One year in a Customer Success Leadership role - 3 key learnings

Almost 3 years ago, when I joined Freshworks (then Freshdesk), I started off with program managing strategy and operations for our Customer Success function which was then 2 months old and 4 people in size.

It was a roller-coaster ride for about almost a year; analyzing customer data, scaling the team and defining and implementing the customer success (post sale) engagement model. 

Post this role, I went on to take up more org level strategic initiatives as part of the CEO's office for a year. However, somewhere inside Customer Success was always close to my heart. A year ago, when I was given the opportunity to lead the Customer Success Team for our marquee product, Freshdesk, I was both excited and nervous. Today, the CS Team for Freshdesk is about 30 people in size and the function overall, about 60!

This October, I complete one year in my Lead, CS role. So here I am, sharing some key learnings.

1.Ensuring the Company/Leadership`s ideology of Customer Centricity trickles all the way down to beginners in the team

You can try all you want to set processes and rules of engagement in place, CSMs will always encounter fix situations that are exceptions to the rule. Customers may request for help/services that is outside the purview of the product, ask for discounts, rant about how they've had a bad experience with someone outside of the CS team, in most cases rightly so. Customer Success Managers need to be empowered to take the right decisions (decisions that are right for the customer and for the company) in that moment.

Here's one phrase that customers hate to hear: “Let me check and get back to you on this.” The CSM will be the face of the company to the customer. Only an empowered CSM who understands the company's vision and ideology of Customer Success can take the right decision at that crucial moment and really win the customer`s heart; and we all know advocacy = growth.

Our CEO strives to constantly communicate to the company our vision (“Enable teams to deliver moments of WOW”) and the big picture through every means possible. Time and again, I try my best to reshare this with all team members so they don't get bogged down by everyday frustrations that come their way.

We in the CS Team celebrate Customer Delight more than Customer Satisfaction. We therefore incentivize CSMs for going the extra mile to delight the customer rather than for mere following process to the T and ticking away checkboxes.

2. Keeping pace with changing customer expectations from CS.. Don't assume..Ask..

Different customers have different desired outcomes and different expectations from your product or about the level of service provided to them. A CSM enables the customer to achieve his/her desired outcome that the customer set to achieve through the product. It is important to do this in a way that the respective customer wants it to be done. Eg:- there are customers who prefer conversing on emails every month only on need basis without being disturbed often vs. customers who wish to be communicated with every week over a call with the latest updates and feature recommendations even without a request/issue. And then there are customers who expect to be responded to within minutes on chat; Customers who expect CSMs to be more of consultants/domain experts and expect strategic recommendations on their internal processes.

As a CS lead, I learnt that it is crucial to segment customers by the level of engagement in addition to the usual attributes such as MRR, Industry, Employee size etc. Doing this helps drives personalization through scale.

And the biggest learning is not to assume the level of engagement (based on some hypothesis) but to ask every customer! The engagement models that we set up across different customer segments was basis interviews done with customers across each segment on their expectations from a Customer Success Manager. We revisit the engagement models once every 6 months.

3. Aligning other functions to Customer Success goals is the biggest accomplishment for the CS org; But leadership alignment ain`t enough..

Even after empowering CSMs and getting the engagement model right, successful execution of CS strategy will fail to deliver results if other functions in the company are not aware of and aligned to the goals you've set. One bad experience across any customer touchpoint may drive the customer from being a promoter to a detracter or at least to being indifferent. If you are serious about customer success, you only want promoters :)

When we talk about alignment, it is not enough if the alignment exists only at the leadership level. There needs to be alignement at the ground level i.e. CS Associate/manager & Support agent or the CSM & Sales rep etc.

Personal rapport building among members of these cross-functional teams at all levels aids in people from different teams not stepping on each others' shoes, playing as one team and eventually delivering a great customer experience throughout the customer journey.

We encourage CSMs to arrange regular syncups for team members from Sales, Support, Account Management and Customer Success by Geos (regions) where the Geo heads share updates on key customers, challenges and scope for improvement. We also conduct trust building workshops for people across all these teams.

Personally, the last one year has been a great learning experience for me; meeting a ton of customers across the globe, rethinking our CS strategy, hiring and coaching some of the best CSMs and what not! Looking forward to yet another killer year of Customer Success :)

If you are new to a CS leadership role, hope the above learnings gave you some insight into what your role could entail. If you are an experienced leader, would love to hear more of your learnings and experiences :)