5 Keys to The Art of Customer Success in Healthcare Tech

EDITOR'S NOTE: Special thanks to Bet Martin for writing today's blog post. You can connect with her on LinkedIn.

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Understanding Why Your Customer Operates the Way They Do, and How Your Product Can Help

Customer success is an art form. There is so much that goes into it: knowing workflow nuances, being aware of political subtleties, personality differences, current best practices, geographical needs, network systems of care, tech partners and competition, health status, data, etc., etc.

How do we do all this? 

Customer success is definitely an art, but there are some sound practices you can use to help set your customers up for a positive experience. Here are 5 keys to customer success in healthcare technology. 

1. Know your product.

Be aware of releases and the potential impact. Be proactive with engaging customers who will benefit or may potentially need added resources for an upcoming release. Design a product that relieves a consistent pain point across the industry. Partner with your product and development teams. Together, you can move mountains. As CS, we are the voice of the customer and our product and development teams are the ones who deliver. Check in often with your product roadmap, ask questions, and most importantly, have a system for customers and the product teams to connect. 

2. Be honest with your customers.

Identify strengths and weaknesses compared to expectations and benchmarks. Be honest with your customers. If your customer is looking for a 50% improvement immediately and this is not realistic, don't be afraid to tell them. Or if you see an opportunity for improvement in an otherwise unspoken area, speak up. 

3. Understand your customer's needs. 

If you focus on one thing, let that be having a keen sense of what your customer does on a daily basis. What does the customer hope to accomplish? What are their goals and dreams for their future? How do they operate now versus how they would like to operate in the near future? Are they looking to save money, or focus on time metrics? Why are they purchasing your product? 

These are important questions to answer with them, so that both of you can get a clearer idea of what you hope to accomplish in the partnership. With those goals established on the front end, it will clarify expectations and help set you up for success. Let data go (okay, not all the way. But just a little!) and focus on the human elements of your customers' routines and how you can provide value. 

4. Find the friction point. 

Customer success in technology comes with a large number of complexities and considerations that aren't present in other fields. How can we soften the blow of deployment to teams that are often siloed, fragmented, political, busy, stressed, tired, overwhelmed, short-staffed—all the things?

Finding the friction point is a good place to start. Ask: How do we help remove obstacles to deployment? The tech is easy to use, but the implementation is often tough due to internal operations and the difficulty of change management. In this instance, it's important for CS to understand: What is our emotional connection to current practices, and how does this drive adoption of new technologies? Can we as CS, walk a mile in our customers' shoes? Once we understand the what and the why of how things have always been done, we'll be much better prepared to come to our customers with solutions that are tailored to meet their needs. We'll also be better able to present to them the "why" of how this new technology will help make their lives better. 

5. Check in with your customers regularly. 

Regular check-ins, including the all-encompassing Business Review and Success Planning meetings, are also vital for success. During these meetings, ensure you’re in alignment with the customer's needs. Be aware of what is NOT being said, just as much as what is being said. And finally, hone in on the skill of being a strategic and trusted advisor. If your customer trusts you to have their best interests at heart, they'll trust you to help them achieve the goals they've set for themselves. 

Change management is an important part of customer success. Check out Why Is Change So Hard? The Start to Successful Change Management to learn how to set your team up for success.