Success Vector – a Better Member Health Score

Member Success is a Growth Engine. Investing in Member Success-driven Growth is an efficient way to drive revenue and valuation, and we need a metric that is designed to measure that growth. Introducing, Success Vector.

Why “Vector” instead of “Health”?

Vector is defined, according to a quick Google search, as “a quantity having direction as well as magnitude, especially as determining the position of one point in space relative to another” and to me, that’s exactly what we’re looking for.

Direction + Magnitude.

It All Starts with the Member

One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen in Member Success is when the CEO of an organization hires a Member Success Manager (MSM), declaring they are now Member-centric, and then telling the MSM to “figure it out” without giving budget or resources. Though sometimes, if any resources are given, it’s to buy software or adapt to some other technology. Because technology solves all the problems. Right.

People are a huge part of  Member Success Management. Systems are necessary. Processes and Technology tie all of those together for efficient scaling.

But if the implementation of those things isn’t predicated on a deep understanding of the Member – and knowledge that the Member will evolve over time so your understanding must, too – then the people are going to be setup for failure, the systems won’t do what you “designed” them do, and the technology will fail to deliver a real ROI.

If we want our Members to grow with us over 5, 10, 15 or even 20 years, ensuring the Member is engaged and continues to achieve their evolving Desired Outcome is critical. In fact, it’s why your organization exists in their world.

Before you can Orchestrate, Operationalize,  Instrument, and Intervene – or develop a Success Vector – you need to be clear about the Desired Outcome for each of your discrete Member segments.

And remember, Desired Outcome has two pieces: Goal and Appropriate Experience.

Desired Outcome Simplified – DO = Goal + Appropriate Experience

Goal is what they need to achieve; there are some things that must happen otherwise you know they couldn’t possibly achieve their Goal.

You should be measuring their progression through the required activities and Success Milestones (Are they making required progress?), check on Joint Accountabilities (Are they doing what they need to do, are you doing what you need to do?), look at Ascension Velocity (Are they buying more, expanding use, etc.? Because if they are, they’re likely to find success), and other things that indicate whether they’re achieving their Goal.

Appropriate Experience is how they need to achieve their Goal, so it takes some of the previous measures into consideration, as well as Satisfaction & Confidence, Support interactions, and other contextual inputs… including the gut feel of any human interactions / interventions that took place with the Member.

Together those make up the core of the Success Vector of the Member and will tell you if the Member is on track, needs help getting back on track, or is heading out the door.

Key Success Vector Inputs

The inputs that are 100% required for Success Vector to be meaningful are:

Success Potential

Success Milestones

Joint Accountabilities

Success Potential

If my Member doesn’t have success potential, that’s something we need to address (possibly by actively separating from those bad fit Members).

When it comes to Success Potential, there are several things we need to look at:

Technical Fit – They aren’t using or don’t have and can’t / won’t acquire a key piece of technology

Functional Fit – Our product is missing a key piece of functionality for them

Resource Fit – They can invest – beyond simply paying our fee – in what’s required to be successful as our Member

Competence Fit – They have – or will acquire – the expertise internally required to be successful?

Experience Fit – They do not have the experience internally and cannot get / are unwilling to source or train resources that have the necessary experience to be successful with our product

Cultural Fit – They have beliefs, morals, attitudes, etc. that you know won’t jibe with the way you work

If we can’t check all the Success Potential boxes, then we can be absolutely sure that those Members are not going to achieve their Desired Outcome – both their Goal and the Appropriate Experience – so we’re setting everyone up for failure if we keep them around.

Success Milestones & Joint Accountabilities

The biggest problem with Member Health Scores is they rarely include whether or not the Member is actually doing the things necessary – inside the product and beyond – that would indicate they’re on the right path toward achieving their Desired Outcome.

For Success Vector, knowing where the Member is on their path toward success – including whether they’re holding up their end of the bargain on the joint accountabilities we agreed to – is the main input.

In fact, if you don’t pull in any other contextual data and only looked at Success Milestones and Joint Accountabilities, you’d be better off than most organizations that pull together complex Member Health Scores.

Look, if the Member does have Success Potential, but they aren’t doing what needs to be done to achieve success, that’s a problem and we need to intervene.

If those things aren’t included in the Success Vector, then what purpose does it really serve? It’s like creating a Member Success strategy without starting with the Member (which, sadly, is pretty common still).

When it comes to predictable revenue, this is where it gets good.

Some Success Milestones will have a logical Upsell or Advocacy opportunity associated with them. Based on which Success Milestone our Members will hit in the next month – and our confidence in both hitting that and taking the upsell or advocacy opportunity associated with the milestone – you should be able to accurately predict the revenue expansion from your existing Member base.

Success Milestones – Logical Upsell and Advocacy

Revenue Ascension Pipeline vs. Expansion Quotas

And when you can build a revenue forecast model based on actual Member Success Vectors, then you can manage against that rather than the other direction where we have expansion quotas. We can say “according to Success Vectors, this cohort should deliver $90k/ARR in the next month.”

When you have Success Vector in place, internal expansion quotas are not needed, which means you won’t have Account Managers trying to shove products down a Member’s throat when they aren’t ready for it, don’t need it, or are otherwise not in a place where that is the logical next step.

Rather, we can say “this is the expected, logical expansion from these cohorts in the next 30, 60, or 90 days” and if we hit that, it means you simply did your job.

However, if we miss that mark, it means the Member didn’t hit that Success Milestone, because if they had, according to Success Vector analysis, they would have taken the upsell. So that’s a fail on Member Success Management; not that they didn’t make the upsell, but because the Member who we thought would reach that milestone didn’t.

So there’s no need to quota on expansion; instead, use Success Vector-based projections to manage the success – or failure – of your Member Success Management (including Account Managers, Expansion Resources, etc.) org.

Additional Success Vector Inputs

Organizations with more robust Success Vectors also have inputs like:

Ascension Velocity – Are they taking upsells when they’re logical?

Meaningful Product Activity – Also known as product usage data. It has to be meaningful activity, though.

Adoption – Did they meet initial adoption goals? Are they meeting ongoing adoption goals?

Advocacy – Are they advocating for us in appropriate ways where logical?

Usability Issues – Are there problems or missing features keeping them from achieving success; missing features would indicate a lack of Success Potential and should be noted as such

Member Organization (Account) – Are negative things happening with their organization? External triggers, bills not being paid, M&A, etc.

Support – Support tickets aren’t bad unless they’re not being closed in a positive way quickly; also if support tickets slow or stop.

Satisfaction & Confidence – NPS – Net Promoter Score

Success Vector Status Definitions

The Success Vector of a Member will change from time to time, but we ultimately want all our Members on a Positive Success Vector. Stagnant Members on a Neutral Success Vector simply renewing at the same level is no longer considered good enough.

The new measure of success is Members that are engaging, evolving, and expanding.

Positive Success Vector – They’re on the right track. “The right track” means that they aren’t just static but are expanding or on-track to do so.

Neutral Success Vector – They are Stalled or Stagnated. They don’t fit with the new measure of success. You need to get the Member back on track to achieving their Desired Outcome and on a logical Ascension Path.

Negative Success Vector – They’re not on the right track and you need to intervene. Come up with some type of gradient to indicate level of and type of intervention

Ghosts – Your key contacts at the Member have stopped engaging or responding; This Member is about to churn.

Situational Awareness and Member Triage

If you’re just starting out integrating the Member Success Operating philosophy into your business, there’s a really good chance you’ll have some Members that have gone dark. For the Members that are a good fit and should be saved, you need to do what must do to save them. Just know… that’s not Member Success!

To pull them from darkness back into the light or otherwise save them from churning, that’s begging, promising, discounting, etc. but it has nothing to do with helping them achieve their Desired Outcome. They’ve given you another chance, but they should be considered to still be on a Negative Success Vector.

Member Success would have been ensuring they didn’t get to this point, to begin with!

You now have to work to take that cohort, plus any other Member that’s on a Negative Success Vector and move them to Neutral and then Positive.

At first, you’ll have Members in each category, but eventually, as you Orchestrate and Operationalize your Member Success Management processes, you’ll get to a point where you only have Neutral and Positive Success Vector Members.

Success Vector shares many of the underlying qualities of Member Health Score, but the big differences are what make this the key indicator for Member Success-driven Growth.