Where have we made progress since we last chatted?
What action items should we focus on next?
Any questions or discussion topics to dig into?
Additional comments or notes to call out?
What topics do we need to cover now? What key themes are important?
Open discussion. There are no wrong answers.
Decide what ideas to move forward with. What projects should have priority.
Return to the above list, adding who will be responsible and when. Assign and send tasks to your project management software, or use @-mentions and manually note due dates.
State your project’s audience and objective in a clear and focused way.
Brainstorming is a place and time where anything goes. Rules:
Start sharing ideas. Note them somewhere where everyone can see (whether that be a poster, whiteboard, or in your Hugo meeting notes in the highlighted area below). To keep your creative juices flowing you may also want to provide toys, coloring books, magazines, doodling pads etc.
Stop and take a vote on each idea. Thumbs up or down. Toss the ideas that lack support.
Look at the best ideas from halftime. Ask if there are ways to improve them, or come up with ideas that are similar.
Once you’ve covered each of the good ideas, generate more new ideas just as you did at the beginning of the session.
Include additional information and background about the customer if relevant
Ask the customer what he wishes existed to solve the problem mentioned in the call. Why?
Document any notable tools or software that the customer relies on
Conclude note with next action items and any commitments made to the customer
What does the customer use our product for? What challenges does it solve?
What is the purpose of this meeting? Do you want to focus on certain aspects of the product?
From 1-5, how well does our product suit the customer's needs?
What are the customer's favorite features and benefits at the moment?
How can we make the customer's experience better? How would the customer change our product?
Did the customer have any feature requests? Turn this list into tickets for the appropriate teams right from here.
Did the customer mention any product bugs, errors, or issues? Share these with the appropriate teams right from here.
In 3 bullet points or less, what were your main insights from this customer feedback session?
Customer Success Manager:
Sales Team Member:
Customer Name:
Industry/Sector:
Company Size:
Contract Sign Date:
Contract Length:
What is the main business objective of the customer? How do they generate revenue?
What challenges or pain points does our product solve for the customer? What benefits or features are they most interested in?
How does the customer define success? What are the short-term objectives (and their steps) to help us get there?
How do we measure success along the way? What metrics (such as Average MRR, # of Users, and other KPIs) should be discussed?
What is the customer's ideal working relationship? What is the best way to contact them?
How can we tailor the product or experience to better suit the customer?
Is the customer migrating from a competitor? Why? Were there any hesitations or hiccups encountered during the sales process? How can we ensure these don’t happen during and after the customer handoff?
List all actionable steps and the team member responsible for each one. Refer to "Defining Success" section for help.
What are the next steps for the customer? Is any training required?
Is there any other information worth sharing?
What are the customer's main objectives and ideal outcomes? How does our product help? What challenges does it solve for them?
Outline your process for achieving these primary goals. Include actionable steps toward time to first value and milestones afterward. The process should lead back to and align with their ideal outcomes as closely as possible.
What features, processes, or aspects of your product does the client need to understand during the customer onboarding process? How can we make this as simple and stress-free as can be?
Set expectations for each step of the customer onboarding process. Are there any potential setbacks or sticky points the client should be aware of? How will our team help?
Introduce or brief the client on key team members they may interact with during their customer onboarding journey. Who can they reach out to with questions or concerns?
Did any issues or concerns arise during the customer onboarding meeting that could jeopardize engagement or retention? How can we mitigate these risks
Were any opportunities to increase spend or engagement identified during the initial customer onboarding meeting?
Create a list of takeaways for both your team and the customer. Assign actionable steps to your team. Share key information and implementation process with the customer.
How will we keep the customer in the loop? Should we schedule a check-in?
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Tips:
Presenter:
Project:
Video Call Link:
Design Prototype Link:
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Give a brief summary of the project goal or problem you are trying to solve with this design including relevant info on the audience and expected results.
Present the design. Optionally, if you have more than one version, you may want to show all versions and explain your analysis of them.
The group will then discuss the design. Rather than making observations or judgments, try to mostly ask questions, such as:
Note insights about the design here. Remember, you do not need to decide what to do with this information at this meeting. The main purpose is to get new thinking out into the open.
Note any documents that need to be reviewed or activities that need to be completed before the workshop.
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Focus on the customer’s actual experiences. Prioritize them in order of severity and choose one or two to focus on. Resist the desire to skip ahead to “fixing” until you have organized the problems you are going to solve.
It’s time to figure out how to solve the problem, design the flow, or develop the plan.
Brainstorming tips:
List your potential solutions in the following format --> Solution | Impact | Effort
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Parking Lot
Store topics and ideas that are out of scope or beyond reach for this workshop.
Note any documents that need to be reviewed or activities that need to be completed before the workshop.
Focus on the customer’s experiences. Prioritize them in order of severity and choose one or two to focus on. Resist the desire to skip ahead to “fixing” until you have organized the problems you are going to solve.
It’s time to figure out how to solve the problem, design the flow, or develop the plan.
Brainstorming tips:
List your potential solutions in the following format --> Solution | Impact | Effort
Store topics and ideas that are out of scope or beyond reach for this workshop.
Develop a roadmap with the customer and all stakeholders showing the pieces of the sales processes that have been started and which ones have been completed. Creating a framework that shows progress and what to expect creates transparency with your customer which leads to better customer outcomes.
Add all the stakeholders to a living document or collaborative meeting note platform and integrate it with your team's CRM (like Salesforce). Your customer should feel like they are a part of the process, whether that be the sales process or ongoing customer partnership.
Keep a history of the progress along the roadmap to closing a deal to drive the deal. Great living roadmaps of all sales processes are essential to closing deals on time - in every sales process the customer controls the gas and you control the brake.
Make sure that a customer meeting never ends with a customer having doubts, questions or uncertainty. Encourage your customer to share any concerns, roadblocks or questions.
Where to from here? When's the next meeting? What should happen between now and then?
Are all relevant resources and materials prepared for the new hire's first day? This includes employee onboarding paperwork, tools they will need access to, and their workstation. Share any resources the new hire should consult before starting.
Share important company information with the new hire. This includes company values, culture, special achievements, and roadmaps for main objectives.
Walk the newcomer through a typical week here. Share your insights into office life. Include information such as typical operating hours, where they can park, how they will access the building, and what the company dress code is.
Take the new employee on a tour around the office. Let them know where all the important and common areas (e.g., their workspace, bathroom, kitchen, etc.).
Review the new hire's role and responsibilities. Explain expectations, long-term goals, and how they fit into the company's vision. Note everything here to share with them later for easy reference.
Review all relevant paperwork like benefits packages. Share this information here so the employee can easily reference it.
Introduce the new employee to key stakeholders in their role. Assign them a mentor who can assist them in getting up to speed.
Share all tools and accounts relevant to the new employee's role. List them here for easy reference.
Is there any training material or required reading? List them here for easy reference. You can share this prior to the first day if appropriate.
Did the new hire raise any interesting questions or noteworthy topics during the employee onboarding process? Note them here.
Create a list of takeaways for both the new hire and your team to help get them acclimated.
What's next? Clarify the agenda for the next few weeks as well as the first project for the new employee. Note this information here to share and make actionable.
Should we schedule a follow-up meeting to check over paperwork and check in on progress?
Plan to review the onboarding process over the next 60 days. Regularly check in with the new employee for their opinion. Note opportunities to improve it and make plans to implement them.
Share a story, or tell the group something no one knows about you
Give a brief overview of your professional experience, communication preferences, and values
Describe team values and communication channels/cadence
Solicit ideas from the team that would help the team work better together