In our last blog, we broke down some critical differences between Professional Services and Customer Success in a B2B SaaS business.
In a continuation of the "vs" topic, we turn our attention to the difference between "Professional Services" and "Support and Training". For this blog, we'll also assume that you're running a SaaS business. But in reality, if you're selling anything with repeat customers, this blog content will be applicable. We'll start by creating some definitions:
The core elements of Support
Support is the function of your business that helps your customers get "unstuck". It's arguably the most important service component for an organization. After all, if customers are successful with your SaaS, they are going to be more likely to renew. If your customers are having trouble using your SaaS, that needs to be fixed immediately. Therefore, Support needs to:
Rapidly respond to inquiries/requests
Provide assistance or quickly route to the correct resource
Ensure the inquiry/request is satisfactorily resolved
Report inquiry/requests back to the organization for proactive improvements/corrections
How an organization wants to manage and run a support program is entirely debateable. It can be autonomous with chatbots, help articles, and group forums; it can be a hybrid model with limited phone and email support; or it can be white-glove, personal, named agents for 1:1 interactions with customers.
But at the heart of it, Support is there to ensure that "stuck customers" are rapidly entered into a process that will get them unstuck and on their way.
The core elements of Training
Training happens all the time and is performed by every member of your organization. Sales trains customers on what's important in a solution; sales engineers train customers on what's possible with the solution and how it fits into a broader ecosystem; marketing trains customers on emerging best practices; etc. etc. So when we talk about training, we need to be very specific and define it as "instructional product training". Instructional product training may be instructor led or self navigating. And it can be in person, live and virtual, or on-demand. In each of these scenarios, training experts should own the process:
How to train an individual/group to perform an operation
How to train an individual/group to complete a task
How to train an individual/group to learn an instruction set
Because Training is expected to get your customers to the point where they can use your SaaS for their business, we draw a boundary around assistance in the delivery of production work. There may be an opportunity for custom training which allows customer-specific scenarios, but when it ventures too far into aiding in the production of work, that's where Professional Services takes over.
When Support and Training transition to Professional Services
Recalling the blog "Professional Services vs. Customer Success", we'll assume that the service needed by customers is not something that the CS team is responsible for. Based on the core elements of Support and Training, we can see where additional service outside of those elements needs to be further evaluated. Is the customer asking for:
Help accomplishing something that there is readily available training for?
Advice on what to do in their business as it relates to your SaaS?
Someone to actually use the product for them?
The ability to leverage your product outside of the typical use cases?
Creating custom plans, workbooks, guides, etc. for their business?
Any of these asks are above and beyond the charter of Support, Training, and Customer Success. That's where Professional Services comes in. PS is a nimble part of your organization that can and should facilitate these additional service areas to help your customers become as successful as possible. And by having these as for-fee services, it allows you to grow your business in a scalable, efficient way that meets customers where they are. How have you organized your customer services and support model? Start the discussion below.
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