AMA: Gainsight Director of Customer Success, Meenal Shukla on Customer Success 30 / 60 / 90 Day Plan

Scaling a customer success team beyond the first customer success manager requires careful planning and execution to ensure that the team can handle the increased workload while maintaining high customer satisfaction. Here are some steps that can help: Define customer success metrics: Before you start scaling your customer success team, it is important to define the metrics that you will use to measure success. This could include customer retention rates, customer adoption, NPS or other relevant ...Read More

Here's a framework you can use to help prioritize: Assess the current state of customer success: Before you can prioritize needs and deliverables, you need to assess the current state of customer success at the company. What processes, tools, and resources are currently in place? What is working well, and what needs improvement? Identify critical stakeholders (internal and external): Who are the key stakeholders in the customer success function? This may include executives, sales, product, and s ...Read More

(Please also see the framework proposed for 30-60-90 day plan). As a customer success leader, it's important to establish quick wins in your first 90 days to demonstrate the value of the customer success function and build momentum. Here are some examples of quick wins to aim for: Conduct a customer health check: Review customer data to identify any at-risk accounts or customers who are not getting the most out of your product or service. Work with the relevant teams to develop action plans to a ...Read More

I am going to answer this question from the perspective of a Customer Success leader: How do you measure success in your role? What metrics do you use? (Understanding how the sales team is incentivized is important because that drives behavior) Who are the important competitors that we see often during the sales cycle and post-sales? Are services being sold as a part of the package and how are the services and support tiered? What is the process from Sales to Services and Success handover? How a ...Read More

As a customer success professional and leader, you should ask the following questions during your one-on-ones with your cross-functional teams during your first month at the company: What are the goals and objectives of your team, and how do they align with the overall company goals? What are the biggest challenges your team is facing, and how can we work together to address them? How do you measure success for your team, and what metrics are you tracking? How do you currently communicate with c ...Read More

As the Head of Customer Success in a startup that did not have Customer Success Managers before, your primary objective would be to establish a successful customer success function. To do this, you must take a phased approach in the first 30/60/90 days to develop a foundation for success. Here are some possible goals you could set for the first 30/60/90 days: First 30 days: Understand the company's products/services, customers, and their pain points. Meet with key stakeholders such as sales, ser ...Read More

Surveys: Surveys are a popular way to gather feedback and needs from our customers. You can use surveys to ask specific questions about your products or services, customer service, pricing, and more.  Customer interviews: This method is particularly useful when you want to gain deeper insights into specific issues or topics. We interview all our churned customers to learn from the churn and solve systemic problems. Customer feedback through support channels: Customer feedback can also be gathere ...Read More

I am assuming that given the size of the company, this question may be for the first hire in CS. First Month: Understand the company's product and services thoroughly. Familiarize yourself with the CS team processes. If there are no established processes (and you are a team of 1), ensure that you establish a risk escalation and management with clear lines of escalation to the product, support and services team.  Familiarize yourself with the customer data, including customer profiles, purchase h ...Read More

Here are some steps you can take to create a strong 30/60/90 plan: Understand your role and goals: Before you start creating your plan, make sure you have a clear understanding of your role and the goals you're expected to achieve. This might involve reviewing your job description, learning the complexity of the product, talking to your manager or colleagues, or doing research on the company's customer success strategy. Break down your goals: Once you know what you're expected to achieve, break ...Read More

First 30 Days: Understand the lay of the land Understand the current state of Customer Success: Meet the Customer Success Team and know the team members. Understand the existing process of engagement, interaction, onboarding deployed by the customer success team Understand the data and metrics captured by the customer success team. What are the metrics that the CS team is compensated on and how are they doing against those? Understand the GRR, NRR, and Cost to serve for every segment. Make sure ...Read More