Nuffsaid: Real Strategies for Customer Success: Recent Episodes
'nuffsaid
On the Nuffsaid podcast, you’ll hear from host Chris Hicken and forward-thinking leaders about the Customer Success strategies that matter most. We promise not to waste your time. How? Episodes are the perfect length for a commute or mid-day workout and at the beginning of every show, we’ll give you the Too Long; Didn’t Read (TL;DR), so you can get immediate insight into how industry experts operate. Welcome to the no-fluff podcast for Customer Success. Powered by the team at Nuffsaid. https://nuffsaid.com/
Before Meta acquired Kustomer in 2022, Chad Horenfeldt, Kustomer’s then Director of Customer Success, saw the need for a revamp of the company’s Voice of Customer program and practices. He went on to design a comprehensive VOC program focusing on three objectives: Capture, Analyze, and Act. In this episode, Chad covers the highly effective VOC survey he helped implement, how to get executive team buy-in for a VOC program, and why it’s important to use VOC data to craft workarounds that don’t always include building new features.
Today on the Nuffsaid podcast we spoke with Sandy Yu, the Global Lead of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Advisory Boards, about how a Voice of Customer program can provide real value to an organization and prove its effectiveness to the executive team. If you’re unsure of whether or not your VOC program is working, this is a must-listen episode.
Having worked for the last four years in Voice of Customer at large companies (first Lyft and now Slack), it’s safe to say Kevin Vielbaum is a master of his craft. In this Nuffsaid podcast episode, Kevin digs into several interesting topics including how he measures the success of a VOC program.
With a background in Marketing & Growth at companies like Hubs, Recruitee, and Growth Tribe Academy, Ferdinand Goetzen, now CEO & Co-founder at Reveall, has a natural orientation to use Voice of Customer data to make product decisions. That’s why in this episode of the Nuffsaid podcast, he explains his philosophy on how to build the best product possible.
Beyond being the most entertaining guest we’ve had on the show, Jeanne Hopkins, CRO at OneScreen.ai & former CMO at Lola.com, convinced us that the Voice of Customer sync she designed is the most impactful meeting a leader can schedule.
Jeff Justice Williams is the Sr. Executive Director of Enterprise Customer Success at Box and has led CS teams at companies like Stack Overflow, WeWork, and Dropbox. In this conversation, Jeff highlights how a Voice of Customer program should operate at scale.
Having played critical roles on Voice of Customer teams at companies like VMware, Red Hat, and Citrix, Nick Woerner, current Director of CX at Mineral, joins the Nuffsaid podcast to share wisdom on what it actually takes to close the loop with customers within a VOC program.
Here’s VP of Customer Success at ESG, Peter Armaly, to kick off our new podcast series on Voice of the Customer (VOC) programs. Coming from a background with extensive Customer Success experience including having spent more than 5 years as a CS executive at Oracle, Peter shares how an advanced VOC program is run. He also dives deep into explaining how executive team buy-in determines whether or not VOC actually matters at a company.
Resources:
- Follow Peter on LinkedIn and Twitter
- Read about his recent transition into CSaaS
- Check out ESG’s article on the do’s and don’ts of customer surveys
Adopt Customer-Led Growth today
Schedule a demo & try Nuffsaid for free
VMware’s Meenu Agarwal runs one of the largest books of business in the world. As SVP of Customer Success at a company with a revenue of over $12B, more than 2,000 Customer Success team members around the globe, and 500,000 customers, Meenu understands what digital Customer Success should look like at mega-scale. In this episode, Meenu breaks down their 2022 goal of scaling Customer Success through innovative digital programs like VMware Customer Connect, Success 360™, and training channel partners.
Resources:
- Follow Meenu on LinkedIn
- Check out all of her articles on the VMware blog
- Read more about Success 360™ in this Wall Street Journal piece
Adopt Customer-Led Growth today
Schedule a demo & try Nuffsaid for free
Dan Ennis, the Manager of the US Scale Customer Success team at Monday.com, came on the Nuffsaid podcast this week to share how his team uses data in a highly sophisticated way to drive an effective Digitally-Led CS program. In this episode, Dan touches on everything from how to look beyond product usage data and into more useful trending data, what to avoid when building out a scaled model, how his team uses customer patterns to detect churn risk and expansion opportunities, and the avenues Monday.com’s Scaled function uses to collect and act upon Voice of Customer data.
Resources:
- Follow Dan on LinkedIn
- Watch his talk about ‘Re-engaging Disengaged Customers’
- Check out Dan’s post about designing CS experiments with data
Adopt Customer-Led Growth today
Schedule a demo & try Nuffsaid for free
In this episode, Marley Wagner, VP of Marketing & Digital Customer Success at ESG, shares her company’s sophisticated Digital Customer Success maturity framework. Marley walks us through each stage of Digital CS maturity and covers everything from what it takes to lay the right foundations to implementing advanced digital communication channels.
Resources:
- Follow Marley on LinkedIn
- Learn more about ESG’s Digital Customer Success services
- Read Marley’s article about the Phases of Digital CS
Adopt Customer-Led Growth today
Schedule a demo & try Nuffsaid for free
For Elisabeth Courland, Digital CSM at Agorapulse, launching a Digitally-Led Customer Success program is about starting with a solid foundation of understanding the customer, then deploying automation. In this episode, Elisabeth shares a trove of tips that anyone tasked with crafting a digital CS strategy will be able to quickly implement.
Resources:
- Follow Elisabeth on LinkedIn
- Check out her website The digital CSM
- Use the awesome resources she compiled — Open Book of Customer Success
Adopt Customer-Led Growth today
Schedule a demo & try Nuffsaid for free
Eight years ago, Brian LaFaille stepped on as Looker’s first Customer Success hire. Since then he’s seen Looker through a $2.6B acquisition by Google and was a crucial member of a team that was tasked with servicing customers at a massive scale. In this episode, Brian walks us through the journey Looker took to learn how to effectively run a digitally-led CS motion that would benefit all segments and customers — from Enterprise to SMB.
Resources:
- Follow Brian on LinkedIn
- Visit his publication Customer Success Field Guide
- Watch Brian on the panel discussion “The Skills, Tools, and Processes for a Digitally Led Engagement Model”
Adopt Customer-Led Growth today
Schedule a demo & try Nuffsaid for free
At the beginning of 2021, Lane Holt, Director of Client Outcomes at Gainsight, was a team of 1 and tasked with building out the company’s digitally-led CS model. Fast forward 12 months and you’ll see that she’s developed a mighty team of 8 to architect a hugely successful digital program. In this episode, Lane breaks down the roles and responsibilities of her team, how to detect risk and expansion opportunities in a digital model, and most importantly, why she believes that digital CS is not a segment—but a strategy that can benefit all customers.
Resources:
- Follow Lane Holt on LinkedIn
- Read Nick Mehta’s post on her Digitally-Led CS thought leadership
- Watch her discuss “The Role of CS Ops in Tech-Touch”
Adopt Customer-Led Growth today
Schedule a demo & try Nuffsaid for free
According to Dickey Singh (CEO & Cofounder of Cast.app), most Digital CS approaches including low- and tech-touch models today aren’t effective. Customers in this segment are usually overwhelmed with automated emails, pdfs of reports, and dashboards - instead of being sent meaningful, tailored content at the right time. Dickey came on the Nuffsaid podcast this week to share how Customer Success teams can take a working high-touch model to inform their digitally-led CS practices.
Resources:
- Follow Dickey on LinkedIn
- Check out Cast.app
- Read Dickey’s article on how Digital Business Reviews differ from traditional QBRs
Adopt Customer-Led Growth today
Schedule a demo & try Nuffsaid for free
GitLab’s Director of Customer Success Operations, Jeff Beaumont, breaks down how CS Ops can be key to increasing Net Retention. He brings up 3 areas his team focuses on to drive NRR: 1) KPIs (or understanding the effectiveness of current measurements), 2) special projects (or proactively spotting areas of inefficiency within CS and developing tools to automate those activities), and 3) visibility (because as Jeff says, “sunlight is the best disinfectant.”)
Resources:
- Follow Jeff on LinkedIn
- Check out his post on GitLab going public
- Read Jeff’s Gainsight interview about implementing CS Ops at scale
Adopt Customer-Led Growth today
Schedule a demo & try Nuffsaid for free
“Good onboarding, as we define it, is keeping customers around longer and getting them to grow their business with you. Why limit onboarding to just those first few weeks?” Head of Customer Experience at Arrows, Shareil Nariman, knows more about customer onboarding than just about anyone we’ve ever spoken with. In this episode, Shareil explains how to:
- implement continuous onboarding at your company,
- use your high-touch experience to inform your low-touch onboarding, and
- measure your onboarding program’s success.
Resources:
- Follow Shareil on LinkedIn
- Download The Startup CEO’s Guide to Customer Success & Onboarding
- Check out his post on “How to” versus “Why to” content
Adopt Customer-Led Growth today
Schedule a demo & try Nuffsaid for free
On today’s show, Beth Yehaskel, a Customer Success Architect at Winning by Design, preps us for end-of-year CFO budgeting and headcount conversations by sharing the difference between a CS org that’s run as a profit center versus a cost center. She covers how CS leaders need to connect improvements in retention to LTV, the common cost center pitfalls to avoid, and the difference between providing customer impact and customer value.
Resources:
- Follow Beth on LinkedIn
- Read her post on restructuring the typical org design
- Check out her lessons from running CS Ops
Adopt Customer-Led Growth today
Schedule a demo & try Nuffsaid for free
In this episode, Seth Wylie, Director of CS Ops & Admin Community at Gainsight (who has one of the most thoughtful perspectives on CS Ops in the space) offers up some paths for breaking into CS Ops and the skillsets that are most useful in the role. For those already in CS Ops, Seth also shares his take on the options available for career advancement.
Resources:
- Register to attend Gainsight’s CS Ops Unplugged on December 2, 2021
- Follow Seth on LinkedIn
- See Gainsight’s compilation of info about CS Ops, including the CS Ops Mentor Program
- Check out his list of CS Ops Slack Communities
Adopt Customer-Led Growth today
Schedule a demo & try Nuffsaid for free
Zeina Marcotte, Director of SaaS Customer Success Strategy and Operations at LinkedIn, has a highly sophisticated CS Ops team (CS Ops alone has almost 25 people). During this episode, Zeina describes how her team is set up, why LinkedIn’s CS Ops team reports to the centralized global Ops function, and how this structure can actually be a benefit to the Customer Success team.
Resources:
- Follow Zeina on LinkedIn
- Read how CS Ops matures
Adopt Customer-Led Growth today
Schedule a demo & try Nuffsaid for free
This week we break down the opportunity Customer Success has to take action to hire, retain, and promote more Black leaders. We interviewed over a dozen CS community members on this topic who shed light on three main areas to focus on: 1) create an inclusive environment with existing employees, 2) recruit and hire more Black employees, and 3) develop and promote those team members into leadership positions.
Resources:
- Read the full article
- Check out the LinkedIn conversation
Adopt Customer-Led Growth today
Schedule a demo & try Nuffsaid for free
Today on the ‘nuffsaid podcast we spoke with Dave Jackson, CEO of TheCustomer.Co about his new book, Customer-Led Growth: A CEO’s Guide to Building a B2B SaaS Company. In our conversation, Dave shares 4 core themes from his book: 1) value is the red thread at the core of B2B SaaS companies, 2) successful CLG companies are rewarded with higher valuations, 3) we serve people, not faceless customers, and 4) real customer focus is an organization design challenge that CEOs must lead.
Resources:
- Buy Customer-Led Growth on Amazon
- Follow Dave on LinkedIn
- Visit TheCustomer.Co
Adopt Customer-Led Growth today
Schedule a demo & try Nuffsaid for free
The customer experience tends to decline as a company grows—but what can Customer Success teams do about it? In this episode, Natalie Fedie, VP of Customer Value at HighRadius, answers this question: she says too many teams look at customer health data too late. Natalie suggests analyzing customer health predictively by 1) setting up a VOC program, 2) tracking the right data to see if customers are getting value, and 3) proactively reviewing the customer journey as it's happening.
Resources:
- Follow Natalie on LinkedIn and Twitter
- Read her post on the changing landscape of the C-suite
- Watch her talk about Creating Customer Value
Adopt Customer-Led Growth today
Schedule a demo & try Nuffsaid for free
“I’m not talking about fluffy quotes. You need to capture the literal voice of your customers.” Dana Alvarenga, VP of Customer Experience at SlapFive, offers two tactics to level-up your Voice of Customer Program: 1) capture audio and video of actual customer stories, and 2) make that feedback easily accessible for the entire company to use when making decisions.
Resources:
- Follow Dana on LinkedIn
- Visit the SlapFive website
- Listen to Dana host the CustomerX Therapy podcast
Adopt Customer-Led Growth today
Schedule a demo & try Nuffsaid for free
Markus Rentsch, CEO of Remark-able, joined us to define his philosophy on Customer-Value-Led Growth (CVLG). Markus says it’s a mindset where customer value “cannot happen by accident”—it’s engineered—and he explains how CVLG ultimately leads to acquiring “perfect fit” customers.
Resources:
- Follow Markus on LinkedIn
- Check out the Remark-able website
- Read his article on why user-based pricing sucks for SaaS
Adopt Customer-Led Growth today
Schedule a demo & try Nuffsaid for free
“When it’s crunch time and there’s pressure to hit Sales numbers, people make compromises that later negatively affect the company.” This is precisely the reason why CS leader, Daniel Rose, thinks Sales Engineering should live within CS; “Sales Engineering won’t allow deals to slip through because of a short-sighted approach.” In this episode, Daniel shares the main benefits of Customer Success owning Sales Engineering: more control over time to value, better use cases, and Net Retention Rate.
Resources:
- Follow Daniel on LinkedIn and Twitter
- Read his piece on why Sales Engineering should live in CS
- Check out his post on CS Ops
Chief Experience Officer, Craig Antonucci, came on the show to share how to justify a CX program with your CFO. He said “it’s simple”—the conversation should be led with data and focus on three areas: how the CX initiative will sell more, save money, and fit the company’s mission.
Resources:
- Follow Craig on LinkedIn
- Read his article about being a good customer
- Check out Craig’s comment on our post “NPS Is Dead”
Kalina Bryant has a rich background in customer advocacy, engagement, and voice of customer programs. Now Asana’s Head of Global Customer Advocacy, Customer Experience, and Executive Programs (and Founder & Host of the UnapologeTECH podcast), Kalina spoke with us about how CS and Customer Advocacy should work together.
Resources:
- Follow Kalina on LinkedIn
- Subscribe to UnapologeTECH: a space for women of color and allies in tech to learn, create, and connect.
- Read Asana’s Anatomy of Work study
When you grow from CSM to CCO in 4 years, people will want to know how you did it. Kellie Capote, CCO at Gainsight, recalls 3 distinct tactics that helped her scale at hyper-speed:
- Don’t underestimate the power of cross-functional relationships starting from day 1 of your career.
- Have a bias for action or a "bulldog" mentality.
- Be adaptable because CS is constantly changing, so you must be able to maintain an even-keeled mindset.
Resources:
- Follow Kellie on LinkedIn
- Listen to her explain how to simplify CS by making it less 'squishy'
- Read about Kellie's career path
Adopt Customer-Led Growth today
Schedule a demo & try Nuffsaid for free
In the last quarter of the year 2020, CSM Practice conducted a study to assess the validity of common industry assumptions about customer health scores. In this episode, Irit Eizips shares some surprising trends that came out of that research, along with advice on how to properly implement insights pulled from usage data. For low touch engagement models, she makes the case for having two health scores, using two separate teams:
1) Proactive / CSM Team - to measure and increase the value your customers get from your products and services.
2) Reactive / Retention Team - to evaluate various risk triggers that might cause a customer to churn and follow up with a clear playbook.
Resources:
- Follow CSM Practice on LinkedIn and Twitter
- Read the full research results on Customer Health Score Industry Trends
- Check out the CSM Practice services and Youtube channel
Salesforce’s VP of Customer & Market Insights, Karen Mangia, reveals the secrets every CS leader needs to know to encourage engagement, invite innovation, and remain relevant. Karen shares details about the metrics that matter, how to move from intention to action, and what success means to your customers right now. If you're willing to listen.
Resources:
- Follow Karen on LinkedIn and Twitter
- Check out her website
- Watch Karen’s TED Talk
- Buy her most recent book Listen Up! How To Tune Into Customers and Turn Down the Noise
Adam Houghton, VP of Customer Success at Klue, dives into the sophisticated hiring process he's implemented across four different companies. It’s a four step model: 1) Hire proven anchors to serve on your leadership team, 2) build around those anchors with unproven high potential people that challenge the status quo, 3) provide a transparent career path for your teams, and 4) build an environment where people “earn the right” to be promoted.
Resources:
- Follow Adam on LinkedIn and Twitter
- Read about why he joined Klue
- Check out Klue’s article on why CS should be a competitive priority
Rumor has it “the CCO is the new COO.” Matt Zelen, UserTesting’s COO (formerly CCO), came on the show to explain what it takes to make that career transition. He points out three skillsets CS leaders moving to COO will need to grow: 1) they need to develop the ability to identify priority problems for the company, 2) state their interest in taking ownership of important problems, and 3) grow the EQ necessary to understand other executives’ needs, and work cross-functionally to fix major business problems.
Resources:
- Follow Matt on LinkedIn and Twitter
- Check out UserTesting
Nick Chang, Global Head of Customer Success at HPE GreenLake, joined us on the ‘nuffsaid podcast to discuss the separation of responsibilities between Customer Success and Support within enterprise organizations. In this episode, Nick argues against the long-standing belief that Support teams should only be reactive. To become a more proactive motion, Support teams need to have a technical Support lead who regularly reports back to the CS team with assessments about usage and the technical issues that prevent usage. Nick also shared his prediction for the future in which Success and Support teams will be merged into one CX department with the same metrics, goals, and coverage.
Resources:
- Follow Nick Chang on LinkedIn and Twitter
- Check out HPE GreenLake
Salesforce’s Brett Matthews breaks down how they monetize CS (hint: it’s not “monetizing CSMs”). They have tiers of offerings that include higher levels of support, services, and, interestingly, access to subject matter experts under their “expert coaching” program. Everything’s tailored around helping customers be more successful. It’s an excellent example of what monetizing CS can look like at scale.
Resources:
- Follow Brett on LinkedIn
- Read his article on 10 lessons from 10 years in Customer Success
- Check out Brett’s post on how Salesforce has changed since he started there
David Kocher, VP of Customer Success at Medidata Solutions, shares the segmentation and coverage models he developed so his team can focus on the right customers in the right way. His formula helps prioritize customers using two matrices: ARR mapped against health score and adoption vs. maturity.
Resources:
- Follow David on LinkedIn
- Listen to his prediction of the next big wave in Customer Success
- Read David’s post on 5 lessons learned from CS change management
Rupal Nishar, AVP of Customer Success at Netomi, shares how Customer Success should work cross-functionally to influence the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and how doing so ensures long-term customer engagement and company growth.
Resources:
- Follow Rupal on LinkedIn
- Listen to her talk about the role of AI in Customer Success
- Read Rupal’s post on the most important stakeholder
Dave Derington, Customer Education leader at Outreach, gives us an inside look at how Outreach’s Customer Education program works. He outlines how Customer Education is different from the CS Enablement and CS Ops teams and offers some first steps in building an effective Customer Education program.
Resources
- Follow Dave on LinkedIn and Twitter
- Tune into Dave’s podcast The Customer Education Laboratories
- Listen to Dave explain why Customer Ed is a scale engine for Customer Success
Niclas Ramon Staberg, CCO at Hive Streaming, joined the ‘nuffsaid podcast to make the case for having Customer Marketing live within the broader Customer team. He also offers an idea: try sharing customer stories internally to foster a customer-centric culture.
Resources:
- Follow Niclas on LinkedIn and Twitter
- Check out Hive Streaming
- Read his post on customer centricity
Jeff Heckler, Global Head of Customer Success at Pipedrive, breaks down the actions CS leaders can take to increase their prominence on the executive team. He covers how to:
- Use the CS metrics CFOs care about
- Share the value of CS by comparing metrics of CS-managed accounts vs unmanaged accounts
- Teach other execs the value CS can provide to their function (more ARR, lower CAC, higher LTV, better margins, sticker product experience, more referenceable customers, etc.)
Resources:
- Follow Jeff on LinkedIn and Twitter
- Read how he’s built out CS Ops at Pipedrive
- Check out Jeff’s answer to “What's one thing every Customer Success leader should know?”
In episode 2 of 2 with Stacie Ward, VP of Customer Success, Stacie shares a prediction: the best CCOs of the future will have backgrounds in Product and CS.
Resources:
- Follow Stacie on LinkedIn
- Listen to her integrated customer success approach
Seven years ago, Stacie Ward made the switch from being a Sales manager to a VP of Customer Success. Today she joined ‘wellsaid to explain why she made this move and the specific skills she knows a Sales manager needs to successfully transition into a CS role.
Resources:
- Follow Stacie on LinkedIn
- Listen to her integrated customer success approach
In our final episode with Asaff Zamir, VP of Customer Success at Siemplify, he explains his approach to risk assessment by treating customer accounts as a subjective ecosystem. To do an accurate assessment of account health, he advocates for looking at each persona within an account and analyzing each person's perspective, experience, relationship strength, and personality.
Resources:
- Follow Asaff on LinkedIn
- Check out his article on why relationship management is the next phase of CS
- Read more about building a relationship coverage strategy
In episode 2 of 3 with Asaff Zamir, VP of Customer Success at Siemplify, Asaff shares how to coach CSMs on how to nurture positive emotional experiences with their customers using six key elements: personalization, integrity, (setting) expectations, empathy, time to value, and responsibility.
Resources:
- Follow Asaff on LinkedIn
- Read his post on why the psychology of customer experience is a building block of CS
Asaff Zamir, VP of Customer Success at Siemplify, argues that being in Customer Success is much like being a customer psychologist—you have to describe, explain, predict, and change the behavior of others. He explains why it’s crucial for CSMs to “identify the needs of their customers and drive confidence and trust through transparency.”
Resources:
- Follow Asaff on LinkedIn
- Read his post on why the psychology of customer experience is a building block of CS
- Check out his post on why relationship management is the next phase of CS
Tanya Strauss, Director of Customer Success Strategy and Operations at ServiceNow, breaks down best practices in preventing risks via a streamlined escalation process. She advocates for defining categories of risk, documenting tribal knowledge about historical escalations, and building a team whose sole focus is on helping CSMs with fire prevention, not firefighting.
Resources:
- Follow Tanya on LinkedIn
- Read her post about getting a handle on risk escalation
- Listen to Tanya share how to return to work after a career break
Lauren Humphrey, former VP of Customer Success and Payments GTM and current advisor at brightwheel dives into lessons learned from working with a high volume of SMB customers. Her tips include making every touchpoint count, thinking of onboarding as a product, delivering high-quality experiences through specialization, and investing in systems early on.
Resources:
- Follow Lauren on LinkedIn
- Listen to her speak at the SMBTech Summit
- Watch brightwheel CEO and Founder on Shark Tank
Here’s part 2 of our debate with Dave Jackson, CCO at DeepCrawl and CEO of TheCustomer.Co, on the pro’s and con’s of assigning “ownership” within companies. Chris and Dave cover: how CEOs can be thoughtful about breaking down silos, the viability of company-wide commission plans, and more.
Resources:* Check out the post that sparked this conversation * Follow Dave on LinkedIn * Check out Dave’s blog at TheCustomer.Co * Read Dave’s article on designing an end-to-end customer experience
This is part 1 of our discussion with Dave Jackson, CCO at DeepCrawl and CEO of TheCustomer.Co, on the topic of “ownership.” Dave explains why he thinks ownership is “built on the bankrupt idea of hierarchy” and Chris makes the case that every decision must have one owner.
Resources:* Check out the post that sparked this conversation
* Follow Dave on LinkedIn
* Check out Dave’s blog at TheCustomer.Co
* Read Dave’s article on designing an end-to-end customer experience
In episode 2 of 2 with Keri Keeling, the Global Head of Customer Success Innovation & Intelligence at VMware, Keri digs into her latest project—creating “listening posts” to collect and measure customer sentiment across the user journey.
Resources:* Follow Keri on LinkedIn
* Read her article on “How to Hire Bad A$$ CSMs”
* Watch Keri speak about the VOC program at VMware
Keri Keeling, the Global Head of Customer Success Innovation & Intelligence at VMware, explains her role and why VMware’s Customer Success org is focusing on merging data operations with a VOC program.
Resources:* Follow Keri on LinkedIn
* Read her article on “How to Hire Bad A$$ CSMs”
* Watch Keri speak about the VOC program at VMware
In episode 2 of 2 with Teresa Anania, VP of Global Customer Success and Renewals at Zendesk, Teresa explains how the only way Customer Success leaders can gain equal footing at the executive level is to align measurable outcomes with the larger business goals.
Resources: * Follow Teresa on LinkedIn
* Watch her talk about using digital to scale your CS practice
* Read Teresa’s post on CX during a pandemic
Teresa Anania, VP of Global Customer Success and Renewals at Zendesk, gives us an inside look at how Zendesk’s digital engagement programs work. She offers her opinions on when it’s time to build a scale program, how they’re thinking about dynamic segmentation, and why there needs to be a CS Ops resource embedded within Customer Success.
Resources: * Follow Teresa on LinkedIn
* Watch her talk about using digital to scale your CS practice
* Read Teresa’s post on CX during a pandemic
Max Klimmek (Global Head of Customer Success at Intercom) breaks down his process for interviewing CSMs and offers one of his favorite tactics: asking candidates to complete a video recording test. His reasoning? To measure their energy, passion for Intercom, and confidence on camera—all essential pieces of being a top-performing CSM.
Resources: * Follow Max on LinkedIn
* Read his article on the 3 pillars of a high-performing CS team
* Watch Max’s talk on lessons learned managing CX disasters
Some say digital experiences are the future of Customer Success. But today, they’re a relatively new problem and everyone seems to have a different approach.
We recently held a discussion with three Customer Success leaders who have especially mature thinking around this problem; this episode is the full discussion. You’ll hear advice on team structure, tech stack, processes, and collaborating with peers in a low-touch engagement model.
Resources:* Follow the panelists on LinkedIn: Boaz Maor, Selena Papi, Brian LaFaille
* Read our blog on the low-touch maturity scale
In this final episode with Swati Chopra (Head of Customer Success-US & Canada at McAfee), Swati provides a framework for assessing when to build versus buy software. She explains how laying a stable foundation for customers is always more of a priority than building software.
Resources:* Follow Swati on LinkedIn
* Watch her discuss the Customer Success lifecycle
* Read her Q&A on the pillars of CS strategy
In episode 2 of 3 with Swati Chopra (Head of Customer Success-US & Canada at McAfee), Swati shares an experience proving why it’s crucial to coach CSMs on how to appropriately communicate an emergency internally.
Resources:* Follow Swati on LinkedIn
* Watch her discuss the Customer Success lifecycle
* Read her Q&A on the pillars of CS strategy
Swati Chopra (Head of Customer Success-US & Canada at McAfee) dives into why and how Customer Success teams can give their low-tier customers a thorough growth and maintenance plan. She suggests the plan includes training vouchers, architecture reviews, and priority support.
Resources: * Follow Swati on LinkedIn
* Watch her discuss the Customer Success lifecycle
* Read her Q&A on the pillars of CS strategy
Elodie O’Rourke (Head of Customer Success EMEA at Financial Times) explains that culture can affect people’s perception of Customer Success—why having the word “success” in a job title is inherently American and how receiving an NPS score of ‘6’ from a European customer is the same as a ‘10’ from an American client.
Resources: * Follow Elodie on LinkedIn * Watch her talk about how digital technology transformed the FT * Follow the Financial Times on Twitter
Customer account transitions are inevitable. In episode 2 of 2 with Megan Bowen (CCO at Refine Labs), Megan shares how Customer Success leaders can coach their CSMs to have seamless handoffs with other CSMs.
Adopt Customer-Led Growth today
Schedule a demo & try Nuffsaid for free
Megan Bowen (CCO at Refine Labs) offers a list of lessons learned and the stories behind them from her career in Customer Success. She says, “Sometimes careers are not linear, and if you take a step back, for what you believe is a good opportunity, it could [actually] catapult you forward” — and reminds us that we must take control of our own careers.
Adopt Customer-Led Growth today
Schedule a demo & try Nuffsaid for free
In this episode, Rebecca Nerad (VP of Customer Success at E2Open) explains why it’s not a question of if CSMs should own renewals, upsells, and cross-sells, but of defining when they should. She argues that there are cases for both CS and Sales to own renewals, but regardless of who owns the revenue, it’s important to tie CS to the metric of net dollar retention.
CSMs should own renewals/upsells/cross-sells when:* The effort required to get clients to value is low.
* The product is not complex and has a strong UI.
* Drivers for upsell come from increased usage of similar solutions.
Sales should own renewals/upsells/cross-sells when:* Change management is required. * The solution is complex. * There’s a long sales cycle.
Resources: * Follow Rebecca on LinkedInand Twitter * Check out her Customer Success reading list * Read Rebecca’s advice for CSMs
In this episode, we were joined by Rebecca Nerad (VP of Customer Success at E2Open) to discuss how to set up a Customer Advisory Board that leaders actually want to be a part of. Rebecca runs Customer Advisory Boards in a programmatic way, which leads to better engagement and more value added than most CABs.
Best practices for a successful CAB: 1. Create space for conversation and feedback.
2. Be intentional about who to involve — both internally and externally.
3. Share a clear vision for your solution and industry.
4. Act on feedback by improving your product and showing the benefits of participation.
5. Most importantly, customers want to know their voices are heard by people who can actually make decisions.
Resources: * Follow Rebecca on LinkedInand Twitter * Check out her Customer Success reading list * Read Rebecca’s advice for CSMs
This week we break down a framework for creating a low-touch customer engagement model. This episode highlights the phases of maturity companies tend to go through as they invest in their digitally-led program, and the skills required in a successful low-touch team.
In episode 4 of 4 with Pat Phelan (CCO of GoCardless and former CCO at Brandwatch), Pat shares one of his favorite tactics for fostering a customer-centric culture: bringing customers into company-wide meetings on a regular cadence.
Resources:* Follow Pat on LinkedIn * Read Pat’s post on 6 Simple Strategies for Customer Success in SaaS * View his post that inspired this topic
In this quick episode, Pat Phelan (CCO of GoCardless and former CCO at Brandwatch) shares 3 crucial questions to ask before buying software and why CSMs have to be brought into the decision making process.
Resources:* Follow Pat on LinkedIn
* Read Pat’s post on 6 Simple Strategies for Customer Success in SaaS
In episode 2 of 4 with Pat Phelan (CCO of GoCardless and former CCO at Brandwatch), Pat explains why his first question when joining a new company is “Who is your CS Ops person?” because as he states, “If you don’t have an Ops person, I’m either bringing one with me, or I’m really not that interested.” Pat makes the case that CS Ops is a position that has 10x the impact of a normal role at any organization.
Resources:* Follow Pat on LinkedIn
* Read Pat’s post on 6 Simple Strategies for Customer Success in SaaS
In episode 1 of 4 with Pat Phelan (CCO of GoCardless and former CCO at Brandwatch), Pat advocates for individual CSM risk forecasting as a key discipline in parallel to risk assessment.
Resources:* Follow Pat on LinkedIn * Read Pat’s post on 6 Simple Strategies for Customer Success in SaaS * If you’d rather read than listen, read the edited transcript of this episode in our newsletter
This week on our show Chitra Madhwacharyula, the Director of Customer Success at Couchbase, shares how leaders can train CSMs to become the trusted advisors every customer hopes for. Her tactics include: * Creating a baseline of consultative skills * Requiring CSMs take related courses and certifications * Hosting internal workshops to build this mindset * Conducting role playing sessions * Teaching how to ask the right questions
Resources: * Find Chitra Madhawacharyula on LinkedIn or Twitter * Listen to Chitra discuss the power of perspective gained from her business travels * Subscribe to our newsletter for Customer Success execs: Success Happy Hour
In episode 2 of 2 with Jo Massie, Jo shares how she has created a strong relationship with Product as the VP of CS at Slido. She suggests:* Scheduling weekly 1:1s with the Product leader * Aligning Success and Product metrics (Jo uses monthly active users) * Creating channels for the customer voice to be heard by Product
Resources: * Find Jo Massie on LinkedIn * Listen to Jo talk about shaping an empathetic Success team on The Entrepreneur Project * Subscribe to our newsletter for Customer Success execs: Success Happy Hour
Why is it that a QBR with one CSM can be wildly more engaging than the next? In the words of Jo Massie, VP of CS at Slido, it comes down to the fundamentals. Here are a few fundamental questions she advises CSMs ask themselves before meeting with customers:* What's the goal for this meeting? * Is the goal two-sided? * What's the most engaging way to deliver this content? * How can I design this to be a conversation, not a presentation?
Resources: * Find Jo Massie on LinkedIn * Listen to Jo talk about shaping an empathetic Success team on The Entrepreneur Project * Subscribe to our newsletter for Customer Success execs: Success Happy Hour
Customer Success leaders often cite "finance" as one of their biggest areas of weakness. That's why, for this week's episode, we're breaking our usual 5-minute format and sharing a full discussion with four finance leaders on how they think their peers in Customer Success should approach budgeting and planning conversations.
They cover topics like the characteristics of an effective CCO <> CFO relationship, the KPIs CS should report on, how to handle salary increases for top talent, and more.
Resources:* Follow the panelists on LinkedIn: Tricia Benedix, Ed Tang, Marc Greenberg, Tien-Anh Nguyen. * Read the transcript from this episode or watch the full discussion here.
In episode 3 of 3 with Alex Farmer, Alex breaks down his approach to building out a customer advocacy program into five steps.
Resources:* Follow Alex on LinkedIn and Twitter * Learn more about the Customer Success Excellence Awards * Subscribe to Nuffsaid's newsletter for Customer Success leaders
In episode 2 of 3 with Alex Farmer, shares his advice on why the CMO <> CCO relationship is so critical, and the steps Customer Success leaders can take to foster a stronger relationship.
Resources:* Follow Alex on LinkedIn and Twitter * Learn more about the Customer Success Excellence Awards * Learn more about Cognite * Subscribe to Nuffsaid's newsletter for Customer Success leaders
Alex Farmer, VP of CS at Cognite AS, offers a list of examples of customer insights that other departments need but don’t have without the help of the CS leader.
He says “getting customer data in the hands of decision makers is even more important than creating reports to measure it.”
Resources:* Follow Alex on LinkedIn and Twitter * Learn more about the Customer Success Excellence Awards * Read Alex’s post on The Top Five Metrics to Track on Your Customer Success Dashboard
In episode 3 of 3 with Boaz Maor (CCO at Talech), Boaz offers his thinking around how Customer Success leaders should approach designing CSM compensation plans.
Resources:* Find Boaz on LinkedIn or Twitter * Subscribe to our newsletter for Customer Success execs: Success Happy Hour
In episode 2 of 3 with Boaz Maor (CCO at Talech), Boaz explains his framework for thinking about where customer marketing should live, and how CCOs can build a better relationship with their peer in Marketing.
Resources:* Read Boaz's post on Why CMOs and CCOs Should Be BFFs * Find Boaz on LinkedIn or Twitter * Subscribe to our newsletter for Customer Success execs: Success Happy Hour
In episode 1 of 3 with Boaz Maor (CCO at Talech), Boaz sheds light on the gaps presented by most customer health scores used by Customer Success teams today, and explains how using a Customer Maturity Index instead can provide for more actionable customer insights.
Resources:* Read Boaz’s post Why Your Customer Health Score Might Be Quite Useless
* Find Boaz on LinkedIn or Twitter
* Subscribe to our newsletter for Customer Success execs: Success Happy Hour
This week we're celebrating some of the wins experienced this past year in the Customer Success community. This episode is a highlight reel of 18 Customer Success leaders from companies like Cision, GitLab, Fastly, Zoom, and Oracle on their proudest moments from 2020.
Resources mentioned in this episode:* Jason Noble: The Jason's Take On podcast * Irene Lefton and Maranda Dziekonski: The CSLN slack community * Elisabeth Courland: Open Book of Customer Success * Matt Myszkowski: Survive or Thrive? webinar * Alex Farmer: Customer Success Excellence Awards * Referenced by a few individuals: The Top 100 in Customer Success list
If you'd liked this podcast, you might also enjoy our weekly newsletter Success Happy Hour. Each week it features a go-to resource for Customer Success leaders that you won't find anywhere else, and the best articles from around the web.
In episode 3 with Rav Dhaliwal (venture capital investor at Crane - Rav was formerly the first UK employee at Slack where he founded the global Customer Success team), Rav offers a framework for founders trying to get Sales to start thinking longer-term and incentivize Success to be more involved in the sales cycle.
You can find Ravon LinkedIn, Twitter, or Medium.
In this second episode with Rav Dhaliwal (venture capital investor at Crane - Rav was formerly the first UK employee at Slack where he founded the global Customer Success team), Rav breaks down the common “growing pains” Customer Success leaders face as they scale their team.
Notes:* Read Rav’s post, “The Everything Department”
* Find Rav on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Medium
Rav Dhaliwal, venture capital investor at Crane (formerly the first UK employee at Slack where he founded the global Customer Success team), shares his advice on when founders should introduce Customer Success and what they should look for in that first leadership hire.
Notes:* Read Rav’s post, “Builders vs Scalers”
* Find Ravon LinkedIn, Twitter, or Medium
Emily Garza, AVP of Customer Success at Fastly, offers her process for building out career paths for CSMs.
Resources:* Find Emily on LinkedIn * Read Emily's articles on RevGenius
Emily Garza, AVP of Customer Success at Fastly, shares the mindsets, skillsets, and experience to look for when building a new Customer Success function.
Resources:* Find Emily on LinkedIn * Read Emily's articles on RevGenius
Emily Garza, AVP of Customer Success at Fastly, built the company's Customer Success function from the ground up. Here, she breaks down her 30/60/90-day plan for other Success leaders looking to start a new CS team in an established company.
Resources:* Find Emily on LinkedIn * Read Emily's articles on RevGenius
Jason Noble, VP of Customer Success at Vinli, shares advice for when CSMs should be introduced in the sales cycle and how they can position themselves when talking to Sales and to customers pre-sale.
Resources:* Find Jason on LinkedIn or Twitter * Hear more from Jason on his podcast, The Jasons Take On * Read Nuffsaid's newsletter for more (written) Customer Success content like this
Vinli’s VP of Customer Success, Jason Noble, offers specific changes companies can make to their Sales and Customer Success team incentives that ultimately drive better customer outcomes.
Resources:* Find Jason on LinkedIn or Twitter * Hear more from Jason on his podcast, The Jasons Take On * Read Nuffsaid's newsletter for more (written) Customer Success content like this
Brian Lafaille, the Global Head of Customer Success - Strategic Programs at Google, offers a step-by-step process for creating playbooks that'll help your team systematically mitigate risk. Here's a high-level look at his process:1. Identify the reasons why customers leave (tag churn reasons using common language. Do exit interviews, and review usage data) 2. Categorize the above reasons into ~10 higher-level themes 3. Create a playbook for each of the themes you identified 4. At a minimum, include the following elements in your playbooks: an explanation of the intended outcome of that playbook, questions CSMs can ask to confirm whether the behavior they're seeing is truly a sign the customer may churn, and explain what data points CSMs should analyze. Then, list the actions CSMs should take.
Resources:* For more from Brian, head over to his blog * If you'd prefer to read content like this rather than listen, subscribe to Nuffsaid's newsletter
Jennifer Dearman (former CCO at Pendo, VP of CS at Kronos, and Director of Customer Experience at Red Hat) highlights the five areas Customer Success leaders need to focus on in order to effectively scale their organizations. She covers:
- Making CS a top priority at the executive level,
- Why CS leaders need to narrow the focus of CSMs,
- Considerations for segmenting customers,
- How creating a customer community can help scale your right-touch experience, and
- Why Education needs to be a close partner with CS
It's time for CS leaders to shift budgeting conversations from being about how they can "be more efficient" to how the company can invest more heavily in their department. Here are 7 tips on how to do that:1. Understand where the CFO is coming from. 2. Show you care about the Cost to Retain Revenue metric. 3. Calculate your own Cost to Retain Revenue metrics and make sure it aligns with the CFO’s calculation before budgeting begins. 4. Define the cost to retain revenue calculation for each business segment (SMB, Mid Market, Enterprise). 5. Sign up to drive more revenue compared to 2020. 6. Get credit for the total revenue managed, not the total revenue renewed. 7. Even after you've made the case for investing more in CS, be prepared for the CFO to probe for ways to reduce costs.
Resources:* Speak the Language of the CFO When Setting 2021 Budget * 2021 Budget Template * Be Prepared for the CFO to Ask These Questions (Newsletter version)
Customer Success has the best understanding of customer needs and wants, so they need to play a much bigger role in how customer requests are prioritized than they do in most companies. Nuffsaid's CPO, Nick Paranomos, breaks down a 5-step process for exactly how they can influence Product's handling of customer requests: 1. Track all customer requests in one place 2. Assign a business value to each request, across customers 3. Assign a churn risk to each request, again across customers 4. Estimate the product, design, and engineering effort it will take to complete the request 5. Update the customer when the request is done
Resources:* Read Nick's full blog post on this topic, * And if you liked this podcast, check out our newsletter to get weekly tips, advice, and frameworks like this one from Nick.
Nuffsaid CEO Chris Hicken explains how to create a relationship coverage strategy in three steps. He covers:1. How to define Buyer, Champion, and Power User 2. Why it's important to measure relationship "strength" 3. How to set relationship coverage expectations with your team
Resources:* Your relationship coverage strategy is weak. Use this scorecard to get it right * Nuffsaid's newsletter for Customer Success
Special thanks to everyone who contributed to the original article on this topic: Jeff Breunsbach and Jay Nathan from Higher Logic, Ziv Peled at AppsFlyer, Kristina Valkanoff at Brandcast, Emilia D’Anzica from GrowthMolecules, Kristi Faltorusso at Intellishift, and David Ginsburg at WorkBoard.
Emilia D'Anzica, Founder of GrowthMolecules and former CCO at Copper, identifies the most common causes of friction between Sales and Customer Success and how to navigate them.
Included among her list are how to navigate misalignment around what Sales is selling and how Success delivers on that promise, what to do when there's not a clear understanding from Sales of what it takes to onboard a customer, and more.
Want more Customer Success content like this? Join 500 other Customer Success leaders that read the weekly newsletter Success Happy Hour: http://newsletter.nuffsaid.com/
Alex Bakula Davis, VP of Customer Success at Extracker, explains how Customer Success teams can apply the "Challenger" concept to help customers achieve their desired outcomes. Here's a high-level look at the process:
Step 1: Show customers how a specific process, strategy, or mentality is inhibiting their ability to reach their desired outcomes.
Step 2: Convince the customer to change. You can do this by using questions and statements that help customers see their gaps or that encourage them to refocus their attention.
Megan Bowen, CCO at Refine Labs, explains three ways Customer Success leaders can make sure Product and Marketing teams are getting the customer insights they need.
1. Train all customer facing teams (Sales, Success, Support) to properly extract feedback from customers.
2. Host bi-weekly meetings with key stakeholders from Sales, Support, Success, Product, and Marketing to share qualitative feedback and inform front line teams of product releases and marketing campaigns.
3. Conduct quarterly deep dives into customer feedback, surveys, closed-lost opportunities and churn reasons to uncover meaningful trends.