What the Heck is a CSM and 8 Ways to Leverage Them
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Customer Success Managers (CSMs) — those seemingly mythical employees in place at more and more software companies. You’ve heard of them and may have even worked with them, but sometimes it feels as if their role and responsibilities are a bit elusive. So, let’s clarify what they are in the first place and then discuss how they can advocate for your subscription-based needs.
In my organization, CSMs are charged with making our customers successful with solving their business problems through our solutions. Whether adopting, expanding or renewing their Software as A Service (SaaS) offerings, we are here to offer our customers consistent, engaging, relevant, best in class experiences — no matter the size or industry of the organization.
Although CSM roles include an extensive range of assignments from building customer relationships to reducing churn, below are eight ways that they can make life easier for you:
1. Provide guidance on how to effectively use our products and services. Let’s face it, the whole purpose of you investing in your solution is to exploit technology to help your company address business challenges. Whether to grow revenue, save time, reduce costs, operate more efficiently, manage risk, or improve decision making — technology can be the conduit. As CSMs, our responsibility is to help you with understanding and using the features and functions of your products, respond to overall product inquiries, and address, provide and direct you to product resources. No question that you have is neither too big or small. CSMs are in place to serve you. When you are successful, we are successful.
2. Advocate for your needs. Want to express how you liked the new change we made to a feature? One little tweak, and this feature would be perfect. Not finding an API capability as useful? We are all ears. We want you to get the most out of your offerings and value your feedback. We have a direct line to our Offering (Product) Management, Development, Services and other groups in our company and are happy to relay your thoughts. And although we may not always be able to implement or modify certain capabilities, your ideas are valued and we have every desire to continuously improve to meet your needs.
3. Connect you to resources. Whether identifying or forwarding documents and websites with relevant information, locating appropriate internal staff (finance, legal, etc.), other customers to speak and network with, or enable access to our executive staff, think of your CSM as your focal and “six degrees of separation” point person. While you are focusing on high value tasks and maximizing your own skill set, we are here and ready to provide the resources necessary to help your business run like a well oiled machine.
4. Make you aware of our education, events, campaigns and speaking opportunities. CSMs have access and can help you and your staff with getting trained and certified on our many offerings by providing education and certification roadmap information; recommending local, national, or international conferences that you may find beneficial; introducing you to campaigns (i.e. product and service programs) that you may want to participate in, or providing opportunities for you to be a featured guest in sessions, meetings or events to chronicle your experiences.
5. Inform you of other solutions that may help you solve your business needs. Part of understanding your needs and building a relationship with you is understanding more about what your business use cases are. And as CSMs begin to understand more and more about your business, industry and needs, they are better equipped to recommend other services that may help you realize your business goals and that may work in conjunction with your current solutions. We are not here to just sell you products and services; that is the role of our sales team. We are here exclusively as your consultative and trusted adviser.
6. Help with administrative issues such as billing and renewals. Questions about usage, overage charges, invoices, and subscription contracts are a CSMs forte. Leverage them to explain, start or modify your subscriptions and engage the appropriate persons to answer any operational needs that you have. They want to make sure that you get to the finish line!
7. Enable you to tell your story. CSMs are your champions to help you get the credit that you deserve for your IT implementations. From bolstering your visibility, promoting your solutions, or establishing yourself as an industry expert, they can help you get the word out and get started with developing client references — a sure fire way to demonstrate your unique capabilities to the world!
8. Monitor your overall account health. We are constantly reviewing your account and always looking for ways for you to improve and be as efficient as possible. Rely on your CSM to help you with developing an overall, strategic plan to help you get the most out of your services.
Although the bullets above cover a number of activities that a typical CSM may provide to their clients, just think of them as your maestro to make things happen within their firms. They are put in place to offer you special care and attention and to ensure that you realize your business missions!
Note: This blog series, co-authored with Daniel Toczala, is as part of an “I Have an Issue…” series which addresses how to handle common IBM Cloud offering issues and roadblocks.
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Paula Williams, IBM Customer Success Manager
