The Customer Success and Account Management relationship is critical to the overall health of the business, especially if Net Revenue Retention is a key metric. Often times, for this relationship, Customer Success can help identify sales opportunities in the form of CSQLs for the Account Management team to close and Account Management can spot potential risk for Customer Success to get in front of to prevent churn. Ensuring the team's scorecards are aligned to a common goal is necessary to foster collaboration. In terms of missing KPIs, although Customer Success often is left with NRR, it's truly a business metric. If you have a bad product, even heroic efforts from a CSM will not save a customer. For those KPIs within a CSM's control, I find that QBRs can be hard if you don't prioritize them early in the quarter.

When directly correlating with pipeline generation proves difficult, consider alternative metrics such as engagement (website visits, email open rates), lead quality (conversion rates, lead scoring), brand awareness (social media sentiment, brand mentions), CAC, CLV, retention rates, customer experience, and customer feedback. These metrics provide insights into marketing effectiveness and overall business impact.

There are many facets of CS that may differ based on the size of the organization. With differences in organizational size, come differences in priorities, growth strategies, cost measures and balance for scale, as well as customer journey architectures/needs. A few specific areas to note: * At least initially, the size of the CS org is likely to grow based on the expanding customer pool. In the early days of an organization, more customers may equal more customers success managers until a balance of scale is introduced. * The skillsets of CSMs may evolve. Small companies may start with CSMs who are versatile in nature - technical, yet consultative, able to work well and closely with engineering and product teams, leadership capability for player/coach models. This agility allows an organization to flex to determine the ideal longer-term skillset of the customer success persona based on the needs of the customer. * Organization priorities are likely to shift, impacting how customer success teams are measured. In small companies, building brand and retaining customers at all costs may be key; therefore, customer success deliverables may be more extensive with less of a focus on ability to scale. CS teams may be measured on retention/churn. As companies grow in size, the need to balance cost and ability to scale likely becomes more prominent, so there's a need to assess scalability of what a CSM delivers. CSM orgs may be measured based on cost to serve or other margin-related factors. * In larger organizations, there may be more teams contributing to the customer journey - including services organizations that may have point-in-time deliverables (either for fee or included in price of contract). Examples may include onboarding or implementation specialists, technical consultants, insights analysts, etc. It becomes more important to align on a holistic customer journey when there are multiple points of interaction.

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?

I’ll share 2 questions – one is behavioral based, and one is situational. One of our core values is Extreme Ownership. I ask candidates to “Tell me about a time when you had to convince someone to do something in order for you to meet a goal or deadline. Why did you need to convince them? What was the goal/deadline? What was the result?” What I like about this question is it embodies all things CS - accountability; influence (usually without authority; partnership and teamwork; creativity… I look for an answer that helps me understand the what, the how, and most importantly, the why. Influencing someone because you missed something and now are in a crunch is very different than your new leader assigning you a nebulous project with a clear deadline, but not much direction. One of the best answers I’ve gotten was around a ‘still in development' product that was sold to a customer prior to the CSM taking the account. The customer was frustrated with the length of time it was taking to go GA - and with 2 missed delivery dates already. was asking for specifics to bring to their senior leadership regarding the 3rd promised delivery date. The candidate talked about the challenge first of understanding what the use case was as well as what was promised in the sales process. The candidate had to help the customer define the use case and then went back to the AE to understand what was sold. They then went to the product team to understand the product functionality and engineering to get timelines, which were still a ways out. They went back to the customer with the updated information and the customer was extremely unhappy. The candidate held a cross functional meeting internally - they were able to get alignment internally to prioritize the product to get within 2 weeks of the 3rd deadline, which was much improved from 6 weeks. The customer was cautiously optimistic, and when the vendor was able to deliver on the newly agreed upon timeline and the product worked as expected, over a period of weeks the customer moved from a detractor in sentiment to a promoter. The other question I’ll talk about here is “If you were to join us, what would you do in the first 90 days to build trust with your peers, leadership, and cross functional team members? (NOT CUSTOMERS) What I am looking for here first is whether their instinct is to lead by process or by people. Some candidates say they schedule meetings to understand the product, and some say they want to know what makes the team tick. I also listen to see if they tend to ask for help or go it alone. Neither are right or wrong; it helps me understand how they tend to work. I then look for them to share specifics on ways they would engage, and if it would be different for each group or more of a cookie cutter approach. This is really important for us as all of our CSMs are fully remote, and they need to be able to work with a variety of people at different levels in different ways.

When interviewing new Customer Success Managers, I prioritize strong communication skills and professionalism as fundamental requirements for the role. Additionally, I seek evidence of their proven track record in essential role-related skills. I also inquire about instances where they've demonstrated "Extreme Ownership" of accounts and situations, along with lessons learned from past missteps, whether internal or with customers.

Breaking into the Customer Success straight from college is possible but there are things that you should focus on if you would like to go this route. My advice is to focus on developing transferable skills and building a strong foundation of knowledge for any industry or company that you’d like to work for. Even if you don’t have direct experience, emphasize internships, academic projects, or extracurricular activities that demonstrate teamwork, empathy, and a customer-centric mindset. Start working on these soft skills as these are essential in Customer Success: * Communication * Problem-solving * Relationship-building abilities As a bonus, I typically love seeing adaptability and a growth mindset from a candidate, so show you’re eager to learn and willing to embrace challenges. Networking is also crucial. Connect with Customer Success professionals on LinkedIn, attend industry events, and ask for informational interviews to learn more about the field. This will not only deepen your understanding but may open doors to opportunities. Lastly, consider taking courses or earning certifications in areas like Customer Success, project management, or data analysis to stand out as a candidate.

There's only one that springs to mind and it's "Put the customer at the centre of everything you do". If every department thinks customer first, then the whole company wins, as well as the customers!

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!

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/