Customer Engineering: Working with Customers

Discovery and Demo

The initial conversation(s) with a customer can vary in length and scope, but always involve discovery, that is uncovering their needs and motivations, and demonstrating product capabilities. This could range from an abbreviated 30 minute intro call with a smaller prospect, or multiple hour-long calls across various stakeholders and teams at an enterprise organization.

Capturing Techincal Requirements

Early on in the process, we begin to understand the needs of our prospective customers. As we learn about them - their needs, their tech stack, etc. we begin to document both the product and technical requirements and the business context of the deal. For complex engagements, we have internal technical reviews with cross-functional teams to ensure we are aligned and that the customer is positioned for success.

Trial / POC Planning

Once a customer is interested in trialing Sourcegraph, we need to start planning to ensure success. Topics may include:

• Documenting their technical landscape (CE-led)
• Trial use cases / metrics for success (CE-led)
• Business value assessment planning (AE-led)
• User survey planning (AE-led)
• Deployment support and checklist (CE-led)
• Technical configuration review (CE-led)
• Trial rollout plan (CE-led)
• Communication and ongoing support (CE-led)

Security Reviews

Many customers send security questionnaires to complete. They are required to proceed with the partnership. The current process for completing them is:

1. Work with the AE to get access to the security questionnaire.
2. Note the customer preferred deployment type (self-hosted, managed, or cloud).
3. If you (the CE) feel comfortable doing so, take a first pass at the questionnaire. Use the source of truth document.
4. Talk to your region’s CE in charge of security reviews. Have them take a pass at it and review it. Please ensure timelines are properly communicated and enough notice is given to all involved stakeholders.
5. If the Security CE feels it necessary, they may involve the product manager on the security team. Typically this involves asking one-off questions in the security source of truth document, but they may also request full security questionnaire reviews. Note that full reviews may require extra time to get prioritized and worked on by the security team.

The current CE’s in charge of security questionnaires are Max Wiederholt for US West / APAC and Shawn King for US East / EMEA. We occasionally rotate team members in this role.

License Keys

CEs are the team responsible for generating and maintaining license keys for customers. Here’s some useful resources on how to do that:

• Creating and maintaining license keys for customers
• Recording of creating a new key for demo.sourcegraph.com

Trial / POC

Trials are an important and strategic part of our sales cycles because when developers start to use Sourcegraph, they love it and want to use it forever. Seriously! Typically, our trials run for about a month but sometimes longer. Before, during and after, you collaborate closely with your account executive to ensure a successful experience for the customer.

Before the trial, you’re working with the AE to scope and plan. You consult on best practices for the customer as they deploy and configure Sourcegraph.

During the trial, you’re enabling and educating the customer on how to use Sourcegraph. You orient your activities during the trial against the defined use cases and metrics for success to ensure developers are set up for success.

Post-Sales Engagement Kickoff

Once a customer signs on with Sourcegraph, we need to:

• Generate a full license key.
• Plan a kickoff call with our main contact(s) to plan the engagement.

On the kickoff call we plan our ongoing engagement with the customer. Different customers have different needs, so it’s important to talk through topics such as:

• How often do they want to have check-in calls?
• What types of trainings, webinars, or Q&A sessions could their team use? When?
• Would they like any assistance or resources to integrate Sourcegraph into their developer onboarding process?
• Anything else we can look to help them out with? Upcoming iniaitives they could use Sourcegraph for?

Webinars / Trainings / Q&A Sessions

The webinar you will most-often run is a Sourcegraph 101/102 (basically a longer and more in-depth version of the typical demo flow). It’s important to relate use cases to customer needs.

We may also hold specific topic trainings or Q&A sessions, depending on customer need.

Check-in calls

Check-in calls may be weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or as-needed. Going in to a check-in call you should be familiar with:

• Usage data
• Current Sourcegraph version & upgrade info
• New features in the latest version(s) and/or the product roadmap
• Any recent or active questions or support issues or feature requests from the customer

QBRs

We often hold QBRs, or Quarterly Business Reviews (sometimes referred to as an Executive Business Review), with our customers which recaps how Sourcegraph has been integrated into and creating value for their organization over the past quarter. These QBRs are typically created and presented by the CE assigned to the account, in conjunction with the account’s AE. They are typically presented in a slide deck format to executive-level leadership, and highlight usage metrics and use cases for their org. Additionally, they are used to gather feedback and comments from leadership regarding Sourcegraph.

Expansions and Renewals

Expanding Sourcegraph to a new team or unlocking new enterprise features could involve a full cycle of CE discovery and demos and value mapping. It could also include a trial for a new user group or with that new feature. A basic renewal or seat expansion may not involve CE beyond generating a new license key.

Ongoing Customer Support

While our CS team is primarily responsible for reactive technical support, we help keep an eye out on Slack for any questions or issues that come through. You can view any support issues in Zendesk by using our SFDC <> Zendesk integration. Go to the Account page in Salesforce and click the “Zendesk” tab to view.

At times a customer may raise a feature request or provide product feedback. It is our responsibility as CEs to gather that feedback and share with the product teams.

Account Management

As CEs we are responsible for the technical success of our customers. Post-sales we nurture these relationships and manage the accounts by paying attention to customer health metrics. Usage, adoption, and customer sentiment are important indicators that we monitor and address.

Customer Discovery

The customer discovery playbook provides CEs with a framework and tools to successfully prepare for and conduct your first meetings with prospective customers (or even new stakeholders within existing customer organizations). These inputs should serve as the prerequisites to any customer demo because it enables you to tailor your content and talk track to what’s most relevant to the customer. It also provides key areas for CEs to consider and specific steps to take to ensure the CE has the correct context and knowledge to properly support a successful customer engagement beyond the initial meetings

Red Accounts

As the team accountable for our customers’ technical success, usage, and adoption of our products, CEs must keep a close pulse on the health of our customers. The Red Accounts Program exists to ensure we as a company are assessing customer health at all times.