Nicolas Chignardet, Head of Customer Success & Renewal at Bonitasoft, describes his view of how respect and trust among the team supports autonomy to do the job well.
Today our Bonitasoft value focus is on "Trust & Autonomy."
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I’ve been managing the Customer Success team at Bonitasoft for 3 years now. Each member of our team has a relationship with their own set of specific Bonita customers, to keep in contact with them to be sure that they are able to implement successful projects with the Bonita platform.
Our team is results-orientated, target-driven, instead of management instruction driven.
We don’t talk about “schedule,” we talk only about achieving individual and team goals. And when we talk about goals and objectives, we review the key milestones, not each and every step to take.
Everyone has their own way of working, I dare to say their own style, so once the goal is defined, each Customer Success representative is free to achieve it the way they want. We follow our customer project evolutions, but as long as we are confident in their project's health, I don’t need to impose anything, they only ask when they need guidance or feedback from a different perspective.
Some people want more guidance than others, but everyone feels free to ask for what they need and I am happy to offer support when needed.
So everyone on our team has the opportunity to be creative, to go the extra mile, to design their own way to reach their target. They own their work and their results… as much as possible when dealing with customers.
As a result, we have really positive feedback from our customers about their relationship with their specific customer success representative. They have a personal connection with someone who is the “face of the company.”
As a manager, what I apply is what I receive from my own management. As long as I can report on our results, and we are on target, the method is mine - how I work and how I work with my team.
My manager’s trust in me and my trust in my team gives us all quite a bit of autonomy, but we can all really rely on each other for help and support so no one is out there lost and alone!
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We've been posting about our 6 key Bonitasoft company values. So far we have featured:
