consensus together, fostering a sense of ownership and commitment.

Drafting the plan:

• Develop a comprehensive draft of the joint success plan covering all key components, and incorporating input from all stakeholders.
• Review the draft with stakeholders to solicit feedback and make necessary revisions to ensure the plan is accurate and complete.

Review and approval:

• Once the draft is finalized, present it for formal review and approval by all parties to ensure that everyone agrees with the plan and is committed to its implementation.
• Based on feedback from the review, make any necessary revisions to the plan and ensure that the final version is clear, actionable, and agreed upon by all stakeholders.

Implementation and monitoring

Plan implementation:

• Begin implementing the joint success plan according to the established timelines and milestones while ensuring that all parties are aware of their roles and have the necessary resources.
• Monitor the progress closely to ensure that tasks are being completed as planned and address any issues or delays promptly to stay on track.

Regular check-ins:

• Schedule regular check-ins to review progress, address any issues, and make adjustments as needed to help maintain alignment and ensure continuous communication.
• Use these check-ins to keep all parties aligned and engaged to foster collaboration and help address any challenges promptly.

Performance evaluation:

• Regularly evaluate performance against the established KPIs to assess progress and identify areas for improvement.
• Based on this evaluation, identify areas where adjustments are needed and make necessary changes to the plan to ensure continued success.

If you’re looking for a tool to make this process more streamlined, consider testing out our Success Plan feature. 

How to create a joint success plans with Velaris

Velaris takes a more streamlined approach to creating success plans for your customers. If you’re already using the platform, you’ll find the Success Plans feature in each of your customer accounts. This makes it incredibly easy to keep track of your plans since they’re already with the rest of your customer’s information.

Each success plan can be customized according to your goals. You can describe what it is you want to achieve, specify the time period you want to accomplish it in, and add collaborators from your team – this way, everyone knows they’re involved. 

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These joint success plans also break down into tasks that can be allocated to specific people during a specific time period – mapping out exactly what you need to do and when to reach your goal. 

In addition to creating tasks, you can set up milestones you’re expecting to achieve along the way. As your plan’s carried out, you’ll be able to see whether it’s on track, at risk of being off track, or actually off track. This makes it much easier to assess whether everything’s going according to plan or not. 

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That being said, everything going according to plan does not mean that you’re getting the results you want. This is where our Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) come in. With the KPIs, you’ll be able to actively measure the outcome of each task – telling you how close you are to your final goal. 

All of this makes Velaris a great tool for planning, collaborating, and implementing a joint success plan. 

Conclusion

Creating a joint success plan in Customer Success is essential for any business partnership aiming to achieve mutual objectives. By aligning goals, resources, and efforts, you can foster stronger collaborations, improve outcomes, and manage risks more effectively. 

This comprehensive, collaboratively developed strategy ensures that all parties are on the same page, minimizing misunderstandings and conflicting priorities. By defining clear roles and responsibilities, a joint success plan establishes accountability and facilitates efficient resource utilization. 

Regular check-ins and performance evaluations allow for continuous monitoring and adjustments, ensuring that the partnership remains on track. Additionally, proactive risk management within the plan helps identify and mitigate potential challenges, leading to smoother execution and better outcomes.

With the support of tools like Velaris, which enhance collaboration, communication, and performance tracking, the process of developing and implementing a joint success plan becomes streamlined and effective. 

If you’d like to experience how Velaris could help you, book a demo today.