Get answers from customer success leaders
Stephen O'Keefe
Stephen O'Keefe
HubSpot Senior Director, Customer SuccessFebruary 21
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. 
...Read More
19860 Views
Upcoming AMAs
Ben Terrill
Ben Terrill
Brex Senior Director, Customer SuccessJanuary 18
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.
...Read More
3750 Views
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.
...Read More
8130 Views
Brett Milstein
Brett Milstein
Narvar Director, Customer SuccessFebruary 7
In my experience there are a few characteristics/skillsets that the best CSMs I have hired all have in common: 1. Organizational skills - This is #1#1 for me. I have never seen a CSM who was not organized be successful. As a CSM requests are being thrown at you left and right, and you are being pulled in a million different directions. The best CSMs are organized/proactive and know exactly what action items they need to complete and how to prioritize them. 2. Ability to showcase value - This one might sound simple but I can promise you it is not. A large part of a CSMs role is to retain customers and to do that, they need to articulate and justify the price of the service. This is challenging for two reasons. 1. Not all customers justify value in the same way, so a CSM needs to make sure they truly understand how the customer is determining this. 2. The majority of the time the day-to-day contact is not the ultimate decision maker. Therefore, the CSM needs to articulate the value in a way that the day-to-day contact will be able easily to go back and relay this to their boss (or decision maker). If a CSM is having a tough time explaining the value, it's going to be even more difficult for the day-to-day contact to explain it. 3. Charisma - Customer Success is all about relationship building. CSMs spend a ton of their time on zoom calls with their customers and valuable/engaging conversations are what help build strong and trusting partnerships. The CSMs I typically see with the most success (especially regarding renewals and upsells) are the ones who have built the best relationships with their partners. 
...Read More
3018 Views
Jessica Haas
Jessica Haas
Appcues Chief of Staff & VP of CXApril 26
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/
...Read More
2633 Views
John Brunkard
John Brunkard
Sitecore Vice President of Customer Success APJ | Formerly Red Hat, Symantec, Blue Coat, Intel, Dell, DialogicApril 2
Customer feedback can be a goldmine for improving product adoption rates. A wealth of information can be gleaned if you go about it the right way. A key point to note is that it is important to leverage both solicited and unsolicited feedback to continuously optimize your strategy: Solicited Feedback: Targeted Surveys: Conduct surveys at key points in the customer journey, like onboarding, feature adoption, and renewal periods. Tailor questions to gather specific insights on the user experience, their effort and satisfaction. In-App Feedback Tools: Embed tools within your product that allow users to easily submit feedback, report bugs, or suggest improvements. Unsolicited Feedback: Active Listening: Develop your active listening skills during customer calls, training sessions, or support interactions. Pay attention to user language, hesitations, or workarounds – these can reveal hidden challenges. Support Ticket Analysis: Mine your support tickets for common themes and recurring issues. Look beyond the specific problem to identify underlying factors impacting adoption. Social Listening: Monitor social media platforms, user forums, and industry review sites (example Gartner Peer Review). Analyze conversations to identify trends in user sentiment and pain points related to your product. Turning Feedback into Action: Actionable Insights, Not Just Data: Don't get bogged down in data. Analyze both solicited and unsolicited feedback to identify recurring themes and pain points. Focus on actionable insights that can be translated into concrete improvements. Prioritize Based on Impact: Not all feedback is created equal. Prioritize issues based on their potential impact on adoption. Address critical usability hurdles or roadblocks that hinder core workflows. Close the Loop: Communicate back to users how their feedback is being used. Demonstrate that their voice matters. This builds trust and encourages continued engagement. Targeted Onboarding: Use feedback to personalize onboarding experiences. Highlight features that address common pain points for new users of a specific segment. Focus on the "Why" Behind the Feedback: Don't just fix the "what." Understand the underlying motivations and goals behind both solicited and unsolicited feedback. This helps you solve the root cause of adoption roadblocks. Important Point: Establish a feedback loop with your Product Development and Product Management teams. Share customer insights directly with those who can translate them into product improvements. By actively soliciting feedback through surveys and in-app tools, while also being a keen listener for unsolicited feedback in conversations and online discussions, you'll gain a well-rounded understanding of your user base. This comprehensive approach enables you to continuously refine your product and the onboarding process, thereby creating a user-centric experience that drives product adoption and long-term customer success.
...Read More
448 Views
Caoimhe Carlos
Caoimhe Carlos
Udemy Vice President Global Customer SuccessFebruary 13
One of my favourite CS interview questions is some variation of "Can you share a time when you received constructive feedback from a peer, manager, or cross-functional partner in your previous role as a Customer Success Manager? How did you deal with it, and how did it impact your actions after the fact?" The reason I like this question is that the way the candidate answers it tells me a lot about their self awareness, intelligence, their ability to handle difficult situations with maturity, humility and professionalism, their communication skills and their growth mindset, all of which are skills that are valuable in your role as a CSM and also make someone a great colleague and team member. The best answers I have heard to this question have been thoughtful, honest, clear and have all resulted in genuine impact for the person in terms of how they have grown and developed.
...Read More
925 Views
Jessica Broderick
Jessica Broderick
Asana Head of Vertical Solutions EngineeringAugust 1
The CSM is an internal and external advocate for the customers they support. Because of this, it is important for them to collaborate with internal teams to ensure clients have everything they need to be successful and adopt the product. As an example, customers will often make feature requests for an enhancement to the product that helps them improve a specific use case. By working with product development teams, CSMs can drive innovation to the product roadmap that directly aligns to how their customers want to be using it. There are many ways to enable this kind of collaboration but I find that creating a process around it helps streamline the efforts. This can be accomplished by creating a workflow to submit feedback/ideas/requests with various teams in Slack, JIRA, SFDC, CSP, etc in combination with a forum where the feedback can be openly discussed to identify deliverables.
...Read More
1213 Views
Wynne Brown
Wynne Brown
RocketReach VP of Sales & Customer SuccessMay 16
This is a great question because autonomy is such a key trait for a CSM. And since CSMs come from a variety of backgrounds, getting a clear take on someone's autonomy is critical. Prompt the candidate to tell you about their autonomy by asking them directly: can you tell me about a work situation where you owned an outcome? What you're looking for here is their sense that they are responsible for driving outcomes - that ownership of outcomes is the autonomy you're looking for since they owe the Customer an answer or solution. But within the autonomy of being the responsible party, you need to also hear that they collaborate effectively. CSMs always have to rely on the contributions of others from sales, to account management, to product to support. Your best gauge is specificity. Is the story vibrant? Told in a clear way with a beginning, middle and end? If the answer sounds mushy, it is.
...Read More
460 Views
Jeff Beaumont
Jeff Beaumont
Customer Success ConsultantFebruary 8
Two examples, one SMB and one enterprise: SMB: Theme: work backwards from what you want: customer is well-trained —> product adoption —> high retention. A long time ago I worked for a company entirely focused on SMB (think single users up to 20). With that, we worked backwards from what "good" looked like (high retention) and then determined what they would need to do (use cases in the product) and then we saw the results. Put differently, we put together a list of customers who were hardly using the product, performed outreach campaigns of phone calls for 1:1 coaching, emails, and webinar invites, and many of those customers took us up on the offer and we met with them at least once, and then followed-up with email content. It was hit or miss because many of those users who struggled in the beginning also struggled later on because they were either 1) constantly distracted or 2) were intimidated by learning a new piece of technology. However, the ones who engaged truly outperformed their peers. This was measured by 1) logins and 2) each area of the product. Enterprise: At a different company, we put together a 'maturity model' for different use cases. With this, we were able to show the customer how they stacked up against their peers, and also where they stand in terms of adopting the product. Being able to show customers how they stack against their peer group is natural and extremely motivating. Then they developed internal plans to adopt more of the product.
...Read More
781 Views