Delivery and Customer Success

Purpose

Phase 8 actually realises the customer value promised in the sale, confirms the customer's trust and creates the basis for long-term collaboration, repeat purchases and recommendations.

Key message

The customer experiences the promised benefit. The focus is on realising value and on trust. The result is satisfied customers, references and follow-on business. The phase is strongly shaped by implementation and relationship: this is where a sales promise becomes experienced benefit.

When the phase begins

With the concluded contract or order and a clear basis of services and expectations from phase 7. Customer Success does not begin after the close, but with it.

Who drives this phase

Phase 8 is driven by Delivery, the project team and Customer Success. Overall responsibility lies with the person responsible for delivery or for the customer relationship, and that person is clearly named. Sales is involved for the handover, as is product. Executive management and Marketing are informed.

Delivery implements the agreed service and ensures that scope, quality and expectations are met. Customer Success makes sure that the customer recognises and achieves the promised benefit, looks after expectations and the relationship, and recognises potential for renewal and expansion. The two roles do not replace each other, and neither of them should compensate for false sales promises or close new deals.

Realistic in this phase are customer value, customer retention and expansion, not Delivery and Customer Success replacing the acquisition of new demand.

Key questions

Phase 8 is only successful once these questions have been answered positively:

Has the service promise that was sold been kept?
Does the customer recognise the expected benefit?
Is the collaboration stable and based on trust?
Is there potential for expansion, additional services or renewal?
Is the customer willing to act as a reference?

What actually happens

The basis is the contract and the offer, the expectations and goals agreed in phase 7, and the conditions at the customer. Sales hands over to Delivery and Customer Success in a structured way. The agreed service is implemented, expectations are aligned continuously, and customer success is measured and communicated. This includes clean documentation of the initiative and of customer contact, as well as regular feedback on satisfaction.

Expected results

Phase 8 is complete when the following is in place:

a service that has been provided and accepted
a demonstrable customer benefit
a satisfied, stable customer
where present: identified follow-on potential

How you can tell that the phase holds up

Customers are satisfied and say so in structured feedback. Contracts are renewed and the collaboration continues. And the benefit shows early, not only at the end.

Phase principle

“A deal is only good when the customer sees it the same way.”

What deliberately does not happen here

What was promised in the sale is not qualified after the fact. Customer success is not an extra that is attended to when time allows. The quality of delivery comes before short-term turnover.

Typical failure patterns

The handover from sales is poor or missing.
The customer does not understand the benefit.
Delivery has to compensate for false sales promises.
Customer Success is involved too late.

Transition to phase 9

Phase 9 requires that cycles from phases 4 to 8 have been completed (conversations, closed deals, deliveries) and that data, experience and observations are available. Without real experience there is no valid feedback. Phase 9 therefore does not follow phase 8 once only, but runs regularly and takes up insights from all phases.