AMA: RocketReach VP of Sales & Customer Success, Wynne Brown on Enterprise Customer Success

I love the idea of a product marketer pivoting into a sales enablement role and here is why: much of sales enablement is about improving messaging and measurement of trainings so they can be reinforced or iterated. A product marketer has those skills! Here are the transferrable skills you can brag about: Deep understanding of products and how to translate product features into strong pitches of value An obsession with measurement to know where things need to improve Success partnering with sales ...Read More

This question asks about balancing metrics focused on retention and expansion as if they're on opposite sides of a seesaw. They aren't. The path to expansion travels squarely through the metrics you would measure for retention. In other words, you have to earn the right to retain business before you should even fathom expanding. Large accounts are going to expand in two main ways: buying more product or more new teams buying what one team already bought. Both of these expansion paths can only be ...Read More

Given the cost-cutting and economic headwinds facing so many companies right now, many roles are collapsing into single roles - and there is a definite trend to have CS leaders hold responsibility for outcomes AND revenue (renewals, expansion). And it is a touch chicken or the egg: is it better to have a CS leader add to their plate revenue responsibility or have a Sales leader add outcomes to their plate? I - no surprise! - favor adding revenue to the CS plate. Why? Being customer-centric and u ...Read More

Everyone always wants to know a baseline for ARR or number of accounts for CSMs, no matter what the segment. I think it is more important to understand how to model that based on your own business! I'm not going to say that an ECSM needs to have 10 accounts because it might be 20 or it might be 1... so here's how you figure it out! You will recognize this as bottoms-up capacity planning. Create a spreadsheet with the first section being internal overhead (team meetings, updating an CSP or CRM, t ...Read More

The only standard metrics or KPIs I can provide to you for tracking success with enterprise clients are meta metrics and meta KPIs: how do you measure the value of your product? All metrics and KPIs should focus on how a customer will know the ROI in your solution is worth it. Tracking activity metrics or touchpoints serves you to know your staff isn't lazy... but it does NOT measure success if you are looking at success as answering these questions: what value has the customer received? what or ...Read More

Three things that you can do to begin building an Enterprise Customer Success motion: Talk with decision makers who have bought your product. Learn everything from them about what was promised during the sales process, what implementation was like, how they will be reporting results from the engagement, how best to set up a Center of Excellence. This is not only key information in building out the motion, it is yet another thread what must be a multi-threaded relationship between your org and th ...Read More

By definition, Enterprise Customer Success means that you are selling a product that becomes so fundamentally core to a large enterprise's own workflows, processes, policies, etc. that they spend a lot and have very high expectations for ROI. So if you need to quantify or justify with that quantification needing Enterprise CS, I would argue that the customer journey is complex and the customer needs a field guide. That journey is basically the path to value and all the ins and outs of what to do ...Read More

Enterprise CSMs need to master quite a few things to be able to drive the highest ROI for their customers: Product: the extent of how technical a CSM should be will vary, but a CSM should be a master of using your solution Value: nobody should know more about the value the Customer wants than a CSM. And the CSM should be given clear tools and methods for calculating that value. Vision: matching the long term organizational goals of the Customer to the value of our product and the roadmap forward ...Read More

A top-notch sales enablement leader has a few characteristics that make them so awesome: A broad knowledge of sales methodologies and techniques without being attached to any... a melting-pot of best ideas will likely be best An obsession with iteration: measure, improve, measure again, improve again, and so on A personable nature where sellers view them as a resource and not another TPS-report-demanding 8th boss These characteristics can then lead to their core contributions: Run a cadence of s ...Read More

Enterprise Customer Success is the act of guiding enterprise customers through the customer journey to maximize ROI. It is the best and only way to fulfill the promises of the first sale, leading to renewals and earning the right to expansion. All CS practices measure things like: Licenses assigned Log ins Usage of features Tickets submitted Enterprise practices will also look at these factors to determine health: Is the relationship multithreaded at all levels? Is the customer reporting back th ...Read More

Product Management is a three-legged stool: Innovation: the vision for the product that should inspire and push boundaries Market: what does the market demand for a solution Voice of the Customer: the market covers the needs of who hasn't bought, and the VOC represents the needs and requests of those who have It is essential that CS has a steady cadence of meeting with product and then REPORTING OUT TO CUSTOMERS on the status of their requests. That is intentionally in all caps because most Prod ...Read More

If you already have a solid Enterprise Customer Success team, you can up-level by looking at: Do you have a Customer Advisory Board formed? Is it productive such that Customers are clamoring to be included? Are you providing to your Customers speaking opportunities to showcase them as a thought leader? If churn is not an issue, how are you maximizing expansion opportunities? Do you have a solid referral program for your champion to internally refer you to their colleagues? To their peers in othe ...Read More