Sometimes it’s easy to feel like you’ve blinked and it’s the end of the month. I know that I feel like that, but I also feel positive when I look back to write the newsletter at everything that has been achieved and give myself a little pat on the back. So, read on to see how many backs we can all pat within the May edition of the company newsletter. With this in mind, I know there are still a good few of you who are yet to contribute. I am more than happy to help flesh out an article with any of you if you have some interesting content or just give me a snippet of information or feedback I can add into my updates.
Company presentation
I know you all have received an email invitation to a company presentation on the 17th May, I think there are still a couple of you that need to accept it in your diaries. This is something I am really excited to share with you as this will be a massive opportunity for our company growth. I don’t want to give to much away to save repetition but it’s going to be really interesting to get going with the new direction and plan.
Our TSM case study video has been somewhat of a challenge. I know I have said in the last 2 or 3 newsletters that the video is imminent. Unfortunately, due to our Editor falling ill and ending up in hospital for four weeks, we had to bring in a new editor to redo the work. The second draft of the video has been completed and we are hoping to get the finished products within the next week. A company wide email will go out once we have the completed product.
TSM Case Study
Our TSM case study video has been somewhat of a challenge. I know I have said in the last 2 or 3 newsletters that the video is imminent. Unfortunately, due to our Editor falling ill and ending up in hospital for four weeks, we had to bring in a new editor to redo the work. The second draft of the video has been completed and we are hoping to get the finished products within the next week. A company wide email will go out once we have the completed product.
Social media
If you all think back to my end of year presentation, I discussed how I viewed marketing within the company as being similar to being in a band; everyone had their job to perform and as a team we were able to belt out the Concurrent hits.
One of the areas I am seeing success are within the bassist or at least the people who are helping get the Concurrent message out there through social media by liking and sharing the posts put out by others. I wanted to share some metrics with you that show the affect of having a strong, companywide, social media presence can have on visibility and post outreach. Concentrating on LinkedIn and Facebook, you can see how much more interaction we can get on our posts, simply by having all of you liking and sharing the content we produce – including increasing out Facebook outreach by a mere 1,097%!!!
Well done to everyone so far on the difference you have made. I would like to see more of our tech guys liking and sharing posts – even if that is all you do. The contribution could find someone in your contacts who could realise we have exactly what we need! Our website visits and contact conversions speak for themselves.
On the subject of LinkedIn – following the Marketing meeting on the 17th there may be some updates required in our profiles to align with the Marketing directive. I will be looking to potentially hold a couple of sessions to get everyone’s profiles in order and maybe give some training, to those who need it, on how to use it.
Positive feedback
We’ve had some really good feedback and social media interactions with Quigley Design, a new customer Lee brought on the back end of March. He has been very active over Twitter in singing Concurrent’s (and specifically Heather’s) praises. Well done to everyone involved, it’s great to see someone so vocal about the good work we do!
The back end of 2017 the ISS team were looking at new ways we can create call lists and target more companies. With the introduction of Linkedin Sales Navigator we were able to use their search capability to develop individual lists of companies within our specific territories that had employees on Linkedin who have previous or current experience with using PTC products. This gave us the opportunity to have a foot in the door with these contacts and open up a conversation about their experiences with the software and the processes they have in place now to see if we could help them further.
An individual I identified within my territory, who had experience with Mathcad, was the Head of Projects and Engineering at Croft Associates Ltd. Although he had used a much older version of the software, while at University, he was aware of some of the benefits and could see there may be a potential to help him. Croft have been developing solutions for the safe transportation of radioactive materials and long-term storage for over 35 years – without the use of Mathcad!
After one conversation with Croft they quickly understood the amount of time that could be saved with a tool like Mathcad and how much early design stage confidence they could gain. With the Mathcad webinar coming up, I got a registration link over to them and following this they were given the confidence to purchase a subscription of Mathcad, Roarks files and booked two days training.
On top of that Croft have said that after adopting Mathcad and working with it for a few months they will look to increase the footprint within the company and look at purchasing a second licence from ourselves and would be more than happy to provide a case study to voice their success and let others know the value Mathcad had brought them.
Special thanks to Emily and Adam for putting on a great Mathcad webinar which clearly showcased our products well and helped influence this sale. The customer mentioned within the sales process that the professionalism of the webinar helped instil the confidence that Mathcad would be the correct solution for them and we would be the best company to partner with to help them adopt it.
Inside sales should be able to continue with this success, using all the collateral Concurrent and PTC have the their arsenal. It's easy for us to sit and call the same customers over and over because they are already in our CRM system, but this shows that there is low hanging fruit out there and real value we can be giving to new customers if we are prepared to put a little work in to find it.
It’s coming up to a year since I started here and, as well as taking over the subscription/ support renewals for the UK & Ireland, I have also been working alongside Emily to create a customer success programme. This is something we are still developing and is delayed in it’s roll out as there have been a few fundamental things that we wanted to get right before releasing it. But if you look back to where we were, we have taken some good steps in terms of the segmentation of renewals and the ideas we have come up with to help us improve our customer experience and now we need to action them.
One of the things I would like to share with you all is the 6-month survey. This is a call I make to all active supported customers midway through their support term. The questions asked are based around their overall experience with us and finding out if there is any more we can do to improve the service they receive. So far, I’ve had some really nice calls with customers where they have given us some very positive feedback. They have also mentioned that they have had good communication with their account managers, as well as being kept updated with current offers/ functionality. Our webinar programme has also gathered a lot of interest with many customers requesting links to register. This is great to hear that the majority of our customers are feeling looked after and well supported, so well done everyone! Our main challenge with the way we are currently doing this is how we socialise the result internally.
Emily is currently working on Survey Monkey, you might recognise this from an internal survey Owen sent out at the end of last year. This is being used to create a survey that we can either fill out while on the call or can email to the customer to fill out in their own time. The results of these can not only be downloaded and saved as individual results but put together, analysed and can easily compared and we can create nice graphs and statics that we could potentially use on our website. The plan is to expand on the 6 month survey and create follow up calls for training, projects and post software sales.
Owen recently shared an article with myself and Emily called ‘Customer Success is coming into its own’ which I found very insightful. It was nice to read something that was more directed at what I’m trying to achieve for the company and my aspirations. It spoke about how ‘Customer Success’ is no longer a niche experiment in companies and how it is driving ROI and increasing retention rates. One point that was highlighted is that customers are just people and its people that connect and remain loyal to a brand. I completely agree with this statement as from a company’s point of view investing in systems in only half of the equation, the other half being the service they receive from the people who provide that system. Not only does a customer success strategy enable a chance to grow an existing relationship but it also gives you the opportunity to sell additional features and the possibility of expanding our products/service across their organisation using the successful relationship as a catalyst. The article states that most companies can expect to achieve around a 96% net retention rate without a mature customer success strategy which sounds good until you compare it to the 125% potential retention rate that can be gained from a more mature programme. It is clear to see why strategies like this are becoming more important.
If you would like to read more, please see the link below:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/customer-success-coming-its-own-gregory-schern/
All in all, there’s a long road ahead but future is bright for our Customer Success venture. As my role develops, I will be sure to keep you all up to date with changes and progress as well as the successes, customer feedback and areas we need to improve. Customer Success is the responsibility of all of us, but I am looking forward to fronting the team that enables us to be as successful as possible.
WalkIt Swansea
I’m back again, begging for donations towards my walk for Crohn’s and Colitis UK. I have a month to go before the big day and I’m getting closer and closer to my donation target. A couple of you have donated already and I cannot tell you how grateful I am! Some of you may be aware that I have recently made the switch to veganism (or, as I have coined, a non-diary pescatarian as I’m still eating fish and eggs) due to the detrimental effects Ulcerative Colitis has had on my body. If I can be a part of the donations that can help improve people’s quality of life, or better yet find a cure, it would mean so much to me. Link below is where you can donate: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/priestygals-walk-it-swansea-2018. Thank you in advance to everyone who put something towards this cause.
Half marathon - Luke
There’s 4 months to go before Luke’s half marathon and he is currently able to complete a 10k run. We wish him all the best with his training and I’m sure he’ll get to where he needs to be. Run Luke runnnnn!
Shirley Band
You may have received the email already but John is taking part in the Shirley Band ‘Spring Brass Explosion’ concert on Sunday 20th My 2018. It’s really good to see people involved with things outside of work and wanting others to be a part of it too. It’d be great to see some face there and you never know – John might dedicate a song to us! Find out more information here.
Concurrent Cycle Team
Well done to Julian, Owen, Steve, John B and Chris for getting involved with to Tempest Cycle Ride in July. The team are now registered and will be getting together for team training plans. Everything is in a good place to go. The only thing I have been asked to request is if Steve can agree to take the basket off the front of his bike!
Birthdays and anniversaries
A very Happy Birthday to Johnny O for the 9th May – I believe this is a big one! Also, for Nick on the 24th, Happy Birthday. Work anniversaries coming up are Laura on the 2nd, Heather on the 12th, Chris on the 22nd and Aida on the 26th. Congratulations to all and thank you.
