Get answers from customer success leaders
Stephen O'Keefe
HubSpot Senior Director, Customer Success • February 22
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.
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Georgia Glanville Harrison
Braze VP Customer Success, EMEA • January 26
Technical Support response targets! We’ve all been there, and being the first Success Hire is super exciting. You get to wear many hats, get involved all the way through the customer lifecycle and be scrappy to get customers what they need. For us at the beginning, that meant taking on a lot of Technical Support tickets for our EMEA customers, especially in the morning before our then US-based tech support team was online. On the one hand, this gives you a lot of valuable product knowledge that can help you be an impactful CSM, but on the other hand, it can mask the business need to expand technical support teams and can hurt your focus in the long term. If you can, explain early the difference between CS and Tech support KPIs and ensure that anything you take on is temporary!
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Brett Milstein
Narvar Director, Customer Success • February 8
In my experience there are a few characteristics/skillsets that the best CSMs I have hired all have in common: 1. Organizational skills - This is #1#1 for me. I have never seen a CSM who was not organized be successful. As a CSM requests are being thrown at you left and right, and you are being pulled in a million different directions. The best CSMs are organized/proactive and know exactly what action items they need to complete and how to prioritize them. 2. Ability to showcase value - This one might sound simple but I can promise you it is not. A large part of a CSMs role is to retain customers and to do that, they need to articulate and justify the price of the service. This is challenging for two reasons. 1. Not all customers justify value in the same way, so a CSM needs to make sure they truly understand how the customer is determining this. 2. The majority of the time the day-to-day contact is not the ultimate decision maker. Therefore, the CSM needs to articulate the value in a way that the day-to-day contact will be able easily to go back and relay this to their boss (or decision maker). If a CSM is having a tough time explaining the value, it's going to be even more difficult for the day-to-day contact to explain it. 3. Charisma - Customer Success is all about relationship building. CSMs spend a ton of their time on zoom calls with their customers and valuable/engaging conversations are what help build strong and trusting partnerships. The CSMs I typically see with the most success (especially regarding renewals and upsells) are the ones who have built the best relationships with their partners.
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Rebecca Warren
Eightfold Director, Customer Success • January 18
As with any time you join a new company, listen, listen, listen, and THEN ask, ask, ask! I highly suggest driving those 1:1s if they aren’t already scheduled for you, and then spend time understanding the internal processes (and why they were built the way they are). I would stay away from “well, in my former company we did xxx and xxx and it worked great” – instead ask “do you know why this is done this way?”. Get all the info on interactions with clients that you can as well – your internal folks, especially implementation teams, usually have quite a bit of “behind the scenes” information that can help you as you start interacting with clients!
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Christine Vienna Knific
mParticle Senior Director, Customer Success - North America • January 18
The most important things to consider when assessing a new opportunity with a different company are: * The company's trajectory. Is there a viable path to success for the organization, and are you comfortable with that path? (i.e. are they profitable? If not, what level of ambiguity works for you?) * The definition of Customer Success at the company. With Customer Success being a relatively new field, the term can be used in a lot of different ways. It's really important to make sure the company's definition of CS lines up with yours. * The company's definition of success in the role and as an organization. What metrics do they use? What does "good" look like?
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Manil Vasantha
Information Technology Consultant • January 18
For me personally, the decision was easy. I moved from technical support to Customer Success. They combine in what we deliver called Customer Experience—transitioning a customer from pre-sales to post-sales and then a steady state followed by expansion. It is called the customer journey or roadmap. Influencing a ‘Promoter’ and a reference customer is a powerful and exciting feeling. This roadmap is driving thru an effective success program. It is essential to ensure that the customer journey ties directly to the growth of the customer. ‘What is in it for me’ and ‘Why should I do it.’ Historically there were package software products where we shipped diskettes and CDs to the customer. Today there is instant gratification via SaaS and Cloud delivery methodologies. Selling both have changed in many ways, and yet not so much. Changed from potentially selling shelf-ware to more value-based selling. However, the sales comp structure is different. Sales are often compensated based on new logs and new revenue. They stay engaged (sometimes)if there is a continued source of revenue, aka Beachhead or a potential large reference client. In some ways, sales and customer acquisition become a quarterly agenda and tactical focus. Customer Success, on the other hand, fills in this very important air gap. Success builds a long-term relationship with the customer. They map a customer’s journey from onboarding to go-live to additional use cases/verticals and adoption. Remember, Success in no way - Support. Support is ticket based reactive. Success is a program-based future roadmap for the customer. Success focuses on long-term relationships and building intrinsic value. Building and growing through nurturing a customer throughout their lifetime. In many ways, Success plays the most crucial role in the company because they retain customers and create value. The more value they create, the more sticker they are. The bottom line is that Wall Street is happy! Nutshell, a fundamental company structure, can only be built with these three pillars, Sales/Success/Support.
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Meenal Shukla
Gainsight Senior Director of Customer Success • January 20
Weak leadership: A leadership that: * Does not establish clear RACI for the role * Do not have clearly defined metrics or a clear path to achieve them * Does not adequately staff CS operations team to help the CSM team * Does not invest in tooling to provide people with the right CS tools to do their job well * Does not remove organizational barriers for the CSM with cross-functional leaders such as services, support, products, sales etc. * Does not establish clear Rules of Engagement to work with other teams (sales, architects, implementation, services) so that the CSMs don't become a catch-all
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Jessica Broderick
Asana Head of Vertical Solutions Engineering • April 13
The best customer success candidates possess the following traits: * Relationship Building Skills. The ability to develop positive, trust-based relationships while adding value to the client and team. * Intellectual Capability & Curiosity. The desire to proactively seek out and learn about the unfamiliar or unknown. * Communication Skills. The ability to express themselves clearly and engage others verbally and in writing; can determine the effective means and frequency of communication to keep all parties on the same page.
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Ben Terrill
Brex Senior Director, Customer Success • October 10
My philosophy is that I want everyone on my team to be eligible for a raise, so it’s my job to help them understand what they need to do so that I can make the case to the business. Just as they are the advocate for our customers, I am the advocate for them. It’s not just about the quantitative - there are many qualitative things I consider when recommending a pay rise. Some of the most common pieces of advice I give to my team are: 1. Make sure you are a master of your business. Exceed your metrics or have a clear explanation of where and why you fell short. It isn’t essential that CSMs are always over 100% on everything, but you should have a clear plan that addresses why you are behind. 2. Are you having an impact outside of your specific book of business? Are you helping others when you can? Are you seeking out and taking on additional projects and opportunities when they come up? 3. Are you upholding the values of the team and organization? Are you having a net-positive effect on the morale and engagement of your peers around you?
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John Brunkard
Sitecore Vice President of Customer Success APJ | Formerly Red Hat, Symantec, Blue Coat, Intel, Dell, Dialogic • May 3
I am assuming this is while maintaining an individual contributor role. * Consistently meet and exceed your KPIs. * Be the go to person for Customer Success within your organization. Mentor and Coach other CSM team members globally. Be the subject matter expert within your department for all matters related to customer success. Proactively share best practices and learnings across the department. * Leadership skills - motivate and inspire others in the team. Support management in driving continuous improvement for the organization. Be a champion for process enhancement and organizational development. * Strategic Thinking: Understand the market, identifying trends, and anticipating future challenges and opportunities. Be at the forefront of industry best practices and knowledge for customer success. Introduce these as appropriate into your organization. Be proactive in identifying opportunities for improvement in your company and take ownership in driving these changes. * Business Acumen - consistently take on larger, more complex and demanding accounts. Develop in depth relationships and engage effectively with top management and C-Suite executives within your company and also your assigned accounts. Have high credibility with these leaders and be the ambassador for your company.
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