Rahul Choudhary’s Post

In addition to this making customer success plan a collaborative makes the success more probable. Actively seeking input on what success looks like from the customer’s perspective allows CSMs to tailor plans that evolve alongside the customer’s changing goals and market conditions.

Delivering Exceptional Customer Value as a Customer Success Manager Delivering value is essential for a business to survive, and delivering exceptional customer value is more critical than ever for Customer Success Managers. Success is not just about maintaining the customer relationship—it’s about driving meaningful outcomes that align with your customer’s goals and evolving needs. Here are five ways CSMs can consistently deliver exceptional customer value: 1️⃣ Understand the Business Goals: Before delivering value, you must know what it looks like to your customer. Ask strategic questions to understand their business objectives and KPIs, then align your efforts toward achieving those outcomes. 2️⃣ Proactive Communication: Don’t wait for issues to arise. Regular check-ins allow you to identify challenges early and inform customers of updates that impact them. Remember: proactive engagement builds trust and confidence. 3️⃣ Personalized Solutions: One size does NOT fit all. Tailor your approach to fit each customer’s unique needs and business goals. Personalized solutions demonstrate that you understand their business and are invested in their success. 4️⃣ Anticipate Needs: Customers value a partner who helps them avoid potential roadblocks. Leverage your knowledge of the customer’s environment and industry to anticipate challenges and proactively offer solutions. 5️⃣ Be Their Advocate: Exceptional customer value means being the voice of the customer within your organization. Advocate for their needs and ensure their concerns are addressed by collaborating with internal teams. By consistently delivering value beyond the basic expectations, CSMs build long-term partnerships, increase customer satisfaction, and drive meaningful outcomes. How are you delivering exceptional customer value in your role? Let’s share best practices in the comments! #leadership #leadershipdevelopment #customersuccess #customervalue #cusotmerexperience

Are you drowning your Customer Success team in admin work? In our modern, metrics-driven environment, it's tempting for leaders to want to track every single action a Customer Success Manager takes. The goal is transparency and optimization, right? However, this approach can inadvertently burden CSMs with excessive administrative tasks, diverting them from their core responsibility: building and maintaining customer relationships. Think about it: Instead of proactively engaging with clients, understanding their needs, and creatively solving problems, CSMs are stuck logging endless data points. This isn't just inefficient, it's demotivating. I've been there; it's demoralizing. So, what's a better way? Focus on outcomes, not just inputs: Do you need to know every minute a CSM spends, or are you more interested in results like retention, expansion, and customer satisfaction? Automate where possible: Invest in tools that streamline and automate administrative tasks, freeing up CSMs to focus on strategic work. Trust and empower your team: CSMs are on the frontlines of customer relationships. They need the autonomy and flexibility to make decisions that drive success. By redirecting your attention from micromanaging to empowering your CSMs, you'll build a more efficient and effective Customer Success organization. Your CSMs (and your customers) will be grateful. What strategies have you seen work for finding this balance? #CustomerSuccess

This is an excellent breakdown of the essential pillars for driving customer success. One additional aspect to consider is the importance of feedback loops. Continuous engagement with your customers not only ensures that you’re aligned with their needs but also helps refine your solution over time. Implementing systematic feedback channels, whether through surveys, user groups, or regular check-ins, can provide valuable insights to help you iterate and stay ahead of customer expectations. Customer success isn't just about providing a solution at the start—it's about evolving with your customers and continuously delivering value throughout their journey. #customersuccess #saas #cco 

5 unshakable pillars of customer success. 1️⃣ What does success even mean? If you can’t clearly define and communicate what success looks like for your customers, you’re already off course. Start by aligning your positioning and messaging with their goals, not your features. 2️⃣ Not every customer is your customer. Stop chasing the wrong people. Define your ideal customer profile (ICP) and double down on those who are truly set up to win with your solution. Harsh? Maybe. Necessary? Definitely. 3️⃣ Build solutions, not feature dumps. Customers buy outcomes, not tools. If your product is a Frankenstein of "cool features," you’re in trouble. A true solution solves a real, valuable problem for your ICP. 4️⃣ Your CSMs need superpowers. Expecting results without investing in education and proactive enablement for your Customer Success Managers is like sending a soldier into battle with no training. If you’re not building them up, you’re holding your customers back. 5️⃣ Money talks, incentives walk. Is your entire company aligned with customer success? If bonuses and incentives don’t reflect retention and lifetime value goals, you’re misaligned. Period. Customer success isn’t a department—it’s a culture. And if it’s not driving your entire organization, you’re setting your business up for failure. ……………………………………. PS: Wanna become better at customer success - retain, grow and help your customer, visit --> https://successguardian.in #customersuccess #saas #cco 

🤔💭 "Are we ALL in agreement on what a Customer Success Manager is and the expectation(s) of the role at [COMPANY NAME]?"    In my previous role leading Customer Success Enablement, each stakeholder did not ask this question internally enough to clarify how the CS org's efforts impact customers and the business.   There is an implied agreement across the industry that customer success focuses on the leading indicators of customer health, churn mitigation, increasing NRR, etc., relating to the company's performance. However, each company's job description of the role is quite similar but defines differently how these activities are approached depending on the context of the tech, use cases, industry, etc., which leaves an incredible amount of space for interpretation from outside influences, creating muddy expectations of CS.   So, how do we get clarity on the CS role and clear expectations?   📝Create a Customer Success charter!📝   Why? Creating a charter that includes the department's purpose and goals, its role & responsibilities, and the structure/hierarchy of the program aimed at enhancing CSM efficiency will help resolve the uncertainty around the expectations of this team, plus gain alignment across ALL stakeholders. 🥳As a bonus, this will also make enablement efforts more impactful.    If you want to create a successful and impactful Customer Success org, start by asking the tricky question, "Are we ALL in agreement on what a Customer Success Manager is and the expectation(s) of the role at [COMPANY NAME]?" #customersuccess #enablement

Potential spicy take: We can be way too quick to say that Customer Success is the responsibility of the whole company. And that in turn downplays the tangible impact driven by Customer Success teams. There's an air of truth to the statement that everyone in the company should be aligned around the customers' success. Yes, the rest of the company has to be committed to delivering on the post-sales motion and the promises of the product to deliver outcomes. Customer Success isn't driven solely by a CS team, absolutely. It's a team sport. But when we're too quick to say that retention and customer success is the responsibility of the whole org, it can come across as AVOIDING OWNERSHIP. Leadership can hear this as a team that doesn't deliver results and blaming other teams for their lack of success. Taking this stance so loudly diminishes the very real role of "Customer Success Manager" and the unique value this role provides. Because while the whole company contributes towards customers' success, Customer Success Teams (and the CSMs that make them up) are responsible for delivering on these results and the resulting renewals. Customer Success Managers are uniquely qualified to advocate for customers, help customers better attain stronger outcomes, bring the full weight of resources to bear for a customer, act as liaison between Product teams and customers, act as an early warning sign of customer risks, identify ways that a customer can increase their spend with a product to better achieve their desired outcomes, get to know customer orgs inside and out to pioneer new use cases and outcomes with your product. The list could go on. CS Leaders: While you advocate for customer-centricity and a commitment to customer outcomes in your broader org, don't be afraid to own customer outcomes , to own reveals, to own customer success. Because while Customer Success is a mindset and an outcome, it's also... A role, a team, and a functional business unit that is uniquely equipped to deliver on those outcomes. And your team will thank you for not downplaying the outcomes they achieve. #CustomerSuccess #CSM #Outcomes #Ownership

There are many possible reasons why Customer Success Management fails to create substantial value for customers and companies. - Lack of foundation? - Issues working with customers? - Insufficient team capabilities? - Struggling with the execution? The simple answer: Most SaaS companies have issues at every level. - They have not defined their ICPs and set accurate expectations - CSMs and customers are loosely connected and only collaborate on paper - The team does not have the required mindset, skills, and knowledge  - CSMs are working through their inboxes and check-off items from a list What makes things worse is that the problems are interconnected - Wrong customer → you can’t deliver the right content and services - Lack of customer feedback → You can’t improve the quality of inputs - Insufficient training → you can’t discover customer needs accurately Trying to solve everything at once is a certain way to fail. Instead, follow this process: 1. Audit your customers, team, and processes 2. Determine what works, what does not, and why 3. Quantify the impact of every problem 4. Share relevant insights across GTM teams 5. Create a blueprint for the ideal state of every part 6. Determine the gaps to the status quo 7. Define measures to close these gaps 8. Prioritize and close them based on impact Don’t wait for a miracle, take decisive action. (Post inspired by Pierre Herubel) PS: Join 4.7k+ CS pros and sign up for my Customer-Value-Led-Growth newsletter if you like this post → https://lnkd.in/dtC7MEjP

INTRODUCING CODE 4 STRATEGIES: Redefining Customer Success Welcome to Code 4 Strategies, where we’re not just rethinking Customer Success—we’re rebuilding it from the ground up. Traditional Customer Success models often fall short. They focus on renewals, onboarding, or firefighting problems after they happen. That’s like trying to fix the foundation of a house after it’s already built. At Code 4 Strategies, we believe the solution is simple: own the customer journey from day one—and by day one, we mean right after Sales qualifies the lead. This is Customer Success Next Generation (CS-NG). CS-NG is built on a foundation of: • Ownership: The Customer Success Manager (CSM) is the General Manager of the account, driving everything from solution design to onboarding to ongoing management. • Collaboration: Sales is the hunter, finding and qualifying customers, but Customer Success leads strategy, pricing, and solution design to ensure every deal is built for long-term success. • Technical Leadership: No buzzwords here—our CSMs are experienced professionals with technical, operational, and consultative selling expertise. They’re not just solving problems; they’re preventing them. • Proactive Engagement: CS-NG is about being ahead of the curve. From anticipating customer needs to driving renewals and upsells, we make sure there are no surprises. Why does this matter? Because businesses are tired of silos, miscommunication, and reactive problem-solving. With CS-NG, your entire organization aligns around one goal: making your customers successful. This is the future of Customer Success—and we’re leading the charge. Follow us for insights, frameworks, and case studies as we bring CS-NG to life. Let’s build something better, together. #CustomerSuccess #CSNG #Code4Strategies #Leadership #Innovation

Customer Success is often made out to be more complex than it needs to be. If you're just getting started, here's the checklist: 1. Define Success: Start by crystalizing what success means for your customers. What are their desired outcomes? 2. Drive Adoption: Your product or service won't deliver value if it's not being used. Focus on getting customers to fully embrace and utilize what you offer. 3. Monitor Health: Just like a doctor checks a patient's vital signs, keep a constant pulse on the health of your customer relationships. Are they thriving or at risk? 4. Execute Flawlessly: The first impression matters. Ensure smooth implementation and onboarding experiences to set the stage for success. 5. Discover Deeply: Understand your customers inside and out. Dive deep into their challenges, goals, and aspirations to tailor your approach. 6. Champion Relationships: Every successful journey needs allies. Identify and nurture champions and sponsors within your customer base who can advocate for you. 7. Communicate Wisely: Effective communication is the lifeblood of Customer Success. Master the art of threading multiple conversations and stakeholders seamlessly. 8. Lead with Value: Value should be your guiding star at every turn. Show customers how your offerings solve their problems and enhance their lives. 9. Measure Progress: Keep a keen eye on the compass of progress. Track leading indicators and outcomes metrics to ensure you're on the right path. 10. Internal Alignment: Look inward too. Measure and optimize internal Customer Success metrics like Gross Revenue Retention (GRR) and Net Revenue Retention (NRR). By framing your approach around these key principles, you'll simplify the complexity of Customer Success and build a foundation for lasting relationships and business growth. Until next time, share what you are doing. What's working for you and what's not working? ……………………………………. First time seeing my posts? I’m on a mission to empower Customer Success. I post regularly about: ✅ Proactive Customer Success Mindset ✅ Customer Success Leadership ✅ Ways to Improve CS Operations 🔔Hit the bell to not miss a post 👩🏽🏫Want to improve your CS operations?- visit https://successguardian.in #cco  #customersuccess #customerretention