• achieve client's definition of success by using the product/service
• navigate and support outcomes and experiences
• demonstrate the value to customers
• actively listen, curious (open), see the client as a peer
• make the contact of point look good
• set goals of meetings
• announce the changes of commitment asap

5 Hallmarks

• Customer engagement (during onboarding)
• Organization alignment to deliver desired outcomes
• develop a common language on Churns, Attribution (ascribing work to a particular person, Adoption
• Root cause of Churns
• Early warning system can be created to accurately predict Churns in the upcoming 12 months, based on deep understanding of what made customers successful

Customer Success Manager

• CSM is the navigator in the analogy where the customer is the driver and the car is the product
  • in the passenger seat assuming the role of navigator
• Ideal Customer Profile
  • Off-Persona, On-Persona
• Customer journey
  • map of the customer wants to experience, and milestones
  • marketing -> signs contract
  • segment customers
• Macro market changes driving the need for CS
• the defining theme of the age of subscribers (instead of customers) is to understand business outcomes and deliver recurring value
• emerged as a discipline in the last five years (in 2010s) to view growth in relation to retention by reducing churn and growing recurring revenue
  • monthly recurring revenue (MRR) is the predictable total revenue generated by your business from all the active subscriptions in a particular month.
• 3 Steps
  • Set the right customer expectations
  • Deliver value
  • Demonstrate value
• reactive => proactive
• on-premise: inside a building vs cloud
• convenient, satisfying, personalized
• low barrier to exit
• service & satisfaction as important as traditionally features & cost -> drive renewal and increase retention

CS Strategies

• 5 mains hallmarks of a robust CS strategy
• Focus on customer engagement
• Success is rented on a daily basis, rather than owned
• Customer success = outcomes + experience
• reasons of CS as a core operating philosophy
• key concepts integral to CS teams
• engagement model

Success Plan

important document showing the goals, challenges, key milestones CSM determined for each customer individually

• For a specific customer, goals, risks in a documents with data points
• Planning
  • where your customer is at today
  • clarify where they
  • want to get to
  • when they want to get there
  • lay out how they want to get there
• 4 Keys
  • Where are they on the journey right now
  • What is their next major milestone
  • Are they doing the right things to hit that milestone
  • What will they need from CSM to help them reach their next milestone?
• Should be shared with customers
• Constructed for all customers
• keep up-to-date

Success Plan Canvas

• Customer highlights
  • who they are, what business they are in, how long they've been in business, no. of employees and offices
• Objective
  • longer term strategic business outcomes that customer cares the most about and the company supports
• Key challenges
  • Tactical challenges slowing down/blocking progress towards strategic objectives, to unblock
• key benefits
  • tactical benefits helping customer accelerate progress towards outcomes
• milestones, actions and dates
  • key checkpoints needed to pass through on customer journey to their success
• success criteria
  • what success looks like in simple terms
• measure of success
  • capturing the exact KPIs/metrics and associated targets tracking to inform progress and confirm conclusively when success has been achieved.

Construction

• Pre-work & kick-off
• Discovery session
• Success assessment
  • judge the likelihood of a successful outcome for the customer based on evaluating gathered information against the key criteria
• Establish milestones and build action plan
• Define success criteria and measures
• Build success plan canvas
• Success plan review
• maintain clear and open channels of communication on progress towards completion and success

Tricky customers

• complaint
• angry customer: after letting the customer vent frustrations, apologize not for what/how/why happened but the fact that sth happened
• unreasonable customer
• Internal and external escalation
• outside the sphere of my influence
• upfront (honest and frank) expectation management

Onboarding

• process of helping a new customer to get setup, trained and using your product to deliver business value
• goals:
  • understand the customer needs
  • agree on a common definition of success
  • educate and motivate end users
  • manage change effectively
  • reinforce value promise by delivering compelling initial value
• Robust handoff and transfer of knowledge from sales to onboarding
• Clear metrics tracking progress and triggering corrective action if needed.
• Communicating progress and demonstrating value achieved to the customer

Playbook

• Knowledge transfer
• Aligning
  • Expectation setting
  • Discovery or validation of objectives
  • Agreement of success definition
  • Metric/KPI agreement
• Account configuration/setup
• User training/education
• Rollout/go-live
• Change management
• Project wrap-up & feedback

Upper Level

• personal brand
  • credibility and authenticity
• ailing account: with trouble
• Customer Success Metrics
• unit economics
• team success metrics vs business success
  • business success: describe the overall health and performance of the company as a whole, aka the "big picture"
• Milestones and actions; time-boxing
• leading measure: activities demonstrating you're moving closer to achieving your objective
• vortex: mass of whirling fluids or air
• whirlwind: daily activity to do your job

Consultative Approach

• account relationships
• business needs
• competitive advantages
• establish a trusted advisor relationship with key stakeholders
• understand and connect business needs with solutions so that the outcomes customer needs
  • the primary problem
  • set of options
• open questions: encourage longer answers and more likely to expose useful info
• segment the customer base
• accelerate domain knowledge
• storytelling
• relevant, tangible data points; audience; pertinent information
• what is the business problem? alternative approach
  • make the business case internally
  • instant message
  • consultative - lifelong learning (interview, research, searchable - knowledge base)
• principles
  • solve the biggest
  • selling a solution
  • sometimes best practices may not be applicable

Executive Business Review

• Benchmarking data
• Strategic vs tactical
• forward-looking vs retrospective
• Success Plan
• Engagement model
  • low-touch
• Executive BR, Quarterly business review (QBR)
• strategical meeting involving power users and executives to strengthen the relationship, meet the next milestone
• checkpoint of customer journey
  • Success Plan as blueprint

Playbook: how to ensure consistency and maximize impact

• structured agenda
• professional-looking presentation template
  • Introduction - acknowledge those present, role and responsibilities
  • Restate objectives - recap of annual strategy, associated goals and metrics
  • Review past actions - Completed and outstanding actions from last business review
  • Discuss success plan - articulation of progress towards next milestone, review of key performance measures
  • Share benchmarking - data showing how peer customers / competitors are performing
  • Provide unique insight - behind-the-scenes reporting analytics to highlight extra opportunities or challenges
  • Share product roadmap - Review recently released features and discuss 3, 6, and 12-month feature roadmap
  • Agree go-forward plan - 90 day plan with actions, owners, and dates.
• consistent language and tone

First to get the right people in the room

• start with internal champion
• learn about
  • current situation
  • biggest challenges
  • top priorities
  • key metrics

Giving preview of the value to bring to the meeting

• unique internal insight (not available from the reporting yet)
• benchmark vs. other customers, where
  • better performing
  • underperforming

Other Tips

• behind the scenes access
  • product roadmap
• hold an engaging dialogue
• be curious - ask why
• NOT a support session - stay clear of the weeds - follow up
• Goals review
  • Reinforce the goals set in the last BR
  • set new goals for the next period
• create a sense of accountability
• establish your standing with the customer
  • show concern
• make sure they walk away feeling inspired, excited and driven to take action
• don't be afraid to escalate blockers
• update the success plan