Single-Threaded Churn: Why Relying on One Champion is a Fatal Mistake

Introduction: The Hidden Risk Inside Healthy Accounts

While many Customer Success Managers consider themselves successful due to the excellent relations maintained with one key customer champion who is an active participant in QBRs and regularly contacts the CSM team, such relationships also pose certain dangers. Indeed, when all relations with the company depend only on one individual, the situation is actually quite unstable and insecure for the business.

This is what we call the single-threaded customer relationship. One of the most underestimated but at the same time widely spread reasons of customer churn. Whenever a company is dependent on one person's knowledge about the benefits of the offered solution, support of the usage of the solution, and influence over renewal decision-making, the entire account relationship becomes highly dependent on that particular person.

This risk has grown as B2B buying has become more collaborative. Gartner reports that buying groups now typically involve 6–10 stakeholders, and enterprise purchases may include as many as 15–17 decision-makers. Building relationships with only one champion leaves Customer Success teams vulnerable when that individual changes roles or exits the organization. (Source)

That's why the most successful growth nurturers never put their eggs in one basket. They build relations with several stakeholders and thus develop a network of connections that will endure any changes in the structure or leadership of the organization or in its goals and tasks.

Reasons Why Champions May Leave

Every Customer Success Manager hopes to have a long-standing customer champion, but real life shows a different picture. Employees change companies, get promoted, join new departments, or leave companies. With complete dependency of the account on one customer champion, such natural career development can suddenly put customer loyalty under threat.

Being promoted, a champion changes his scope of work, priorities, and stops being a champion of a solution he was using before. Changing a job is even more complicated – the new employer does not have previous relations with your software. Restructuring of the company can change responsibilities and create completely new decision makers who will not know anything about your solution.

Changes in business priorities can also affect champions. Even if the champion stays within the same company, strategic changes can influence their participation in using your product. New budgeting, merger or acquisition, or just changing the management team can change decision-making.

Since such circumstances happen rather often, Customer Success Managers cannot rely on the assumption that the champion will stay forever. Developing relations based on only one employee involves unnecessary risks that could be avoided otherwise.

The Dangers of Single-Threaded Customer Relationships

While the primary peril of single-threaded customer relationships is losing a key contact, the most dangerous aspect is losing all the knowledge and internal influence that the contact had built for your solution during the entire customer lifetime.

Firstly, knowledge loss becomes a challenge. The newly appointed contacts will lack the information regarding the reasons why a customer opted for the solution, its value, and its benefits. Thus, they might doubt the necessity to keep investing in the solution.

The second major danger is executive disconnect. In many cases, the champion serves as an intermediary between the Customer Success Manager and the executives. Once they go away, there won't be enough communication with executives.

Renewal challenges are likely to occur due to the loss of a strong advocate for the solution. Procurement teams and financial managers will be willing to reconsider the contract and make new plans for the future. Renewal processes will become extremely difficult without any other stakeholders being aware of the impact of the solution on the business performance.

Single-threaded customer relationships increase churn risks because the relationship is not supported by the organization at all.

Building Multi-Threaded Relationships

One of the most efficient ways to avoid single-threaded customer relationships is to develop multiple threads of relations within a customer organization. Instead of focusing on just one stakeholder, Customer Success Managers should create a number of stakeholders who can appreciate the value of a solution from different angles.

First of all, executives must be kept informed through strategic Quarterly Business Reviews and business outcomes conversations. Such an approach helps to highlight return on investment, organizational value, and increases the level of engagement and commitment of executives to the partnership.

Secondly, departmental managers are the stakeholders who should not be missed. People who are responsible for daily work in the organization may have an influence on adoption, process improvements, and future expansion. Establishing connections with them improves organizational alignment and reduces dependency on a single individual.

Thirdly, end users are also an important component. Daily users of the product are sources of important feedback and improvement ideas and are likely to become future organizational partners.

With a growing number of stakeholders, the level of organizational engagement increases automatically. Partnership goes beyond a one-to-one level and becomes a business-level partnership.

Constructing Relationship Maps

Creating strong customer relationships means having insight into the decision-making processes of the organization. This is when relationship mapping proves to be vital in ensuring single-threaded customer relationships. Instead of keeping a contact list, Customer Success Managers should map the individuals who play an instrumental role in the customer's success.

The first step involves the identification of the key stakeholders, which include executive sponsors, business champions, department managers, technical administrators, procurement leaders, finance representatives, and operational users. Each stakeholder assumes different roles at different stages of the customer journey.

Having a clear picture of decision-making authority is also crucial. All stakeholders do not have an equal level of involvement in renewals, growth, and strategic initiatives. Decision maker mapping helps Customer Success Managers understand who needs to be included in business reviews, product discussions, and strategic planning sessions.

The relationship maps should outline any current relationships and point out areas that need improvement. In case the organization communicates only with a single department, further engagement would be required. Building new relationships adds organizational knowledge as well as protects against any upcoming turnover.

Sustaining Relationship Resilience

Multiple relationships alone are not enough. To prevent a situation where the relationship becomes single-threaded, organizations need constant engagement with their stakeholders across the customer lifecycle. Relationships become weak if communication becomes rare or limited to renewal periods.

Engagement allows organizations to keep their stakeholders informed about business achievements, product enhancements, and strategic plans. Engagements such as executive engagement, Quarterly Business Reviews, training sessions, and customer workshops allow Customer Success Teams to build relationships while demonstrating customer value.

Succession planning can be another great tool that can help Customer Success Managers maintain relationships within organizations. It will allow Customer Success Managers to observe changes in organizations and build relationships with future champions of their accounts.

The stakeholder review process makes sure that organizations' relationship maps are up to date. Organizations constantly change due to promotions, restructurings, acquisitions, and even changes in management. Several annual stakeholder network reviews will allow Customer Success teams to adapt fast and maintain relationships within organizations.

Customer relationships based on multiple stakeholders are much more resilient because of the spreading of knowledge, influence, and advocacy throughout the organization.

Conclusion

While one enthusiastic customer champion may drive adoption, foster collaboration, and deliver customer success, depending solely on this type of customer relationship exposes an organization to substantial risks. One-threaded customer relationships might seem to function perfectly well before the champion quits, when organizational priorities change, or when new decision-makers question the value of the product or service offered by the company. At such moments, rebuilding customer relationships proves to be a complicated and expensive task.

The best Customer Success Managers work towards developing multiple-threaded relationships that involve executive sponsors, department heads, technical personnel, and operational staff. The development of relationship maps, increasing organizational influence, and regular interactions with customers contribute to making the customer relationship less vulnerable to changes in customer personnel.

Organizational customer relationships ensure easier renewals, additional selling opportunities, and better executive alignment. In their opinion, the customer relationship becomes a business relationship rather than individual contacts.

Eventually, the sustainability of customer relationships is impossible without the development of organizational relationships. By cutting single-threaded customer relationships, Growth Nurturers create stronger customer relationships and avoid churn issues.