A quick recap of the PhD from this week:
- How Box Forges Strategic Partnerships
- What's The Deal With Buy-In?
- 4.7 Stars and Ecosystem Enhancements
- Dark Social versus Dark Funnel
- Plant, Grow, Harvest
Recently published:
- NEW PartnerUp - 061 - Creating Network Effects
- Sales Leadership and Partner Enablement - Part 3 - by Jessie Shipman
- Influence is the New Inbound
- Does your org GET the ecosystem?
- Sunday Stories: The Digital Revolution of the Sending Economy
What if support was a joint operation?
If you're reading this email, you get it. Go-To-Market has to change. Distribution is getting democratized. Sales and marketing are more indirect.
All of this focuses on the growth side of partner ecosystems.
What about retention? What about good old fashioned CX and CS?
Of course there are agencies that can partner with SaaS companies to offer implementation and services. But what about ways to partner on customer support with other SaaS companies?
This Tweet got my wheels turning:

Later in the week, I get this article in Crossbeam's newsletter (which is always high-quality btw):

I started imaging possibilities.
As a user, if I have a problem with an integration between Ghost and Viral Loops (true story), I have to choose whose CS team I'm going to hit up. Or I can hit up both, then I'm managing two convo threads with two SaaS companies about a single problem at the space they overlap.
What if there was some way to access a joint CS function for both products? Or a platform that offers support specifically for integrations, where you can pick all the tools in your stack, and it shows you which reps are knowledgeable on all of them and how they work (or don't) together?
What if that person was paid not from just one company, but multiple?
I started to get a little crazy thinking up ideas. Most of them probably aren't good models for various reasons. But there's something here. Especially when you consider the urgent need to get lean. Why tax two companies CS teams on a single issue if they could tackle it once for half price each?
I'm now on the lookout for really interesting CS related partnerships. (Send me any cool examples!)
We're always ready to partner with you
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