Get answers from customer success leaders
Stephen O'Keefe
HubSpot Senior Director, Customer Success • February 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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Christine Vienna Knific
mParticle Senior Director, Customer Success - North America • January 18
There are so many career paths for a Customer Success Manager! I don't view the CSM's path as necessarily linear, but a "typical" one might be: 1. Customer Success Associate 2. Customer Success Manager 3. Senior or Enterprise Customer Success Manager 4. Strategic Customer Success Manager 5. Manager of Customer Success 6. Director of Customer Success 7. Head of Customer Success That said, there are a lot of different specializations, such as Customer Success Operations, Renewal Management, or large-scale Customer Success (sometimes called 1:many or "digital"). These specializations are great goals for someone who has been in Customer Success for several years and would like to advance in paths that are not necessarily management.
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Ben Terrill
Brex Senior Director, Customer Success • January 19
I find the best CSMs are: * Curious - they want to understand “why”. This translates well with customers as it means they have an innate desire to understand their business. It also means that they are likely to find the CSM role very rewarding. * Builders - especially in the early days. * Empathetic - Empathy has 2 components as a CSM: 1) it helps build a personal connection 2) it allows a CSM to more successfully advocate on a customer's behalf internally.
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Brett Milstein
Narvar Director, Customer Success • February 8
Here are a few mistakes I see most often: 1. Not doing their research on the company/role they are interviewing for. It is surprising how many interviews I have participated in where the candidate had clearly not reviewed our company's product offering or job description. One of the keys to interviewing is to showcase why you are the best fit for the role. The best way to do this is to fully understand what the company does and what they are looking for, and to articulate how you meet those needs. 2. Not asking enough and/or not asking the right questions. I tell candidates all the time it is just as important that we interview them, as it is they interview me (the hiring manager) and our company. Accepting a role at a huge company is a huge commitment, and as a candidate, you want to make sure you know exactly what the role is, the expectations and what you are walking into. 3. Talking for too long and over-explaining. While I want to make sure a candidate has sufficient time to answer questions, it becomes concerning if they tend to ramble on for a long period and have trouble directly answering the question. When I am interviewing a candidate I am always picturing myself as one of our customers and what the zoom experience would be like for our customer, if we hired this candidate. Our customers are looking for CSMs who can provide clear and concise answers to their questions and candidates must showcase that skill during the interview process.
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Georgia Glanville Harrison
Braze VP Customer Success, EMEA • January 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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Natasha Evans
Hook Head of Customer • January 26
It can seem daunting jumping into a customer-facing role. Where do I start if I don’t have the relationships built yet? How do I make connections to successfully drive business for my company? At the end of the day we all have to start somewhere. My advice would be to think about what actions you can take today to create valuable connections and start building customer relationships. Get your feet wet with webinars, workshops, office hours, anything that will help build your knowledge and get you comfortable connecting with customers. And then the best thing about Customer Success is the community. Network and learn from others within CS to learn and grow your skillset.
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Rebecca Warren
Eightfold Director, Customer Success • January 18
As with any time you join a new company, listen, listen, listen, and THEN ask, ask, ask! I highly suggest driving those 1:1s if they aren’t already scheduled for you, and then spend time understanding the internal processes (and why they were built the way they are). I would stay away from “well, in my former company we did xxx and xxx and it worked great” – instead ask “do you know why this is done this way?”. Get all the info on interactions with clients that you can as well – your internal folks, especially implementation teams, usually have quite a bit of “behind the scenes” information that can help you as you start interacting with clients!
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Manil Vasantha
Information Technology Consultant • January 18
Retaining talent is a challenge for any company at any point in time. Customer Success is only a piece of the puzzle. Employees quit because they are unhappy with the culture, compensation, growth, and manager. Let us start with culture, specifically around Customer Success. To see a company’s customers succeed, it must be goal mandated top-down. The CEO and the e-staff aim to enable and empower the Customer Success team to create a holistic positive customer experience. Without this - there does not exist a customer-first mentality within the company. When this happens - Customer Success is the first of a few teams in the firing line. Besides this, overall work culture is also essential. Overall compensation is a huge criterion I am not too concerned about as the industry has been recognizing this, and I have seen compensation now up to industry standard. There is still debate on whether a CSM should be comped on renewals. That should be slated for a more extended debate. The recognition and reward mechanism is more important than base/bonus comp. Does your manager have clear KPIs for stretch goals? Is there a monetary reward tied to it? How is it celebrated? Instantaneous recognition and reward mechanisms work best among groups. Growth - As part of success - our job is to create a roadmap for our customers and their growth. What has your manager done for you lately, for your growth? Employees are often more likely to stay with a company that provides career advancement and skill development opportunities. As you contribute your skills to the company, the company should invest in you to develop new skills. You need to be in a constant state of ‘learning.’ You stop ‘working’ when you stop ‘learning.’ Flexibility - Working from home is a significant initiative. Bring your pets or kids to work day. Every day a celebration day - is a day you want to come to work! Last but certainly not least - is the Manager. Empowering and enabling Customer Success Team to deliver top-notch service is essential. Does your manager enable you, and is your manager available when you need them? Simple things weekly 1:1. Does your manager listen and do something about your suggestions? Do they value it or respect it? Do they treat you like you want to be treated or make you uncomfortable or out of place? Ultimately, retaining top talent requires a combination of strategies that focus on providing employees with competitive compensation, opportunities for growth and development, a positive work culture, recognition, and a sense of ownership over their work. This requires constant investment, even in the best employee. That individual focus where the employee is not the most crucial asset in the company will put the company on a pedestal and thus put the customers on a pedestal. The bottom line, you always have options!
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Meenal Shukla
Gainsight Senior Director of Customer Success • March 24
(Please also see the framework proposed for 30-60-90 day plan). As a customer success leader, it's important to establish quick wins in your first 90 days to demonstrate the value of the customer success function and build momentum. Here are some examples of quick wins to aim for: 1. Conduct a customer health check: Review customer data to identify any at-risk accounts or customers who are not getting the most out of your product or service. Work with the relevant teams to develop action plans to address any issues and improve customer satisfaction. 2. Conduct 1:1s with your team: Not just your immediate reports but at every level of the team to assess challenges, the overall morale of the team and any cross-functional friction. Ideally, this should be done in the first 30 days to inform your 90-day plan. 3. Define customer success goals and metrics: Work with key stakeholders to define customer success goals and metrics that align with company objectives. This will help establish a clear vision for the customer success function and ensure everyone is working towards the same goals. 4. Develop a customer feedback loop: Implement a process to collect and respond to customer feedback. This can include surveys, feedback forums, and regular check-ins with key customers. Use this feedback to inform product and service improvements and demonstrate your commitment to customer success. By focusing on these quick wins, you can immediately impact customer success and demonstrate the value of the function to key stakeholders. This will help build momentum and support for future initiatives.
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Jeff Beaumont
Customer Success Consultant • May 31
For the c-suite, it's intermittent and that makes each interaction (even a Slack!) that much more relevant. I tend to interact a lot with VPs and other directors. Because I have deep topical depth, it's tempting to share everything I know or give everything that I think they need or want to hear. Instead, I've learned to write it like a news article headline; don't bury the lede. Here's what I've learned: 1. Make it memorable. If they only remember a 10 second soundbite or 1-2 sentences, what would it be? 2. Concision is your friend. Depth is tempting, but you're not doing the high dive as an olympic swimmer. Give the 2-3 relevant points. 3. Add contrast. Not all the times, but when a decision needs to be made, offer a slide that provides Plan A and Plan B. Go ahead and advocate for Plan A, but offer an acceptable backup or alternative. This gives the c-suite the opportunity to choose, go with a Plan C, or say we need to go back to the drawing board 4. Preflight. If you are representing your C-suite member, run your proposal, update, or whatever by them. Even if they agree with it, spend a few minutes (sometimes can be a slack message!) telling them what you plan to say, give them your deck/doc/spreadsheet, and allow them to ask questions or offer pushback. This gives them confidence in how the meeting with go with their peers and offers you more insight for what to expect. 5. Be curious! The VPs that I work for know their C-suite leader(s). Work with them and ask questions, not just when you're preparing for a meeting, but throughout the year. Be curious! Ask questions. Humanize them. It was incredible — eventually I learned that C-suite members are humans just like me. Your C-suite members are, believe it or not, also human. They make mistakes, need their sleep, and get hungry — just like us.
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