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

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: Yo...

1,904 Views

How do you structure a Voice of Customer program and ensure closed-loop feedback with Product and customers?

Rox Fitzmaurice

Jellyfish Director of Customer Success • 5mo

First, determine what your signals are going to be. The most obvious choice would be direct customer feedback—specifically, customer verbatim from CSM calls. Feedback cou...

434 Views

How do you handle difficult conversations with an executive sponsor when adoption is below target and renewal is at risk?

Rox Fitzmaurice

Jellyfish Director of Customer Success • 5mo

My "Hot Take" - If adoption is low, your sponsor may not be doing their job (well)!Strong sponsors have the opportunity, authority, and ability to activate users. Usually...

416 Views

How can someone from a different field transition to customer success?

John Brunkard

Salamander Advisory Customer Success Advisor | Formerly Adobe, Sitecore, Red Hat, Symantec, Blue Coat, Intel, Dell, Dialogic • 3y

It is certainly a great career move. It is important to understand the roles and responsibilities of a Customer Success Manager and determine that this is what excites an...

302 Views

Which data skills (e.g., SQL, Excel modeling, BI dashboards) are most valuable day to day, and how do you upskill your team in them?

Rox Fitzmaurice

Jellyfish Director of Customer Success • 5mo

I’ll start by saying two things:The tools themselves aren't the "secret sauce." It’s not just about being a "math person." CSMs need to be "problem solvers" who happen to...

540 Views

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?

Conor Holmes

Confluent Senior Director of CS & Account Management • 3y

What I enjoy most about the customer success role is the lens of seeing customers grow from their initial commitment to successful renewals and expansions where the custo...

1,546 Views

How do you retain good customer success talent?

Meenal Shukla

Zoom Head of Scaled Customer Success, Onboarding, Learning and Adoption • 3y

Here are several strategies you can use to increase retention among your customer success teams:Remove Hurdles and Be their Advocate: Removing hurdles to make CSM get ins...

640 Views

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

Meenal Shukla

Zoom Head of Scaled Customer Success, Onboarding, Learning and Adoption • 3y

Customer Success Managers (CSMs) require a combination of soft and hard skills to be successful in their roles. As we move forward into a world that is becoming increasin...

893 Views

What advice do you have for recent graduates that want to go straight into customer success?

Meenal Shukla

Zoom Head of Scaled Customer Success, Onboarding, Learning and Adoption • 3y

Breaking into customer success as a recent graduate can be an exciting journey that opens many doors. Here's some advice to help you get started:Understand the Role: Star...

584 Views

As a hiring manager, what do the best customer success candidates have in common?

Ben Terrill

Seso Head of Customer Success | Formerly Brex, Finn AI, Mobify • 3y

I find the best CSMs are: Curious - they want to understand “why”. This translates well with customers as it means they have an innate desire to understand their busines...

4,859 Views

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?

John Brunkard

Salamander Advisory Customer Success Advisor | Formerly Adobe, Sitecore, Red Hat, Symantec, Blue Coat, Intel, Dell, Dialogic • 3y

Looking at this from the perspective of a Customer Success Manager versus say a software developer.I focus on the core of attitude, aptitude and values alignment.For atti...

198 Views

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

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 t...

1,701 Views

What made you decide to choose customer success over sales?

Conor Holmes

Confluent Senior Director of CS & Account Management • 3y

I greatly respect the sales role, and CS and sales must work well together to drive successful customer outcomes. I have been in sales at various times throughout my care...

1,343 Views

Customer Success Career Path · Customer Success Soft and Hard Skills