This is a great question! As the first Customer Success hire, I would start by getting a lay of the land of the business -- what is the customer sentiment, how are renewal rates, how often do customers expand their usage with new products, etc. You don't want to immediately tie yourself to KPIs that are major problems because it's unlikely that you can, singlehandedly, change them in your first few months. Instead, find the areas where you can deliver a quick impact -- are cross-sells being left on the table? Are customers not having value-based QBRs? Go out and do those at the outset and then come back to some of the broader business metrics later.

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?

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.

Onboarding is critical to long-term product adoption! We have a dedicated onboarding team for new customer accounts. They're accomplishing a few key things in the onboarding phase. 1. Integration and Configuration * Get the right data integrated and configure the application to meet the customer needs 2. Building Champion Confidence <- this is critical! If they don't trust the numbers, nobody will. * Educate the customer champion, executive sponsor and administrators on key concepts * Build their confidence that they can trust the information they're seeing in the application (lots of show and tell, answering detailed questions) * Train administrators to support the application long-term 3. Seeding Adoption * We narrow the customer's focus to use cases that are easy to adopt and provide a big impact to their business to get started. We coach them on how to successfully roll out to users and provide templates/materials to do that. <- the CSM actually does this while the Onboarding team is working on #1 and #2 * Train core users early on on those basic use cases (get them into the app quickly) and again on more complete use cases that drive their desired value * Train broader groups of users on basic use cases Once a customer exits onboarding, we continue rollout efforts and reinforcement with our champion and monitor adoption patterns.

Before implementing a Customer Success platform, renewals, expansion, and customer health can be tracked manually using spreadsheets, CRM reports, and regular check-ins. A structured renewal tracker with key details like contract dates, expansion opportunities, and risk indicators helps maintain visibility. Manual reporting works well for up to 50–100 accounts, though in my experience, my team has handled more, depending on complexity. However, as the business scales, manual tracking becomes a challenge, leading to data inconsistencies and missed opportunities. When tracking shifts from proactive to reactive or when automation can significantly improve insights and efficiency, it’s time to invest in a dedicated Customer Success platform. Building these processes manually also creates opportunities for team growth and career progression, allowing team members to develop problem-solving skills and operational expertise. Ultimately, empowering front-line teams with better tools and streamlined workflows drives greater efficiency and helps achieve business goals more effectively.

Customer Success is different in every organization. Some companies see CS as product experts or an extension of Support. I see Customer Success as Consultants and Change Agents and so I hire for the skill set that will ensure they succeed in a role at Salesloft. 3 main things I look for: Leadership & accountability: Leadership isn’t always leading a team. It’s ownership of your book of business and ownership of the success of your customers. It’s being able to coach a customer and push back or manage expectations, when it’s in their interest. And accountability falls into this too. Are you accountable for your customer’s success? Communication skills: This is imperative for anyone in Customer Success. Not just because we spend a lot of our time customer facing and we need to articulate key concepts in a succinct way, but because we need to understand how to adapt our communication style depending on the audience. CSMs need to understand what matters to a customer and then articulate their message in a way that will resonate. We also need to sometimes be able to deliver tough messages in a well thought-out way! Organization & prioritization: CSMs need to have a method of organizing and prioritizing their day. When you’re partnering with multiple customers who are in different phases of maturity or “health”, prioritizing where you spend your time becomes really important. You also then have multiple stakeholders within each customer, goals to hit, queries to answer….organization is key!

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/

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?

The most important skills for a Customer Success Manager are: * Ability to conduct discovery with a customer. In sales, we've heard the phrase "Always be closing." In Customer Success, we should Always be Discovering. This means that every conversation a CSM has with a customer is an opportunity to ask why, learn how, and dig deeper into the customer's business goals. The more we know about the client's goals and business, the more valuable we bcome. * Setting expectations early and often. CSMs must be able to (tactifully!) set expectations with customers, and set expectations with internal cross-functional partners. * Objection Handling. Most Customer Success Managers are, by nature, people-pleasers. We want to make customers happy and solve their problems, and when everything goes according to plan, that's easy to do! What's more difficult is when everything doesn't go perfectly, the product doesn't actually answer all of their needs, when the price is too high, when there's a breaking defect... the list goes on. A CSM has to be able to handle objections with grace and prove value even in difficult circumstances. * Presentation and Interpersonal Skills. CSMs have to be ready at all times to address talking points of an agenda, lead conversations in a personable way, and present new ideas. Customer Success Managers must be comfortable giving presentations and leading the relationship with the customer.

The first step to knowing if a client is at risk of churning is to identify the potential warning signs: * Lack of Engagement * Client Turnover * Service/Support Issues * Economic Climate * Poor Performance * Low CSAT/NPS Scores Once you understand what to look for you can better assess risk within any given account and create an action plan to get things back on track. I've found the most impactful element to avoiding churn from the onset is to create strong executive relationships with clients. This allows for a feedback loop to prevent frustrations and address issues quickly.