Natasha Evans

Customer Success is different in every organization. Some companies see CS as product experts or an extension of Support. I see Customer Success as Consultants and Change Agents and so I hire for the skill set that will ensure they succeed in a role at Salesloft. 3 main things I look for: Leadership & accountability: Leadership isn’t always leading a team. It’s ownership of your book of business and ownership of the success of your customers. It’s being able to coach a customer and push back ...Read More

It can seem daunting jumping into a customer-facing role. Where do I start if I don’t have the relationships built yet? How do I make connections to successfully drive business for my company? At the end of the day we all have to start somewhere. My advice would be to think about what actions you can take today to create valuable connections and start building customer relationships. Get your feet wet with webinars, workshops, office hours, anything that will help build your knowledge and get yo ...Read More

When it comes to maintaining positive relationships with customers – especially if your champion has changed and you need to restate your value proposition – I always think about three things as related to customer touchpoints: You have to be intentional about building out a level of service that ensures every customer feels heard. It’s important to be as accessible as possible to your customers, especially as we navigate an uncertain market. At Salesloft, for example, we host live office hours ...Read More

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: You need to coach and guide your team through how to successfully drive change in their customers You will often need to drive change internally. Customer Success is one of the most change-heavy departments as it often evolves as the business and the market does, so being able to get your team on board to an internal change is key. ...Read More

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 the back of that, as well as which metrics I need to keep a close eye on. So I don't think there's an easy one size fits all answer here. But I certainly think that broad strokes I will be tracking Health/adoption,GRR and NRR wherever I am, as well as understanding where you're losing WHY and WHO you're losing - is it specific co ...Read More

Soft skills Communication - (This is everything from how to communicate with an Executive, to how to deliver a training session, how to manage expectations with customers in the right way and get their buy-in to a Success Plan) Organisation & prioritisation - More and more is expected of CSMs as the role progresses, balancing time and workload effectively and focusing on the right customers at the right time is key Storytelling with data - As we get more and more data heavy, CSMs need to be ...Read More

Great question! Retaining great CS talent is the same as retaining any good talent, but I do think that there are a few extra things to consider...The role of a CSM can often be high pressure when things go wrong and little recognition when things go really right. So I would always go out of my way to recognise great talent at every opportunity. That could be everything from nominating them for High Achiever's Club and shouting them out at company meetings, all the way to dropping them a meaning ...Read More