I've found two KPIs to be difficult to commit to: 1. Customer Health. If you have a robust algorithm to measure customer health (influenced by a number of inputs ), it can be hard commit to a certain outcome. To frame this another way, I've often observed customer health scores as being a bit of a black box where it's hard to tie the actions you take to specific outcomes when there could be a number of variables outside of your control that influence the ultimate score. I much prefer to commit to lead measures that are directly within the control of the team. KPIs related to customer engagement are a good example of things that are more directly within the team's control. 2. Upgrade rate. Many CSM teams are measured on Net Revenue Retention. As part of this, your CSMs may be responsible for identifying growth opportunities within the install base of customers. I find it's effective to measure the team on how many growth opportunities the team identifies but not the close rate or upgrade rate, especially if the Sales or Account Management team owns the closing motion. 

I’ve been at Eightfold for just over 2 years now, moving over to customer success from a 20+ year career in Talent Acquisition, so remember that my experience is unique vs. a traditional CS career path. I was the first CSM to join the EF team, reporting into a leader who had created the group from scratch. I moved from senior leadership position in my previous position to an individual contributor role with similar compensation. I was concerned that I might be taking a step back, but I knew I had a lot to learn. We then added several other experienced professionals from different areas that would complement our expertise. As we grew, we created more levels, adding Sr. CSM and CS Associate roles. We also created Director roles and promoted internally (I took one of those roles, just about a year after I started). We also looked internally to add to the team, so brought over someone from Talent Acquisition as well as someone from our Professional Services department. In hindsight, I am so glad I took the role as an individual contributor, as I learned so much, which I was able to bring to my role in leadership. To summarize, what worked best for us was to bring on very experienced people with a variety of backgrounds at first, and then develop the structure as we grew.

The best KPIs that I have seen include: * Net Revenue Retention * Gross Revenue Retention * QBRs completed * Health score impacted (e.g., number of customers who move from red to green) * Number of Account Plans created * Customer Success Qualified Leads generated * Multi-year contracts secured (if CSMs own renewal) * Price increases generated within contracts (again if CSM owns renewal) * NPS

Unlike a lot of Customer Success departments, we’ve chosen to align our team to customer KPIs rather than commercial/upsell targets. As such, we have less overlap in goals between CS and Sales. Of course, we’re both targeting Gross Renewal Rate and ensuring we maintain the customer base, but we don’t extend that to upsell targets in the same way as commission-based CS teams. Currently, we’re focused on exploring how we can share “time spent” efficiency and reach KPIs to help keep us accountable for spending as much face time with our customers, tech, and agency partners as we can over the course of many key city hubs whilst being mindful of the cost of trips.

One of the most important responsibilities of CS is to ensure that we are sharing the stories and insights we hear from our customers with the rest of the business. To do this, I like to hold monthly presentations where CS presents our feedback from customers. These events are attended by product and marketing leaders, and CSMs present insights from their specific customers, with a theme for each session.

There are two questions I always like to ask during an initial interview with a candidate: 1. Tell me about a problem you have worked on and how you solved it? - In full transparency, I actually borrowed this question from an article I read about Elon Musk's interview questions. I found the reasoning behind this question to be extremely interesting. First, you gain insight into the types of challenges the candidate has come across and their thought process for overcoming those challenges. Second, Musk says that this question shows him if the candidate truly worked on resolving this problem. Someone who was integral in the solution of a problem will know all the details and be able to explain in length what they were thinking was during the process. I have found a lot of success in asking this question. 2. I ask candidates to share with me a time they had to articulate value of their product/solution to a customer. As I mentioned in another question, showcasing your company's value is one of the most important responsibilities of a CSM. If a candidate does not have experience with this, how can I expect them to articulate value to our customers?

The most important skills for a Customer Success Manager are: * Ability to conduct discovery with a customer. In sales, we've heard the phrase "Always be closing." In Customer Success, we should Always be Discovering. This means that every conversation a CSM has with a customer is an opportunity to ask why, learn how, and dig deeper into the customer's business goals. The more we know about the client's goals and business, the more valuable we bcome. * Setting expectations early and often. CSMs must be able to (tactifully!) set expectations with customers, and set expectations with internal cross-functional partners. * Objection Handling. Most Customer Success Managers are, by nature, people-pleasers. We want to make customers happy and solve their problems, and when everything goes according to plan, that's easy to do! What's more difficult is when everything doesn't go perfectly, the product doesn't actually answer all of their needs, when the price is too high, when there's a breaking defect... the list goes on. A CSM has to be able to handle objections with grace and prove value even in difficult circumstances. * Presentation and Interpersonal Skills. CSMs have to be ready at all times to address talking points of an agenda, lead conversations in a personable way, and present new ideas. Customer Success Managers must be comfortable giving presentations and leading the relationship with the customer.

My journey was the other way around. I started at a company where CS was brand new, and then came to a company where CS was established. Looking back, here are some interesting findings. * Perceptions of what Customer Success is/isn't vary widely, even if the function already exists at the company. When CS doesn't exist yet, there's an explicit need to educate the executives, sales reps, product org, etc. on what the team will do and the results they will drive. At a company where CS is established, that need for ongoing education still exists-- it just takes a different flavor over time. * When there's no Customer Success (and even when there is), information on customers can be scattered all over the place. That's why we prioritized getting a CS tool early on, so if nothing else, we would have one place where customer documents, interactions, health, etc. were kept. It takes time to manage that change (put info here, not in your notepad) but it's worth it. * If Customer Success hasn't existed, the company may be getting its first taste of churn (what prompted them to create Customer Success anyway?). That first taste of churn is bitter, and chances are the data and workflows around risk mitigation and learning from churn aren't well built out. This is an area to invest early- capture the reason codes, build a churn forecasting process, and educate everyone on churn and risk. Moves you make today may take 6+ months to have an impact so make sure to set expectations.

For recent graduates who are interested in entering the field of customer success, there are a few critical pieces of advice to keep in mind: • Gaining relevant experience: Look for opportunities to gain experience in customer-facing roles, such as internships or entry-level positions in customer service or support. This will help you develop the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in a customer role. Or you could also apply to more junior roles, such as success associate, and learn on the job. • Develop your soft skills: Strong communication, problem-solving, and customer service skills - some of this can be obtained by shadowing senior Success folks, Support folks. • Build your industry knowledge - Understand the industry’s products, services, and customers. Talk to Product Management, Product Marketing. • Gaining technical skills: Acquire technical skills (if required) such as product knowledge, data analysis, and project management. • Be open to learning and be persistent. This is the hard part. Don’t give up! Overall, it's essential to be proactive in seeking opportunities to gain experience, develop relevant skills, and network with professionals in the field. You can do it!

Here are some core skills: - Being an established expert in your field or are you making an attempt to get there with certifications, answering questions in your community, answering internal questions, etc? - Being cross-functional with sales, services, support and product counterparts - Work in lock-step with your sales counterparts for renewals, upsells and cross-sells. Have your sales team vouch for you! - Thriving in the face of a challenge: Does your leadership trust you to give you the most demanding customers because they know you will turn them around? - Operational excellence: How do you stand out? Are you able to call out organizational barriers that are stopping the customer from delivering value? Are you helping your customers achieve ROI? - Process excellence: Are you following all the processes laid down by your leaders? - Metrics over-achievement: Are you over-achieving your metrics? - Team mentoring: Are you helping your immediate team members and your broader team in the face of a technical or strategic challenge? Do you take the time out for mentoring? Are you an established expert in your field or are you making an attempt to get there with certifications, answering questions in your community, answering internal questions, etc?