A Vygotskian Perspective on Customer Success

I’ve always had a very simple north star for guiding my Customer Success practice: be helpful. It’s my responsibility to help my customers get from the present to the future. We describe that progression as a customer’s journey, something that resonates strongly with my education background.

At the most basic level, education is just the transferring of knowledge. At an advanced level, education is the mentoring and development of a learner. As an educator my responsibility is to shepherd learners to where they otherwise would not be able to go. This concept was elegantly conceptualized by psychologist Lev Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development.

Before we get into how this applies to Customer Success, why it’s important, and where you can improve, I want to introduce the man and his theory for those who are unfamiliar.

Who is Lev Vygotsky?

Lev Vygotsky is a Soviet psychologist whose work focused on how social interactions and culture influence the development of children. According to Vygotsky, children continually learn through interactions with their parents and others. His constructivist theory asserts that knowledge and truth are constructed. If you’d like to learn more about his work, it’s divided into three primary concepts: Social Interaction, the More Knowledgeable Other, and the Zone of Proximal Development.

What is the Zone of Proximal Development?

Vygotsky believed there are three types of tasks: (1) those that can be done without assistance, (2) those that cannot be done, and (3) those that can be done with assistance. This third type of task resides in what he coined the zone of proximal development. Through an education lens, the zone of proximal development is the sweet spot where students are being pushed yet supported. The scaffold is gradually tapered down as the learner matures until the task becomes one that can be done without assistance.

How Does it Relate to Customer Success?

You may not realize it, you may not have signed up for it, but if you’re in Customer Success you are indeed an educator. Your customers come with a problem and they need to solve it. Customer Success functions to bridge that gap. Especially when it comes to a new customer, you don’t want them drowning as they swim towards the promised land.

This isn’t just about training and onboarding, the zone of proximal development can be applied to implementation, desire to expand, advocacy… really most things. When you boil it down to the simplest terms, customers have a desired outcome, somewhere they want to get, and Customer Success is the assistance to do what they otherwise may not be able to do.

In the context of Customer Success, “tasks that cannot be done” is a bit of a misnomer. Keep in mind that the outermost ring — tasks which cannot be done — is a moving goal post. As tasks requiring assistance become attainable, those that are unattainable slide into the new zone of proximal development.

That process can be stressful. Adopting a new software or redefining business processes is hard enough. But dealing with constantly being on the fringe of your comfort zone can scare people away. While your customers are focused on reaching their desired outcomes, as a Customer Success professional you want to mask that they may be traversing treacherous waters.

When you reframe education as development, it falls in line with Customer Success. Partner with your customers to achieve their outcomes, support them in times of struggle, and advocate on their behalf — they will grow faster and larger than if you kept them at an arms length.

Why is this Important?

Remember, if your customers are successful, you will be successful. The zone of proximal development is going to manifest differently for each company. Conceptualizing gaps in this way will help determine the best way to build bridges. Documentation, automation, and consultations are just some of the many ways you can scaffold the zone. Self-awareness and empathy for the customer’s journey are crucial in cultivating a successful environment. Here are three Customer Success lenses to apply the concept to:

Outcomes the customer can achieve with assistance. This is the high-level promise that customers will hold you to when they pick you over the competitor. Do not confuse this with successful onboarding, adoption, or implementation. Your product or service is just a vehicle; as Customer Success your focus should be the destination.

Understanding how your company will support the customer on their journey will help define your value as well as identify limitations. Make sure this is openly and candidly discussed early on because if it isn’t talked about then you’re working with incomplete knowledge. Step one is finding out about the desired outcomes of your customer, then step two is articulating how you will make that a reality.

Expertise the customer can achieve with assistance. Maybe your product or service has a considerable gap and requires increased assistance to accomplish tasks. That’s okay, own it and communicate it. Acknowledge that the customer should expect to learn, but then explain how you’ll support them in that journey. What’s the difference between telling them and letting them self-discover? Self-discovery will lead to a sense of personal triumph despite being left to find their own way. Conversely, the former will communicate thoughtfulness, experience, and transparency. The impetus is on you to adopt the customer, not the other way around. Don’t expect the customer to maintain a sense of perspective while they struggle; you possess the mind’s eye and can anticipate for them.

Insights you can achieve with assistance. Learning goes both ways, remember that your customers can teach you about your product or service! There is a wealth of insight you can unlock with the assistance of your customers. Common stumbling blocks, creative unintended uses, and opportunities for new business are just a few benefits from treating your customers as the more knowledgeable one.

Where Can I Improve?

So we’ve identified a new way of understanding Customer Success, but in true Vygotskian fashion let me assist in identifying some ways in which you can improve your practice as a Customer Success professional:

• Have empathy for the discomfort of learning. It’s easy to take for granted what you already know and have labored through. Yet the customer is new to this and unsure where to go. Understand that by definition you are assisting with a task that could not be accomplished otherwise. Expect mistakes, celebrate the process, and reassure your customers that you’re there to help them along the way.
• The outcome is the destination, know it. The promised land is directly tied to the customer’s desired outcomes, not your product or service. Remember that you are a conduit towards value and not the value itself. Take the time to learn about a customer’s starting point and desired end point without the personal bias of your company. This knowledge is instrumental to identify how success will be evaluated. You could offer a beautiful product or service, but if it doesn’t get the customer to where they need to be then you’ve set them adrift.
• Your product is a vehicle and you are the navigator. When you conceptualize your offering as a vehicle and not a destination then things begin to fall in line. New features should be for the purpose of unlocking previously unattainable outcomes or improving the journey to existing possibilities. In Customer Success your role is to be the built-in navigation. Facilitate the successful mobilization towards desired outcomes as an expert operator.
• Document and shrink the gap. Identify common pitfalls as you ferry customers towards their desired outcomes. Work with the rest of the team to shrink the gap by improving the product, but understand that takes time. While under construction be sure to document these frequent stumbling blocks and at least give customers a heads up. However, if you drag your feet and put off those quality of life refinements your customers will be overloaded by warnings.
• Challenge your assumptions about what requires assistance. These two questions will help guide your daily focus: (1) is a task meaningful enough to prioritize its assistance and (2) what makes the task so difficult it requires assistance? Especially as you become an expert in your domain it’s easy to fall into the role of tour guide instead of travel agent. A task may require assistance but is it the right task to be prioritizing? The only way you can answer that question is by knowing the destination. Secondly, leverage that experience you gain from customer after customer. Once you identify why a task is difficult, then you’ll be able to determine how to move it down the chain and not require assistance.

So what do your zones look like? How frequently do you have customers who get stuck and drown? How successful are you in bridging the gap? Is the path to desired outcomes straightforward or winding? How severely are mistakes punished when learning?

With a simple goal of being helpful, an elegant framework to identify tasks requiring assistance, and a methodical approach to bridging the gaps you can guide your daily practice and make a real impact scaffolding your customers’ journey towards their desired outcomes.