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Natasha Evans

AMA: Hook Head of Customer, Natasha Evans on Customer Success Soft and Hard Skills

April 25 @ 10:00AM PT

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  1. What hard skills are must haves to be a customer success leader? What are nice to haves?

    Natasha Evans
    Natasha Evans

    Hook VP Customer Growth • 2y

    The main hard skill that stands out to me for a Customer Success Leader is change management. Because really this hits in 2 different ways in a Customer Success team: You need to coach and guide your team through how to successfully drive change in their customers You will often need to drive change internally. Customer Success is one of the most change-heavy departments as it often evolves as the business and the market does, so being able to get your team on board to an internal change is key. ...Read More

    1,877 Views
    2 requests

  2. What are the most important soft and hard skills customer success managers can build to become successful in their field going forward?

    Natasha Evans
    Natasha Evans

    Hook VP Customer Growth • 2y

    Soft skills Communication - (This is everything from how to communicate with an Executive, to how to deliver a training session, how to manage expectations with customers in the right way and get their buy-in to a Success Plan) Organisation & prioritisation - More and more is expected of CSMs as the role progresses, balancing time and workload effectively and focusing on the right customers at the right time is key Storytelling with data - As we get more and more data heavy, CSMs need to be ...Read More

    1,119 Views
    1 request

  3. How do you retain good customer success talent?

    Natasha Evans
    Natasha Evans

    Hook VP Customer Growth • 2y

    Great question! Retaining great CS talent is the same as retaining any good talent, but I do think that there are a few extra things to consider...The role of a CSM can often be high pressure when things go wrong and little recognition when things go really right. So I would always go out of my way to recognise great talent at every opportunity. That could be everything from nominating them for High Achiever's Club and shouting them out at company meetings, all the way to dropping them a meaning ...Read More

    1,067 Views
    1 request

  4. What are the most important customer success skills or perspectives that others inside an organization could benefit from that would improve their day to day work?

    Natasha Evans
    Natasha Evans

    Hook VP Customer Growth • 2y

    There's only one that springs to mind and it's "Put the customer at the centre of everything you do".

    If every department thinks customer first, then the whole company wins, as well as the customers!

    1,095 Views
    2 requests

  5. What made you decide to choose customer success over sales?

    Natasha Evans
    Natasha Evans

    Hook VP Customer Growth • 2y

    Relationship management is where Customer Success and Sales meet in the middle, but I liked the other skills that I'd develop in CS like project management and change management as well as that more consultative focus.

    1,042 Views
    1 request

  6. When joining a new team, is it better to have the right soft skills and have to learn the hard skills of the job? Or vice versa?

    Natasha Evans
    Natasha Evans

    Hook VP Customer Growth • 2y

    It's better to have the right soft skills, always!

    In fact, I'd go one step further than that and say it's even more important to have the right attitude/mindset first.

    Because if someone has the right mindset, and they're hungry to learn and take feedback on board (we call that Growth Mindset) then the soft skills and the hard skills can always be taught.

    1,002 Views
    1 request

  7. What are some of the core data points that you track regularly as a Director?

    Is there a particular area of data that you zoned in on to help increase your teams ARR contribution?

    Natasha Evans
    Natasha Evans

    Hook VP Customer Growth • 2y

    I want to first understand which activities or metrics correlate to churn, renewal and expansion. Then I know how to target my CS team and which activities to track off the back of that, as well as which metrics I need to keep a close eye on. So I don't think there's an easy one size fits all answer here. But I certainly think that broad strokes I will be tracking Health/adoption,GRR and NRR wherever I am, as well as understanding where you're losing WHY and WHO you're losing - is it specific co ...Read More

    1,700 Views
    1 request