{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Ep. 247: Mari Cross | These B2B Customers Don\u2019t Buy Features. They Buy Outcomes.","description":"Episode 247: What if customers achieve real results\u2014but don\u2019t know it? Most vendors sell functionality. Mari Cross wants customers to see impact\u2014in their own numbers, in real time. Mari Cross, Chief Customer Officer at Infor, is dismantling a common illusion: that delivering software features equals delivering value. Infor sells enterprise resource planning (ERP) tools, but Mari's focus is on proving business outcomes. She built a system where customers define the results that matter, track them through the product itself, and act on them with confidence. Her team isn\u2019t there to rescue implementations. They\u2019re there to make value obvious\u2014and to ensure it keeps showing up. Most ERP systems operate like black boxes. Even when customers get results, they can\u2019t always prove it. Mari attacks that gap.  Infor's value mapping begins before the deal closes. Once the system is live, telemetry and process mining show what\u2019s working and where clients are drifting off course. This isn\u2019t a side program\u2014it's baked into the product and reflected back to users in dashboards, metrics, and business KPIs. The shift isn\u2019t just operational. It\u2019s cultural. Mari rebuilt Infor\u2019s customer success team to be proactive, industry-specific, and integrated from day one. That means fewer rescue missions, fewer slide decks, and more conversations grounded in actual product usage and outcome data. And it means the customer success journey starts well before go-live\u2014and runs all the way through renewal. \u201cA good value conversation is if you have some measures in place that are more repeatable than having a value engineer fly in from left field,\u201d Mari says. Learn how Infor\u2019s CareFor Success program gives customer success teams the tools, visibility, and data to show what\u2019s working and where to go next. And learn how and why value delivered is value clients understand. Guest: Mari Cross, Chief Customer Officer at Infor Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give Us Feedback: Help us improve the podcast (feedback link) Want to get in touch? Send a note to host Rob Markey. Key Topics Covered: (01:00) The value void: what clients miss\u2014and what it costs (03:30) Why Infor embeds value mapping into the sales process (06:10) Telemetry, process mining, and outcome tracking (11:45) The difference industry specificity makes (14:50) Mari\u2019s CareFor Success program explained (17:30) Getting sales, success, and product aligned (22:15) Making value visible across the customer lifecycle (25:00) How to track value realization in real time (36:00) Culture change and customer empathy Notable Quotes: [05:00] \u201cIf someone wanted to stick completely to standard, they could flip the switch on Day 1 and use our product. That\u2019s very different than the approach, I think, some other vendors take.\u201d [10:00] \u201cIn the vision of, \u2018We succeed when our customers succeed,\u2019 the [chief customer officer] role [at Infor] was really pivoted to make sure to focus on ongoing value realization and optimization after the go-live date. That is probably a very unique orientation for Infor.\u201d \u200a[12:00] \u201cWe are very focused on this idea of value engagement. We launched CareFor Success, which is our success program, last year. But it's completing this value-based customer journey all the way through where we are on a regular basis, across all teams, and repeatedly driving value with our customers by helping them look at the data, optimize, and then that visibility into value delivered within the product.\u201d [29:00] \u201cWe want to be in sync with our strategy when we talk about success motions, because that alone is an incredible power. We can become proactive.\u201d ","author_name":"Customer Confidential: Untold Stories of Earned Growth","author_url":"http:\/\/baincompany.libsyn.com\/site","html":"