The Three Levels of Customer Maturity

When we segment our customers, we consider their ARR, size, usage, and other parameters. Segmentation is a valuable process for cost-effectively focusing and controlling CS activities.

But how much do we assess their level of maturity? And should this factor be incorporated into our segmentation process?

The Customer’s level of maturity can significantly impact their success as they engage with our products and services. Understanding where customers stand in their maturity journey helps us deliver the appropriate support and enablement and adjust value messaging. This can be an essential aspect augmenting the existing segmentation process.

In this article, I present three key aspects and three levels of customer maturity, which CSMs and CS leaders can quickly evaluate.  

The model can apply to medium-high-touch customer engagement, in which CSMs directly communicate via emails and conversations with their stakeholders.

CSMs can also evaluate customer maturity in a low-touch model; however, it will be primarily based on digital touchpoints, usage metrics, support tickets, and pre-defined rules that can flag a lack of knowledge or more substantial maturity.

The three aspects of Customer Maturity

1. Domain Knowledge – How well does the customer understand their industry, the challenges they face, and best practices?
2. Learning Mindset—How open is the customer to learning in general and specifically from vendors? How curious and motivated are they to solve challenges and achieve better outcomes?
3. Value Add to the Vendor—How engaged is the customer contributing back through feedback, advocacy, or strategic partnership? Can they contribute to the vendor’s roadmap?

The Three Levels of Customer Maturity

Basic -customers “follow the process”

📖 Domain Knowledge: They can perform their role adequately, but their knowledge is limited to their day-to-day job. They are not up-to-speed with industry trends or how to leverage technology more effectively. Examples: IT support or security analysts who follow basic playbooks and are comfortable with a set of tools they know.  Another case is a business operation team that used to work with one CRM tool and will struggle to move to a more modern and advanced CRM.

🚀 Learning Mindset: Limited. They may be willing to learn but will need assistance. They are not often aware of what they don’t know. In this case, the CSM must follow a structured approach to guide these individuals or teams.

💡 Value Add to Vendor:  They will be more on the receiver side to obtain knowledge. They may provide feedback about the product's basic flows and capabilities but not directly share new ideas to improve it.

🔎 Customer Success Focus: This is a good case to test whether customer maturity can enhance segmentation.

For example, high-revenue customers in the high-touch segment will require more enablement, proactive guidance, continuous monitoring of their progress, and gradual sharing of best practices.

 A different example will be a highly regulated customer (where segmentation is based on industry characteristics). Then, the CS approach will have to be even more structured, developing knowledge to expand their understanding of compliance and industry standards.

Intermediate - CSMs “Identify the change agents.”

📖 Domain Knowledge: Customers have a solid understanding of industry challenges and can articulate the existing use cases in which they need support from a vendor’s solution. With high-touch customers, CSM can assess it by the RFPs they issue, the level of detail they expect to receive during the presales process, and the challenges they raise.

🚀 Learning Mindset: They are open to hearing new ideas and new ways of working but are unlikely to be early adopters of new technology.  CSMs may recognize that specific teams will show curiosity to learn and keep themselves up-to-date while other teams are slow to adopt and rely on other “change agents” in their organization. In this case, the learning mindset can be leveraged if CSMs identify the stakeholders who can drive learning and overcome internal obstacles.

💡 Value Add to Vendor: This is similar to the learning mindset. Knowledgeable and motivated stakeholders will propose improvements. They may not be high-profile or extroverts, but once they communicate openly, CSMs can gain valuable feedback. At this stage, there is an opportunity to identify potential advocates who will appreciate the value and be willing to share their experience with others.

🔎 Customer Success Focus: CSMs may need to segment their stakeholders at this level of maturity.

Stakeholders interested in learning and contributing meaningful feedback will also appreciate data-driven insights and optimization strategies and embrace deeper engagement to push them toward advanced adoption.

 A successful CS approach will identify the curious, knowledgeable, and motivated stakeholders who can promote change and push their teams to improve.

Advanced – “Your Innovation Partners”

📖 Domain Knowledge: They are domain experts in their field. Few are industry thought leaders or have a strong voice in professional communities. They may challenge the onboarding plan or present a strong professional view based on their experience and track record. Knowledge is necessary for handling mature customers in specific industries—cybersecurity, agree-tech, health tech, and highly regulated environments. The domain knowledge of the vendor may be the “make or break” for these customers, who will expect the solution they acquired to be accompanied by a high level of domain knowledge.

🚀 Learning Mindset: They constantly seek improvements and new ways to maximize value for their teams and the organization. They explore new ideas and are not concerned about leaving their comfort zone. These are the best partners CSMs can ask for, assuming a good match between expectation and value delivered by the vendor. In these circumstances, new learning opportunities will open for CSMs to capture ideas, improve their profession, and leverage them within other customer engagements.

💡 Value Add to Vendor: They will produce valuable feedback beyond the existing features. They can positively impact plans and technology roadmap by sharing their ideas and successful practices. They can be your top-notch advocates who happily attend a conference or speak in a webinar. Moreover, they can be candidates for CAB (customer advisory board) and help you to grow your business by being a reference customer.

Farming the relationship with these stakeholders has many upsides for CS, product, and sales. Still, they require a tailored approach that is well-matched to sizeable customers and generates significant revenue.

🔎 Customer Success Focus: Sales can spot Highly mature customers and flag them to CS. The earlier heads-up should allow CS leaders to match them with a knowledgeable CSM.

The worst scenario is when CSM is surprised by the customer's maturity and expectations. Sometimes, a bad first impression will create a gap between the knowledgeable stakeholders' vision and the straightforward approach of a vendor that is not perceived as sufficiently innovative.

 For CSMs, this is a unique opportunity to partner with customers, drive a forward-thinking approach, groom positive relationships, and create mutual success for both teams.

Conclusions:

👉🏻Segmentation should consider customer maturity when planning CS activities and playbooks. Two high-profile, revenue-generating customers with varied knowledge levels and professional maturity will require a different and sometimes tailored enablement plan.

👉🏻Knowledge, a learning mindset, and innovation should help individuals and teams evolve and shine. Consider neutral, highly skilled stakeholders with whom you can engage on advanced professional matters, gain trust, and gradually transform into true partners (and advocates).

After 25 years of engaging with customers, I noticed a strong correlation between their professional maturity and willingness to evolve and grow with the vendor, leading to a long-term partnership.

 This is a winning formula.

I would love to hear your thoughts! How do you assess and support customer maturity in your organization?