Get answers from customer success leaders
Stephen O'Keefe
HubSpot Senior Director, Customer Success • February 21
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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Ben Terrill
Brex Senior Director, Customer Success • January 18
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.
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Rebecca Warren
Eightfold Director, Customer Success • January 17
I love this question! My top 4 thoughts: * Every sales team is different. Find out how they work – in Eightfold, we have Account Executives (they are front end pre-sales deal closers), Account Managers (focused on install base after implementation), Sales Development Reps (responsible for lead generation and first connects), and Solution Consultants (demonstrating our platform to potential clients). Find out what your sales folks do and how that impacts you. * Talk to more than 1 salesperson in each department – everyone is different and has unique ways of working. I was referred into Eightfold by someone in sales and had some great conversations with that person. However, that was just one person, and it was also a friend. Looking back, I should have reached out to more folks in different areas of the sales team to learn more. * From your conversations, compile a list of what potential clients are trying to solve for – those will be the same pain points you will hear about once they go live. Do your research – take that list and run it by your leadership, professional services, product, engineering, etc. and see if it all is consistent. Learn what you can about those issues and see what ideas you might have to address some of them. * Ask the sales team what they expect from CS. You may get very different answers, and most likely won’t be able to be everything to everyone. Listen, ask questions, talk to your leadership, and decide the best way for you to work with those on the sales team.
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Brett Milstein
Narvar Director, Customer Success • February 7
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?
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What are some common challenges you face as a customer success leader, and how do you overcome them?
John Brunkard
Sitecore Vice President of Customer Success APJ | Formerly Red Hat, Symantec, Blue Coat, Intel, Dell, Dialogic • November 2
* Churn: Retaining existing customers, ensuring they achieve their desired outcomes, and receive value. * Proactively engage with customers to identify potential issues. * Regularly assess customer health and usage patterns. * Provide personalized recommendations and resources to address customer needs. * Implement a customer success plan with clear goals and milestones. * Downsell in Tough Economic Environments: * Highlight the cost-effectiveness of your product or service. * Emphasize the long-term value and ROI of your offering. * Collaborate with finance and sales teams to structure customized solutions. * Scaling Customer Success Operations:Expanding and optimizing your Customer Success team and resources. * Implement customer segmentation to allocate resources effectively. * Frequently review and tweak CSM assignments to customers. Focus on strategic growth accounts that are expanding or have potential to do so. * Use customer success management platforms for automation. * Develop clear customer journey maps with defined touchpoints. Focus on handover from sales and customer onboarding. * Managing Customer Expectations: Ensuring that CSMs can meet the promises made by the sales team. * Establish clear communication channels between Sales and Customer Success. * Sales handover process is critical. Conduct thorough handoff meetings from Sales to Customer Success where customer outcomes are clearly established. * Develop a customer playbook that aligns sales and success strategies. * Working with Other Customer-Facing Organizations: Collaborating effectively with Sales, Marketing, and Sales Development. * Establish clear communication channels and shared goals. Create a RA(S)CI responsibility matrix with swim lanes. * Collaborate on customer segmentation and targeting. Review quarterly and ensure alignment. * Share customer insights and feedback to enhance product offerings and messaging. * Conduct regular interdepartmental meetings and training. * Team Member Retention: Attracting and retaining top talent, fostering growth, and providing career paths * Offer continuous learning opportunities and professional development. * Recognize and reward top performers with promotions and bonuses. * Foster a positive work culture with a focus on well-being and work-life balance. * Partner Enablement:Ensuring that partners are fully trained and enabled to deliver successful implementations. * Ensure our partner team provide comprehensive training and certification programs for partners. * Ensure Partner Team offer ongoing support and resources for partners. * Ensure Partner Team establish quality standards and conduct regular partner performance assessments. * Create a clear communication and escalation process for partner-related issues. * Being More Proactive Than Reactive: Focusing on proactive customer success work rather than constantly firefighting issues. * Implement regular customer health checks and early warning systems. * Collaborate closely with product teams to prevent issues before they occur. * Adhere to established escalation procedures and ensure accountability for issue resolution.Let Escalation management take the lead and next step action on customer escalations. * Develop playbooks and resources (KB artilcles) to proactively address common customer challenges. Adapt Product Support KCS to Customer Success * Prioritize continuous improvement based on root cause analysis. Work with support teams and engineering to ensure this is an embedded best practice. * Collaborate with cross-functional teams to address customer issues and drive product improvements.
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Caoimhe Carlos
Udemy Vice President Global Customer Success • February 13
One of my favourite CS interview questions is some variation of "Can you share a time when you received constructive feedback from a peer, manager, or cross-functional partner in your previous role as a Customer Success Manager? How did you deal with it, and how did it impact your actions after the fact?" The reason I like this question is that the way the candidate answers it tells me a lot about their self awareness, intelligence, their ability to handle difficult situations with maturity, humility and professionalism, their communication skills and their growth mindset, all of which are skills that are valuable in your role as a CSM and also make someone a great colleague and team member. The best answers I have heard to this question have been thoughtful, honest, clear and have all resulted in genuine impact for the person in terms of how they have grown and developed.
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Natasha Evans
Hook Head of Customer • April 25
It's better to have the right soft skills, always! In fact, I'd go one step further than that and say it's even more important to have the right attitude/mindset first. Because if someone has the right mindset, and they're hungry to learn and take feedback on board (we call that Growth Mindset) then the soft skills and the hard skills can always be taught.
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Meenal Shukla
Gainsight Senior Director of Customer Success • June 1
Breaking into customer success as a recent graduate can be an exciting journey that opens many doors. Here's some advice to help you get started: 1. Understand the Role: Start by thoroughly understanding what a career in customer success involves. Do some research on the role, responsibilities, and the skills required. 2. Acquire Relevant Skills: Focus on building the necessary skills for customer success. These could include problem-solving, communication, empathy, active listening, project management, and product knowledge. Many of these skills can be developed through various aspects of your college experience, like group projects, internships, or part-time jobs. 3. Gain Experience: While you're still in school, try to gain some relevant experience. This could be through internships or part-time jobs in customer service or sales, or even through volunteering roles that involve working with people. 4. Network: Networking is crucial in any job search. Connect with professionals in the industry through platforms like LinkedIn. Attend industry events, webinars, or job fairs to meet professionals in the field. 5. Get Certified: Consider getting a certification in customer success management. While this is not a requirement for all roles, it could give you a leg up in the job market. There are various online platforms that offer courses and certifications in customer success. 6. Show Your Passion for Helping People: Customer success is all about ensuring customer satisfaction and helping them succeed. Show potential employers that you genuinely enjoy helping people and that you're committed to providing excellent customer service. 7. Leverage Your School's Resources: Take advantage of the career resources your college or university offers. They can help you with everything from resume writing to job search strategies, and they may even have connections with employers who are hiring. 8. Tailor Your Resume and Cover Letter: When applying for jobs, tailor your resume and cover letter to each specific role. Highlight any relevant skills and experiences, and clearly express your interest in customer success. 9. Prepare for Interviews: Once you land an interview, prepare thoroughly. Research common interview questions for customer success roles, and be ready to give examples of how you've used relevant skills in the past. Remember, getting that first job in customer success might take some time, but with perseverance and a commitment to building your skills and gaining relevant experience, you can do it!
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Nicole Alrubaiy
Jellyfish Senior Vice President, Customer Success • October 10
We have weekly business reviews with the entire executive team where we review certain metrics including several adoption metrics like WAU, a composite product adoption score, uptake of certain critical features and whitespace. In this meeting we're monitoring week-over-week trends and aligning on areas where we need to dig in further or focus some effort. We also have more focused monthly adoption meetings where we go deeper on adoption patterns by persona, by product, and feedback we're hearing. We'll use these meetings to align with the product managers, CS leaders and others on goals / challenges / initiatives. Of course, we do more comprehensive reviews of adoption patterns quarterly with the executive team and as part of board preparation. These often include a high-level review across all lenses, with a deep-dive into a particular product or persona.
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