Christine Vienna Knific

Question: What does customer success mean to you? What is it, what is it not? Why it's good: It's open-ended, and gives the candidate a big opportunity to talk about CS as a field, the success of a customer on an individual basis, and more. Example of a great answer: "To me, Customer Success is the driving of client business outcomes by providing value through our product and services." From there, the best candidates talk about being able to do this at scale (do more with less!), using technology and data to drive results, and give examples of how they actually prove ROI to customers. 

There are so many career paths for a Customer Success Manager! I don't view the CSM's path as necessarily linear, but a "typical" one might be: 1. Customer Success Associate 2. Customer Success Manager 3. Senior or Enterprise Customer Success Manager 4. Strategic Customer Success Manager 5. Manager of Customer Success 6. Director of Customer Success 7. Head of Customer Success That said, there are a lot of different specializations, such as Customer Success Operations, Renewal Management, or large-scale Customer Success (sometimes called 1:many or "digital"). These specializations are great goals for someone who has been in Customer Success for several years and would like to advance in paths that are not necessarily management. 

The best metrics to use to justify a pay raise are those that tie to revenue and direct value impact (internally and customer-facing). I like to keep a private list (for example, Asana) of the projects I've worked on and my contributions to them so I can refer to it during performance reviews, promotion advocacy, etc. Revenue metrics - must be quatifiable: * Net Revenue Retention in my portfolio * Expansion revenue * Renewal win rate (this is a ratio or percentage, not a $ amount) * CSQLs provided to sales (Customer Success Qualified Leads) Value Impact: * Significant contributions of customer advocacy events, including customer speakers / event participation, referencability, creation of case studies * Creation of 1:many customer-facing value drivers, such as webinars, podcasts, training series, enablement materials

As a customer success manager, one of the most important skills someone can develop is setting the right expectations and getting alignment between internal and external stakeholders. The biggest frustrations I've exeperienced come from when we haven't reached alignment. The best CSMs do this as part of their process whenever they work with someone new - internal or external. For example, a CSM's top priorities when being introduced to a client should be to set expectations about what they can offer the client in their working relationship (hint: a strategic, goal-oriented thought partner, not technical support), and to align on the client's business goals. When a CSM does this successfully they'll have meaningful interactions with the customer throughout the relationship and can line all the work they do together up to the client's business goals. When the CSM ties the value they and their product can provide directly to the customer's business goals, they prove the relationship to be important and ensure the renewal. What's frustrating is when they DON'T reach alignment. We've all had an experience similar to this one: you start the client meeting, introducing yourself and wanting to learn more about the customer's business, when suddenly the customer derails. He says something like, "hey, before we talk about that I was wondering, how do I pull a report from xyz product?" It puts the CSM in a difficult and frustrating position. On one hand, you want to be helpful. And let's be real, you're going to show them how to pull the report. On the other, you have so much more strategic value to offer the customer than providing technical Q&A. If you're not careful, you could spend the entire conversation answering tactical questions. What's worse is you will now have misalignment between the high level value you can provide and what the client will expect from your relationship, and you'll leave the meeting with no deeper insight into their business for the future. However, the best CSMs can use situations of misalignment as opportunities. "Oh! You'd like to pull a report on the weekly scheduler activities? I can definitely help with that. So that I make sure we do it in the best way, can you help me understand what you're going to do with the report?" Or, "the product doesn't currently have the ability to export that information, but we do have a lot of ways you can work with it. Can you help me understand what you'd like to do so we can work together on it?" The CSMs can then use their responses to dig deeper into the customer's goals and daily workflows, and be a partner in problem-solving and achieving business goals. 

The most important things to consider when assessing a new opportunity with a different company are: * The company's trajectory. Is there a viable path to success for the organization, and are you comfortable with that path? (i.e. are they profitable? If not, what level of ambiguity works for you?) * The definition of Customer Success at the company. With Customer Success being a relatively new field, the term can be used in a lot of different ways. It's really important to make sure the company's definition of CS lines up with yours. * The company's definition of success in the role and as an organization. What metrics do they use? What does "good" look like?

The most important skills for a Customer Success Manager are: * Ability to conduct discovery with a customer. In sales, we've heard the phrase "Always be closing." In Customer Success, we should Always be Discovering. This means that every conversation a CSM has with a customer is an opportunity to ask why, learn how, and dig deeper into the customer's business goals. The more we know about the client's goals and business, the more valuable we bcome. * Setting expectations early and often. CSMs must be able to (tactifully!) set expectations with customers, and set expectations with internal cross-functional partners. * Objection Handling. Most Customer Success Managers are, by nature, people-pleasers. We want to make customers happy and solve their problems, and when everything goes according to plan, that's easy to do! What's more difficult is when everything doesn't go perfectly, the product doesn't actually answer all of their needs, when the price is too high, when there's a breaking defect... the list goes on. A CSM has to be able to handle objections with grace and prove value even in difficult circumstances. * Presentation and Interpersonal Skills. CSMs have to be ready at all times to address talking points of an agenda, lead conversations in a personable way, and present new ideas. Customer Success Managers must be comfortable giving presentations and leading the relationship with the customer.

* Show that you're a team player! It's a huge red flag when a candidate demonstrates a lack of willingness to work as a team. The ability to work cross-functionally to drive customer results is critical. If a candidate conveys the message "that's not my job," they aren't a good fit for our team. * Not understanding support vs success. There are a lot of definitions of Customer Success, but I need CSMs who work proactively to drive results. Using "support" and "success" interchangeably in a resume or interview discussion raises a concern. * Lack of metrics. Customer Success is often more difficult to measure than, say, a sales role because our metrics are not all quantitative, but that doesn't mean we aren't focused on showing results. Demonstrating a combination of qualitative and quantitative results in your experience set is important.

To gauge autonomy of Customer Success Manager candidates, I like to ask: * Describe what role the CSM plays with the customer, in your experience? This helps me see the candidate's willingness to be strategic or tactical (hopefully both, when necessary!), how they work with internal cross-functional teams, and how they view ownership of commercial responsibilities. * Provide an example of a customer escalation and how you turned it around. In this question, I'm looking for a candidate to both show ownership over the ultimate resolution of the issue and the ability to navigate difficult internal and external situations. The best answers are those that demonstrate collaboration and use of resources without placing blame on others or an over-reliance on executives. * How do you work with the support team for defects or other issues? Success of the customer is a team sport, with CS driving proactive results and support working to resolve problems when they arise. The best CSMs understand that one doesn't work without the other and demonstrate that in the answer to this question. * What are some things you've done to drive success that aren't directly related to your book of business? In other words, I want to learn about the other projects a CSM has done in the past to keep the business moving forward. Some examples I've seen in my own experience are working with marketing to create an industry-related podcast, driving a customer advocacy and review program, and creating shared materials to save time and help the business scale.

* What does "Customer Success" mean to you? Customer Success as a field and profession is relatively new, and the term can mean different things to different people. A candidate's answer helps me assess their whether their experience is aligned to a proactive vs reactive approach, what kinds of customers they've worked with in the past, how they think about the customer experience, and more. * If you were constructing a CS team from scratch, what metrics would you use to gauge success? Both internally and customer-facing? While this is a highly debatable topic, the key is that metrics described cannot only be financial. Yes, at the end of the day (... or, quarter) we are all working towards financial outcomes. But Revenue Retention is a lagging indicator, and it's important to understand that leading indicators such as product usage, presence of risk factors, and engagement are critical for proactive customer success. * How do you know a customer is successful? The best candidates use this as an opportunity to talk about aligning the value a company's product and services drive to the customer's business goals. I'm looking for CSMs who focus on a customer's business-level outcomes at a strategic level, rather than those who focus on getting their customers to adopt our product or services.

It's really important to be prepared for any interview you take the time to do, both out of respect for the hiring manager's time and your own. That said, I view an interview as a conversation and opportunity for both parties to learn about each other. Here are two tips for being prepared and showcasing yourself in the best way: * Any presentation or demonstration project should be done explicitly for the hiring company. Many Customer Success roles will require candidates who advance multiple rounds to prepare a presentation, written project, or sample QBR. Though interviewing multiple rounds for multiple roles is time consuming and often downright exhausting, it's critical that you make sure what you put forward shows preparation and willingness to do the role. I often give candidates a prompt with sample scenarios that are unique to the skill sets the job requires or situations we're experiencing and trying to solve for. The interviewees who stand out most are those who take the time to prepare as the prompt requests. We often get candidates who say "oh, this is a QBR I did at my old company, does that work?" While I totally understand that doing presentations for multiple roles in an interview process takes a lot of time, those who prepare specifically for us send the message that they will do the work and want the job. * Do your research... but don't make it weird. It may sound silly, but it's true! Candidates should be as versed as possible with what the company does, their target market, ideal customers, etc. Likewise, candidates should have looked at the hiring manager's LinkedIn to be familiar with their basic background and any known mutual connections. The critical part, however, is that the candidate uses the background information they've researched as part of their answers to questions. Resist the urge to say something like "Hey, Go Eagles! ... I saw you went to North Olmsted High School." Fun fact: a candidate really said that to me. The awkward conversation that followed highlighted that no, we didn't go to school together, nor did we have mutual acquaintances, but they found it on social media and thought it would be a cool fact to share.