Best Of

Office Hours?

Hello All

I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays!

It has been a while. When are the next Office Hours?

Tim Gilhooly

1

Does anyone have a handoff template/process from sales to CS that they've found effective? I'm finally in a company where I feel the support/alignment from the sales org, and always trying to find the balance between bureacratic documentation vs. "hey we really need this information." Ideally would like to use HS, but still think these folks would work best with a template. Any thoughts/help/experience?

Jung Kim

1

Re: Office Hours?

Hi @Tim Gilhooly! I am working to build out our Office Hours hosts, but am planning that we kick off our 2025 series on Wednesday, January 22 at 1pm EST! This year we are going to align topics quarterly but bring a lot of different subtopics within each umbrella topic…should be a great line up!! My plan is to get these up and listed asap so you can register and get them on your calendar…

Heather Wendt

1

Re: Looker Users - Sound off!

@Patrick Ruster, yes, I've worked with them and they're great. I'll make an introduction on LinkedIn.

Ed Powers

1

Re: How do you identify and measure successful client engagement?

Such a great question, @kmcgrew. In past lives I facilitated CABs, focus groups and user groups, and measuring the business impact of these activities was exceedingly difficult. A big factor is self-selection bias, which muddies cause and effect. For example, did participation cause higher engagement, or because they were more engaged they participated?

One suggestion is to ask a sampling of interested participants about the outcomes they expect (and why) from such a session, and then measure afterwards if and how well those outcomes were satisfied. I would steer clear of anything NPS-oriented that speaks to future behaviors (referrals, renewals, etc.) because it's not fruitful. A recent meta-study showed that stated intentions predicted future behaviors only about 27% of the time.

Hope that helps! Good luck.

Ed Powers

1

Re: How do you identify and measure successful client engagement?

I agree with what Ed stated above. I'd also be careful with trying to accomplish too many things or measure too many things from one event. I'd identify 1 or 2 very clear expected outcomes and then measure if that expected outcome actually occurred. Is the event something that you're doing to just facilitate networking within your customer base (if so, you may not really have a way to measure success besides a survey afterward). If an intention of the event is to increase customer engagement on your platform, then you should be able to track those that attended and if their usage increased in the 3 months following the event (and you should be clear on what usage means - just logins, specific actions, etc.). I think being thoughtful and intentional around the purpose of the event will naturally point you to how to measure it's success.

In terms of your question on how to support networking for your customer base, we had several different in-person events in high volume areas throughout the year, as well as our annual user conference. On an ongoing basis we encouraged cross-customer communication in our community platform through different engagements, question prompts, etc. and rewarded customers for not just answers to our questions but also answers to other customer questions.

Anna Alley

1

Re: Aligning Marketing and Scaled CS

@William Buckingham Wow! I very much appreciate the time you took to share this with me.

I have a weekly meeting with our marketing team. I can’t wait to discuss this with them.

Happy Holidays,

Tracy

tmnovello

1

Re: CS Run Office Hrs - Looking for some data

I thought I would mention that I was inspired to revisit OH programs after listening to this great session by Samantha David.
https://podcast.digitalcustomersuccess.com/2186702/episodes/16208946-building-automations-that-enhance-customer-experience-with-samantha-david-of-monday-com-ep-081

MarkusS

1

Best Practices for Expanding Customer Success Teams in a Growing Company

Hello Everyone,

I’m currently working in the customer success space at a rapidly growing company, and I’m looking for some insights on scaling our Customer Success (CS) team effectively as we continue to expand. We’ve seen significant growth in both customer base and revenue, and now we’re at the point where our current CS team is stretched thin. I want to make sure that as we scale, we don’t lose sight of the high-touch service that has been a key part of our success so far.

Some specific questions I have:

Team Structure – How do you recommend structuring a customer success team when scaling? For example, should we separate teams based on customer size, industry, or complexity of the product?
Tools and Technology – What are the most effective tools for managing a growing customer success team? We currently use basic CRM systems but are considering implementing more specialized tools for customer success management. Any recommendations?
Hiring and Training – As we expand the team, what should we prioritize when hiring for new roles? What qualities or skills should we be looking for to maintain the quality of our customer relationships? Also, how do you approach training new hires to maintain our team culture and approach to customer success?
Customer Segmentation – How do you manage customer segmentation when scaling a CS team? Do you find that separating customers by tiers (small, mid-market, enterprise) makes sense, or should the focus remain on providing personalized service regardless of size?

I’d love to hear any advice or experiences you’ve had with scaling customer success in your organization. Thanks in advance for any input!

alice mendix

alice_bell

1

Week in Review - November 1

November 1, 2024

What an incredible (and incredibly busy!) few months! So many amazing CS-focused events out there, and GGR had a part in a few of them! From our September live event in Austin, TX, to participation in ChurnZero’s Zero-In through a presentation and a happy hour, to the 2nd annual Demopalooza that just ended yesterday with 17 vendors participating over the course of 4 days. Keep an eye out for the announcement that the demo videos are live in GGR in the next week or so!

As we gear up for a rapidly approaching end of year, I am wondering what you are focusing on? Is it finishing strong and making sure you are reaching out to those last customers on the list? Are you beginning to look at changes in processes and strategies for 2025? Are you just trying to keep up with all of the meetings, asks, and fires? Take a moment to share your status in GGR!

Events

🗨️ GGR CS Leadership Office Hours

The GGR Leadership Office Hours are a great way to connect with your peers through conversations about leading CS topics.

Wondering if it is worth it? Here is some feedback from our latest event:

I appreciated the opportunity to connect with a bunch of people interested in CS and how we can improve things for our customers!

With only 2 meetups remaining for 2024, make sure you have registered so you don’t miss them!

Be sure to register

Sponsor Corner

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Best Practices (Conversations)

Check out some of the great conversations happening on GGR. Click the title to see the full conversation and share your insights!

Outsources Remote CS Teams

Sophie Quinn is asking for some help with outsourcing companies to help bring support especially in new markets. Have some thoughts? Be sure to share it here!

Career change to CS

Msobierajska is looking to move from hospitality over to CS and would love to get some insights into qualifications that would be beneficial and getting their foot in the door. Can you help with some suggestions?

Thoughts on customer asking for new rep

Kathryn Moore is looking for opinions and approaches to reassigning accounts based on customer requests. What are your thoughts?

CSM and FEDRAMP

An emerging market, Chimeria Gonzalez would love to get some insights into CSMs and federal agencies. Have any experience here you can share?

Inherited a CRM

Brian O’Keeffe has run into an issue with a CRM inherited through an acquisition is just not functional and would like to hear from GGR members who have reconfigured a CRM in their career. Is this you? Take a moment to pop in and share your thoughts!

4th Quarter Introductions

Every quarter we create a space for new and ‘mature’ GGR members to share a bit about who they are professionally and/or personally. If you haven’t participated in one of our intro threads yet, be sure to hop in, check out your peers, and share! Get started

Content

GGR SuccessScapeLooking for options for a tech need? GGR has a SuccessScape that pulls together over a hundred different resources (suggested in large part by your peers) and categorized to make it easy to see options. We are relaunching our list and asking for your input – is there a category or segment missing? What tech are you using that isn’t already on the list? Check out the QR code in the document to make your suggestions!

Psst – if you are a vendor and are on our SuccessScape or would like to be added, we also have a very exciting opportunity to have your logo linked to your website it make it even easier for potential customers to check you out.

If you are interested, be sure to reach out to heather@gaingrowretain.com for more information and check out the flyer for more options!

Community

GGR Job Board

Did you know that GGR has a job board and that there is activity on it? If not, take a moment to check it out here! This is a job board created for CS roles only and gives potential employers an opportunity to review potential candidates based on skill matching. If you haven’t created a profile yet, be sure to jump in and get started! OH! We are also in the process of adding some very cool new opportunities in the coming weeks to help job seekers even more, so stay tuned!

Member Highlights

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