The FT Works Support Maturity Model — for Offerings (Plans)

Last month, I introduced the FT Works Support Maturity Model and promised to come back with more details on how it applies to support offerings (or plans).

One of the key differentiator of the model is that it is not monolithic. A given organization may be at the basic Bootstrap level for plans, but at a more advanced level for processes e.g. Managed or level 3 . Pull up the definitions of your support plans and follow along.

Don’t have formal definitions at all?  You are at the Bootstrap level. That may be just where you want to be if you are just starting out (as long as your customers are happy). But you will probably find that team members are unclear about expectations you have for them, and perhaps customers as well, so on to the next level.

At the Structured level, you have a single plan, formally-defined with features and SLAs, e.g. a 1-hour response, 24×7, for high-severity issues, and 8 business hours for everything else. (For full achievement of the level, you need realistic SLAs: a 1-hour response for emergencies is fine; next-day is not!) You may or may not tell customers about the target SLAs, but you do measure your performance against them.

At the Managed level, you have a true support portfolio with multiple plans. The plans match customer segments. They are documented for customers and for salespeople, with predefined qualification steps. Pricing and discounts are established for premium plans and there are adequate numbers of customers in premium plans.

At the Holistic level, at least some plans include proactive, cross-functional components such as: onboarding, automated alerts, customized (could be mass-customized) recommendations, the assignment of a Customer Success Manager (there are no “unbundled” CSM plans), consulting services, etc.

At the Visionary level, in addition to having a full portfolio of cross-functional plans, you also maintain and ongoing, dedicated services marketing effort that regularly researches the competition, tunes the existing plans, adds new ones when needed, and considers the needs of the installed base when changes occur.

Where do you think your organization ranks for offerings/plans? Please share in the comments.

And if you’d like to participate in refining the model, please let me know and we can schedule a short discussion to explore further.