The focus of your role:
Our Customer Success program is fundamental to ensuring a successful journey, solution adoption and value realization for Guidewire Customers. The Client Partner is a senior strategic business leader who interacts with the C-suite of our largest, most strategic customers to ensure the success of the customers program(s) and to advocate for their requirements which has the ability to enhance and influence the Guidewire Cloud product roadmap significantly.
As a senior leader, you will be accountable for maximizing the business performance of the account and be the face of Guidewire responsible for customer delight, building trusted customers relationships and bringing thought leadership to cultivate and expand the GW brand. In partnership with Sales, Cloud Ops, Product, Services, Customer & Partner Success teams, as well as our customers, you will craft a strategy to ensure customers are enthusiastically adopting Guidewire throughout their organization, achieving business value from the software and recognizing that value when the time comes to review their subscription.
You will execute that strategy by working directly with customers – from end users up to C-level executives - and by marshaling appropriate resources across the Guidewire organization to create a cohesive, customer-centric experience through a matrixed environment.
As you travel the Path to Success with the customer, you will act as an advocate in the customer’s interest. You will hold Guidewire, our partners, and our customer teams accountable to the joint strategic journey the customer and Guidewire declared when the Path to Success started.
Additionally, the Client Partner will help structure and lead new initiatives across Strategic & Tier 1 customers who are considering or transitioning to Guidewire Cloud.
The Client Partner role is the central point of contact for our customers spanning the Path to Success from pre-sales to implementation through adoption. They play a critical role as a “trusted advisor” to our customers CxOs and Business Units.
What you’ll do: The role is responsible for collaborating with the GW teams and customers to help lead, win, and deliver customer value with Guidewire solutions.
Account business operator:
- Collaborates with sales, strategic advisory and services to optimize overall P&L outcomes on the account(s) including customer relationship management, ARR targets & long-term value, forecasting, return on investments.
- In collaboration with sales, strategic advisory and services sets and manages the account strategy aligned with customer priorities for optimal value creation and establishes and manages account level KPIs such as churn, adoption, ARR, NPS/CSAT, etc
Strategic Advisor to customer key decision makers:
- Drive strategic direction and business with our customers across parent and entities for value optimization and customer satisfaction taking into consideration, IT and business strategies, challenges, processes, people and partnerships.
- Be the Voice of the Customer and work collaboratively with the account team and broader GW organization to develop and manage the strategy to build broad adoption of GW products throughout the Path to Success.
- Understand their strategic goals and how our software enables achievement of them informed by deep P&C industry and GW product expertise
- Influence Guidewire’s product evolution through insights on customer’s priorities and investments
- Demonstrate an understanding of their enterprise architecture; and
- Bring insights and experiences from elsewhere in our Strategic and Tier 1 Cloud customer base making it relevant to their respective journey.
Customer Success Evangelist and Motivator
- Know the customer “inside and out” and foster positive relationships with key customer stakeholders at senior and C-Suite level
- Become a trusted advisor and build multi-dimensional relationships promoting the GW value proposition
- Advocate for optimal use, product upgrades, value tracking, and community engagement overseeing adoption of our products, building, and managing customer relationships for CSAT, NPS and service delivery.
- Serve as key escalation point for the customer and work with our GW teams to ensure service provision meets both SLAs & expectations
- Orchestrate and align face-offs with the customer, meetings and foster key stakeholder contact management to ensure coverage and consistent, one GW approach to global customer engagement across all of our disciplines
- Communicate to the customer and GW regarding expectations, performance, governance and issue escalation/resolution during the course of delivery to ensure success.
- Contribute to the processes and programs that will define Customer Success for Strategic and Tier 1 Cloud customers going forward
“Gateway” to/from the Guidewire Organization
- Describe how the Guidewire Cloud roadmap is particularly relevant to the Strategic and Tier 1 customer’s business and technology objectives;
- Take point on and coordinate to successful conclusion Guidewire’s response to customer questions and known service issues to ensure customer satisfaction;
- Understand and document our current position with each customer and communicate the same to relevant parties within Guidewire;
- Recognize incremental sales opportunities across GW solutions including core, digital, analytics/data and marketplace and partner with the sales team to pursue the deal ensuring the customer objectives and value proposition are at the forefront;
- Introduce new features and best practices to customers according to their business needs;
- Advance customer feedback to Product, Marketing, Customer and Partner Success, Services, and Sales teams;
- Speak as an internal authority on the state of a given customer relationship;
- Advise Guidewire about gaps that could affect our ability to support the Path to Success;
- At the Board and Senior Management Level, ensure Guidewire is positioned effectively within customer and is well represented for potential growth opportunities
- Ensure “best in class professionalism” in how we deliver across the account collaborating with the Delivery Principal to support escalations and manage expectations
- Engage in negotiations in the contract renewal cycle, and where appropriate, support the renewals process to minimize customer attrition and ensure realistic expectation setting.
Team Leader and Developer:
- Manage the global account team with dotted or solid line responsibility
- Set direction, and provide coaching, mentorship and manage the performance of the account team building morale and positioning the team for success
What you’ll bring: The ideal candidate will bring diverse IT, Business Acumen and/or Management Consulting background and knowledge of industry trends, leveraging this credibility as a strategic advisor to our customers, alliance partners, and internal teams across Guidewire.
- Experience leading and/or sponsoring Guidewire InsuranceSuite implementation programs;
- Considerable experience with cloud technologies for mission-critical applications;
- Impeccable relationship skills, including the ability to establish immediate credibility with strategic or Tier 1 customers and to connect effectively with Business and IT;
- Demonstrated executive leadership and communication experience, showing the ability to define a vision, build a persuasive business case, establish personal credibility, resolve conflicting views (and personalities) and engender honest feedback and appraisal;
- Empathy to understand customers’ problems/goals, and passion to take them on as your own;
- Ability to accept criticism and diagnose problems without a defensive posture;
- Ability to engender support from various stakeholders to create cohesive outcomes;
- A naturally proactive disposition, a motivation for solving complex problems, and a relentless attention to detail;
- Strong Insurance Background and Experience in Senior Executive discussions
- Business Acumen and the comfort demonstrating product value and measuring/quantifying the intangible;
- Ability to build and manage C-suite relationships at customers;
- Experience working on pursuit teams and participating in the proposal development process;
- Experience leading, managing, coaching, and developing staff;
- The entrepreneurial skill to pioneer a new role, lead by example, build consensus around a vision, and motivate others without direct authority; and
- Experience in a relevant field (e.g., customer success, management/technology consulting or software implementation in the insurance industry, cloud technologies for mission-critical applications).
How success will be measured:Financial
- Financial
- ARR Targets & Long-Term Value
- Forecasting
- Return on Investments
- ARR %
- Retention Targets: Churn/Ramp Not Realized
- Sales Support: Product Portfolio and TAM expansion
Operational
- Portfolio Level Delivery Health
- Portfolio Level Adoption: Release version and Feature Adoption + Value Upside
Strategic Priorities
- Cloud Acceleration Progress to Target
- Success Plan/Account Plan Execution & Outcomes
- Innovation & Thought Leadership
Customer Relationships
- Customer Sentiment - NPS/CSAT scores
In the end, our customers’ success is Guidewire's success – and yours: you will be evaluated based on both leading indicators of customer engagement and trailing indicators of license renewal and expansion. Because you will flourish in this role by spending face-to-face time with both customers and the Guidewire team, we expect this role to require at least 50-70% travel.
