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Renewal playbooks
Hi All, first time poster here :) I am in the process of building out Customer Success at our business which is a Series A start up with no prior CS function. I am about to start to build out our renewal playbook however would love if someone has an example to share with me to firstly validate my thought process so far but…
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Renewal Strategies and Risk Identification
I am working on refining renewal strategies and adding risk identification and management. We have many different kinds of customers, each with a slightly different renewal process in place. One size will not fit all. I am adding a risk identification and management strategy and know the obvious data driven signs of risk:…
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Implementing ChurnZero for a scaled CS model
Hi GGR community! I'm new to my company, and my first initiative is to implement ChurnZero for our CS org. We have both a high-touch and scaled CS model. I'm curious to know if anyone has setup ChurnZero (or another CSP) for a scaled model and your approach/learnings if so. Let me know in the thread, and I'd be happy to…
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I am halfway through interviewing 100 CSMs
Hey All, I'm putting together a report on my findings interviewing 100 CSMs and asking them about their thoughts on the way they engage with their clients and if they wished they could do anything differently. I've had some incredibly varied and interesting opinions shared by the 50+ CSMs I've individually spoken to thus…
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Best Practices for CS approach with different customer types
Hello ! I am in the process of laying down the foundation for a CS team within a new SaaS offering of a larger 3PL logistics corporation; it's complicated! We have direct customers, partners-as-customers, channel customers (what I'm calling the companies who come to us via a partner and the partner is key to the…
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CS Platform Rubric
Hello! Does anyone have a rubric to share to compare the various customer success platforms available? We are looking for key criteria to measure against.Thanks in advance for any insight! Andrea
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QBR/EBR Questions
Right now we have a partnership slide that's goal is to address the partnership both on a macro and micro level. What are your go-to 'What" and "How" questions in a QBR/EBR? What area of the presentation do you reserve to ask these questions? How many do you ask? In my mind, I'm looking specifically for more information on…
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CSM vs. Support team- Roles & Responsibilities
Hello everyone, Wanting to get some insight from others to help delineate responsibility between CSM vs. Support team. We are a medium sized Saas organization and most of our CSM's have a 1:1 relationship with clients (at least for larger clients; we also do have a shared support model for smaller clients that is…
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Any HealthTech/IT CS folks in the House?
Hey everyone - great to be a part of such a supportive and engaging community. I was wondering if there are any folks here that are in Healthcare / Health Technology / Digital Health Customer Success? I'd love to connect (LinkedIn and Twitter links in my signature). I've been working within healthcare (payers, providers,…
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Engagement Model/Process
Hi There, We are currently revising our customer segmentation - Engagement Model/Process. Just wondering what types of offerings the community provide to tiered customers? Thanks
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Creating more differentiation within CS career growth framework
Hi all, I recently took over as the Director of CS for a 20 person CSM org. Our career growth ladder for CSMs is as follows: * Customer Success Specialist (no previous CS experience required) * Customer Success Manager * CSM II * Senior CSM * Principal CSM We do a few things now to differentiate between CSSs and CSMs but…
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Are you stalking clients before they are coming to you?
Before on boarding a client are you stalking the company and the point of contact that was provided to you by sales department? Which kind of information are you looking for on the company or on the point of contact? What, in your opinion, could be helpful to you and why? Which information will help you know your client…
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Engaging with un-wired/ non-desk employees
Good afternoon, I am having some challenges engaging with client members who work more traditional blue-color jobs (no email, shift work, not interested etc). When we have good emails available for the population, we are extremely successful. However, when this digital component is missing we have to get more creative. We…
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Supporting multi-champions for large enterprise
Hey CS community, Our platform is very flexible and can be implemented in 1000s of ways. Due to the flexibility of the platform we find ourselves having multiple champions and decision makers. I'd be interested learning how you are handling Large Enterprise Customers who have multiple champions and decisions makers
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Where do you draw the line between automation & interaction?
Hey guys! Our company is aiming to go international and is focusing on how to improve our product and processes to have more no-touch sales. How does Customer Success fit into SAAS no touch? Where do you draw the line between automation and interaction? There's a lot of discussion on here about creating Success Plans with…
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Customer journey triggers
Hi all, Does anyone use a tool or a template for mapping out triggers? I'm about to map out ours on a Google Sheet – and thinking there must be a better way?! Thanks, Kev
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CSM Interview Case Study
Hi everyone, I'm a big fan of using case studies in interviews for CSMs - helps showcase ability to present, work under pressure, etc. Usually I'll ask them to present what outcomes our business could help a hypothetical customer achieve and include a more technical demo as well. I've got a few templates I've used in the…
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Escalation on accounts with no assigned CSM
Hi all! We recently resegmented our accounts for CSMs at my SaaS company. We moved some into an SMB reactive bucket. There isn't an assigned CSM on these accounts. They have someone assigned to make quotes for them, but that's it. The question we're having is what is the best escalation pathway and who handles these…
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Change Management: Customers Losing Their CSM
We are raising the threshold at which we assign a CSM to an account. For example, we used to assign a CSM to all accounts >1MRR. As of 2021, CSMs will only be assigned to accounts >10MRR. We will not grandfather in accounts or have a transition. We will allow CSMs to retain select strategic accounts based on qualitative…
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Key Account Success Plan
Hello All, I'm new to my org and am working on building out my account plans for my strategic accounts. With my enterprise level accounts, it's difficult to determine exactly where to start. Does anyone have any good resources or templates they can share that might be a good starting off point?
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Customer interviews to determine customer journey
Hi All! I am working to create a customer journey that I can turn into a tech touch model. In order to understand the customer journey, I think it would be a good idea to interview them rather than just assuming. Has anyone done this with existing customers? If so, what specific questions did you ask them? Any tips would…
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Building out Public Sector CS Team to support Public Sector Customers
Hey GGR Leadership Community! I am building out a specialized CSM team that will support only public sector customers~ historically, we lumped together both private and public customers but have found that these customers' buying cycle, adoption, and growth trajectory differs and requires specialization to best support…
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SalesLoft & Gainsight: Measuring Customer Engagement
In an earlier GGR Office Hours, someone was looking for advice on measuring Customer Engagement with SalesLoft + Gainsight. We, the attendees present, were unable to assist from their experience. However, I thought it might be useful to share this Gainsight Admins Slack Group here for the individual who asked (and others).…
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CSM Career Path and Evolving Roles & Responsibilities
Hi all, as you know, with year end comes an opportunity to adjust account segmentation and scale for success and growth. With that, I am also looking to develop a proper career path for CSMs. What would be your recommendations around different levels of CSM (1-3) and what are the ideal # years/client success skills they…
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Pooled CSM External Name
Hi GGR! We are looking to create a pooled CSM team for our smallest segment of customers. We are thinking of outward facing names as Pooled CSM will only be used internally. Do you have creative names you used. One I have seen is "CS Concierge" and that is all about it. Best, Ross
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Tracking Cost to Serve
Hi! As our team plans for next year, one area we want to focus on is getting a better understanding of both where our CSMs spend their time (what types of activities/areas of focus) and also better understanding the "cost to serve" for each segment of our customer base. We have a good method for tracking/categorizing live…
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Segmentation: Sub-Tiers
GGR Folks: We're going to be revisiting our Segmentation model and likely be redefining our highest tier, what we call "Enterprise", and then recategorizing the lower tiers; these will likely be based on MRR and/or their annual revenue. However, I also want to propose a sub-tier level based on customer maturity, which will…
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Moving a customer from one Tier to another based on o
Hi, What experience do you have moving a customer from one engagement cadence/experience to another? For example, our highest touch tier, let's call it Tier 1, has the most frequently scheduled and triggered engagements (QBRs, Roadmap reviews, etc). Some customers in this Tier either no longer need or want this sort of…
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Customer segmentation in a land and expand model
I'm a Director of Customer Success and I'm exploring the idea of customer segmentation in 2022 given our rapid growth. Right now I'm exploring ~3 segments: low, medium, high touch with customers. We have a "land and expand" model and at a high level: pricing is based on product usage. My leaning is to put both enterprise…
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Scaling SC Meetup 09-15-21
Hello! For those who attended the September scaling CS meetup, please post your thoughts, documentation, and questions on this thread. Recording for the session will be posted on this thread as well.