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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Ben Terrill
Ben Terrill
Brex Senior Director, Customer SuccessJanuary 19
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.
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6086 Views
Brett Milstein
Brett Milstein
Narvar Director, Customer SuccessFebruary 8
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. 
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4265 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.
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8130 Views
Jessica Haas
Jessica Haas
Appcues Chief of Staff & VP of CXApril 27
The two areas I would recommend are 1) Sharpening your Sales skills and 2) Adopting some Product Manager mindsets. When working with customers and the further upmarket you go, the more enriched these conversations need to be and the immediate areas for many customers are to understand their contracts, how they can scale with your product, value alignment, and ROI. Supplementing this, customers want to know how your product will be evolving and how their feedback can influence the roadmap. Being able to cut right to the value of a product, requirements, outcomes, and how those align with the customer's values will set your customer and Product teams up for mutual success!
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3194 Views
Manil Vasantha
Manil Vasantha
Information Technology ConsultantJanuary 18
Communication and mental fortitude are essential soft skills, and Product and Industry knowledge are essential hard skills one must have as a core strength. Customer Success Associates/Customer Success Managers/Director Customer Success - all need to have or eventually have some essential soft skills. • Communication: (both skills of speaking and active listing) • Verbal: the ability to communicate clearly in an individual or group setting. • Non-Verbal: In conversation with the customer - 1:1 or group setting- non-verbal cues play an essential role: body language, Facial expression, and Vocal tone. • Witten: the ability to communicate Cleary in any written communication. • Listening: There is a reason why we have two ears and one month. We need to listen twice as much. • Interpersonal: Build and maintain relationships with diverse folks from different cultures and countries. • Emotional intelligence: We are often told to put ourselves in the customer’s shoes. Understanding and managing emotions in oneself and others is crucial for effective conflict resolution, active listening, and building trust. • Mental-fortitude: Innate, ingrained desire to help others unconditionally. We may have a crisis on hand - production outage, DevOPS, Engineering, and Customer pulling their hair - the sky is falling, and indeed, financial loss - YOU are the calmest person in the room. • Navigation skills: You need to be a master negotiator. You will not win every battle, nor can or should you expect PM to accept all your ER to be approved; there are other CSMs and new logos that will take precedence. What do you do, you bring your charm to work—your negotiation skills. • Adaptability: Today’s world is changing. Change is the ONLY constant. The ability to adjust to changing customer needs and priorities and to be flexible in finding solutions. • Problem-solving skills: No one, including the customer, expects you to have all the answers. The ability to quickly and effectively identify and resolve customer issues is crucial for maintaining customer satisfaction, loyalty, and long-term engagement. • Assertiveness and Persistence - the customer is NOT ignoring you. They are just busy and have other priorities. Being persistent and assertive - get your attention WHEN required. Remember - the customer is not available cannot be an excuse. • Knowledge of Tools (soft and hard skills): CRM (Jira/SFDC/HubSpot/Zoho etc.), Salesforce.com, Gainsight. Analytical Tools like Tableau, SAS/ PowerBI, and Google Analytics. You should get some training as part of your onboarding; however, self-help is the best help. As for hard skills, some key areas that customer success managers should focus on include: • Product knowledge: a deep understanding of the product or service can help customer success managers troubleshoot and provide solutions to customer issues. This is tactical. But CSMs must also engage very closely with Product Management and Product Marketing. They must be up to speed on new products in the pipeline. Identify both very and horizontals of the product suite. Pick the impacted “diamond” customer and bring them into the steering meeting to help influence product direction. This is sure to keep the customer engaged and a promoter. • Technical skills: navigating technical tools and software used in customer support and engagement. This is still tactical, but engaging with TS and moving your customers’ cases will be an excellent tool to help alleviate any relationship issue. • Analytical skills/Data analysis: the ability to analyze customer data and metrics to identify trends and opportunities for improvement. Data should contain how customers utilize every channel offered as part of their QBR. • Project management: the ability to manage customer projects and initiatives effectively to ensure timely delivery and customer satisfaction. • Industry knowledge: the ability to stay current on industry developments and trends, as well as an understanding of best practices in customer success management. Remember, change occurs faster than we can handle - which means we need to be up to speed on the nature of the customer’s business - educate him even on what the competition offers and how you differentiate. Progressive Insurance model, if giving their insurance quote and their competition quote, clearly shows how they differentiate themselves from the competition. And also demonstrates their superior service.
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2857 Views
Rebecca Warren
Rebecca Warren
Eightfold Director, Customer SuccessApril 18
Our current path goes CSM - Sr. CSM - Principal CSM - Mgr, CSM - Dir, CSM - Sr Dir, CSM. I think there are options along the way as well to move into or come from pre-sales, sales, marketing, product, ops, or talent acquisition, depending on how your organization is set up.
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1463 Views
Christine Vienna Knific
Christine Vienna Knific
mParticle Senior Director, Customer Success - North AmericaJanuary 18
The most important things to consider when assessing a new opportunity with a different company are: * The company's trajectory. Is there a viable path to success for the organization, and are you comfortable with that path? (i.e. are they profitable? If not, what level of ambiguity works for you?) * The definition of Customer Success at the company. With Customer Success being a relatively new field, the term can be used in a lot of different ways. It's really important to make sure the company's definition of CS lines up with yours. * The company's definition of success in the role and as an organization. What metrics do they use? What does "good" look like?
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2745 Views
Jessica Broderick
Jessica Broderick
Asana Head of Vertical Solutions EngineeringApril 13
The most important aspect of communicating customer success activities to the company is identifying what each department cares about. The update provided to a Sales team looks very different than what would be delivered to a Product team. This ensures the updates have value to the people consuming them. Once you've determined what each department cares about, you then decide on the method of delivery. I prefer to provide updates in a meeting forum to allow for discussion and better understanding. Many other teams may opt for an email or newsletter that goes out on a specific cadence. A lot of this depends on the size of the company and the importance of the updates. Lastly, don't forget to ask for feedback! If something isn't working or could be better, make sure to iterate.
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838 Views
Michael Maday
Michael Maday
Gainsight Senior Director, Customer SuccessFebruary 17
In this current economic landscape, the only teams that are going to be allocated resources are the ones that are able to show and substantial return on investment (ROI) to the organization. For example, Customer Success teams must be able to project how adding resources or technology will positively impact Retention Rates, Drives Expansion, or Reduces churn. Additionally, these requests must be as data-driven as possible and not hypothetical scenarios. Be critical in your assessment and if your ask is not going to bring a 5x-10x return, it will not be accepted. 
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