Metrics to Show Value of a CSM from Customer's Perspective

Bill Pierznik

I'm curious if anyone uses metrics to measure the value of a CSM from the customer's perspective.  All metrics and data that I have seen point to the benefit of the vendor/employer of the CSM (e.g. retention, expansion, adoption, use cases).  But in a paid-for CSM model, what metrics do you use to show value and ROI from the customer's perspective?

Steve Bernstein

Hi Bill,
A Voice-of-Customer (VoC) program would shine the light on the performance of the CSMs in several ways:
1. The "obvious" area would be to include a question that asks the customer to rate how well your company manages the relationship. I'd be very careful not to ask specifically about the CSM's performance because (a) the customer needs to work with this person and there's a "halo effect" in which they won't want to say anything critical if the rating is about the CSM directly, and (b) often times the CSM has no control over their workload and a poor experience in "account relationship management" might not be the fault of the CSM.  This question enables an easy ability for the manager to follow-up with the customer(s) that rate this area poorly to understand what can be improved through coaching, etc.

2. The more interesting area IMHO is to understand how well the CSM is growing/strengthening relationships inside their accounts.  Many CSMs will "single thread" through a primary contact at the expense of developing a strong bench of advocate/promoters that will have your back when any key stakeholder leaves for a new job (and there is *always* employee turnover in customer accounts). Our method is to engage ALL of the right stakeholders in an account through Voice-of-Customer as a scalable approach to understand what's working well in an account and what needs to be addressed/improved, and use follow-up actions to demonstrate that you care.

I've written extensively about this through a few articles and whitepapers that include detailed templates and process:
- (blog article) https://waypointgroup.org/heres-how-to-know-if-your-account-teams-are-truly-focused-on-retention/
- (blog article) https://waypointgroup.org/stop-chasing-renewals-heres-how-to-keep-customers-engaged-so-renewals-and-more-will-just-come/
- (whitepaper)  https://waypointgroup.org/whitepapers/silver-bullet-customer-health-scoring/

Hope this helps... Happy to provide more info if you want to drop me a note,
/Steve

Guy Galon

Hi Bill,
1. If this is a Paid-for CSM engagement, then there has to be a scope of work/perceived benefits, on which this service was sold to the customer. can you highlight what are they?
2. I would not ask the customer to rate the CSM (agree with Steve's view).
3. Customer's "direct"  value from your product/service can be  an increase in revenue, cost reduction, improved time to market, better user experience, etc. Are you in a position to measure it with your product? if not, then you will need to ask your stakeholders these questions and understand if they realize the value they expect.

Regards,
Guy

Brian Hansen

I agree, Guy. Since this is paid for, the metrics should show improvement in what the outcomes are that they're driving towards and then link in what CS has done to push towards that outcome as well. I'm picturing the goal of using a tool to increase qualified leads. The CSM met with the customer 3 times to show them and help them load in their specific lead parameters and now both parties can see the number of leads generated. The combination of CSM connections and end result leads is a metric to share...

Bill Pierznik

Thanks Guy:

1.  We sell touch points, check-ins/QBRs, escalation management.  
2.  Agree on not asking for a review of the CSM.
3.  We are looking at pulling data from Pendo and our own platform to start looking at usage data which is helpful but really that measures things like clicks and feature usage.  What I am missing is the business impact to the customer itself.

Jay Nathan

Is this a managed service where you're doing work on behalf of the customer? If so you can quantify that. 

otherwise, will have to tie it back to the outcomes of the product. Does the customer get better outcomes because they utilize the paid CSM offering? If so, what are the improved outcomes? 

Guy Galon

As Jay mentioned, if this is a managed service, there are service KPIs that you agreed with your customers as part of the contract and should reflect the contribution to your customer's business.

If you need assistance with identifying business impact, i am happy to chat. I expect that usage of your product/service can be quantified via increase in revenue/cost reduction/time to market/ increase in usage/loyalty etc.  Happy to discuss further.

Tara Lain

Thank you- I'm interested in point #2. My CSMs just did a pre mortem exercise on all of their accounts and found not having a champion "depth chart" was a key red flag!