You have to look at what the business cares about and then work backwards to how Customer Success fits into those overall targets. For example, if the business has a retention problem, it's probably important to have a Gross Revenue Retention KPI. If, however, the business is more interested in price increases and cross-sell and upsell, then tie CSMs to Net Revenue Retention. At AlertMedia, there was a business-wide push to build out our Advocacy program so we incentivized CSMs to source advocates and add them to our pool. This dramatically increased the number of advocates we have to pull from going forward.

Great question! I've fallen in this trap so I'm speaking from experience here. You need to lead the conversation here and find the right answer, and don't just take orders from the various departments on what they want CS to focus on. Being too responsive here (rather than proactive) is how we land in the camp of doing "all the things" and creating a ton of thrash on the CS team. My recommendation: * Start by understanding what customers need. Talk to them-- customers of all shapes and sizes. Understand where they struggle to learn about and adopt your product(s) and build a prioritized list of those things. Record your customer interviews and save them were others can learn from them too. * Work with your cross-functional partners to identify potential ways to serve the biggest customer needs. The answer to some of them may be a CSM, but challenge the business to find other solutions- whether supplemental to CSM or replacing a CSM answer. * If you have friendly customers, this is a good point to share some of the ideas and get their reactions. * Then you go back to the exec team with your point of view for where CSMs will focus and where they won't, and the other solutions that also need to exist. * Repeat the customer listening > CSM scope conversation periodically or as your business changes significantly.

I'd recommend starting with these key areas when creating a CS function: * Defining customer success - what does successful use of your product or platform look like? When a customer in successful in your platform, what are the outcomes? What is considered optimal use of your product, gathered from a variety of perspectives (product, leadership, marketing, beta customers)? * Defining the customer journey - considering how customer success is defined and what outcomes successful customers should strive for, what are the key touchpoints in the customer journey to promote that success? Examples include the onboarding experience, product adoption at certain time intervals, objective setting, progress check-ins, value-based discussions, renewal/commercial milestones. How does each customer-facing role engage in this journey? * Consider the overall team structure and the roles and responsibilities of CS - Based on the customer journey, what role will CS play in promoting customer success? Will CS train/enable customers on the platform or will this be done digitally/self-service? How will CS onboard/implement customers? What customer engagements/moments will CS own? * Establish team onboarding/training/upskilling - How will you ramp your CS team members? How will you ensure they maintain skills necessary for the job? * Consider necessary tools - What tools/internal platforms will be needed for the success of the CS function? How will customer outcomes be tracked? How will CS manage day to day responsibilities? How will CS stay connected to internal functions such as engineering and support? * Define measurements, reporting, and accountability metrics - Which customer metrics (adoption, health, sentiment) will best predict outcomes (churn, retention, renewal growth)? Which inputs (activities, customer engagements) promote those customer outcomes? How will your report on customer wins and risks? How will you hold the CS team accountable to these inputs/outputs?

While I have been at HubSpot for a long time (13+ years), many opportunities have come up over time that I have had to assess new opportunities. Here are the things I tend to look at when considering a role; * Market Evolution * Size and growth potential of the market the company plays in * Stage of evolution : is this a horizon that is in its late stages or on the cutting edge? * Potential : is this a single product/one trick pony or do * Product * Do customers love their product/service? * Who are their competitors and how does their solution stack up? * Are they a leader or laggard? Have they shown product/service innovation? * Leadership and Culture * Are they proud of their vision, values and culture, even if they are against the grain? * How visual/vocal is their executive leadership? * Do people love the company? Are they staying there or leaving after short periods of time? * How do they treat failure? * Skills and Growth * Does my past experience lend well to the role? * Are there opportunities for me to build new skills? * What is my potential for impact on the business priorities? * Does this role help me build skills for the next position I hope to achieve?

In my mind, I believe that it’s generally more beneficial to have the right soft skills when joining a new team, as I’ve seen it is often harder to teach than hard skills. Soft skills like communication, empathy, active listening, problem-solving, and adaptability are key to building relationships with customers and typically things that I try to get a good understanding of during interviews. Then once you have a solid foundation of soft skills, you can more easily learn the necessary hard skills, such as specific tools, processes, or product knowledge, because you’ll already know how to engage with customers effectively. That said, a balance is ideal when you’ve been on the team for a bit of time, as both sets of skills are important for success in the role. In fact, over time, some of the hard skills become a bit more important as I feel product knowledge from a tenured Customer Success Manager is extremely important.

CS is always the growth driver for the company! When I was the first Customer Success Manager back in those days, establishing the function, prioritisation is key to creating impact quickly. Here’s a simple framework to focus on what matters most: 1. Understand the Business and Customers * Align with leadership on company goals (retention, expansion, advocacy). * Identify key customer segments and map their journey. * Conduct customer conversations to uncover pain points and success drivers. 2. Build the Foundation * Define CS goals, roles, and responsibilities. * Establish a basic health tracking system using available tools (CRM, spreadsheets). * Create an initial onboarding and engagement framework. 3. Drive Early Wins * Focus on high-risk and high-value customers to prevent churn and drive expansion. * Improve handoffs from Sales to CS for a seamless experience. * Document repeatable processes to scale effectively. 4. Measure and Iterate * Track early impact using key metrics like retention and engagement. * Gather internal and customer feedback to refine processes. * Lay the groundwork for future automation and hiring. This approach led me to develop comprehensive playbooks, a knowledge repository, and community engagement strategies, all with a strong focus on scaling efficiently. Through this journey, I cultivated a growth mindset, continuously learning and evolving, which in turn helped shape my career progression. Create-A-Need, Take Ownership, and Achieve Your Goals! Serve Better.

We have our Customer Success organization broken into 2 groups - Strategic Customer Success and Scaled Customer Success. In the Strategic Customer Success group I have managers who are responsible for a team of CSMs and also serve as the DRI on customer success for one or more products. CSMs need to have a strong understanding of multiple products because we only have one CSM per customer, and customers ideally use more than one product. Each manager coaches and supports their CSM team, and they provide leadership and guidance where they are the DRI across the entire team. In Scaled Customer Success, we have managers who oversee a group of Scaled CSMs. Rather than own a customer, our scaled CSMs own a product or customer lifecycle stage. For example, we may have a Scaled CSM who only owns churn mitigation for one product line.

These might be more generic than what you are looking for, but in your first 3 months, there is so much to learn, and every organization is different. Some of the best advice given to me by previous leaders when I tried to do all the things right when I started – “you can’t boil the ocean. Breathe. Listen.” Remember, quick wins might be for you, your team, your organization, or your clients! My thoughts: * Build relationships with your stakeholders – inside your team and cross-functionally * Set a # of internal meetings per week – summarize your learnings * See how you can get involved in the organization – be a team player * Listen in on as many client meetings as you can – really listen and take notes! * Share your thoughts a client issue or concern by working through current leaders – there will be plenty of time in the future to be the “hero” * Help others win – built trust and partnerships * Listen, repeat back, ask, listen, repeat back, ask * Set regular 1:1s with your manager, others on your team, and cross-functional partners to listen and ask questions * ·Reflect each month on what you know now that you didn’t when you started

As a customer success manager, one of the most important skills someone can develop is setting the right expectations and getting alignment between internal and external stakeholders. The biggest frustrations I've exeperienced come from when we haven't reached alignment. The best CSMs do this as part of their process whenever they work with someone new - internal or external. For example, a CSM's top priorities when being introduced to a client should be to set expectations about what they can offer the client in their working relationship (hint: a strategic, goal-oriented thought partner, not technical support), and to align on the client's business goals. When a CSM does this successfully they'll have meaningful interactions with the customer throughout the relationship and can line all the work they do together up to the client's business goals. When the CSM ties the value they and their product can provide directly to the customer's business goals, they prove the relationship to be important and ensure the renewal. What's frustrating is when they DON'T reach alignment. We've all had an experience similar to this one: you start the client meeting, introducing yourself and wanting to learn more about the customer's business, when suddenly the customer derails. He says something like, "hey, before we talk about that I was wondering, how do I pull a report from xyz product?" It puts the CSM in a difficult and frustrating position. On one hand, you want to be helpful. And let's be real, you're going to show them how to pull the report. On the other, you have so much more strategic value to offer the customer than providing technical Q&A. If you're not careful, you could spend the entire conversation answering tactical questions. What's worse is you will now have misalignment between the high level value you can provide and what the client will expect from your relationship, and you'll leave the meeting with no deeper insight into their business for the future. However, the best CSMs can use situations of misalignment as opportunities. "Oh! You'd like to pull a report on the weekly scheduler activities? I can definitely help with that. So that I make sure we do it in the best way, can you help me understand what you're going to do with the report?" Or, "the product doesn't currently have the ability to export that information, but we do have a lot of ways you can work with it. Can you help me understand what you'd like to do so we can work together on it?" The CSMs can then use their responses to dig deeper into the customer's goals and daily workflows, and be a partner in problem-solving and achieving business goals. 

Rather than just asking a candidate about their background, I prefer to ask about real situational questions. Here are a few of my favorites: * Tell me about a time you had an unhappy customer. What was the issue and how did you resolve it? * Take me through a time when a customer provided a churn notice and you were able to save them. What was your process and how did you turn things around? * Walk me through one of your recent renewals. When did you start the renewal conversation and what did the entire process look like? Also, in my opinion, all candidates need to do some type of live presentation for the hiring manager/team before an offer is sent out. Keep in mind, presenting to customers is a major part of a CSM's job and is not a skill I recommend you judge based on an interview and/or resume. While a candidate can tell you all about their communication style and experience, I believe the only way to truly judge their presentation skills is to see it live.