You're the new customer success manager for a B2B SaaS company that has 40 people and is starting to scale. What should you aim to do in your first month and your first quarter?
Meenal Shukla
Gainsight Senior Director of Customer Success • March 23
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 history, and feedback. Understand what's the contract size look like and how the product is priced.
- Understand what the key metrics that you are responsible for and accountable for in your new role
- Introduce yourself to key stakeholders and establish a working relationship with them.
- Make sure you are establishing cadence calls with the customers
- Understand your customer's buying center: Who are the most relevant stakeholders in your customer organization
- Begin creating a plan for measuring and achieving customer success (Especially if you are a team of one).
First Quarter (If you are a team of one or the first hire of CS):
- Develop a customer segmentation strategy to identify key customer groups and their needs.
- Establish clear customer success goals and metrics that align with the company's business objectives.
- Work with the customer success team to develop and implement a comprehensive onboarding process for new customers.
- Identify opportunities to upsell or cross-sell to existing customers and develop a strategy to execute these opportunities.
- Establish regular meetings with the sales team to discuss customer feedback, engagement, and issues.
- Develop and implement a customer feedback survey to measure satisfaction levels.
- Analyze customer data to identify trends, challenges, and areas for improvement.
- Develop a plan to address any identified challenges and areas for improvement.
1065 Views
Top Customer Success Mentors
John Brunkard
Sitecore Vice President of Customer Success APJ
Meenal Shukla
Gainsight Senior Director of Customer Success
Rebecca Warren
Eightfold Director, Customer Success
Ben Terrill
Brex Senior Director, Customer Success
Nicole Alrubaiy
Jellyfish Senior Vice President, Customer Success
Natasha Evans
Hook Head of Customer
Caoimhe Carlos
Udemy Vice President Global Customer Success
Michael Maday
Gainsight Senior Director, Customer Success
Jessica Haas
Appcues Chief of Staff & VP of CX
Kiran Panigrahi
Gainsight Senior Director - Client Outcomes
Related Questions
How can someone from a different field transition to customer success?What is your favorite customer success interview question and the best answer you've heard?What do you think about your first 30/60/90 day goals when coming in as the Head of Customer Success in a startup that didn't have customer success managers before?What are some of the most common red flags you've come across either on a candidate's resume or initial interview that you'd advise future customer success managers to avoid?What are the most important soft and hard skills customer success managers can build to become successful in their field going forward?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?