Why “Customer Success” Must be More than a Slogan

Each month, Tony Uphoff, visionary CEO of Thomasnet.com, joins
Cloud Wars Live for a recurring segment. “Uphoff on Industry”
will explore the innovations, upheavals, and breakthroughs
reshaping the the world of manufacturing and industrial markets.
Join Tony and me as we discuss disruptive new trends in the
digital-industrial world: how we design, source and manufacture
products, and also the new ways in which industrial companies are
getting up to speed on marketing, sales and customer experience.


Episode 6


In this episode, Tony and I start off by discussing how there is
substantial increase in software products and services in the
industrial marketplace – and how software companies really need
to focus on customer success. He says he openly will throw rocks
– and live in a glass house at the exact same moment.


Tony says that in the spirit of eating their own dog food, Thomas
has completely reconfigured over 400 seats of Salesforce and
added a completely different order entry system. He says they
also ripped out the entire financial software backbone – and
installed several other systems to support the financial process.


He talks of Regis McKenna, who was a hugely influential figure in
Silicon Valley. He was responsible for a lot of the things we
think about in modern marketing and positioning – including Apple
and Compaq. And he talks of Jan Carlzon, who resuscitated SAS
airlines in the 1980s. He’s written a book called “Moments of
Truth."


I mention the remarkable and unexpected changes taking place in
the software world, such as the budding BFF relationship between
former rivals Microsoft and Oracle. In the interest of driving
more value for customers by helping them integrate software from
Microsoft and Oracle, Larry Ellison went so far as to say the two
companies now have a "great partnership."


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