How do I get on customers’ calendars? A CSM Basic Skill
This is a common lament from CSMs: How do I get on customers’ calendars? (Closely followed by, “How do I get customers to actually show up to the meetings I arrange?”) It’s a wonder that we ever get any time with any customer. Try these five tips.
- Identify and present the value of the meeting for the customer. For the CSM, there’s a clear value to meeting with customers: we want to know how they are doing so we can address issues early to prevent churn. But customers don’t have the same incentives so you need to bring value to the meeting. For instance, you will share the product roadmap, or you want to hear their top priorities for this year for your product. (Sharing the latest support metrics may not be quite exciting enough.)
- Keep the meetings short. If you are meeting with strategic contacts, as recommended in last month’s post, they want an executive summary, not details (and they have little time to spare, to boot).
- Use optimistic scheduling. Your dentist probably schedules your next cleaning while you are still in the office. Do the same: schedule each QBR at the tail end of one.
- Use red pants/blue pants scheduling, as in “Would Thursday at 10 or 2 work best for the roadmap discussion?”. If we are too polite “When would be a good time for the roadmap discussion?”, we may never hear back.
- Learn your customers’ scheduling preferences. Avoid their busy days/times, as your meeting may well get cancelled.
How are you getting onto customers’ calendars? Please share in the comments.
