The Challenge
Implementing a Comprehensive Global Customer Success Initiative
Avaya’s focus on customer success and innovation makes them a preferred provider for organizations seeking advanced communication solutions. A global leader in business communications, they serve over 90% of the Fortune 100 companies.
With a wide range of industry-agnostic products and services, Avaya specializes in environments that require highly reliable and scalable communication systems, such as contact centers (CC), unified communications (UC), and remote workforces. Their customers span large enterprises, government entities, educational institutions, healthcare providers, financial institutions and small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), and have a strong presence in industries where communication is critical to operations.
They felt that the next step in their business was to implement a comprehensive global customer success initiative with the goal of enhancing adoption, reducing churn, improving renewals, and elevating customer satisfaction.
To achieve this, an ambitious plan to transition to an exclusive cloud-based service model was put in motion, but it also brought with it challenges. A limited view of the customer journey, the absence of a customer success management platform, and siloed analytics all made it difficult for Avaya to deliver the consistent and seamless customer experiences and business results they were hoping for.
The Outcome
A Sole Provider for a Comprehensive CSM Platform
Sutherland’s unique insight into Avaya’s operations positioned us as the sole provider for this project.
Our work began with establishing the foundation for the project, which involved optimizing the customer experience with Sutherland Labs’ four-stage Journey Mapping Engagement for digital platforms: onboarding, enablement, adoption, and retention. Sutherland then developed CSM process mapping based on best practices to establish a training framework and materials.
With the foundations in place, we implemented the Gainsight Customer Success Management platform to allow Customer Success Managers to easily see the status and next action for all their assigned customers in the public cloud sector. We also established a cross-channel content development process for efficient customer education, driving faster product adoption and higher customer satisfaction.
Sutherland formed an initial CSM team of 11 people for Cloud Office Products in English and French, serving SMB and commercial markets. This team was continually increased, reaching over 60 FTE with the ability to support all products globally.
Our EMEA CSM team, with its monthly dedication to the Avaya Customer Storytelling Program, emerged as the top performer, contributing 56% of all submissions annually. Our key best practices have been shared with sales, marketing, and support teams, highlighting MBR touchpoints and efficient criteria for identifying potential customers.
The Avaya Customer Storytelling Program also succeeded in winning an award from Ventana Research this year, lauded for its exceptional use of technology to optimize business processes, significantly impacting performance, and driving tens of millions of dollars in revenue.
Through our four-stage journey mapping, we were able to lay the groundwork that allowed us to seamlessly implement the Gainsight CSM platform. This platform worked to provide an end-to-end view of the customer journey and unlock greater insights for Avaya’s CSMs, enabling them to drive customer success.
Increase in AAR
Increase in License Count
Increase in Net Retention Rate
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