August 31, 2020

DesiredPath August Newsletter

Growth Strategy Framework

Revenue optimization and protection of retention rates requires solid customer success management.  With summer almost over, the fall is a good time to review your growth strategy framework as we head into the last quarter of the year. Especially given the unpredictability of the pandemic this fall. 

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Can you customer success during disruption?

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Check out the round-up of this month’s content to learn how to boost your growth strategy framework to ensure revenue growth even in the most uncertain of times.

June 30, 2020

DesiredPath June Newsletter

The Power of Customer-Centric Organizations

From the get go, Customer Success has essentially been about how to make customers successful.  The focus of goal attainment however has unfortunately been on reaching project milestones, not value.  

Check out the round-up of this month’s content to learn about the power of customer centric organizations.

May 28, 2020

DesiredPath May Newsletter

Customer Success Fundamentals

The crisis has been a forcing factor back to the fundamentals of solid, customer success management.  Companies that were not already actively customer centric, have become so and quickly. 

Businesses with a customer focused strategy in place are better equipped at keeping customers and their retention rates higher.  Check out the round-up of this month's content get back to the basics of smart, customer success management.

March 31, 2020

DesiredPath March Newsletter

Is Customer Success More Important Than Ever?

The world has changed. What impact will the pandemic have on businesses and what role does Customer Success play in navigating companies through this unprecedented time?

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One things is certain: customer success - making customers successful - is more important than ever!

January 29, 2020

DesiredPath January Newsletter

Value Realization Drives Revenue Growth

From the get go, Customer Success has essentially been about how to make customers successful.  The focus of goal attainment however has been on reaching project milestones, not value.  Check out the round-up of this month’s content to help you measure and demonstrate value realized to customers.

January 16, 2020

The Sales Experts Channel

The Ultimate Sales Experience

How do you practically apply Customer Experience to achieve revenue growth? In this session, Melissa Madian will be joined by the Founder of DesiredPath, Kia Puhm, to provide some real talk on common mistakes made in your customer’s journey, how to combat them, and how to enable your employees to create a fabulous customer experience.

December 11, 2019

CS Executive Breakfast

The Year of the Customer

As the Toronto CS Executive Breakfast wrapped up another successful year, Kia Puhm recapped the biggest trends from 2019 and outlined where the industry is headed next moving into 2020.

November 25, 2019

SaaS North 2019

The Ultimate Customer Journey Experience

Customer-Centric Success! Value Realization! Revenue Growth!

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Melissa Madian and Kia Puhm held an interactive experience at the Arts Court Theatre which had participants learning how to align around the customer to optimize how revenue-focused functions create a meaningful experience for customers that results in acquisition, retention and growth. 

October 30, 2019

DesiredPath October Newsletter

The Ultimate Customer Journey Experience

Customer-Centric Success! Value Realization! Revenue Growth!

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Many trendy terms are thrown about, commanding businesses to do these things or fall behind. But how does a company align around the customer and optimize revenue-focused functions so they create a meaningful experience that results in acquisition, retention and growth of customers.  Check out the round-up of this month's content to help drive the ultimate customer journey experience.

September 18, 2019

User Adoption Podcast

The User Adoption Podcast is a series of audio interviews from all over the world with professionals talking about how to improve user adoption for product/service businesses of any size, internally or externally, tech-focused or not. Henrik de Gyor sat down with Kia Puhm of DesiredPath to get her take on adoption.

August 28, 2019

DesiredPath August Newsletter

Customer centricity requires customer centric thinking

When companies embark on their journey to becoming customer centric it can seem overwhelming. Change requires time and people intrinsically like to avoid it.  Check out the round-up of this month’s content below to help you reinforce customer centric thinking at your organization.

June 30, 2019

DesiredPath June Newsletter

Turn Customers Into Bigger Customers

Revenue protection is expensive, time-consuming and never goes away. Yet companies demonstrate a distorted understanding of what this means.  Check out the round-up of this month’s content below to help you optimize the value of customer-focused efforts.

June 6, 2019

How Companies Can Turn Customers Into Bigger Customers

Kayako invited DesiredPath to present at its live webinar to share the best way a company can organize its business around its customers in order to drive smarter, faster revenue growth.

June 3, 2019

Keep The Revenue Your Company Worked Hard To Earn

Software Executive Magazine featured DesiredPath's article on how to "Keep the Revenue Your Company Worked So Hard to Earn" in their June edition.

May 30, 2019

Why Customer Success Needs to Own Revenue

Owning revenue is critical to scaling Customer Success yet the debate about whether they should do so is still hotly discussed. DesiredPath moderated a live webinar panel discussion hosted by Nudge to get to the heart of the matter.

May 1, 2019

DesiredPath Newsletter

Should Customer Success Own Revenue?

Profitability and whether Customer Success should own revenue continues to be a topic of great debate within the industry.  What is not disputed is that companies continue to look for ways to drive smarter, faster revenue growth.  Check out the round-up of this month’s content below to help you navigate this challenge.

February 14, 2019

CX Experts We Love

On Valentine's Day Wootric waxed poetic about the CX professionals that "make our lives better, share their expertise, uplift our spirits, and show profound generosity" to help contribute to the widespread adoption of CX. Kia is a CX expert they love.

November 4, 2018

B2B Lead Blog: Transform Your Customer Success Journey and Accelerate Growth

B2B Lead Blog invited Kia Puhm on its podcast to discuss Customer Success and how to accelerate growth through a customer-centric approach.

August 12, 2018

Digital CMO: From Research to Practice Interview with Kia Puhm

Digital CMO sat down with Kia Puhm to discuss Customer Support and find out why being customer-centric and understanding the customer journey is key to providing a great customer experience.

July 8, 2018

Strategy Institute: Customer Summit 2018

CEO, Kia Puhm speaks at the inaugural Strategy Institute Customer Summit about driving revenue through holistic customer management by leveraging the customer journey.

April 17, 2018

Strategy Institute Insights eBook: Customer Retention and Future Trends

In part two of Strategy Institute's eBook series, they asked industry leading speakers for their input on how to retain customers looking to cancel and where they see the future of customer success heading. The ebook contains insights from five of the 2018 Customer Success Top Strategists and continues where part 1 of the eBook left off.

March 21, 2018

Strategy Institute Insights eBook: Determine Value & Measure Insights

In part one of Strategy Institute's eBook series, they asked industry leading speakers for their input on how to determine the value of customer success and measure customer satisfaction. The eBook contains insights from five of the 2018 Customer Success Top Strategists.

March 5, 2018

Totango Summit 2018: VP of CS Panel, Proving Customer Success Impact

Join Customer Success executives Nate Rosenthal, Square, Gillian Heltai, Talkdesk, and Travis Bryant, Front, as they discuss with moderator Kia Puhm, K!A CX Consulting, the journey their respective organizations took in accelerating the impact of Customer Success with measurable results.

February 4, 2018

Kapta: How the Best Deliver Ongoing Customer Success

Kia had the pleasure of sitting down with Kapta CEO, Alex Raymond, to discuss how the best Customer Success teams out there are delivering ongoing Customer Success.  They talk about prescriptive Customer Success Plans, proactive CSPs, how to master QBRs and how to grow into your Customer Success role.

July 20, 2017

NGDATA: Top Customer Experience Podcasts

NGDATA helps brands redefine the customer relationship with data. In July, they posted the list of the Top 50 Must-Listen to Customer Experience Podcasts along with the three key episodes from each.  ServiceRocket's Episode 41 with CEO, Kia Puhm, made the top of the key episodes list.

June 18, 2017

Vision Critical: Customer Experience Experts Panel

Vision Critical invited Kia Puhm to speak on a panel of Customer Experience (CX) experts together with Paul Teshima (CEO of Nudge.ai) and Tammy Chiasson (Director CX, Strategy and Innovation at Tangerine).

May 10, 2017

Pulse 2017: Using Adoption Parameters to Develop an Account Segmentation and Coverage Model

Companies often segment accounts based on criteria irrelevant to how those customers adopt technology leading to the development of incorrect account coverage models. Listen to the presentation to discover how to effectively segment and resource accounts.

July 10, 2016

Accelerating Customer Expansion

In this white paper, we will look at the key components of a successful customer expansion program - understanding the customer, segmentation, business maturity and expectation setting.

May 1, 2016

Accelerating Customer Expansion by Managing the Customer Journey

Customer expansion means understanding your customer's business and using that knowledge to make your product a critical element to their growth. Listen to the webinar to understand how to make customer expansion a deliberate practice.

March 16, 2016

Customers for Life: Managing the Customer Journey

In this white paper, we will explore three key parts of the customer adoption lifecycle; the customer journey, account coverage model and measuring customer health.  By focusing on these three components, SaaS companies can drive customer adoption into long-term customer loyalty.

July 29, 2020

DesiredPath July Newsletter

Executive Business Reviews

A well-run business review can be a great way to gain insights into your customer’s business, deliver added value and improve the customer experience (CX). They are also effective vehicles to increase adoption and expansion, operational effectiveness and revenue growth.

Check out the round-up of this month’s content to learn how to conduct Executive Business Reviews that are relevant, provide value and done with strategic timing in mind.

June 3, 2020

CS During Covid-19

Back to the Fundamentals

CS in Focus held its inaugural virtual event and asked Kia Puhm, Founder & CEO of DesiredPath, to be their first guest speaker.

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The presentation covers the three pillars of a customer-centric discipline that every business should follow to successfully keep and grow customers.

April 29, 2020

DesiredPath April Newsletter

Customer Retention Strategies During Covid-19

We are all learning how to adapt to the new environment. While a lot has changed, keeping customers is still as important as ever.

How do we manage Customer Success during Covid-19? CS leaders share insights. Update your customer retention strategies in order to meet evolving customer needs.

February 26, 2020

DesiredPath February Newsletter

Most Important Customer Success Metrics

We've been working on something exciting!

A 3-part Customer Success Metrics interview series, where we asked some of the brightest minds in Customer Success to weigh in about the metrics that matter to them most. Check out the round-up of this month’s content to learn the most important Customer Success metrics.

January 20, 2020

Customer Success Blogs You Should be Following

UserIQ compiled this list of the top customer success blogs and the experts who run them that are constantly sharing their best new ideas on customer success concepts, strategies, and tactics.  DesiredPath's Kia Puhm was featured on the list.

January 1, 2020

20 CS Predictions for 2020

ChurnZero asked industry experts to weigh in on predictions for Customer Success in 2020. Kia Puhm, shared her insights on where the practice is headed.

December 5, 2019

Customer Success & Product

Your Product Isn't Perfect, Now What?

There are certain undeniable truths in life: death, taxes and software that does not always work as intended (and more often than CS would like). 

What is Customer Success to do when releases go wonky, the product is lacking features customers are asking for, the roadmap shows no indication of when they will be added, or users don't "use the product as intended" (i.e. it's the customer's "fault")?

Join Kia Puhm, Founder & CEO of DesiredPath, as she explores how to navigate this Product-Customer Support-Customer Tug of War to turn a potentially toxic situation into a healthy, natural tension that keeps the product innovative and meeting the evolving needs of the customer and keeps Customer Success sane!

November 14, 2019

Lattitude 44

Tech Conference & Music Week

Fintech and Open Banking: Valuable Lessons from the EU.

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Founder Kia Puhm was invited to speak on a panel discussing changes occurring in the banking industry due to the advances in FinTech. Kia shares how banks can use Customer Experience as a key competitive differentiator in open banking.

October 3, 2019

DesiredPath September Newsletter

Customer Success is a Mindset, Not Just a Department

Collaboration is key for customer success.  Customer success is not just one department's responsibility, it is a mindset that needs to be embraced by everyone - vendors, their employees and customers alike - to ensure that customers realize value.  Check out the round-up of this month’s content below to help drive collaboration around making customer's successful.

September 5, 2019

Customer Success & Operations

Kia Puhm, Founder & CEO of DesiredPath and frontierswoman in the field of Customer Success was recently invited to CS in Focus' third event in their inaugural series, CS & Operations.

July 31, 2019

DesiredPath July Newsletter

Use Metrics to Drive Growth

Most organizations are unable to measure the value of their customer-focused efforts leading to ineffective spend against retention and inhibiting their ability to focus on growing customer revenue.  Check out the round-up of this month’s content below to help you develop an intelligent framework to revenue growth.

June 19, 2019

How To Keep the Revenue Your Company Worked So Hard to Earn

Companies work hard to attract and win their customers but that effort is for naught if the revenue is going out the door just as quickly as it came in.  Kia Puhm shares a better way to manage revenue and reviewed the industry's first metrics - developed by DesiredPath - to measure the full customer funnel.

June 4, 2019

Growth x Sales: Accelerating Across the Funnel

As competition continues to pop up, it’s increasingly important to consider a growth approach across each funnel stage (not just lead gen), but also in onboarding, customer success, outbound, conversion, and more.  GrowthTO meet-up event saw lighting talks from Coca-Cola, DesiredPath, Google and TopHat to discuss sales' impact to company growth.

May 31, 2019

DesiredPath May Newsletter

It's Time We Understood Our Customer's Desired Path

Use a customer-centric approach to create an Intelligent Framework™ that drives product adoption, loyalty and expansion.  Check out the round-up of this month’s content below to help you best understand your customers’ desire path.

May 1, 2019

Podcast: It's Time to Document the Customer's Desired Path

Helping Sells Radio sat down with DesiredPath's founder & CEO, Kia Puhm, to discuss how it's time companies started documenting their customers' desired path instead of defining the journey for them.

April 8, 2019

The Profitability Blueprint

The theme for this year's CSA SuccessCon conference series is The Profitability Blueprint which looks at the role Customer Success plays in generating profitability for a company.  DesiredPath CEO Kia Puhm spoke about How to Turn Customers into Bigger Customers.

February 1, 2019

Top Customer Success Stories of January 2019

UserIQ highlighted their favourite pieces of motivational and helpful content that kicked off 2019. Why the the Customer Journey is the Desired Path to Success by Kia Puhm was one of their top 5.

October 14, 2018

UserIQ: Real Talk from the Experts with Kia Puhm

UserIQ's 2018 SaaS User Adoption and Onboarding Benchmarking Report showed that companies are still struggling with user adoption and onboarding. They recently interviewed Kia Puhm for tips on creating a user adoption strategy.

August 5, 2018

UserIQ Webinar: Top User Adoption and Onboarding Trends for 2018

As customer success has become a critical strategy for SaaS businesses in the Age of the Customer, proper onboarding and strong user adoption initiatives are key to long-term success. This webinar sets out to understand how SaaS businesses today are handling these efforts. How big of a role does user adoption play in the customer journey, where are teams finding success, and where are they struggling?

June 3, 2018

Funnel Cake: The Impact of Customer Success Before the Sale

Funnel Cake recently sat down with Kia Puhm to discuss the impact of Customer Success before the sale. They talk about how Customer Success can have an impact on sales and marketing and what value the role can bring in the earlier stages of the buyer's journey.

April 11, 2018

Pulse 2018: Journey Orchestration, This ain't your grandparent's old journey map!

Companies either do not have a customer journey map, or when they do, it's really the process map they would like customers to follow in adopting the product.  This workshop presented at Pulse 2018 reviews how to design a journey map that actually maps to your customer's journey and how that insight significantly helps companies align to it and accelerate their growth.

March 18, 2018

Hubspot ask an Expert: Career Advice for the Customer Success Professional 

On International Woman's Day, Hubspot asked Kia Puhm what advice she would give someone looking to grow their career in Customer Success.

March 4, 2018

Churn Zero Webinar with Kia Puhm: Accelerate Account Expansion

ChurnZero invited Kia Puhm to speak on their webinar about accelerating account expansion. Listen to learn more about how to use your customer journey and segmentation to drive up-sell and cross-sell opportunities.

October 22, 2017

CSA: The Now and Future of Customer Success, A Success Plan for Customer Success

The Customer Success Association held its quarterly SuccessCon event this past week. CEO, Kia Puhm, was invited to speak about the future of Customer Success sharing her thoughts on "A Success Plan for Customer Success".

June 26, 2017

CXPA: Human (aka Customer) Design Thinking

The CXPA, or Customer Experience Professionals Association, dedicated to cultivating the Customer Experience profession and through their local networks, regularly host events to advance the knowledge amongst the industry’s professionals. Run by a dedicated group of CX professionals, the Toronto local chapter headed up by Derek Bildfell, focused on Human Design Thinking for this month’s event.

June 11, 2017

Helping Sells Radio Invites Kia Puhm to the Podcast

Last Wednesday CEO, Kia Puhm, had the honour to appear as a guest on Helping Sells Radio to speak with cohosts Sarah Brown and Bill Cushard about the product roadmap tug of war.

February 28, 2017

Totango Summit 2017: Journey Towards a Customer Centric Organization

The objective of every company is to drive revenue, and business operations should be aligned to support that goal. View this slideshow to understand what it means to be a customer centric organization and know the three tenets to becoming so.

May 8, 2016

Driving Customer Retention

In this white paper, we will look at how SaaS companies should leverage customer knowledge to develop strong and long lasting relationships that deliver benefits to both parties.  We'll also look at the 3 biggest renewal challenges and how to navigate around them.

April 4, 2016

Improving Customer Retention by Managing the Customer Journey

Customer retention means knowing why your customers bought and delivering on your commitment to provide what you sold. By managing the customer journey, customer retention can be a proactive and enjoyable process.  Listen to the webinar for best practices on customer retention.

March 1, 2016

Defining & Managing Your Customer Lifecycle

Understanding your entire customer lifecycle is the foundation of an effective Customer Experience (CX) framework that drives revenue, retention and scale.  This webinar recording contains the 3 fundamental elements critical for establishing a disciplined and sustainable CX framework that increases product adoption, customer lifetime value, and loyalty.