Customer Success Manager (Tech, and other industries)

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What is customer success?

Customer success (also known as “account management”) teams exist to make sure that the customers are successful in their usage of the seller’s product. When a company (the “customer”) buys a product (from the “seller”), it can entail a lot of work to integrate that product with their current systems and processes, and make sure that the product actually drives the value that the customers envisioned it driving.

One of the main metrics for customer success teams is “churn” prevention- which essentially means that customer success teams exist to make sure customers renew the initial purchase they made year after year. Helping a team to be successful on the product is part of what drives that renewal. Sometimes, customer success teams will also be in charge of “upsell,” or making sure that existing accounts order more of the product than they were initially sold.

Why reducing/preventing ‘churn’ important

Whenever a company sells a product, a contract- whatever it is they sell, they’re thinking about a metric called “customer lifetime value.” That means, on average, if I sell you something, what is that sale worth to me long term? In a perfect world, the sale is worth more than one year of sales revenue. It’s worth a year of sales revenue, multiplied by the number of total terms (original term plus all renewals) that are estimated to occur.

The outbound sales team (typically made up of account executives and their bosses) affects the value of the one year of sales revenue, and the customer success team is concerned with the number of years that a company renews. The ‘number of years’ estimate increases dramatically if a customer has a good experience with deployment, and has a positive experience whenever issues arise. The customer success team is typically responsible for responding to any issues, and for crafting a plan for a successful deployment and successful training of “end users.” An “end user” is anyone who will actually be using the product that a company sells.

Key traits for new grad sales hires

Customer success team members have to be incredibly thoughtful and responsible. They have to anticipate customer issues before they arise. They have to be comfortable training people. They have to be the expert on the product their company sells, and possess a level of product knowledge and technical aptitude. They also need to be able to manage several different tasks at once, and make sure that nothing falls in the cracks. A strong sense of hustle is required too- if a customer emails you with an issue, you need to have the instinct to get back to them with a solution as soon as possible.

Technical skills

Understanding of Salesforce (CRM system, which stands for customer relationship management) is typically important for people on sales teams, and customer success is a branch of sales. Beyond that, it’s incredibly important to be a technical expert on the product your team sells. You have to understand how to deploy it, how to advise when things go wrong or break, how to ensure that end users understand how to use your product, and are successful in achieving the goals they had when they purchased. Even if you don’t consider yourself a highly technical person, that’s totally ok, and the word “technical” shouldn’t intimidate you or make you feel excluded! You just have to be willing to learn your product inside and out- anyone with a strong work ethic can do that.

Wait, what is this Salesforce thing?

Salesforce is a cloud based software- it’s pretty expensive, but industry standard for most sales teams. It helps salespeople track their accounts (companies they’re trying to sell to) and contacts (people they’re trying to sell to, or work with post-sale.) Salesforce is important because it tracks activities (an email is an activity. A phone call is an activity…) You, as a customer success manager (aka, account manager) should be contacting your customers regularly, and Salesforce is often the system of record that allows your management to gain visibility into that cadence, how various accounts are doing, how successfully their deployment is progressing, etc.

Role terminology and hierarchy

CSM (or ‘AM’)- customer success manager, interchangeably used with ‘account manager’. This is usually going to be your first role in a customer success org. Your role is to be boots on the ground with customers- schedule and lead deployment calls, trainings, and respond to issues when they occur. Your job is to make sure that deployments are successful, and ultimately, that customers renew their contracts when the annual renewal date occurs. You’ll typically be judged on the percentage of renewals that you successfully convert, and how well you’re able to minimize the amount of “churn” that occurs. Churn occurs when a customer chooses to not renew their contract with your company.

Director or Customer Success- A director will be a manager of several customer success managers, and the VP will run an entire customer success org. The job of the director is to own a group-wide number for renewals, or churn percentage (again, churn is a bad thing, so you want to keep that number low.) You have to hire for that team, decide on the team’s strategy, and allocate your resources accordingly.

VP of Sales- The VP is a similar job as a director, but more senior, and will entail more responsibility. A VP of Sales will be responsible for outbound sales teams, as well as customer success teams. ‘Outbound’ sales teams are teams that try to sign up new business, as opposed to customer success, who works with existing customers.

How customer success fits into the company

If you look at company employees in the most simplistic terms, they either make something, sell something, or do something that can support both functions. Marketing, Customer Success, Customer Experience; these are teams that help sales teams to sell. Engineering, product management, design are examples of teams that make something. Finance, IT, and Legal are teams that support both functions. Customer success is on the sales side- you’re trying to make sure that the sales that occur are successful, that new and existing companies are happy with their purchase, and that they renew year after year.

As a customer success team, you have to watch out for, and prevent, churn. Churn occurs when a product was not deployed successfully, when the team wasn’t trained on how to use it, when the buyer’s leadership doesn’t know how to promote it, and when their end users don’t use it a lot. The more a company’s end users use your product, and derive value from it, the lower the chances that a company will choose not to renew your contract. Additionally, customer success teams may not work with all customers, it’s possible that there is a cutoff line where above a certain amount of spend per year includes a customer success manager. CSM teams must allocate their time and resources wisely.

How sales orgs work

A company’s board, CEO, leadership, etc. will determine the revenue goals for the year. They will break that larger goal into quarterly goals. The sales team has to come together and hit those goals, each chipping in and being accountable to the goal they’ve been assigned. Each team and most people have some sort of a goal they have to hit as an individual or group, and you’ll get paid based on how well you hit that number. Customer success teams will have to make sure that the deals that are signed are renewing, and not cancelling their orders or not renewing over time.

Culture

Sales teams (and customer success teams are sub division of a sales teams) are usually comprised of young, fun, hardworking people who want to make money and move up to higher and higher paying roles. The customer success side typically needs to have less of an aggressive nature than the outbound account executive side, as they work with existing customers as opposed to brand new, cold leads.

CSM teams are very consultative and thoughtful. They are more on the technical side of the sale than AE’s, and can put together detailed deployment and training plans for teams who have already purchased. In a way, it’s a relief that customer success teams don’t have to work with people who are completely “cold”- you’re working with people who have, at some level, bought into the goal of your product.

Leads

A lead is a company or contact that has expressed interest in purchasing your product. As a CSM, you won’t be working with new leads- you’ll be working with existing customers who have already purchased. At the very worst, you may be introduced to the conversation right before the purchase is made, just so they buyer understands how they can expect to be supported during the rollout, and beyond.

Discovery process

One of the most technical parts of a post sale motion is understanding how to lead a “discovery call.” The post sale discovery call has a different goal and structure than a pre sale discovery call. In a post sale discovery call, you need to discover a few different things:

1. Why did the customer purchase your product?

2. Who do they want to use your product? Essentially, who will be the “end users?”

3. What value do they expect to see from it?

4. What is their time frame for having it rolled out?

5. How can you both, as a unit, work together to make sure that their goals and timeframe are met?

6. How can you both, as a unit, make sure that the launch is successful, and that end users are set up for success?

After the discovery process, the CSM might devise a deployment plan, a training plan, and a strategy to drive success in general. This type of plan is not written completely from scratch- you rely on the best practices, collateral, and plans that other CSMs before you have used.

Hunting and farming

Sometimes, a sales team might have a sales role that is all encompassing- you may be a jack of all trades that does a little bit of everything. You may be expected to ‘hunt’ for new deals, and then, ‘farm’ those deals to grow them, and to continuously make sure the customer is successful.

In more mature sales orgs, the “hunter” role is usually separate, and referred to as an “account executive.” The “farmer” role, the customer success/account manager role, spins off separately, which drives efficiency and makes it easier to focus on one specialty. As a farmer, you need to have an innate sense for which accounts are most important to stay close to. The bigger the financial commitment an account has made, the more crucial it is to prevent a churn.

Annoying things about the role

Customer success managers can have less downside than account executives. However, they typically don’t enjoy as much upside either. A great account executive who crushes their quota will typically make more than the best customer success manager.

Responding to fires (essentially, a customer emergency on your product where they need to resolve an issue ASAP) can be annoying. Additionally, when a big customer churns, it’s rarely because the customer success manager didn’t do their job well. It typically has to do with forces outside of your control (a competitor beat you on pricing, a personal relationship of the buyer influenced them to switch, etc) yet you could be punished for it in your churn percentage.

Another thing- you may have to work with a customer who has been “oversold” by the account executive who sold them the contract. The customer may be expecting features that the product doesn’t actually provide (this shouldn’t happen, but often does) and you’ll be the one who has to explain that what they were thinking isn’t quite the case, and handle that disappointment.

A good CSM vs. a bad one

A good CSM will respond to emails right away, will make themselves available to put out fires at the drop of a hat, and will have a high degree of knowledge on the product their team sells. They will be able to anticipate customer issues before they happen, and train end users well so that they are excited about using the product, and that they are successful on it.

A good CSM will be very proactive, and look to go above and beyond to ensure that buyer has a good experience with the product they have been sold. They will form strong relationships with their customers, and create a psychological barrier to churn.

Interview vibe

Conversational, don’t feel like you have to talk forever and have to prove yourself. Get to know the person you’re talking to and connect with them. Have a bunch of anecdotes that speak to your motivation, and ability to get stuff done in the face of adversity. Stories about being self sufficient, organized, capable, and self motivated are great. Stories about working with a similar product in the past, and becoming an expert on it, and helping others to use it successfully will work well. Think of all the parts of your life; even stories about volunteering or being a camp counselor or starting your own business in high school can be great examples of told in a STAR format. Ask good questions at the end, and be engaged and a good conversationalist.

Relevant questions to ask at the end

- what do top performers do differently than the rest of the team?

- what happens in the best deployment efforts?

- what are the typical ‘fires’ that might need to be put out?

- what does a successful first month or first quarter look like?

- what is the part of the product roadmap or company that you’re most excited about?

- how has the company or strategy evolved since you’ve joined?

- what excites customers the most about the product?

- what is the most difficult thing to understand about our product?

Also, feel free to take notes during your conversation, and ask questions based on things that were noteworthy during your discussion.

Questions you might be asked in a Customer Success Interview:

1. how do you make sure nothing falls through the cracks?
2. what would be your 30/60/90 day plan if you had to build one from scratch?
3. how do you prioritize your day?
4. are you familiar with Salesforce (or the CRM software they use)?
5. what information do you think is important to get from a post sale discovery call?
6. what’s your deployment style?
7. do you feel comfortable with end user training?
8. when have you ever had to become an expert on a product?
9. how did you become an expert on that product?
10. what would you do if someone called in looking for the support line?
11. how would you manage a ton of different deployments or customers at once?
12. have you ever had to manage a bunch of different tasks at once?
13. what do you think is most important in a customer success role?
14. Why might our company suffer a churn?
15. Can you tell me about a time you had to be persuasive?
16. an you tell me about a professional relationship you had to build from scratch?
17. Who would be a good target company for our product?
18. Who would be a good target job title to buy our product?
19. have you ever had to work with a bunch of different stakeholders in one task?
20. What is the ROI (return on investment) that our product provides?