AMA: Unity Vice President Operations & Customer Success, Agatha Hood on Customer Success Leadership

I tap into our unifying passion for customers, and use that as a jumping off point for our metrics-driven goals. Many companies are experiencing a time of instability, which is our biggest hurdle to having a highly motivated team. By grounding our work in the known of customer issues and support, we can ride out periods of change and remain focused.

Overall, we try to have a culture of open communication and psychological safety, as well as multiple methods to bring up feedback:

• Peer reviews especially during performance cycles

• Team-level internal CSATs to understand team collaboration and value

• HR availability for sensitive topics

When the feedback is on the team level, I try to address it directly and ensure all responsibilities are clearly defined between teams ideally removing unnecessary friction.

Collaboration with each department requires a different approach because each team works differently and has different goals.

• Sales: We work one on one in territories sharing KPIs and account plans.

• Marketing: Depending on whether we’re working on customer communication or events, collaboration happens in periodic meetings or working groups.

• Executive Level / Other Partner Teams: Our goal is to keep each other informed and overcome hurdles for our teams through good alignment and communication. 

My leadership philosophy centers on empowering the team, advocating for the customer, and driving measurable value. It has evolved from a focus on reactive problem-solving to a more proactive, strategic approach that emphasizes long-term customer relationships and retention.

To be a successful CS leader, you should think about 3 high level objectives:

1. Put yourself in similar situations to your customers to truly understand their pain points.

2. Develop your own style for success focusing on your strengths - whether they’re technical, relationship-driven, analytical, collaborative, etc.

3. Build cross-functional relationships to understand how customer feedback filters throughout your organization and where your voice can deliver the most impact.

We evaluate new technologies through both push and pull approaches. Push from our existing partners, like Zendesk, and pull from our teams’ specific pain points. We usually do a pilot with a cross-functional group of users, evaluate the impact and cost, and then create enablement and adoption goals.

If you have a unified user flow that begins in a dashboard or tool, a direct notification directly there, with the ability to learn more through documentation, AI chats, or videos is the best way to ensure all users are reached. Additionally, or in lieu of a central dashboard, EDM is usually the most reliable followed by more interactive formats like webinars or even blog posts.