Prescriptive autonomy as a core concept of customer success
Giving people the freedom to act but within a defined structure
I was in the midst of reading a few books and have stumbled on a concept that I feel describes a core aspect of customer success. As I’ve written about previously when I described my version of the foundation of customer success (CS = trust + value), the same applies here: what applies to customers also applies to the CS team. I’m calling this “Prescriptive Autonomy”.
What the hell is prescriptive autonomy & why should I care?
The loose definition of “prescriptive autonomy” is giving people the freedom to do what they want within a defined structure. This applies not only to how customer success teams should work with clients but also describes the way CS teams should operate. Stay with me here. I’m on to something. Do you know how I know? When I googled this term, I found that it’s a part of the training for psychiatric nurses1. In many ways, the medical field is similar to customer success.
You can provide the tools and training to nurses but when they are tending to a patient they need to have the autonomy to effectively do their jobs. This is very similar to how CS teams operate when they are on calls with clients. The playbook or handbook only goes so far. Much of what CS teams do is based on instinct, experience, and knowledge. But this concept of prescriptive autonomy goes well beyond the CS team - it also applies to how you manage customers.
Applying prescriptive autonomy to your clients
People hate being told what to do. They hate it.2 Scientists call this “psychological reactance”. It’s how our brain reacts when its freedom is threatened. It’s similar to people being told to cut down on their eating or drinking. When you use a confrontational approach it can lead to the opposite effect: more eating and drinking. Your customers experience this very same effect when you try and tell them to do something without building the appropriate amount of trust and rapport. If they don’t feel understood, they will not seek to understand you.
This may be super frustrating to hear as a CS professional. You may be banging your head against the wall trying to get your clients to take action and follow your instructions but the natural inclination of humans is to do what they want. I’m sure you can provide a few examples that you have experienced where you instructed a client to do something and they did nothing or the opposite.
You need to tap into their motivation and direct them in the right way. To do this you have to first acknowledge the concept of prescriptive autonomy. You need to help maintain the freedom of action that your clients desire while nudging them in the right direction that you know will work for them. This isn’t an easy feat. But either is customer success and this is why it’s such an interesting area. Stay tuned as I further develop this concept on my main site and provide strategies on how to work with your clients. Please let me know your thoughts on this concept and if it resonates with you.
PS - if you’re a parent, you may find this concept very familiar as well.
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