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. 

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.

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.

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.

Scenario-based questions are my favorite but I especially like this one as it breaks the ice and allows the candidate to show their personality & you can have fun with the scenarios. Three emails hit your inbox, which do you answer first, second, and last and why? No wrong answers here! 1. You ordered lunch and the delivery person is running an hour behind and asks if you still want your order. (symbolizes a higher-value downgrade scenario) 2. Your friend wants to reschedule your plans for the evening and is asking for a confirmation (symbolizes a mid-value cancellation scenario) 3. You were given an Amazon gift card that needs to be claimed (symbolizes a lower-value upgrade scenario)

Firstly, good choice! You have picked a hot career and I only see CS becoming more prominent and important over the next decade. * Be curious. Take time to understand your customer’s business - one of the best parts of this job is the exposure you get to so many different types of businesses. The more you understand this, the better a CSM you will be. * Put your hand up. If there’s a new product / initiative you can be part of, volunteer for it. Lean in and maximize the learnings even if it scares you.

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.

Customer success KPIs for a self-serve product may differ from those for a more traditional, high-touch product. This is more of a 1:Many methodology driven based on these strategies. Here's how they typically change: 1. Customer Onboarding and Activation: With a self-serve product, the focus shifts to ensuring customers can quickly and easily onboard themselves and activate key features without human intervention. KPIs may include time to first value, activation rate, and completion of onboarding tasks. 2. User Engagement and Adoption: Tracking user engagement and adoption becomes critical in a self-serve model. KPIs may include metrics such as active users and feature adoption rates. 3. Customer Satisfaction and Support | NPS: While self-serve products aim to reduce the need for human support, it's still important to measure customer satisfaction and provide resources for self-help. KPIs may include customer satisfaction scores (CSAT), self-service resolution rates, and the effectiveness of knowledge base articles or tutorials. 4. Churn Prevention: Preventing churn becomes even more crucial with self-serve products, as customers can easily switch to competitors if they don't see value or encounter roadblocks. KPIs may include churn rate, customer retention rate, and reasons for cancellation. 5. Expansion Revenue: Driving expansion revenue from self-serve customers requires a focus on upselling and cross-selling opportunities within the product experience. KPIs may include upgrade rates. 6. Product Feedback and Iteration: With direct user interactions, self-serve products provide valuable feedback for product iteration and improvement. KPIs may include the quantity and quality of feedback collected, as well as the speed of implementing product enhancements. In a nutshell, KPIs for self-serve products will revolve mainly around the onboarding effectiveness, use of KB or bot, use of digital motions to capture feedback at the feature level, milestone level, and ease of use.

I am assuming this question is about career progression and movement to the next grade level. You should have a growth mindset and a desire to continuously improve, develop and learn. Here are some areas to consider focussing on. 1. Focus on results that matter for your current role (OKRs / MBOs) and look to exceed expectations on KPIs. Demonstrate the positive impact you are having for your company in what you do. 2. Develop a deep understanding of your customers, understand their goals and pain points and articulate how your company is helping them to achieve outcomes and obtain value. Be highly engaged with the right stakeholders in your customer base and be advocating on their behalf 3. Develop your leadership skills: To move to a higher level, your leadership skills will become more important. Take the initiative to lead projects (the more visible and impactful the better). Be available to mentor / coach others on your team. Have a clear understanding of your team's strengths and weaknesses and work to improve their performance. Step up to own areas that need improvement and drive change. 4. Expand your knowledge and skills: As the customer success function evolves, so must your knowledge and skills. Keep up to date with industry trends and best practices, and seek out opportunities to learn new skills. Apply what you have learned to improve your team / department / function.

There's no magic bullet here, but I've found a few key ingredients to retaining great talent. 1. Care deeply about the people on your team. Get to know them on a human level. Celebrate their wins. Understand how they want to grow, and be intentional about supporting that growth. 2. Orient everyone around the mission. It's hard to push through the tough days if you don't connect with a reward or benefit. It's even harder if you think you're the only one fighting. The team needs to know that they're all in the same boat (you included!) and that you're moving toward something great. It could be a brighter future for the team (we're fixing this process), or it could be a great accomplishment (we'll hit quota). Put that goal front and center and keep all eyes on it. Make sure to celebrate wins, however small, along the way. 3. Bring people along. Change is hard, and also constant in CS. Give your team space to share ideas, voice concerns, and help craft the program. We hold brainstorms and debates to make better decisions and the team appreciates the trust and transparency that we extend to them. Open-door policies are great, but if you're not willing to adjust tack, what's the point? 4. Be humbly human. You don't need to be right all the time, and you don't need to be emotionless. Admit to your mistakes, seek feedback often, and let your humanity show. It creates a safe space for your team members to bring their whole selves to work as well.