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Get answers from customer success leaders
Stephen O'Keefe
Stephen O'Keefe
HubSpot Senior Director, Customer SuccessFebruary 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
Georgia Glanville Harrison
Braze VP Customer Success, EMEAJanuary 26
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.
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7956 Views
Brett Milstein
Brett Milstein
Narvar Director, Customer SuccessFebruary 8
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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3204 Views
Rebecca Warren
Rebecca Warren
Eightfold Director, Customer SuccessJanuary 18
Been there, done that! IMO, it’s pretty simple – start with who is screaming the loudest and why. Take what they are frustrated about, ask them to prioritize their needs, and then see about knocking them off, one at a time. You can’t fix everything overnight, but get a win under your belt, and then another win, and so on. And then take those lessons from your loudest clients and see what you can apply for other clients. · Ask lots of questions of your internal teams to see if you can solve issues or to get answers · Do as much as you can before escalating · Be targeted about who you are escalating to and what you expect from them – is it a timeline for the client, a fix for their issue, a meeting with internal experts? · Make sure you are following up diligently with your clients! · And then, add meetings in with your non-screaming clients when you can – you don’t want them to feel neglected – don’t take them for granted – quiet isn’t always good 😊
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4293 Views
Amara Okoli
Amara Okoli
MURAL Director of Customer SuccessMarch 22
As CSMs we are expected to be trusted advisors to our customers. We gain trust by helping our customers address their challenges and achieve their business objectives. We become advisors when we learn to anticipate questions or concerns and we guide our customers toward successful outcomes. To gain credibility, our communication with the C-Suite must be concise, assertive, and informative. If you can explain the how and confidently tell me what to do next, that's incredibly valuable. 1. How are we doing? 1. Help me see that you understand my business, our mission, and our goals. When given the opportunity, don’t simply present adoption metrics, help me understand what they mean relative to what my business goals are and ask for clarification where needed. If we have achieved significant time to value and you have saved my business significant money or time, those are wins I’d love to know. If things are stalling, help me understand why with concrete examples and ask for my help with clear actions for me or a member of my team to take. 2. Were there any serious challenges we faced? What role did you play? Let’s face it, things don’t always go as we’d like. However, if you can keep the C-Suite informed and updated, you will earn their trust in a way that will influence how they view you as a key trusted vendor, in many cases even more so than when things go well. 2. How are we doing relative to similar customers? 1. The C-Suite regularly reviews industry and analyst reports (Ex: Gartner, Forrester) as well as intel to understand market trends and maintain a competitive edge. By regularly reviewing the same resources and providing thought leadership, you could help influence decision making throughout their organization 2. As you support customers in similar industries or business segments or share anecdotes with peers, you’ll start to see certain similarities and differences. If your customer is operating in a more innovative manner that you believe has helped them realize value with your software and supported their business goals, definitely let the C-Suite know 3. What are other things we could be doing to achieve the outcomes we desire? 1. Once you have gained credibility with your customer by supporting them through a few milestones, you have earned the right to ask for a deeper partnership. So think deeply about what this new partnership will look like. How might integrating your solution with another one of their key business tools help them operate efficiently? How might using another module of your software help them save costs from a duplicate solution? If you can hone in on a few high-impact actions your customer can take and assert your position as to why these actions will help, your C-Suite might offer the sponsorship you need to make this a reality.
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1205 Views
Michael Maday
Michael Maday
Gainsight Senior Director, Customer SuccessFebruary 16
As a Customer Success leader, there are a handful of alignments that I have prioritized. Sales - Aligning CS & Sales is the most important thing an organization can do and if you be the tie that binds these groups, it will pay significant dividends. Support - Bugs happen, tickets and escalations are part of our day-to-day but if you do not have a strong relationship with Support you will not have a lifeline when you need something prioritized, or eyes on an issue impacting your customer. Services - Most SaaS companies are dependent on Services to stand up the instance and make incremental improvements through the lifecycle. Building relationships with the team will make tricky situations easier to work through and will also you to offer procedural improvements that they would otherwise not appreciate. Getting in the trenches with Support and Services is something a great CSM / CS Leader does but you also need to know when to get out of the way! Product teams - No one knows the way your product is used and the gaps that exist like Customer Success and Product teams thirst for this knowledge. Either through technology or a spreadsheet, find a way to aggregate feedback and get it to Product. Also, invite them to meet with your customers! Most Product teammates love seeing their work in the hands of customers, but do not have the relationships, make it happen for them! Once this relationship is built, then you can introduce a little scope creep into their backlog :)
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1672 Views
Jessica Broderick
Jessica Broderick
Asana Head of Vertical Solutions EngineeringAugust 2
These are some of the most common reasons why a customer isn't adopting your product: 1. They find it difficult to use. 2. They do not have the service and support they require to be successful. 3. They are not seeing and/or do not understand the value it provides to their business. 4. The product is not evolving to fit their needs.
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1157 Views
Jeff Beaumont
Jeff Beaumont
Customer Success ConsultantFebruary 9
This isn't exhaustive, but can be a good starting point: 1. Annual survey results. It's a lot of work, but after gathering that feedback, share it back with your customers in a annual survey results PDF. For example, share some of the best practices, which tools have high adoption, success stories, or other items that could help your audience become inspired, motivated, and have a path to adopt 2. Internal feedback loop. If you aren't already feeding that information to your Product and Exec teams, now's your chance! Not just the NPS or CSAT scores, but what is a summary of the qualitative feedback? What are customers saying? (hint: use AI such as ChatGPT to aggregate themes...just make sure to anonymize your data!) This is incredibly helpful for executives and Product Managers to get involved, listen to customers, and respond with substantial changes 3. Contact your customers. This should go without saying...but when a customer submits feedback, try to respond! Thank them, ask them clarifying questions, let them know "that part of the product annoys me too and I'm sharing your feedback with them tomorrow afternoon in our next sync meeting!" There are plenty more, but this takes the feedback to share with customers globally (annual results), to your teams (internal feedback loop), and in a more intimate manner with customers (contacting the user who submitted the feedback). These are all ways to demonstrate to customers you are really listening.
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773 Views
Jessica Haas
Jessica Haas
Appcues Chief of Staff & VP of CXApril 27
There are so many but below are the top-5 I've used and subscribed to for years. These skills are must-haves for the best of the best CSMs but apply to any role in the CX space: 1. Ownership. They feel ownership of the customer & product and treat their domain as their own business. They follow through on commitments with the agility to change priorities when circumstances change. 2. Assertion. They regularly train and lead customers to an outcome and do so with empathy, not aggression. 3. Emotional inteligence. They read the room. Beyond small talk and finding common ground, they align their messages with identified needs and wants and build the right relationship. 4. Perception. They filter product and operational changes using perceptive skills to recognize how the changes will affect the customer. 5. Social soldiers. They have strong social fortitude and actually like working with people. They have a positive outlook and authentic concern for others.
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1036 Views
Kiran Panigrahi
Kiran Panigrahi
Gainsight Senior Director - Client OutcomesApril 5
In stepping into the Customer Success domain, it's crucial to prioritize KPIs that align with the role's core responsibilities. 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. Go Rock!
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