AMA: Clari Vice President, Customer Success, Nicole Alrubaiy on Establishing the Customer Success Function

We have a leader over post-sale who rolls into our Chief Revenue Officer. We call this org Customer Value and Adoption. Within this umbrella, we have Support, Services, and Customer Success. Within Customer Success, I oversee: Customer Education (Community, Knowledge Base, Training)  Digital Adoption (In-app Engagement)  Product Success (Technical Specialists, Liaisons to Product) CSM Having all of these teams aligned under Customer Success allows us to drive product adoption and value realizati ...Read More

There's no magic bullet here, but I've found a few key ingredients to retaining great talent.  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.   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 ...Read More

What a wonderful opportunity- to start a fresh org! I see the Customer Success org as playing a key linking role between departments in your company to bring continuity to the customer journey, and with customers to make their voices heard within your organization. The first few weeks are about learning: What are the gaps your company is trying to address by adding a Customer Success function? Ask your customers: What have been the moments of truth (make or break moments) in their journey with y ...Read More

Whenever there are customers you need to retain (psst... that's pretty early!). I've found that we in the industry are quite liberal in what we call Customer Success, particularly in early-stage companies. You'd likely start with a CSM as the person who helps onboard/implement the new customers, answers how-to questions for them, and does whatever it takes to make their product dreams come true. The role is broad and a catchall for post-sale needs. Who would do it otherwise? You probably don't w ...Read More

Let's think bigger than just Sales here! Customer Success is the glue between all of the customer-impacting departments in your company (note: that's pretty much every department). Your job as a CS leader is to build partnerships with all of the business leaders that will drive the best outcomes for your customers and for your company as a result. Here are a few tips: If your company has a framework for cross-departmental goals, make sure you study those. How does serving customers better impact ...Read More

Working from personal experience here (I can't speak for everyone), what I've seen in small Customer Success teams is that they're scrappy. They've started as the "do anything to help" team and have had success in that. So much success, the org wants much more Customer Success. The downside, there's very little consistency or boundaries in their role. I recommend you start with taking an audit of the various roles/responsibilities that the CS team is owning or getting involved in. Chances are, y ...Read More

My journey was the other way around. I started at a company where CS was brand new, and then came to a company where CS was established. Looking back, here are some interesting findings. Perceptions of what Customer Success is/isn't vary widely, even if the function already exists at the company. When CS doesn't exist yet, there's an explicit need to educate the executives, sales reps, product org, etc. on what the team will do and the results they will drive. At a company where CS is establishe ...Read More