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. 

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.

This question is a bit subjective as going "above and beyond" can mean different things to different people. If a candidate truly wants a role, in my opinion, they should do whatever they feel puts them in the best position to receive an offer. I cannot remember ever walking out of an interview and thinking to myself "that candidate was overprepared." With that said, there are a few areas, I would recommend a candidate focus on: 1. Know the company/product: I highly recommend learning everything you can on a company. Some examples include reviewing their product offering, reading case studies and watching a demo on their website. 2. Know the role you are interviewing for: You should know the job description inside and out. Understand the experience the company is looking for and the day-to-day responsibilities of the position. Practice speaking about your background and how it is a fit for this role. 3. Learn about your interviewer: It can never hurt to know more about or find something in common with the person interviewing you. For example, learn about their previous companies/positions, where they went to college or some of their interests. Most of this information can be found on Linkedin or on the company website. Find a way to work this into the interview as it can make for a much better conversation and shows the interviewer you have done your research. 4. Prepare questions for the interviewer ahead of time. If you are not good at coming up with questions on the spot, it is best to have 3-4 questions written down ahead of time. Asking questions shows the interviewer you are interested in the position and want to learn more. Any candidate truly interested in joining a new company should have plenty of questions to ask. 

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.

Communication and mental fortitude are essential soft skills, and Product and Industry knowledge are essential hard skills one must have as a core strength. Customer Success Associates/Customer Success Managers/Director Customer Success - all need to have or eventually have some essential soft skills. • Communication: (both skills of speaking and active listing) • Verbal: the ability to communicate clearly in an individual or group setting. • Non-Verbal: In conversation with the customer - 1:1 or group setting- non-verbal cues play an essential role: body language, Facial expression, and Vocal tone. • Witten: the ability to communicate Cleary in any written communication. • Listening: There is a reason why we have two ears and one month. We need to listen twice as much. • Interpersonal: Build and maintain relationships with diverse folks from different cultures and countries. • Emotional intelligence: We are often told to put ourselves in the customer’s shoes. Understanding and managing emotions in oneself and others is crucial for effective conflict resolution, active listening, and building trust. • Mental-fortitude: Innate, ingrained desire to help others unconditionally. We may have a crisis on hand - production outage, DevOPS, Engineering, and Customer pulling their hair - the sky is falling, and indeed, financial loss - YOU are the calmest person in the room. • Navigation skills: You need to be a master negotiator. You will not win every battle, nor can or should you expect PM to accept all your ER to be approved; there are other CSMs and new logos that will take precedence. What do you do, you bring your charm to work—your negotiation skills. • Adaptability: Today’s world is changing. Change is the ONLY constant. The ability to adjust to changing customer needs and priorities and to be flexible in finding solutions. • Problem-solving skills: No one, including the customer, expects you to have all the answers. The ability to quickly and effectively identify and resolve customer issues is crucial for maintaining customer satisfaction, loyalty, and long-term engagement. • Assertiveness and Persistence - the customer is NOT ignoring you. They are just busy and have other priorities. Being persistent and assertive - get your attention WHEN required. Remember - the customer is not available cannot be an excuse. • Knowledge of Tools (soft and hard skills): CRM (Jira/SFDC/HubSpot/Zoho etc.), Salesforce.com, Gainsight. Analytical Tools like Tableau, SAS/ PowerBI, and Google Analytics. You should get some training as part of your onboarding; however, self-help is the best help. As for hard skills, some key areas that customer success managers should focus on include: • Product knowledge: a deep understanding of the product or service can help customer success managers troubleshoot and provide solutions to customer issues. This is tactical. But CSMs must also engage very closely with Product Management and Product Marketing. They must be up to speed on new products in the pipeline. Identify both very and horizontals of the product suite. Pick the impacted “diamond” customer and bring them into the steering meeting to help influence product direction. This is sure to keep the customer engaged and a promoter. • Technical skills: navigating technical tools and software used in customer support and engagement. This is still tactical, but engaging with TS and moving your customers’ cases will be an excellent tool to help alleviate any relationship issue. • Analytical skills/Data analysis: the ability to analyze customer data and metrics to identify trends and opportunities for improvement. Data should contain how customers utilize every channel offered as part of their QBR. • Project management: the ability to manage customer projects and initiatives effectively to ensure timely delivery and customer satisfaction. • Industry knowledge: the ability to stay current on industry developments and trends, as well as an understanding of best practices in customer success management. Remember, change occurs faster than we can handle - which means we need to be up to speed on the nature of the customer’s business - educate him even on what the competition offers and how you differentiate. Progressive Insurance model, if giving their insurance quote and their competition quote, clearly shows how they differentiate themselves from the competition. And also demonstrates their superior service.

A strategic approach involves mapping KPIs to the customer lifecycle stages, fostering a sense of purpose and confidence in your efforts. For instance: * NPS Over CSAT: While CSAT often leans towards support, NPS serves as a robust starting point, eventually evolving into a Customer Effort Score (CES) to gauge the efficacy of minimizing customer effort. * Onboarding Success Rate: Measure the effectiveness of onboarding in delivering value, thereby nurturing customer confidence and satisfaction. * Health Score and Adoption: Evaluate the overall health of customer relationships, considering both depth and breadth of engagement to ensure sustained success. * Engagement Cadence: Tailor engagement frequency across various customer personas, fostering meaningful interactions at every touchpoint. * Retention Monitoring: Continuously assess customer loyalty and satisfaction, providing insights into the overall customer experience. Each KPI serves a distinct purpose: to analyze customer feedback, mitigate risks, and strategize ways to enhance the customer journey. While specific metrics like Expansions, Qualified Leads, and Net Revenue Retention (NRR) may not be initially owned, mastering foundational KPIs lays the groundwork for influencing these metrics.

You're going to want a well-rounded set of knowledge and tools to set you up for success in Success. These include the practice of Customer Success, business metrics, core components of Customer Success, and supplementary industry knowledge. Below are some of my favorites that I've treasured over the years: Community Seekers - Success Coaching If you want to network and learn alongside others, Success Coaching is an excellent place to start in your CS career or level up as you grow. https://successcoaching.co/ For the DIY’er - The Gainsight Blogs & CSM Certifications This content speaks all the love languages of Customer Success professionals and every post is relevant and insightful. https://www.gainsight.com/blog/ A MUST-have for all CSMs - Value-first Onboarding, the Product Adoption Academy Onboarding is crucial for the success of all customers and there is a refined art to crafting & measuring this experience for CSMs. Don’t skimp on this topic! https://academy.appcues.com/courses/value-first-onboarding CS & Business Metrics - Crash Course in Customer Success and SaaS Metrics Hands down, the main questions I hear from new CSMs are around business metrics. Dave Kellog is the LeBron James of SaaS metrics and will explain everything you need to know. Excellent video, grab a notebook! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8hKPfH1q88 Separate yourself from the pack - Jeanne Bliss Understanding business metrics and a product will get you far but what separates you from others is heart and no one on earth does this better than Jeanne Bliss. She has worked with the best customer-first companies and never lets you forget why we’re here…humanity in business. https://www.customerbliss.com/ Staying on top of industry changes - Dave Kellog & Tomasz Tunguz Being aware of what’s happening in Tech will be a massive advantage for you. There are so many great blogs and resources to help you stay on top of what’s happening in the tech world so find what speaks to you! What speaks to me are the Dave Kellog & Tomasz Tunguz blogs...I swear, they're fortunetellers. Dave Kellog - https://kellblog.com/ Tomasz Tunguz - https://tomtunguz.com/

This answer is entirely dependent on the what field/product the CSM works with, who their target persona is and what resources are available based on company maturity. For someone dealing in cybersecurity, working mostly with CISOs, technical skills are more important. For someone in general CRM, maybe not so much. My feeling is that process experts > product experts. I find the best CSMs have strong business acumen, can step into a customer relationship and understand where there is opportunity to either (1) inject their product into existing process to create efficiency or (2) suggest a new process built around their product that drives better outcomes. That is less about deep technical knowledge and more about an ability to understand what value means to your customers and how your product can deliver that. Assuming that you have resources available to you that allows you or the customer to solve a technical issue when they arise, your true value is driving results vs. troubleshooting.

To gauge autonomy of Customer Success Manager candidates, I like to ask: * Describe what role the CSM plays with the customer, in your experience? This helps me see the candidate's willingness to be strategic or tactical (hopefully both, when necessary!), how they work with internal cross-functional teams, and how they view ownership of commercial responsibilities. * Provide an example of a customer escalation and how you turned it around. In this question, I'm looking for a candidate to both show ownership over the ultimate resolution of the issue and the ability to navigate difficult internal and external situations. The best answers are those that demonstrate collaboration and use of resources without placing blame on others or an over-reliance on executives. * How do you work with the support team for defects or other issues? Success of the customer is a team sport, with CS driving proactive results and support working to resolve problems when they arise. The best CSMs understand that one doesn't work without the other and demonstrate that in the answer to this question. * What are some things you've done to drive success that aren't directly related to your book of business? In other words, I want to learn about the other projects a CSM has done in the past to keep the business moving forward. Some examples I've seen in my own experience are working with marketing to create an industry-related podcast, driving a customer advocacy and review program, and creating shared materials to save time and help the business scale.

Here are some key roles onboarding plays and practical techniques for ensuring a smooth process: 1. Educating Users: Onboarding educates users about the core functionalities and value of the product, helping them understand how it can solve their problems or enhance their workflow. 2. Reducing Time to Value: Effective onboarding shortens the time to value, enabling users to experience the product's benefits as quickly as possible. This is crucial for retaining interest and commitment. 3. Lowering Initial Friction: Onboarding aims to reduce potential friction by guiding new users through setup processes, integrations, or initial configurations that might otherwise be overwhelming. 4. Building Confidence: By gradually introducing features and allowing users to succeed early, onboarding builds confidence in using the product and encourages deeper exploration. 5. Encouraging Habit Formation: Good onboarding guides users toward behaviors that will become habitual, ensuring that the product becomes a regular part of their routine. Effective Onboarding Techniques: 1. Segmented User Journeys: Tailor onboarding experiences based on the user’s role, industry, or experience level. This ensures the onboarding process is relevant and aligned with the user’s needs and goals. 2. Interactive Walkthroughs: Instead of just video tutorials or manuals, interactive walkthroughs guide users through the key actions they must take within the product environment. This hands-on approach helps reinforce learning and engagement. 3. Progress Indicators: Incorporating progress bars or checklists during onboarding shows users how far they've come and how much is left to complete. This can motivate users to continue through the onboarding process. 4. Immediate Value Delivery: Design the onboarding flow to demonstrate value quickly. For example, if your product is a marketing automation tool, help the user set up their first campaign during onboarding. 5. Use of Tooltips and In-App Messaging: Subtle tooltips and contextual in-app messages can provide additional information and reminders without being intrusive. They help users learn at their own pace. 6. Regular Feedback Collection: Implement mechanisms to collect feedback during and after onboarding. This helps identify pain points and areas for improvement, ensuring the onboarding process remains effective. 7. Personalization and Flexibility: Allow users to personalize their onboarding experience by choosing what to learn about or skip based on their prior knowledge and experience. Offering flexibility makes the process more user-friendly. 8. Integration of Support Resources: Ensure that help resources, such as FAQs, training links, community forums, and customer support contacts, are easily accessible throughout the onboarding process. Knowing help is at hand can reduce anxiety for new users.