Customer focus is one of our core values at Articulate. I know because I’m a team lead on the Customer Success team, and I get to help customers every day. And I love my job because Articulate takes customer focus seriously.
We hear “customer focus” a lot—it’s a great set of corporate buzzwords. But often it makes me think, “I mean, come on, what company isn’t focused on its customers? Better yet, what sales group isn’t focused on its customers?” Trust me, they are ALL focused—focused on the revenue their customers can generate.
But on the Articulate Success Team, customer focus goes much deeper than that and starts well before the sale ever hits the books. That’s what makes our approach so cool.
First, we work very hard to understand first what our customers want to accomplish. That’s because our priority is helping them achieve their goals. This involves talking about our products, of course, but often it also means brainstorming with them and looking at their end goal from different perspectives. We take time to help them solve their particular challenges— and follow up with them to see how they’re doing. Because we genuinely DO care if they’re successful.
And customers often tell us they love our approach: that we help first and sell second.
The thing is, none of us had to take a class on how to focus on customers or how to be nice. I think Articulate hired us all because that’s who we are. I know it’s extremely satisfying to me knowing my job is to help people.
It’s clear that putting customers first isn’t just a Customer Success team thing, either. Everyone pulls together when a customer needs something. Just a few months ago, I was working on a deal with a large municipality in Canada. In the early stages, when I had a calendar conflict, Peter Anderson stepped in to accommodate the customer’s schedule for a demo. At the point of sale, the Customer Care team made special billing arrangements. After the sale, Nicole Legault worked with me to develop specialized training seminars to get everyone up to speed. And Helene Dudley is currently helping to streamline some back-end installation issues. Across the company, everyone jumped in to make sure that this customer feels cared for—and that they’re set up for success.
And here’s the ah-ha moment: What we are doing for this customer, we’d do for any of our customers. We approach the smallest and largest customers with the same attitude: to do what’s right for them.
It’s this culture of customer focus that drives me every day in my job—and it’s what I love doing the most.
