Managing Up [aka Communicating with Executives]

Your team is humming. Customers are happy (mostly). You’ve made some great hires. Think your great performance will get you recognition, resources, and a well-deserved promotion? Not if you don’t know how to toot your organization’s horn, at least a bit.

And if your team is struggling to cope with buggy releases, deluged by an influx of new customers, or just lost its main technical anchor, you also need to present your case to highlight the situation, request corrective action, or obtain additional resources . Either way, a good method to communicate upward is essential, both for your personal success and that of your entire organization.  Here are 5 key rules to get it right.

Rule #1: Simplify. Most likely, other executives know very little about support, as in they never managed a customer success or support organization. They may have little interest in support or customer success to start with. And they probably have very little time. This is an opportunity for you to shape the communication. The simpler the better, to overcome the limitations of time, interest, and knowledge. And focus on what really matters to you and the organization.

I worked with a client (recently!) where the only communication about support was the wait-time for the hotline. Wouldn’t it be better to talk about onboarding effectiveness (which was the root cause of the many calls that clogged said hotline) or self-help usage?  Carefully select no more than 3-4 main metrics that highlight the essential components of customer success.

Rule #2: Tell stories. Sure, you need metrics to anchor your communications but embrace the power of a good story. Your NPS could be at 79 (excellent!) but what will win the day is a love letter from a big customer, especially one that highlights recent progress. Dig through your customer surveys and scour your own inbox for quotable quotes.

And if you need to paint a not-rosy picture, you will find good material in escalation correspondence.

Rule #3. Get others to tell stories for you. This is not merely a sophisticated version of rule #2 . When others highlight your successes or struggles, they add credibility to the stories–and other executives may have a vested interest in doing it. For instance, the Sales VP may sing the praises of the new premium-support plan so they can sell more, while the Engineering VP may highlight the large percentage of cases linked to bugs so they can get resources for a reliability project.

Rule #4. Create a rapport. We are in the people business, and communication is a people activity: we can do it! We know how to create rapport with customers by talking about their beloved pup (yes, we know her name), their favorite sports team (even if we barely know the rules of baseball), or their upcoming vacation (we wouldn’t choose it for ourselves, but we know to gush). Our own execs are people, too, so learn their quirks and feed their egos.

Rule #5. Make time for it. Now, we’re getting to the hard reality that all this communication work is, well, work. It’s part of your job description even if not explicitly stated, and just as important as soothing upset customers or convincing great contributors to come work on your team. You can delegate some of the communication work: someone else can polish the metrics and hand-pick the stories. But you will need to create the rapport yourself.

What have you learned when communicating up? Share your experience in the comments.