Evaluating Your (Nonexistent) Tech Stack

I recently gave a webinar and a follow-up question was “We’ve had CS for a while but now need to take a closer eye at our tech stack. We have a CRM, no one dedicated to CS Ops, and no CSM tool. What do we do?”

1. Clean Slate – That’s often a great spot to be in — you lack a lot of tech debt (clean slate) and you’re early enough where you can build what you need (though make sure you have someone guiding you!). 🗺️
2. Start From the Company Strategy – Any tech stack decisions should flow from the company/CS strategy (e.g., what you want to do next year should necessitate what your tech looks like). It does not make sense to procure a CSM tool if you’re not expanding your CSM team. Conversely, it makes more sense to hire a part-time/contract person to clean up data if that’s getting between you achieving results and CSMs trusting the data in the CRM/other tools.
3. Alignment & Prioritization – The best and more on-time tool procurements had clear alignment up front and a MoSCoW prioritization (Must Have, Should Have, Could Have, Won’t Have) to identify all the use cases and features that you need (and don’t need!) for your tool. This makes the decision process significantly more scientific, clear to everyone, and more straightforward when decision time comes.
4. Adequate Staffing – Make sure you have adequate staffing. That could be hiring a dedicated ops manager, having someone on the team spend 8 hours of their week, a contractor, or…Get creative! However, don’t become unrealistic thinking it will just “magically work”. 🪄
5. Executive Sponsor and DRI – Who is the executive sponsor and who is the DRI (Directly Responsible Individual) who is responsible to get it done? Make sure that’s outlined in the project plan. 

From there, sit with these considerations:

1. What are the gaps and needs that my team has highlighted? What do I think?
2. What companies can I talk to to learn how they approach these questions?
3. Is there a consultant I can talk with (usually the first call is free!)?
4. Is Finance/Leadership asking me to cut tech spend?
5. What is the typical tech spend for a company like mine?

A Project Plan should incorporate at least the following:

1. Project name (duh)
2. Success Criteria or Exit Criteria to know what “done” is
3. Resources needed
4. Key leaders and DRIs
5. Timeline (kickoff, milestones, due date)

This is not an exhaustive list but is purposefully brief for two reasons:

1. Our tendency is to overcomplicate situations
2. Starting and ending with the basics, we are more likely to succeed