At KaiNexus, we love our customers. We only exist for our customers and for their success - whether they are transforming healthcare delivery or improving quality and profitability in their company. In all of these cases, leaders are more fully engaging every employee in innovation and improvement - and, again, that’s why we are here - to help make improvement happen, because that leads to successful organizations.

In my three years of working for KaiNexus, my job titles have changed as the company has grown, but my focus has been consistent on our customers and what they need to be successful. For the first two and a half years, I was the “Chief Improvement Officer,” with a mission of helping people and, more specifically, our customers improve. In January, with our evolution and growth, I took the title of Vice President of Innovation and Improvement Services.

In that role, I’m not just responsible for the delivery of professional services. I’ve also been working with customers and talking with them about their strategies for innovation and improvement. This includes the roles of leadership, management mindsets, and culture. We also talk about the methodologies they are using and how this all fits together with KaiNexus and our technology and services. The calls have been described as “customer success calls” and people have really responded well to that. It seems to be unusual that a company puts the the success of their customers at the forefront, though of course this is what every company should be doing.

Our desire to see our customers succeed has to be sincere - it can’t just be a smokescreen for selling more to them. Although of course we realize that our customers being successful will lead to KaiNexus being more successful, as happy successful customers will not just remain a customer; they will buy more software and services. Our KaiNexus success is an end result of our customers’ success. I think everybody in the company has a consistent view of that.

So, in that vein, we have recently changed my job title to be “Vice President of Customer Success.” I still manage our implementation and services efforts (since that’s one thing that contributes to customer success), but the new job title puts the customer first. It reminds everybody, including myself, why I’m here and what my goals are. This job title (and role) is increasingly common in the “SaaS” world (Software as a Service). But, I certainly didn’t choose this job title because it’s trendy -- I chose it because it’s meaningful and important.

How can we help you be successful in your important improvement work? Leave a comment and tell us about it.