How is your organization handling customer relationship management and customer success in a remote work environment?

Question

Answer

At Armis, our typical installation in the past was to send out a solution architect. If it was a hardware appliance, we'd plug it in. If it was a virtual appliance, we'd help them configure all the subnets. Sometimes it took days off our schedule to do things. Now we're doing everything virtually. We're definitely still there to help if they need us, but instead of making them get a solution architect to configure it all, we introduced a self-install kit. So you download the OVA, you turn it on. It's already pre-configured. You add it to your TAP, SPAN, however you want to install it. We added a wizard that can say, &#34;Hey, what do you want to name this thing? Show me all your subnets, all your networks, and we'll go from there.&#34; It's a four-step process now, depending on how large your network is. It's been working well.

Answer

There wasn't a requirement for us to have people on site necessarily to help in the pre-sales or post-sales efforts of customers, that was just the way business was done. Suddenly it's like, "Hey, we're going to do a POC, or we're going to do whatever," and luckily we already had all the ability to do it virtually. We just never really used that muscle a whole lot, because we didn't have to. And let's face it, there is a little bit missing in the virtual relationship building. So I think what we did was really just leverage things that we had available, but were never really forced to leverage. I think both the customer and our own team were surprised by how much time it ultimately saves and how effective it could still be. We also, this was a transition that Forescout was working on prior to any pandemic, but it was this idea of providing more research and intelligence, right? So it's one thing to be able to identify that there might be an issue, but what more can I tell you about that problem? Or could I tell you about problems you may not know you have that the rest of the customer base or the community has seen.

I think those are two areas where it worked out well, timing-wise, that we were able to just provide more research data intelligence to our customers, in addition to providing them fundamental control to implement policies and those types of things. Those were the two areas where we could still continue to support our customers. That quick transition to work-from-home and the sudden load on VPNs for where there is still on-prem, or a need to tap into the corporate network, etc., those were things that our customers were dealing with, and our strategy was to help them solve those problems however we could. Of course Forescout could help them solve some of those problems. But even in the case where they needed to look at alternative ways, or had to move really fast, we were there to try to help them with those things regardless.

Answer

We do sell to the CIO (I'm making product that the CIO is going to implement.), but my customer is also changing now. It is no longer just the CIO. The HR, the chief people's person is also becoming my customer. Because now it is not just technology, it is also making sure that the employees access all these applications, data, everything in a fast, easy way. Of course, security is paramount. And while providing security, it is becoming important that security is the backbone, while employees access applications. Because collaboration has become the main aspect of working today. It is not only just remote working, it's distributed teams, virtual teams, hybrid teams, all kinds of team dynamics. Because there are folks who have gone back to work, and there are folks who are still at home, so it's just about providing tools.

Answer

The student is the customer for higher-ed. I think that you try to change the experience for the customer. So I break my class up into 15, 20 minute segments, and try to get into a rhythm. I get them into breakout groups, and come and meet with them in teams of four or five. I try to get them to present in a way that's not just flat. We've been teaching partially remote at our campus for a while, but broadcasting an in-person classroom to another classroom is very different to teaching everybody on Zoom. When we first started doing it, a lot of the students wouldn't turn on their videos. So the first thing I did was I changed the grading requirements that said you have to attend class, and if your video is not on, you're marked as absent. I would preface the rigor of coming online by saying one of the benefits of this class is it helps you communicate with people in different roles. And so it's not just about entrepreneurship. It's also about the way that you communicate. And you've got to learn to communicate. I think what happened with Zoom was, because everybody was the same, it took away the normal classroom experience where you got just six or seven of the students that are always asking questions and always talk, while the rest of the people are at the back and too shy. So that's a good thing. God bless Eric, because without him we wouldn't be able to do it.

I do think the whole experience has changed. We're really entering into the post COVID period, where we're very fortunate to see the digital acceleration kick into high gear. Learning how to understand customers from different perspectives is a really important part of what we're doing in the class, and how we're getting through. From a theory point of view, with Innovation, everybody wants it yesterday. Many corporations had hundreds, even thousands of innovation POCs going on, and very few of them went anywhere. So I flipped around the model that startups are using for Lighthouse customers, to try and get the greatest common denominator of the problem before developing the product, as opposed to just doing tiny slices. One of the things that I think is useful inside an organization is, and this is what I'm going to try with the teams, is to have different silos of the organization come together around a particular application or a use case, to share what it is they want, but not just in one tiny area. So you haven't got 2000 POCs going on, costing you an arm and a leg, because way more of your management time is needed than that of the startup time. And it kills the startup too. I don't know if you've had that experience with a big company, but if you're a five-person startup and you get a big company as a customer, there's just no way you can service all the different demands.

How is your organization handling customer relationship management and customer success in a remote work environment?

Content you might like

Where does the function for configuring business applications sit at your organization?

If you had a magic wand - what's the #1 daily business challenge you'd eliminate?

Have you been able to successfully integrate AI/ML into your enterprise search? What were your greatest challenges or failures in doing so?

Does anyone have any experience implementing and maintaining VERTEX and SOVOS Sales Tax software with Oracle EBS R12? I'm particularly looking for experience with integrating the EBS R12 Oracle EBTAX module.

Which of the following tools do you currently utilize for your role?