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VP - Global Customer Success | Top 25 CS Influencer | Top 25 Creative CS Leader | LinkedIn Top Voice(Retention, CX, CRM) | B2B SaaS Advisor/ Consultant & Coach
Being a CS Leader Sucks! Being a New CS Leader Sucks more! Stepping in as a CS Leader means owning everything, the customers, their problems, their outcomes, the product, it's strengths & weaknesses, the team, their miss, their wins, the process, it's pros & cons, the internal chaos, the tech stack, and more, it's not easy- stepping into this role, but this is how most orgs. define/assume the role, give the ownership of GRR & NRR to 1/ few where all affect it. The joy of the job offer is quickly taken over by reality, that hits you hard & sharp. The biggest struggle? Most of the chaos & mess you own is not under your control; still your problem. As a CS Leader the most important role you play is never even mentioned in your JD: - you sell Customer Success to the entire org. - you drive internal change management first - before you can ever drive CS for your customers Only handful few get lucky & step into a role that is already understood & defined well- where the starting pt. is continuous improvement. Here are my top 10 learnings & suggestions on how to start as a CS Leader: 1- understand your direct team structure/ process/ KPI/ tech/ data (Implementation/ CS/ Support etc.) 2- know your product with all the solutions inside out (if you don't know what you are selling, it is a big problem) 3- understand the entire customer lifecycle from Day 0 (starting marketing & sales, then implementation, till renewal) 4- deep dive into customer lifecycle data for a reality check (who are you selling to? what? why? how? when?) 5- know your peer leaders, their KPIs & expectations from CS (what works, what doesn't, & why) 6- engage directly with multiple customer segments (most successful, most unsuccessful, most happy, most unhappy) 7- always look at process/ teams/ tech from a first principle perspective (what worked so far, may not be right/ best) 8- do not think of control & order, think of helping & solving (accept you can't own all fixes- but can help with all) 9- focus on cross functional data flow & hand-off processes (customer data needs to move fwd. seamlessly with customer) 10- design playbooks, tech stack, engagements for entire customer journey (CS flows & strategy do not exist in a silo) Bonus- keep the focus on the customer in all the above (being a customer advocate in actions not just an issue forwarder) What else would you add as key starting points for a CS leader? P.S. these are broad points, in order to be successful each CS leader needs to tailor the strategy. Block 1:1 https://lnkd.in/gjQxGq7f for CS coaching/mentoring or consulting for setting up Org. CS mindset/ team/ process/ playbooks #outcomes #goals #CS #CSM #customersuccessmanager #csleaders #founders #b2b #saas #customeroutcomes #customerexperience #customerservice #customersuccess