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Customer success : ‘connecting the dots’ so every individual understands their impact

Susanne Axelsson
Susanne Axelsson
March 7, 2022
Customer success : ‘connecting the dots’ so every individual understands their impact

David spoke at our Global Frontline Experience Summit 2022 in an insightful mini-talk session. Listen in above. If you missed the summit, don't worry! All of the powerful sessions are available right here.

Customer success : ‘connecting the dots’ so every individual understands their impact 

Who we heard from:

Dave Kohari has a passion for customer experience and a 25 year career spanning startups and global corporates. He’s currently VP of Customer Success at mobile workforce management software company Skedulo where customer success = company success.


The BIG idea:

At Skedulo, connecting the frontline to the bottom line is how the company ensures each team member understands how their efforts and engagement with their customers improve Skedulo's overall operating metrics. This is referred to internally as ‘connecting the dots’ and it's a concept that's woven into their entire management philosophy.

Let’s dive in:

“What should we share?”

This is a question asked often during KPI performance meetings – but Skedulo has managed to flip it on its head:

“Now we ask – why shouldn’t we share this information with the team? That slight change in how you perceive what you should be transparent about with the whole organisation will lead you in the direction of saying ‘when in doubt – share it!"

Connecting the dots – the how

In his line of work, he’s observed that frontline teams are very often disconnected from even their own department’s operating metrics - the very thing that they’re being evaluated on as a team. 

“Even if you’ve done a great job of making sure there’s alignment between all the layers in the business, the promise of all that investment and effort is going to go unfulfilled if you don’t take the time to connect the dots."
Skedulo takes two important steps to ‘connect the dots’ internally:

#1 It ensures everyone across the business understands what’s being measured, how it’s measured and why it’s measured…

#2 It helps every individual to see how their efforts impact these KPIs and move the business closer to the objectives it’s trying to achieve. 

These two steps are supported by education and enablement. 

Taking a leaf out of common sales playbooks, Skedulo runs an annual kick-off for its Customer Service teams. At this session, they share the overall objectives for the year, and how teams can ensure customers get measurable value from every interaction. From there, they dive into how each individual interaction plays a part in improving how Skedulo measures success. Moving from high level strategy to individual accountability creates alignment across the business around what’s important to stakeholders and the exec teams; but also underlines how everyone makes an impact that can lead to success.

Once everyone understands what they’re working towards, it’s time to add in the tools and platforms to make it all happen and to keep everyone up to date around performance. Dave recommends investing in solutions that allow your people to track their individual performance and activities and also aggregate up so that everyone has consistent visibility into team metrics and ultimately their impact on company level objectives.

Why invest in connecting the dots?

“Ultimately it’s about employee engagement and satisfaction. People are happier when they understand the why; the mission for their organisation and how they’re contributing…” says Dave.

To learn more, watch the full video link above; or check out The Seven Daily Habits of Empowered Frontline Teams.

Susanne Axelsson

About the Author

Susanne Axelsson
Susanne is the Frontline Community Evangelist as well as the author and researcher for Frontline Magic Handbook. She believes happy customers are born out of great experiences. Great experiences are delivered by motivated frontline people.
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