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Inside Arena: Meet Your Customer Success Coach

After you “go-live” with your software solution, who helps you maximize your investment? How do you continue during transition times when your Arena administrator leaves? What if your organization changes due to a merger? We sat down with some of our Arena Customer Success Coaches to learn more.

Your Success Is Our Success

Arena Success Coaches are available to all Arena customers who use Arena Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Arena Quality Management System (QMS), Arena Empower, or Arena PLM for AWS GovCloud. Coaches are a unique element of the Arena customer experience that helps you make better quality products fast. Coaches are the members of your Arena team who help you get the most from your PLM or QMS solution.

Coaches guide customers on their product and quality management journey. Like an athletic coach, the Arena Coach’s goal is to help customers to be successful on their own. As customers face problems or challenges, they can get help from experienced, knowledgeable PLM and QMS experts. Coaches help by answering questions, recommending solutions, and connecting customers with other Arena resources when needed.

Coaches can broaden your PLM and QMS use beyond your original vision. Once you’ve implemented your first phase, you can build on that success to refine your processes or improve other areas of the product development and management process. For example, a typical first phase implementation goal is to bring product information under control and communicate this accurate information to suppliers. The next phase could be to include suppliers—your manufacturing experts—for design for manufacturing (DFM) input early in the new product introduction (NPI). This valuable next step impacts security, people, and processes related to product realization activity. If you aren’t sure where to start on this next phase or need some guidance on configuring supplier roles, your Coach can help you out.

At Arena, we say “Your success is our success.” Coaches live this value daily.

Who Are the Coaches?

You have a Coach! Arena Success Coaches are a key part of your Arena Customer Success team. They’re seasoned PLM and QMS experts—all have been part of bringing products to market and have been Arena customers. Coaches are passionate about helping customers. Every Arena customer has a named Arena Coach as part of our commitment to your success. These experts are dedicated to each Arena customer as part of the Arena subscription. This level of support is unique to Arena among PLM and QMS providers.

Coaches consult with you to figure out the best solutions to your challenges. Confident in their Arena product knowledge and passionate about processes, Coaches uphold Arena’s unique reputation of giving you the straight answer, even when it’s “no.”

Coaches collaborate with you to meet your goals. Topics range from onboarding a new supply chain partner to incorporating information, people, and processes from an acquisition into your Arena solution. Contact your Coach when you’re planning to make a change or expansion. They can offer you valuable advice in these transitions.

Coaches combine product knowledge and industry expertise with a “keep it simple” value to provide practical advice and information you need.

What Are Coaches’ Goals?

The Coach role has always been integral to the Arena customer experience. Today, Arena Customer Success is more consistent and available than ever before. Coaches have two primary goals:

To optimize your Arena investment, Coaches help you:

  • Benefit from your entire Arena investment.
    For example, are you using Requirements Management to align new product development and delivery?
  • Use product development best practices.
    For example, how do your supply chain partners participate in design for manufacturing or design for supply chain initiatives?
  • Take advantage of features in the latest release.
    For example, did you or some of your users get snowed in on vacation? Account Administrators can modify a user’s out of office date range within the Proxy Schedule view in the workspace settings now. You can learn more by choosing “Explore Winter 2019” in Help, but if you missed it, your Coach can highlight this feature when you chat.

To enable customer self-sufficiency, Coaches:

  • Point you to information available from blogs to documented best practices to videos that address issues you face as your business grows and changes.
  • Connect you with internal resources as needed. Everyone at Arena is dedicated to your success, so let us know what you need.
  • Take screenshots or make short videos to step you through a process.
  • Respond to similar videos from you that describe a situation.

Winter Release Experience—the Coaches’ Perspective

In the past few months, coaches reinforced release communications by pointing customers to the latest product release and discussing customer plans to get teams up to speed on the enhancements. We chatted with some of the Coaches about how they thought the release went—as they are often the first to talk to our customers after every release.

“In general, we did a good job communicating this major release to customers. Overall, the feedback has been very positive with some helpful critiques that we’re addressing.” – Kraig Clark

“Many customers noticed our amplified communication plan for this major release, so they could be ready for the changes.” – Cyndi Kuka

“Arena administrators and users appreciated the information shared through a webinar, e-mail notifications, and the Arena login page.”  – Lori Austin

 “To be honest, some customers were caught by surprise. Coaches were here for customers no matter how prepared.” – Gay Groce

When to Contact Your Coach?

Contact your Coach when you want. Here are some typical situations leading customers to contact their Coach:

  • Your Arena Administrator is new to the position.
  • Your implementation stagnated after the initial phase.
  • You aren’t using all you purchased (e.g., Analytics, Projects, or Quality).
  • You use paper, spreadsheets, or e-mail for some product processes, like customer tickets, and you think there could be a better way in Arena.
  • You haven’t met with your Coach in over six months (or ever).

How to Contact Your Coach?

The fastest way to contact your Coach (or find out who your Coach is) is to use “Send Us Feedback” in Help. Based on your brief description, your Coach will respond appropriately.

Once you do know your Coach, you can contact him or her directly. For your convenience, each Coach has Calendly to enable you to schedule a 30-minute meeting at any time. How easy is that?

Support may also refer you to your Coach when you log a ticket, depending on the topic.

Wrap Up

All Arena customers have a unique advantage: Arena Customer Success Coaches. Arena PLM and QMS software solutions are evolving continually to help you design, develop, and produce innovative products. With over 1,400 global customers, our coaches provide a best-practice and competitive edge so you can be confident that you’re getting the most out of your investment.

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