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[UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING]
I am Dickey Singh, CEO and founder of Cast.app, a platform that uses digital customer success managers and digital account managers, along with automation and personalization to drive efficient growth while saving significant costs.
We are excited to have Teresa [Chu] join us today for a Cast.app customer webcast. Teresa has been an amazing customer and design partner and helped develop Cast.app into the automation and digital product it is today.
Aruba was already a front-runner in digital customer success and developed Steve, a digital CSM, early on. And CAST is simply adding to her vision and experience. She has helped us make digital customer success personal. So it's no longer a one-to-many technology, but a personalized and digital one-on-one experience for every persona and user Aruba interacts with, from executive decision-makers to operators to individual power users.
We have so many good things to say about her and her involvement with Cast.app that will take up the whole session. Before I ask her to introduce herself, let me sneak in a word about Cast.app.
Cast.app is an automation platform to drive growth and revenue from existing customers without expanding teams. We automate things that matter the most to customer success, customer marketing, and revenue leaders. That's growth, revenue, and referrals. Integral to growth is driving usage and adoption of products customers are paying for, leading to effortless renewals, upsells, cross-sells, and a constant stream of referrals from satisfied customers.
Teresa, your team has expanded to several programs with Cast.app-- ProCare Welcome, ProCare Kickoff, ProPremier Welcome, and [ProPremier] Kickoff.
And we just learned that you want to implement the partner program with Cast.app too. I cannot wait to show you the NRR waterfall slide. You started with Aruba Monthly Insights Review, and that is what we want to focus on today.
Teresa, welcome to this customer webcast, and thank you for your partnership and journey with us.
Please introduce yourself and tell us about the awesome digital success and marketing program at Aruba.
Hi, everyone. I'm Teresa, Head of Digital Engagement Strategy at Aruba Networks. And I'm really excited to be here today to share how we were able to scale our customer success program by adopting a digital-first approach, as well as partnering with innovative forward-thinking companies, such as Cast.app.
But first, a little bit about myself. As mentioned, I'm currently working at Aruba as head of digital engagement and strategy. I was responsible for building the company's first-ever digital customer success program, and my day-to-day includes continued management and optimization of the program. I've actually worked in various areas of marketing. I've worked in channel marketing and branding, marketing program management and paid media. So yeah, pretty much everything under the sun, but I feel like all my experiences, although diverse, they have all contributed to me being a well-rounded marketing professional. Some things I like to do in my free time. I love watching classical movies. I love Hitchcock, especially Rear Window, The Birds, to name a few movies. I just feel like with classical movies, they happen before the advent of fancy special effects. So there really had to be the strong core plot to carry the movie forward.
So for those of you unfamiliar with the company, Aruba Networks was founded in 2002, acquired by Hewlett Packard Enterprise in 2015. It is a $4 billion company and it provides access management, network infrastructure and mobility application solutions for mobile enterprise network. So now diving into the meat of the presentation for the agenda today, I'm going to start off by going over the Aruba Customer Success Charter, talk about the digital customer success story, delve into an initiative very important to us entitled Digital Reimagined, then talk about our partnership with Cast.app, share some results we have been able to achieve with a digital first approach. And I want to finish off with some key tips and learnings I hope you can walk away with.
First up, our customer success charter.
So the Aruba customer success team, we strive to provide customers with proactive data-driven post-buy engagement to ensure customers get the most value out of their investment. The team strives to be a center of excellence by adopting innovative digital-first strategies and operational agility, and sharing these best practices across all business units to deliver overall value to the organization.
So now, moving on to the Aruba digital customer success story. Actually, the movement towards a digital experience had already largely been underway, and the pandemic outbreak of 2020, along with a boom in B2B SaaS-based subscription economies, it really only expedited this whole process. Especially for Aruba customer success, we found that with over 90% of our customer base being tech touch, by adopting a digital CS-led model characterized by automation, customization, and engagement, we can then create personalized customer experiences in a scalable way. And by adopting such a model, we can then ensure all of our customers receive the critical information that they need to become successful with the product. So how did the Aruba digital customer success story come to be.
It really all began with data and understanding what clean and reliable data we had access to. This is necessary for a number of reasons to understand and build customer segments, track customer health, differentiate customers by life stage, and use data to track user behavior within the product. Next, we began mapping the customer journey and identifying the different touch points. So creating the journey maps, it was a direct outcome of our MVP, Minimum Viable Product process. It is a framework we adopted with the focus to produce the least and smallest amount of functionality to deliver a customer success experience to our customers.
The key components of a framework are a hierarchy of goals, ethics, and issues with their respective owners. Tasks are completed in two-week intervals known as sprint cycles. I also want to add a special note here that journey maps are definitely living, breathing documents and they should be changed as frequently as business needs dictate. Thereafter came the content creation process, which encompassed creating compelling stories that would really resonate with the audience and incentivize them to take action. So for me, when creating content, it's important to first and foremost understand who your audience is and what your goals are and how you want to speak to them.
Since we're trying to simulate this one-to-one type of experience for our Tech Touch customers with our communications, it was important for me that our email still read as though it was coming from a CSM.
That is why, say hello to Steve.
This is our virtual CSM and Steve was born. I wanted to bring our communications to life and have this friendly digital CSM Steve guide users to critical resources, such as knowledge bases and forums that would really allow them to become self-sufficient and successful with their product. I also want to take this opportunity to emphasize that while I do believe customer success should own customer-facing communications, I do think it's important to stay in lockstep with marketing in order to ensure branding rules are adhered to so that your customers have this really consistent and whole experience with your company.
So now let's double click into one of our campaigns. This is the first of our onboarding series of communications. I would argue that this is probably the most important communication, given the fact that welcome emails produce the highest open rates out of all of your communications. At this point in time, new users are excited about your product and they're eager to hear from you. So that's why it's really important to start off strong. In this email, I reaffirm the product's value, I incorporate elements of personalization, and I list out important resources to help users become successfully onboarded.
I also have integrated an engaging video featuring Steve walking the user through the product and pointing them out to critical resources. I have to admit, initially, it was quite a challenge to find a way to incorporate so much material into a single email in an easy to digest manner. So as a best practice when crafting an email, you should always keep the body simple, accurate and authentic so that recipients don't lose interest. So keeping that in mind, I picked out a few key points to focus on in order to keep the message sharp and relevant to the end user.
So once the communications are launched, your job is definitely not done. it's important to keep a close eye on metrics so you can take the necessary corrective actions to continuously optimize your content. So as a good starting point, I would suggest starting off with classic email metrics and comparing them to industry averages. The ones I focus on are delivery rate, bounce rate, open rates. Well, the delivery rate and the bounce rate can indicate if there are any issues with the contact list, while the open rates, the engagement and unsubscribe can indicate your content is actually resonating with the end users. Other metrics I like to keep an eye on are adoption. And this can really vary with every organization. But for example, our utilization rates increasing, is churn decreasing, are users renewing their subscriptions. It also costs more to attract a new customer.
So it makes sense to retain customers and build a loyal relationship with them. And you can do so by conducting surveys, which will provide valuable insights about your customers' needs and wants. You can then also figure out what makes them happy, learn more about them to build out a clearer user profile so that you can better cater your content to meet their needs. And you can also obtain useful product feedback that you can then share with the product team.
There are so many components within an email, so definitely don't overlook testing. Test everything from the subject lines, the visuals, the content, the CTA, the buttons, so that you are constantly boosting your engagement rates. So today's customers are definitely first and foremost digital customers. They rely on various digital channels to navigate and communicate with your brands. Therefore, brands must seamlessly engage customers across various digital devices so that you can fill in the gaps in their customer journey.
I think a good quote that I want to share with you guys is that highly engaged customers, they will buy 90% more often, they're going to spend 60% more per transaction, and they'll have three times the annual value compared to other customers.
So just reinforcing why it's so important to make sure you keep your customers engaged. So what are exactly the trends that you should look out for? Some of the trends to watch out for are chatbots and AI will continue to be used to automate many sales and marketing tasks.
AI chatbots, they have really allowed brands to scale their service on up by providing an easy way for customers to find answers to their problems quickly. They can also connect visitors to FAQ sections on the site. Additionally, today's businesses, they have more access than ever to customer data. So this data can be used to deliver personalized customer experiences with predictive analytics and AI.
You're also seeing businesses deep dive into the data and provide personalized services and recommendations. Additionally, using the previous data of the customers, brands can then know when customers might need to purchase again, or they're looking for new products. They can also find and use patterns contained within the data in order to detect risks and opportunities. And this can also, the data can also allow businesses to understand which customers are most at risk of leaving. Additionally, you're going to see a huge boost and continued boost in video marketing strategy brands can no longer get away just by using written content and images alone.
Nowadays, that's really uninteresting and unengaging for customers, especially since they are being inundated with live streaming, interactive 360 videos, augmented reality, and much more. Personalization was once something that was nice to have. It's definitely something that customers have come to expect.
So brands definitely need to find a way to satisfy that expectation. So again, it all starts with the data that you have available. and using that to create detailed customer personas, and using these personas to guide the content that you are then going to share with each customer. Also, you're going to see businesses continue to make use of tools to send triggered e-mails and notifications dependent on the actions that your customers perform.
At Aruba, we are pushing the boundaries and we have been exploring alternative channels to engage with our customers. We have successfully, for example, kicked off a series of customer webinars that cover tips on how to get the most out of our product, as well as keep customers up to date on new releases. We have also been sending out regular cadence newsletters, and we're also working on an app.
Additionally, we have partnered with Cast.app on a few projects, one of which is the Aruba Monthly Insights Review that shares personalized usage data, health indicators, and recommendations on growth opportunities. So as mentioned, we have kicked off a series of webinars, quarterly webinars, designed to share tips and best practices on the configuration and use of Aruba Central features, along with keeping customers up to date on new releases and effectively communicating the value of Aruba Central technical product features. So our webinars have proven to be very successful in connecting our group to other internal groups within Aruba, such as product, the marketing team, and identifying a lot of synergies.
In fact, many of our guest speakers we have in the past webinars have been from other teams. Additionally, we've seen really great metrics overall in terms of of attendance and engagement.
The newsletter not only covers important product release updates, but also best practices for maximum utilization of the product. Additionally, we share customer testimonials from various verticals, exciting upcoming events, such as webinars, as well as we include several opportunities for the customers to provide their feedback. Also, wishlist items that they might have for the product itself, and opportunities for them to just share their experience not only with the product, but with the customer success team. I'm really excited to share that we're also developing an app for customer success. We are in the early stages, but the idea is to leverage customer telemetry data to deliver insights and dashboards that will enable businesses to take the necessary corrective actions to optimize their digital platform, improve the user experience and increase operational efficiency.
So these dashboards are going to track and share trends in the health of the customer's wired wireless networks, the quality of experience for customers' users in campus, branch, or remote offices. And by learning from these trends, customers can be able to infer their users' future needs, anticipate changes needed in their digital platform so that they can address these changing business needs in a timely manner. And we've actually already started receiving a lot of positive customer feedback and interest, especially from the sectors of higher education, hospitality, and technology. And I am also really excited to share that we have partnered with CAST.APP on some projects. I feel like the partnership has allowed us to provide innovative solutions that really help drive user adoption, move our customers along the maturity curve, and ultimately help them derive the most value out of the product.
So I would like to first share our Aruba Monthly Insights Review.
So imagine if you could share personalized usage data, trends, health indicators, and recommended growth opportunities with your customers in a scalable and cost-efficient way. That is exactly what our Aruba Monthly Insights Review does. So I feel like to provide the maximum impact, I'm going to stop talking and show you demo of just what it can do.
Hi, Olivia. Welcome to your personalized presentation. I'm Steve, your digital customer success manager, and I work for you. Yes, I have an upgraded look and several new capabilities. Thank you for noticing. It made my day. I have gathered some key insights and recommendations to help you get the most from Aruba Central. The Aruba customer success team is excited to announce that Aruba Central is now integrated with the HPE GreenLake Edge-to-Cloud platform. First of all, thank you for being a valued Aruba customer for over 1 year and 11 months.
Welcome again and let's dive right in.
First off, I'd like to share a monthly update on your Aruba Central subscription and usage. You have a total of 50 foundation licenses. You have one switch device and 31 instant access point devices. We noticed that you had assigned 30% of your foundation licenses. By assigning more licenses, you can connect your devices to Central and obtain a more comprehensive view of your network. Learn more by visiting the Aruba Central Help pages. Four of your licenses are expiring in 30 days. Schedule some time with Carol Rice Murphy, your Customer Success Manager, to renew these licenses before they expire. You have zero advanced licenses. Did you know advanced licenses include all foundation features and add enhanced AI ops security and other premium features? It also adds end-to-end segmentation, expanded AI insights, unified communication and collaboration visibility, reporting and more. If you are interested in purchasing advanced licenses, please fill out a form by clicking on the recommendation on the right.
Ava, what would you like to learn about next? Aruba Central Usage? Recommendations? What's new in Central? We can also select "Show me everything" to view all the topics. Please select an option. That is a great choice. Here is your license utilization over the last six months. You had a 0% change in license utilization during this period. Your average month-over-month license utilization rate is 50%. Customers like you experience an average month-over-month license utilization rate of 73%. It looks like your average month-over-month license utilization falls below the customer benchmark. Contact a customer success manager on tips and tricks to boost your utilization. We highly encourage you to explore and use all features of Central to streamline network management. We notice that you have not yet utilized the highlighted features. We recommend visiting Aruba Central Help pages to learn more about the features. We have the following recommendations for you based on your account profile. You can view additional resources for each recommendation anytime by clicking on the bell icon on the bottom right. Sign up for Aruba Support Portal to save time and boost network performance. You can request assistance, create an RMA, download documentation, view video demos, and more, via the portal. Aruba offers free short e-learning courses and live webinars to IT professionals.
These courses provide knowledge on Aruba technologies, industry trends, and networking basics. Once a quarter, Aruba Customer Success holds webinars for its customers. The webinars cover the latest releases of Central along with tips and tricks on maximizing the value of your investment. Stay up to date on company news, product capabilities, and new features by checking out our newsletter. Let's check out new features and enhancements with Aruba Central this month. Click on the bell icon on the bottom right any time during this presentation to view additional resources for each topic. Aruba Central will become integrated with the HPE GreenLake Edge to Cloud Unified Platform. HPE GreenLake enables you to view and manage your networking, computing, and storage infrastructure via a single cloud-based portal. Migrating Aruba central to HPE GreenLake ensures a consistent IT experience in both products and in the cloud and on-premises.
Many central account management functions such as subscription management, device inventory, and role-based access controls will be managed within the HPE GreenLake platform. Aruba Central Net Conductor, through network configuration and security services, addresses the challenges of adopting zero-trust and secure access service edge security. Central Net Conductor helps you automate and accelerate the deployment, operations, and security of your network. Cloud authentication and authorization for Aruba Central allow seamless onboarding and secure role-based policies for users and devices. Thank you, Eva, for viewing your personalized video. We'd love to hear your overall satisfaction with Aruba Central and your experience with how this monthly recap went. Please take a moment to take a short survey and share your thoughts. Thinking about the monthly recap you just saw, what did you think about the format and information presented? You can enter additional feedback anytime by clicking on the bell icon at the bottom right of the screen.
Enter your feedback in the text box provided. Please select an option. You selected "Very Satisfied". Your overall satisfaction with Aruba Central is important to us. How likely are you to rate it? You gave a rating of 9. Thank you for completing the survey. Your feedback is valuable and will help improve the central products and services. If there is anything further you'd like to discuss, feel free to reach out to a customer success manager. Here are some additional resources to help you get the most out of central.
I hope you guys enjoyed the demo of our Aruba monthly insights review.
I also want to cover some other use cases where we have partnered with Cast.app
So for our ProCare and ProPremier customers, we have created both an automated digital welcome package that goes over necessary onboarding steps, such as logging into Aruba Support Portal, filling out the intake form, sending the network topology and configuration information. We also created an automated digital kickoff video that details service scope, roles and responsibilities, Aruba high-level solution deployment, and the Aruba Support Portal. And in the works, we are also working on a few projects for our partner success program. So lots of exciting projects to come.
I also want to share some results that we were able to achieve with the Aruba Monthly Insights Review.
Now I would like to share some tips on best practices for adoption of digital-first approaches for your customer success program.
So some tips I would like for you to take away from my presentation. First, I think make it a point to test any and all elements of your email communications, whether it be the subject line, the content, the CTA, the buttons, the visuals. So we want to make a big difference in boosting your customer engagement and allowing you to make continued optimizations. And as mentioned, customers engage with your brands via various digital mediums nowadays.
So it's definitely important to continue to push the boundaries, explore various ways to connect and create memorable experiences for your customers. I also want to make it a point to mention that definitely monitor the marketplace so that you can keep abreast of what your peers are doing to engage customers. Personally, I've attended some seminars and workshops where I found it very valuable because it gave me the chance to share and learn from my peers. And I definitely encourage you to do the same.
Lastly, any opportunities that you have where you can learn and hear from your customers directly seize them. They are the ones on the receiving end of your communications. So it is of utmost importance that you understand their pain points so that your communication can be as useful and relevant to their needs as possible.
So with that, I'm gonna leave you with these final words. Look ahead and continue to optimize the digital experience. And I would like to thank everyone for coming to my presentation today and tuning in.
I definitely love it if you would connect with me on LinkedIn or contact me via email to have any discussions about your customer success programs. I would love to chat. And again, thank you for tuning in today.
Teresa, that was insightful. Thank you so much for doing this. We should do this more often.
Would you mind sending me your address? I would like to send you something. And again, appreciate this, appreciate you for doing this. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Dickey. Thanks for having me. I really love and appreciate this opportunity to connect with everyone and share our customer success story. Thank you. - Thank you so much.
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Teresa Chu,
Head of Digital Engagement Strategy,
Customer Success,
Aruba Networks
Teresa Chu is a full-stack marketer with skills spanning from writing/storytelling and data analysis to program strategy and execution. Currently, she heads the digital engagement strategy for Customer Success at Aruba Networks. She enjoys writing short stories, running, reading, and watching classical movies in her free time.