How Do I Run a Useful Customer Check-In?

A customer check-in meeting agenda that helps is built around one outcome the customer wants this quarter and one obstacle in the way of it. Ask for both before the meeting. Keep status to the first two minutes or send it in writing, and spend most of the meeting on the obstacle.

The monthly check-in is on the calendar and the customer accepted it. You both already know how it will go. Twenty minutes of status, a question about whether they need anything, and a polite no.

Why Does a Customer Check-In Turn into a Status Update?

Nobody named a problem before the meeting started. You arrive with usage numbers and a roadmap slide. The customer arrives with a full afternoon and nothing specific in mind. Status is the only content either of you brought, so status fills the time, and the customer learns the meeting can be declined without losing anything.

Bryson Hilton and colleagues, writing in Industrial Marketing Management in 2020, describe customer success management as organized around the customer's goals, with the customer as the main actor and the vendor in support. A check-in with no stated customer goal has nothing to organize around.

What Should I Send before the Check-In?

Send two questions with the invitation, a few days ahead:

1. What is one outcome you want from the product this quarter?
2. What is in the way of it right now?

Add a line naming the kinds of problems the meeting is for. A workflow the tool hasn't replaced yet. A team that was supposed to start using it and hasn't. A report their leadership wants and can't get. An integration their IT team has on hold. Naming them tells the customer the check-in is for problems of that size.

If the answers come back, you have an agenda. If they don't, the customer may not see the check-in as a place to raise problems.

The answer also tells you who should attend. If the obstacle sits with a specific team, ask your contact whether that team's manager can join for the part of the meeting about their team. Keep the invitation tied to the obstacle, so the manager can see why their time is needed.

Steven Rogelberg, an organizational psychologist who studies meetings, summarized the research on agendas (2019) as finding that agendas in and of themselves do little to improve meetings. He recommends framing the agenda as questions to be answered, and treats an inability to write any as a sign the meeting isn't needed.

Rogelberg also recommends drawing agenda items from the attendees, and keeping any update to a small part of the meeting, since one-way information can go through another channel.

What Should a Customer Check-In Meeting Agenda Include?

The first two minutes. Status, kept short. Better still, send it in writing the day before and use these two minutes to ask whether anything in it surprised them.

The middle. The obstacle they named. Ask what they've tried, who is involved, and what would count as solved. This is working time, and it should take most of the meeting.

Some obstacles belong to someone else. A bug goes to support, and hands-on configuration goes to your services team. Route those during the meeting, with a ticket number or a named person before you hang up, and keep the rest of the time for the problems only you can help with, such as a team that hasn't switched over or a report their leadership needs.

Beibei Dong and K. Sivakumar, in a 2017 paper in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, describe customers as partial producers of the service they receive. The information, effort, and context a customer brings change what comes back to them. You can only work on what the customer shows you, and asking ahead of time is how you get it.

What you can offer. Three things, each already part of your job. A written product request, tied to a workflow they own, that you carry to your product team. An introduction to an executive on your side, when a renewal or escalation needs one. An example from another customer who solved the same problem.

The last five minutes. Agree on who does what next, by when. One owner on their side, one on yours.

Working the obstacle and assigning owners are the kinds of talk Simone Kauffeld and Nale Lehmann-Willenbrock linked to better meetings. They videotaped dozens of regular internal team meetings and coded what was said (Small Group Research, 2012). Teams with more problem-solving talk and action planning were more satisfied with their meetings, and better meetings went with higher team productivity. Criticizing and complaining had negative effects, stronger than the positive ones.

What Do I Ask when the Customer Says Everything Is Fine?

"Everything is fine" can be true. It can also mean they don't see the check-in as the place for problems, or they haven't looked closely. Ask questions that point at specific things they can see:

• What's the next project on your team's list, and does the product have a part in it?
• Who on your team uses it least, and what do they use instead?
• What will your manager ask you about next quarter that you can't answer yet?
• If you could change one thing about how your team uses it, what would it be?

Each of these has a concrete answer. If every answer is still fine, offer to shorten or space out the meeting.

What Goes in the Follow-Up Note, and when Should We Meet Less Often?

The follow-up note is short. The obstacle, what was agreed, the owner on each side, and the date. Send it the same day, so the customer's version of the meeting and yours match, and so anyone who missed the call can see what was agreed.

If two check-ins in a row produce nothing to work on, change how often you meet. Offer a working session whenever there is an obstacle, and skip the month when there isn't one.

For the next check-in on your calendar, send the two questions today, and build the agenda from whatever comes back.

References & Related Reading

• Customer Success Management: The next evolution in customer management practice?, Bryson Hilton, Bita Hajihashemi, Conor M. Henderson, and Robert W. Palmatier, Industrial Marketing Management, 2020.
• Customer participation in services: domain, scope, and boundaries, Beibei Dong and K. Sivakumar, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 2017.
• What the Science Says about Meeting Agendas May Surprise You, Plus an Alternative Approach That Could Be a Game Changer, Steven G. Rogelberg, 2019.
• Meetings Matter: Effects of Team Meetings on Team and Organizational Success, Simone Kauffeld and Nale Lehmann-Willenbrock, Small Group Research, 2012.
• CSM Responsibilities and Services, GitLab Handbook, current page.