Best Of
Re: Hiring Assessment for CSM
Could you be more specific? Having been assessed across multiple CS job openings I can say have given assignments on product demos (building a ppt and presenting it), building playbooks on churn/adoption/risk management, case studies. Not sure if this answers you but just sharing my experience out here
Do you make decisions based on assumptions or facts?
Before you answer, consider this. Do you think:
- Faster time-to-value always means lower churn?
- Value must be measurable to be meaningful?
- Every touchpoint impacts customer loyalty?
Of course you do! After all, it’s Customer Success orthodoxy.
But where’s the proof? There’s very little.
See the problem? Most of what we believe comes from what other people tell us. And we find statements more credible when they’re frequently repeated or come from people we perceive to be authorities.
As the adage goes, don’t believe everything you hear. At one time people thought the sun revolved around the earth. The Church declared it so. But Galileo proved it was all an illusion—the exact opposite was true.
Fast forward 400 years and not much has changed. Few challenge the “experts.” And even if someone makes a claim after proper analysis, what’s true in one case may not be true in another. Not all findings can be generalized.
So what’s the risk of acting on beliefs instead of facts? You can waste significant time, money and effort and produce no results. You can even make things worse.
The lesson? Take what other people say with a grain of salt. Hearing suggestions may inform your own hypotheses, but fact-based decisions come from analyzing your own data, in your own environment, and drawing your own conclusions.
How have you challenged conventional thinking and what have been the results?
Re: Should CEOs spend "a day in our shoes"?
Thanks for this important perspective Anna. As you probably know - but worth mentioning again for the community - is that one of the most important aspects of listening and empathy is to NOT rush in to solve. Even though that may be our strongest instinct at that moment. Customers (being the humans that they are) want to be heard and understood first, before considering what to do next.
Thanks again.
Re: Biggest pain points
Yep - as Diane said, retention is always first and foremost on our minds. Specifically, ensuring people are finding value (and why they're not) so that we can keep aligning products.
As we grow, scaling internal infrastructure to handle increased demand while ensuring that customers don't feel like they're getting less performance, reliability, or attention.
llitton
Re: Success Metrics
I think a common misconception is that we determine our quality and value, not the customer. It’s the other way around!
We may go to market communicating a value proposition that narrows the list of possibilities, but each account—and each person at the account—can define things differently. Part of good success planning, in my view, is to clarify and verify how each member of the account’s Decision-Making Unit expects and will experience value during their journey. Then we must put a method in place to show it at the right time, their “Moment of Proof.”
In my experience, customers always have the answers. We just need to ask them in the right way to find out. Perhaps asking “What’s important to you? Why? What would demonstrate that for you?” might be a good place to start.
Re: CSMs as Content Providers
OK, @Pam Micznik, I'm going to upset the apple cart.
I agree that CSMs need to have some writing skills. They write emails to customers and need to create concise decks for business reviews.
For me, content creation (from a CSM perspective) should be about generating ideas for content and not writing or designing the content themselves. Leave that to our expert marketing partners.
CSMs already have more than they can handle on their plates and their focus should be engaging with customers, providing value, and validating Impact.
Who disagrees?
Re: Combining Sales and Customer Success Into One
I recently came across an even more extreme approach, combining pre-sale and CS, which I think is not having customer success at all...
But on this specific discussion, I agree with the risks and opportunities listed and what I see working very well is a combination of that approach: CS are doing upsell and renewal, so they are working as trusted advisors with current users and champions, it is only natural that they will present to them new features or services within the product that can benefit them. It should be part of their conversation and based on value. If they drive adoption, they can also increase usage which for some products, is a form of upsell. I see renewal as part of the CSM role as a given.
Cross-sale is different and requires cold reaching in some cases and following a new sales cycle. It should be with Sales. However, CSMs can and should help with identifying those opportunities, from their discussions with their champions.
Re: Tracking Risk Mitigation Plans
Hey Justin - 2 ideas here:
1) Quick fix: Wherever the team is supposed to be updating their actions/next steps, tie a "last updated" field to it. This way leaders can quickly filter which Risks have not been updated over a certain period and hold their ICs accountable.
2) Longer-term fix: I've found that if reps aren't updating their risks properly, it's not because they're lazy; it's more so because they don't truly know what to do. Over time the organization should bucket their risks (product quality, feature gap, too expensive, non-payment, departure of decision maker, etc) and create standard "risk plays" for each bucket. Each risk play will likely involve multiple teams, so collaboration and alignment with different departments are critical. Once the plays are established, it is easier to see which step each risk is on and drive urgency for the next step.
Hope this helps!
