What metrics/data points have you found to be the most successful in providing the C-suite adequate insight into the customer base and its health? What are the top 3 questions you get from the C-suite on the CS organization?
You can go two ways here with respect to metrics.
-
Use a metric they know and understand
Pros: They can engage with it, they have an understanding of why it may be going up or down and a sense of how they can help influence it.
Cons: It might not be the best measure of the health of the customer base or may be one of 5+ factors.
-
Use something new that you feel better represents the business.
Pros: You can have confidence (if you've done your homework) that influencing this metric will drive retention and growth
Cons: It can take several months of repetition to warm up the executives to what these numbers mean and how to influence them
Frankly, I do a little of both. We have aligned the executive team on a set of metrics on which we have varying degrees of comfort and confidence. Here are a few examples
Adoption Health - defined by our data science team and shown to have a strong correlation to retention. A composite score that the executives have moderate comfort/understanding of but they're aware of the strong correlation.
Executive Engagement - % of accounts and ARR where we've had an intentional exec conversation in the past 90 days.
Onboarding Duration - # of days to take a customer from kickoff to launch.
ARR not yet launched - how much of our ARR is not yet in the Launched phase (meaning they're still in onboarding).
Top questions from the exec team:
How is retention trending this quarter, next qtr, for this year?
Why do we have confidence that our renewal/retention forecast is accurate? [I demonstrate this through the other metrics]
Which customers need help from the exec team?
Top Customer Success Mentors
![John Brunkard](https://sharebird.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=128,quality=75,format=auto/https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/sharebird-production/user_profiles/avatars/000/015/955/thumb/WhatsApp_Image_2024-07-04_at_8.19.32_PM.jpeg?1720097215)
![Meenal Shukla](https://sharebird.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=128,quality=75,format=auto/https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/sharebird-production/user_profiles/avatars/000/013/740/thumb/Meenal1.png?1685040598)
![Nicole Alrubaiy](https://sharebird.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=128,quality=75,format=auto/https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/sharebird-production/user_profiles/avatars/000/013/787/thumb/avatar.jpeg?1671560007)
![Conor Holmes](https://sharebird.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=128,quality=75,format=auto/https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/sharebird-production/user_profiles/avatars/000/014/106/thumb/avatar.jpeg?1672911804)
![Rebecca Warren](https://sharebird.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=128,quality=75,format=auto/https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/sharebird-production/user_profiles/avatars/000/013/749/thumb/avatar.jpeg?1671483332)
![Natasha Evans](https://sharebird.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=128,quality=75,format=auto/https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/sharebird-production/user_profiles/avatars/000/013/823/thumb/avatar.jpeg?1671701185)
![Ben Terrill](https://sharebird.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=128,quality=75,format=auto/https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/sharebird-production/user_profiles/avatars/000/013/585/thumb/1682906692384.jpeg?1727381540)
![Michael Maday](https://sharebird.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=128,quality=75,format=auto/https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/sharebird-production/user_profiles/avatars/000/013/744/thumb/avatar.jpeg?1671480300)
![Jessica Haas](https://sharebird.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=128,quality=75,format=auto/https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/sharebird-production/user_profiles/avatars/000/015/191/thumb/avatar.jpeg?1674681209)
![Caoimhe Carlos](https://sharebird.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=128,quality=75,format=auto/https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/sharebird-production/user_profiles/avatars/000/022/615/thumb/avatar.jpeg?1704792248)