Jeff Beaumont

Before I start, know this is a difficult question to answer. Here is how I approach it: 1. Review the job description and make sure I understand it 2. Review it with my manager to ensure we're aligned. The point of this is uncovering any gaps between you and your manager 1. Note: if there are others involved, you should make sure they're aligned too! 3. Establish a priority list. I prefer Google Sheets/Excel so they can be stack ranked with health status (red, yellow, green) 1. Other fields 1. Description (in 1-2 sentences, what is this) 2. Status (New, in progress, completed...etc.) 3. Ownership (who owns this) 4. Notes 5. Due date / estimated completion date 2. Optional fields 1. Success Metric/goal 2. Exit criteria (what will exist when this is complete) 3. Monthly update fields (what was done during this month) The priority list may be overkill for some, so start small with just the title, description, status (RYG), and notes. I have found having a document like this helps everyone stay abreast of what's happening, knowing where to go with questions, and feeling confident that it is effectively managed.

This can vary wildly. Areas It depends… 1. CSM/Pooled CSM 2. Digital 3. Renewals 4. Support 5. Professional Services 6. Implementation 7. Education 8. Operations/strategy 9. Enablement So when you look at all those, a CS org structure could be complex even with a small team! My recommendation is to start small, ensure your definition of success and annual strategy is clear for where you need to go based on your product/service, is aligned with other teams, avoids the errors of 1) being overly complex, 2) being non-ambitious (thinking small), and 3) shooting for the moon and demoralizing yourself and the team. The biggest piece of advice I can give is to: 1. Establish your long term strategy 2. Seek wise counsel around you for what you should pursue and how to organize it given your long term strategy If you're looking for general org structures, there are many images on the internet that you can use to get started.

This isn't exhaustive, but can be a good starting point: 1. Annual survey results. It's a lot of work, but after gathering that feedback, share it back with your customers in a annual survey results PDF. For example, share some of the best practices, which tools have high adoption, success stories, or other items that could help your audience become inspired, motivated, and have a path to adopt 2. Internal feedback loop. If you aren't already feeding that information to your Product and Exec teams, now's your chance! Not just the NPS or CSAT scores, but what is a summary of the qualitative feedback? What are customers saying? (hint: use AI such as ChatGPT to aggregate themes...just make sure to anonymize your data!) This is incredibly helpful for executives and Product Managers to get involved, listen to customers, and respond with substantial changes 3. Contact your customers. This should go without saying...but when a customer submits feedback, try to respond! Thank them, ask them clarifying questions, let them know "that part of the product annoys me too and I'm sharing your feedback with them tomorrow afternoon in our next sync meeting!" There are plenty more, but this takes the feedback to share with customers globally (annual results), to your teams (internal feedback loop), and in a more intimate manner with customers (contacting the user who submitted the feedback). These are all ways to demonstrate to customers you are really listening.

Two examples, one SMB and one enterprise: SMB: Theme: work backwards from what you want: customer is well-trained —> product adoption —> high retention. A long time ago I worked for a company entirely focused on SMB (think single users up to 20). With that, we worked backwards from what "good" looked like (high retention) and then determined what they would need to do (use cases in the product) and then we saw the results. Put differently, we put together a list of customers who were hardly using the product, performed outreach campaigns of phone calls for 1:1 coaching, emails, and webinar invites, and many of those customers took us up on the offer and we met with them at least once, and then followed-up with email content. It was hit or miss because many of those users who struggled in the beginning also struggled later on because they were either 1) constantly distracted or 2) were intimidated by learning a new piece of technology. However, the ones who engaged truly outperformed their peers. This was measured by 1) logins and 2) each area of the product. Enterprise: At a different company, we put together a 'maturity model' for different use cases. With this, we were able to show the customer how they stacked up against their peers, and also where they stand in terms of adopting the product. Being able to show customers how they stack against their peer group is natural and extremely motivating. Then they developed internal plans to adopt more of the product.

A few: 1. Give them a call to focus on how they can improve their desired outcomes (not use more of your product, but how they can get their stuff done) 2. Deliver maturity models: have a way for customers to see how they stack against their peer group and/or against your internal adoption roadmap 3. Most of all: ask what their top 3 company objectives are and make sure you support them in that goal — product adoption will follow (unless they're a bad fit customer)

This become highly complex based on the user persona, the complexity, of the product, and the time to adoption, among other things. However, a few things to consider are: 1. Knowledge Base: Do you have a solid, robust knowledge base? Is that knowledge base actively referenced in your product, website, by Support, by Sales, etc.? 2. Identify the ideal path: If you could meet with a user face-to-face and walk them through that adoption, what would that look like? What does it look like currently for self-serve? What is the delta between the two? 3. Identify 1-3 critical use cases: After identifying your top use cases, what does "great adoption" look like? Then build analytics, documentation, training guides and videos, and other content around ensuring those use cases are clear, capable of being easily adopted, and aligned with Marketing. Then track their adoption to ensure what you designed is, in fact, working in the world. 4. Support team: Does your Support team engage with self-serve customers? What is their process? Are they geared and ready for a high volume? Are they well-trained to respond with a friendly, thoughtful approach? 5. Insights to drive product improvements: Do you have analytics and insights on what customers are doing so you can improve the experience for the next cohort of onboarding customers? 6. Executive buy-in: This is off the beaten path, but are your executives bought into self-serve AND the support and onboarding required?

We've used several methods, depending on the size and type of the company. 1. Roadshows. One of the more effective yet costly in terms of time and useful for larger changes. We share a slide deck, explain the process, and run an AMA 2. Join team calls and/or join leadership calls to walk them through the changes, collect feedback, and share learnings 3. A monthly (or quarterly) "team update" doc that is shared in company standard mediums (e.g., Slack, email, message board...). This is usually a collection of everything that has happened and/or will happen 4. A dedicated slack channel that is read-only for asynchronous updates (generally smaller, non-critical updates)

This is tough because it's easier said than done. Hit your target. Prove your capability with what's expected of you (e.g., renewal rates, engaging with customers...), and then find ways to stand out such as getting customers to say "you better give _____ a raise!" or "I want to work with _______ again!" Stand out to your customers and that will come back to your company. This is a key way of standing out as a CSM. From there, you'll earn influence and the C-suite (or your CS/Sales leadership team, depending on the company size) will pay attention and be watching you. You will earn opportunities to say "this is what I do..." or "here's what I've seen our customers want...".

The most important part: do not be single-threaded. Make sure you build connections with multiple people at the organization. Ask your champion who else you should talk with. If you struggle to get the champion to divulge that, share tidbits, insights, and other recommendations so your champion wants to carry those into the organization. From there, run EBRs with your champion and slowly, over time, build the trust to ask for other contacts. Ask again. During the renewal cycle, get in front of procurement, other executives, and users. As a CSM, you can also try to network with power users as another way to get involved in the company — reach out to them and solicit their feedback and product requests! From there, try to get connected with the champion, decision maker, and executive sponsor — that could be the same person or multiple persons.

Expectations will likely be tricky for you and leadership as you both may be figuring it out together. This highlights many opportunities and risks. 1. Understand if the role expects you to be primarily a technical CSM, a customer advocate (share feedback internally), expand CSM (more like an account manager to grow/renew accounts), a renewal manager, or other focus. This will significantly help you understand what the job is explicitly or implicitly stating 2. Continue to check in with leadership on expectations. Don't know go with what was stated at the beginning as you're in a more fluid dynamic 3. Ensure you have a written job description and return to that from time to time, and review with leadership at least quarterly for your first year. Ask questions like, "are these responsibilities still accurate? Would you make any changes?" This may seem silly, but having it written down helps highlight gaps and differences of opinion 4. Network! Network with other CSMs and CSM managers about their expectations and how they work and expect to work 5. Attend webinars, in person gatherings (if feasible), and other events to understand how others interpret CSM