Are you a firefighting Customer Success Manager?
How much time do you spend every day making decisions? If you’re anything like the hundreds of Customer Success Managers we’ve surveyed, you probably spend the majority of your day firefighting. When I was a new CSM, this is what a typical day of decisions looked like: What shirt am I going to wear today? Should […]
Read MoreHow to build your Customer Success calendar as a CSM
As a CSM, I tried really hard to think ahead and put stuff on my Customer Success calendar. Even with meticulous planning, projects seemed to take about 5X longer than anticipated, and deadlines flew by like Tom Cruise in an F-14 (an excellent Top Gun reference). My brain seemed to work against me when estimating […]
Read MoreConfessions of a Customer Success Manager [Part 2]
In the previous installment of this series, I introduced one of the strategies we implemented to turn our flatline SaaS startup into a growth machine. A more viable Customer Success strategy emerged from the mindset shift I outlined. Among several other factors, our new CS strategy helped us handle 70x growth over a period of […]
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 MoreConfessions of a Customer Success Manager [Part 1]
My last gig presented me with some of the most difficult and rewarding professional challenges I’ve ever faced. In August of 2014, an acquaintance hired me as his first full-time employee at a not-yet-successful (failing) startup. We had less than 60 customers, about $1,300 in MRR, and I was in charge of fleshing out a […]
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 […]
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