Blog

How Keelvar Can Help Steer Customers Towards Sourcing Success

Valentina Roques

April 6, 2022

The way we define success at Keelvar is simple: if our customers are successful, we are successful, and that is why we introduced a new Keelvar Customer Success team at the beginning of 2021. 

The Customer Success team acts as our customers' voice within Keelvar, working with our customers worldwide to ensure the highest level of satisfaction when bringing advanced sourcing optimization ROI to a broad range of their spend categories and sizes. Each customer is assigned an experienced Customer Success Manager who will act as their primary contact, meet with them regularly to understand their business goals and keys for success, and keep the customer updated on new features and best practices.

As we see it, the journey to achieving sourcing success for our customers has four key steps:

four-steps-for-sourcing-success-with-Keelvar

Step 1: Creating A Clear Path for Onboarding

Keelvar’s Customer Success Managers come into the picture from the very beginning of the partnership, and are responsible for organizing kick-off meetings and defining the onboarding plans for our customers.

The goal of the Customer Success Manager during onboarding is threefold:

  • They provide guidance for the stakeholders and all of the Keelvar product users as they take their first steps into their e-sourcing optimization and/or sourcing automation journey.

  • They assess the training needs of our customers, and organize customized or category-specific training sessions in partnership with our Professional Services team.

  • They work with our customers as strategic partners to make sure they get a quick time-to-value with our platform and tools.


Step 2: Identifying Success Goals

Once all users have been onboarded and trained and the first tender or auction event is underway, the time is ripe for the  Customer Success Managers to sit down with our customers to start talking about success. But how do we define success, you ask?

That’s where the beauty lies: the definition of success is different for each organization and depends on many factors. However, the common denominator for success is to identify quantifiable success goals that we can measure and track to ensure we are on the right path.

Examples of success goals we have identified with our customers are:

  • Increase Bot adoption rate by 30% in the next six months.
  • Source two new categories (packaging and MRO) in Keelvar within the next quarter.
  • Get a certain amount of savings (percentage or monetary) on the next annual air freight bid.
  • Have all new users obtain the Keelvarsity certification within a month after the first connection.

Step 3: Working Together on Adoption and Engagement

Be it with our sourcing optimization products, our digital rate card or our Intelligent Automation Bots, making sure these new tools are understood and adopted by all users is paramount for success. 

That’s why our Customer Success Managers are on hand to advise how best to increase and retain the adoption and engagement metrics within your organization: 

Adoption-and-engagement-metrics-diagram



Step 4: Regular Touchpoints and Business Reviews

At Keelvar, our vision is always long-term, not just for the initial rollout! Now that we have our success goals and adoption plans in mind, our Customer Success Managers will schedule regular review meetings with the stakeholders and champion users at your company to:

  • Make sure you’re reaching your goals
  • Get your feedback and ideas on our sourcing tools and services
  • Share our product updates
  • Advise on product and license utilization
  • Assess and help with training needs

In summary, while our products are designed for usability and ease of adoption, we recognize that many customers benefit greatly from onboarding help to ensure they start their journey with us on the right foot, and our Customer Success team is well equipped to provide ongoing support as you further your adoption with us.


If you would like to learn more about how our sourcing optimization and automation products can benefit your sourcing journey, contact us here.

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