[CALL FOR TOPICS] What should we discuss in CS Leadership Office Hours this week?

The Alex's are all aligned here

Good idea man - have seen a few companies do this too poorly with silos of information customers fail to navigate. 

I'm owning the tech touch segment at my company, and we've never had one before! I'd love to have a conversation around how to design, plan, implement tech touch motions for lower ARR customers!

To niche down a bit further into the communities comment that @Alex Farmer made, I'd like to talk a bit about customer-facing education. That function admittedly doesn't always lie within CS, but for those who have the remit of producing client education, I'd love to dig in to what formats folks are using (knowledge base, elearning, in-product help, webinars, monetized training sessions, etc.) as well as some of the tools being used to host that content.

The dreaded 'Auto-Renewing Contract'. Specifically, for customers who may not have seen the value they expected in their first term; do you bring it up? Do you ignore and let it auto-renew? 

I know in a perfect world we're doing regular reviews with customers and we should all be dialed in to that contract end date, and beyond. But sometimes the engagement with the customer isn't there no matter how hard you try. Sometimes the performance of your software isn't where the customer needs to be. Sometimes the software just isn't the perfect fit. 

In a normal environment, this would be a relatively easy question; you could likely let them off the hook if they missed their opt out date or contract end-date. But this isn't a normal environment. 

This was great @Kristi Faltorusso! I took a bunch of notes. Thanks!

Thanks Jack - we have a Diversity & Inclusion committee so I'll be sure to mention this to them as we look to address this in our community.

Great Alex, I'll get this down on the list. Such opportunities for companies.

Thanks Kathleen, I'll bring this up to the Diversity & Inclusion group as I think this could fold into some of our initiatives in that area. 

Thanks Shea, got this down!

Awesome! Thanks for sharing, Jeff! 

Hey @Dana Gibilaro - We've got most of our sessions uploaded here on our website.  We try to record and offer notes. 

I also just added you to our invite - it is a weekly call at 11:30am EST. We get a group discussion around specific topics. 

@Jay Mohammed @Anita Toth @Jan Young Here is the link to the blog and your can request the recording. Thanks for your interest.

https://decibel.frame.ai/blog/recap-voc-for-a-customer-first-culture-with-kristi-faltorusso

Same for me @Kristi Faltorusso 

@Jeff Breunsbach Is this a call for all members? And does it get recorded and saved somewhere? Thanks!

@Kristi Faltorusso  I see your post on LI but don't see a link to the blog or webinar. Are you able to share it here?

How about discussing the need for diversity and inclusion in the workplace, and why it is so important especially today. Maybe go over different initiatives that help cultivate a culture of welcomeness. In other words, policies that specifically bring different minds together to form a business that is open-minded and relentless in tackling today's problems through serving customers by truly representing them with a range of employees from all over the world. This echos Shaun's query about staffing and hiring plans. 

Thanks Jeff. I'm humbled since there are so many great ideas here!

Great! I'll connect with you there too-- thanks!

Yes, I actually just posted on LinkedIn today with a link to the Blog and the Webinar recording. 

Hi @Kristi Faltorusso, I missed your webinar-- is there a recording? Or is it the podcast from a couple of weeks ago? I'm new to this forum and just started digging in to the blog and podcast pages...

Thanks!

Using customer communities to deliver customer success

How are businesses using customer communities to augment/unify CS initiatives.  Ie: how do customers engage with our business in an online platform and connect with other customers?  Has interplay with onboarding, tech-touch, support, training, customer meet-ups, etc.

We should talk about mental health - how we cope with burnout, how we recognize it in ourselves and in our colleagues or people who report to us. How can we as a community create a safe space for our entire company to be open and honest about mental health struggles? Though 1 in 2 of us will experience depression in our lifetimes, there is such a stigma surrounding mental illness that no one talks about it. Also, entrepreneurs are much more likely to suffer from mental health challenges and are much more likely to self harm than the general population. 

I'll add to this one! How do we promote true partnership with the sales organization without opening the floodgates. Often the "partnership" with sales seems to feel like a one way street.  

Survey would be great to get some data. 

Shaun - appreciate the thorough questions! This might be the winner for Thursday! We'll see what else comes in today.

Thanks Phyllis - this is a great topic to understand how as leaders your going to build impactful and effective relationships with your executive counterparts. 

Awesome, I'll get this down on the list Matt. 

This is a big one - I wonder if we should also send a survey out to gauge trends in the community around this.

This is a great one Renee - I'll get this on our list!