All posts by Nils Vinje
Are You Built to Serve?
Customer success is a rapidly growing discipline, but it’s not right for everyone. It takes someone who is truly built to serve. Is that you?
Read MoreHow to bridge the efficiency gap between sales and Customer Success
The boundary between Customer Success and Sales can seem foggy. When the boundary gets too foggy, these questions should be answered: Who is really responsible for upsells/cross-sells at your company? Do renewals belong to the CSM, an account manager, or a special sales team? Does each CSM feel confident they’re performing in the role they signed […]
Read MoreThe strategic conversation playbook for Customer Success Managers
When your manager tells you to have “strategic conversations,” your first instinct as a Customer Success Manager might be to hit the panic button. Am I not being strategic? Isn’t that my job? Am I not doing my job?!?! Let’s take a step back. “Strategic conversation” is, unfortunately, a really vague term. It means something different to everybody—including […]
Read MoreHow to manage a remote Customer Success team
When I managed a remote Customer Success team, we developed what I like to call the “stepchild syndrome.” With ten CSMs in San Francisco, three in London, and only one in Korea, our CSM in Seoul consistently drew the short end of the stick when it came time for video calls. They were at convenient times for the […]
Read MoreCustomer Success time management: how to stop firefighting and start managing your time as a CSM
You head into work with a strict schedule: call your three newest customers to see how onboarding is going, meet with the product and development teams, and finish helping the client who phoned in yesterday with questions about your app’s newest feature. You’re chugging along when all of a sudden you get a call—one of […]
Read MoreThe definitive Customer Success Manager salary guide
Customer Success is a young profession, with 95% of people entering CS from different backgrounds (source: 2015 Totango report). Companies are still learning how to structure their Customer Success Manager salary offerings. The Totango report does not tell us specifically how Customer Success Managers were rewarded, as they made up only a third of the survey participants. Other […]
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