A day in the life of a Customer Success Manager at Piwik PRO
In our company, there are people whose sole focus is making customers feel happy and successful with our tool. Of course, we all care about our customers, but they care a lot. They are Customer Success Managers and their job is to make sure our users know, like, and feel comfortable using our product.
Customer Success Managers guide users through onboarding, run training sessions, check the account health, answer user questions, and are ready to jump in with a lifebuoy when users are in trouble with our tool. The joy they get from caring for users motivates them and being saviors makes their hearts beat.
I was curious about how they do their craft. I only see them tapping on keyboards quickly, running out of the room with headphones on whispering “I’ve got a call in a minute”, and jumping between channels on Slack hoping to find the person who can answer the burning question a user has just asked. “Our spirit animal is an octopus,” one of the Customer Success Managers told me yesterday. “It’s because we need to take care of many tasks at once and we need to have octopus arms to embrace it all.” Honestly, I have no idea how they do that. But maybe, by the end of this post, I’ll find out.
Mornings
Ewa, Customer Success Manager, enters the office around 10 AM, greets us with a big smile and heads to the kitchen for her ceremonial coffee. “Without a coffee, there’s no point to even press the power button on the computer,” she laughs. She tells us a few funny stories over the coffee cup and sits behind her desk ready to start the day.
“First thing I do is I check the calendar to see if I have any meetings or calls with customers scheduled. When I do, I know I will have to prepare for that. But before I start getting ready, I check my email and answer support questions. I also login to chat and see if there are any queries,” she takes a break to finish off her coffee and continues. “In this role, you need to have your mind set on the customer. The customer and their needs come first. Then everything else,” she explains. “With this approach, you know how to prioritize.”
Each morning is different because a Customer Success Manager never knows who will need their help at that time. So if customers are in need they take care of them. But if it’s quiet and everyone seems happy, they can switch to tasks that wait for them in the task pile.
Sprints and tasks
“Our team works in the Scrum framework, which is not common for customer service teams,” says Alicja, the manager of the Customer Success team. “We plan the sprint and assign tasks. After two weeks we review what has been done. Once a month we do a retro meeting during which we reflect on what happened, how we’re feeling, and what we need to work more smoothly,” Alicja explains.
On the task pile, everyone in the team can find a piece of work that contributes to achieving the strategic goal of the team and the whole company. It could be doing an audit for a customer, creating an implementation plan for the customer’s website, writing a support article, or cleaning up HubSpot.
“Our goal is to have happy users. It happens when users know how to work with our tool and using it to achieve their business goals,” says Alicja smiling. “For that, we need to keep in touch with our customers, learn about their businesses, show them what can be done with Piwik PRO, and empower them with quality learning materials,” she explains. “That’s why we not only work with current customer issues but also pick up additional tasks.”
Customer portfolio
It’s 12 a.m. and I’m meeting Kate, Customer Success Manager, for lunch. She will tell me more about how she works with the customer portfolio.
“Each Customer Success Manager has a portfolio of clients. This way each client has their own Customer Success Manager, whom they can call by name and feel comfortable working within the long run,” says Kate.
The Customer Success Manager meets the client after the contract is signed and starts the onboarding process. The first few weeks are intense since the Customer Success Manager helps the client set up analytics for the whole website — from the dashboard to goals, click paths, tags, and more.
“We guide the customer through this process by asking questions and putting together an implementation plan,” Kate explains. “I’m happy when after a few calls and training sessions I learn about my client’s business and understand how our tool can help them. Then I can find ways to implement features, teach them how to work with it, and enjoy when they make use of our tool,” she smiles. “Then I feel we’re walking in the same direction.”
We end our lunch and Kate heads back to her desk. She checks her Slack and tells me she needs to create a feature request for the product team, since her client just asked for a custom solution. Now, I know, the Customer Success Manager also works with other teams.
Troubleshooting
The whole company works around the product. The product needs to be top-notch. And the Customer Success team knows if it is, first-hand. The Customer Success Manager is the one who needs to respond to customers when something breaks, a user runs into a problem with implementing tracking or is just happy and sends us a thank-you note. On any of those occasions, the Customer Success Manager will need to get in touch with other teams.
“Whenever I have a difficult situation and can’t handle the issue myself I reach out to our Solution Architect team, or in critical cases, to the product team for help,” says Dominika, Customer Success Manager. “I always want to quickly solve my client’s problem, because I understand it is frustrating when you can’t use the tool.”
“We promote the Customer Success mindset in the whole company. And when there is a client in need, we want each team to understand it’s a burning issue,” explains Alicja. “That’s why we have some kind of hot-lines with the teams that help us troubleshoot as quickly as possible.”
“When I have a customer with an issue, I immediately respond to them even though I don’t have a solution ready,” says Dominika. “This way the client knows that they are being taken care of. Then, as I work with the issue, I send them updates and estimated time of solving the problem.”
Troubleshooting is the stressful part of the job, but the Customer Success team handles it with the support of members of their own team as well as other teams. And at times, when the Customer Success Manager receives compliments from users when they are happy and relieved that the issue was sorted out, all the stress is rewarded.
“I love receiving those thank-you messages. Then I’m sure that I helped the client and I feel satisfied with my work,” says Dominika, beaming. “I also feel powered up to work with the client and help them achieve more with our product. It’s a great feeling to be appreciated for the work I do.”
In the afternoon
It’s after 3 PM and I see Monika scribbling on some print outs. She’s getting ready for her first training session. During this session she’ll be presenting to her own team the tool as if they were customers. It’s something like practice.
“A while ago, we designed this process for new team members because the best way to learn is to experiment,” says Alicja.
“Our product is complex and requires a lot of knowledge about web analytics. I’m learning bit by bit through support articles from Help Center, scripts for training sessions, and invaluable meetings with my shadow buddy,” says Monika. “A shadow buddy is one of my teammates, whom I can always ask anything and their job is to support me in learning.”
Monika stands up from behind her desk and heads to an afternoon meeting with her shadow buddy. I guess it feels comfortable for her to get to know the company and product by being engaged in the team and experimenting with the product.
“I really like all the practice stuff. Then I know I’m getting a grip on web analytics,” she adds. “I can’t wait to have my first customers. It’s all a challenge, but also a great fun.”
By the end of the day, I know a lot about the Customer Success team. I’ve seen them smiling in the morning, thinking the strategy over, busy with queries, stressed with issues, flattered with thank-you emails, and excited with new challenges. I hear the names of the tools I’ve seen them using: Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, HubSpot, Freshdesk, Freshchat, Jira, Confluence, Ask nicely, and more. Now I can see those octopus arms holding and handling all the tasks at once. I’m impressed and wish all Customer Success Managers luck.
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