CS Ops - Enablement

Jennifer Scheib

Hi everyone!

I'd love to connect and learn more about what other SaaS companies are doing for their CS team enablement programs.

For those in CS Ops/Enablement roles - What's your program structure? What's working well? Any helpful resources or tips you may be willing to share?

Thanks so much!

William Buckingham

Hi @Jennifer Scheib ,

I currently run the CS Enablement function at Delphix. It's definitely a newer space in SaaS and doesn't seem there's a ton of resources out there. For this specific reason I created a blog dedicated to CS Enablement - link is in my signature.

There's a lot I've learned in my time doing CS Enablement, which is hard to concisely digest in a post, but I'll detail some key factors that have lead to our success.

1. Start with onboarding if you are starting from nothing.
2. Make enablement focused on the core CSM functions and goals.
3. Use leveled learning paths. Have a level one, two, and three for CSMs to progress through. Clear progress will really drive engagement and the right mindset going into the training.
4. Mixed learning methods. Don't try to make everything a self-paced course. This is tempting for scalability, but it just isn't that effective. You have to have a mix of live sessions, self-paced courses, shadowing, application, and coaching.
5. Really nail Product Release Enablement. If you want to shrink the time it takes for CSMs to drive adoption of and expansion to the latest feature set, move as much of the learning to PRIOR to the release itself. This will really boost CSM confidence as well.
6. Recurring, bite-size learning. We do monthly learning sessions, short clips on how wins were won, etc. Tailor this to your org, but these keep CSMs sharp, open to new ideas, and maintaining a learning mindset. All without taking too much of their time away from customers.
7. Ensure CS Ops and Enablement work closely to create effective changes and minimize the noise to CSMs.

I know this is pretty vague/high-level, but these are some of the core highlights of our program. I'm happy to have a chat anytime, and feel free to check out my blog below. As far as resources go, I've really leaned on a combination of books ranging from Learning & Development, coaching, sales enablement, and CS books.

I hope this helps.

Harsh Shah

Hi @Jennifer Scheib, I hope you're having a relaxing weekend!

For the CS team's enablement, I created a very simple yet powerful framework. This helped me to ensure the optimal performance of my team. I hope this is a good starting point for you to create a similar framework that works for your organization and team structure.

It revolves around 4 parameters:

1. Training ⇒ Think about new skills or improve existing skills/expertise
2. Resources ⇒ Think about creating, maintaining, and utilizing the organizational/team's resources
3. Processes ⇒ Think about documenting processes for delivering a streamlined and consistent experience
4. Tools ⇒ Think about the right tools/softwares for organizing and managing various tasks/operations smoothly

Start with understanding how these parameters work at the moment.

Then find the gaps between these functions and areas where you can support your CSMs.

Finally, optimize the process 1-step at a time and evaluate it constantly.

Lastly, make yourself available and accessible to your team for any feedback and suggestions to improve.

One more thing, I did was to use this structure with different team members who are managing different segments of customers. I would suggest going through this path once you create a robust general structure.

Even though we had a small team, I understood very early that Customer Success enablement is very much necessary despite your organization’s size or industry.

Please feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn in case of any other queries.

Jennifer Scheib

Fantastic, thank you so much for sharing @Harsh Shah Lots of great tips!

Jennifer Scheib

@William Buckingham Thank you so much, this is extremely helpful! I will check out your blog post and website as well. What's the size of your Enablement team today?

William Buckingham

@Jennifer Scheib  Apologies for the delay, hadn't seen this yet.  Our Enablement team is just myself and we have about 40 CSMs + CS mid management team members.  Enablement is never really finished, it's always a moving target, so as a one or few person function, prioritizing what you focus on and deliver is critical.