Why It's Worthwhile to Interview Wins Too
When it comes to understanding how to improve win rates, it can be tempting to focus on your losses and what went wrong.
But it’s important to interview wins, too, because what you learn from those recently acquired customers can help you to:
Know What’s Working in Sales and Marketing. Talking to your newly signed customers can help you get a better sense of what messaging is working, how they found you, what the sales team is doing well, any relevant information about particular industries or segments, and which product capabilities set you apart, so you can leverage all of this for future deals.
Learn How Onboarding is Going. There may be blind spots in the sales- to-implementation handoff, or perhaps customers are getting stuck with certain integrations or need better training. Win interviews help you uncover issues, address them, and help your customers achieve that first critical value moment. In turn, this leads to a lower likelihood of customers churning to an in-house solution or a competitor.
Build Loyalty and Trust. By taking the time to interview new customers, you give them a voice to share their feedback candidly and directly, not through a standard survey. This increases their confidence that you are investing in their success. We often hear interviewees say they really valued the fact that the vendor was making an investment in a program to gather their feedback.
Capture Positive Feedback. Win interviews allow you to capture positive feedback to drive customer advocacy. You can encourage your customers to share their feedback on online review sites, by speaking on sales reference calls, or by presenting at webinars or conferences. You can also use the content to publish case studies and testimonials on your own website.
Improve Your Product: Finally, talking to your customers can uncover surprising ways they have modified your product to best suit their needs – and which might provide an answer to key product challenges that your losses are struggling with.
Interviewing both wins and losses is important to gain insights into how your company can nurture success. Don't limit yourself – take advantage of both opportunities.