January 31, 2024 • 37 mins
In this episode, our host Anika Zubair chats with Brandon Ramsey, Head of Customer Success at OnsiteIQ about how to ensure that customer success truly stands on its own and is not overshadowed by sales.
Customer Success (CS) is frequently linked with sales and often entails revenue targets. However, is this truly the most effective way to structure your CS department? Why should CS not be seen as a mere extension of sales? And how can you persuade senior leadership that CS should not be responsible for renewals and upsells?
Podcast enquiries: sofia@planhat.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Hello everyone. I'm your host, Anika Bert , and
welcome back to the nextepisode of the Customer Success
Channel podcast, brought to youby Plan Hat , the Modern
Customer platform. This podcastis created for anyone working
in or interested in thecustomer success field. On this
podcast, we will speak toleaders in the industry about
their experiences and theirdefinitions of customer success
(00:27):
and get their advice and bestpractices on how to run a CS
organization. Today I'mspeaking with Brandon Ramsey ,
head of Customer Success atOnsite iq. He has helped build
their CSS function from theground up, and Brandon has
spent a number of years as aprincipal, CSM, and with four
(00:48):
years of consulting experience,his focus has been on
maximizing efficiency. Customersuccess often gets tied into
sales more times than not, CSMshave revenue targets. But is
this the right way to structureyour CSS team? Should CSS be an
extension of sales? Today, weare going to chat with Brendan
all about his opinion on thistopic and how he has built
(01:09):
customer success teams from theground up that have not held
revenue targets and have beenmeasured for 9.9 out of 10 for
their CSAT scores. But thisdidn't happen overnight, and it
happened because he focused onpurpose over profit. Let's chat
to Brendan on how he made sureCSS is not sales. Welcome,
Brandon , to the podcast. I'mso very excited to have you
(01:32):
here with us today, but beforewe get into this very juicy
topic, I would love to hear inyour own words what it is you
do, who you are, where you'reworking. Give me the lowdown of
who the heck Brandon is. Yeah,
Speaker 3 (01:46):
First off, thank you for having me. It's, it's
always a absolute treat to beable to talk to another CSS
professional who is focused onkind of cultivating our message
as a, as a team and a programand , and advertising in the
space. And what you're doingis, in my opinion, the Lord's
work. So I, I truly appreciateyou having me on. Aw ,
Speaker 2 (02:02):
That's so
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Sweet. In terms of who I am , my name's Brendan
Ramsey who said , head ofCustomer Success at Onset iq.
Onset IQ is a constructionintelligence platform that
leverages AI to detect progresschanges throughout the life of
a capital asset. So any personbuilding any type of property,
it doesn't matter if it's ahome or a data center or a New
York skyscraper, we sendsomeone to capture that asset
(02:23):
on a regular basis. We processthat data through ai and then
we're able to spit out insights, uh, and information to key
project stakeholders on theowner, developer, and investor
side so that they can seeexactly how their projects are
coming along. We're in anincredibly innovative space,
and obviously AI is taking theforefront, and so we're super
privileged to be able toservice our customers to kind
(02:43):
of be the first to come to themarket with a truly
comprehensive solution. Interms of me and my customer
success experience background,I would consider myself a
serial principal. csm, youknow, I kind of have jumped
from a few organizations as thefirst CSM built the CSS team
and then, and, and then movedon. And really my mentality is
people over profit and, and I'msure we'll get into this in a
(03:04):
little bit, but my personalbelief is that if you can
develop deep, meaningfulrelationships with your
customers in a way that worksfor them, that's not invasive
to those customers, you canhave an incredibly
collaborative and productiverelationship with those people.
And so to that end, Ipersonally fall in the stance
of customer success is not afunction of sales. Customer
(03:24):
success has to be a function ofits own supportive customers
and driving those positiveoutcomes. And so you can only
do that if the customer viewsyou as a team player, as a
member of their team, and notso much a salesperson trying to
get their next dollar .
Speaker 2 (03:37):
So you've had a number of different roles being
a principal, CSM, and you saythat you've built custom
success from the ground up,which is no easy task. I think
a lot of people listening toour podcast have done it, but
it is an easy, and especiallyin the prop tech or AI space
that you find yourself in. Whatinspired you to actually start
in customer success and not godown a different avenue?
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Yeah, so first things first, in my upbringing,
I was very much so encouragedby my parents to always engage
people, try and buildconnections, try and build
relationships with people, andnot force a relationship,
right? Try and build deepmeaningful ties with people. So
from an early age, I was, youknow, really, really promoted
and put into an area where Icould actually engage with
(04:22):
people. My dad had a publicspeaking platform, he was
always engaging people in thecommunity, and so I was able to
watch firsthand on kind of whatthat looks like to, to love
people where they're at andengage with them. All
throughout my life, I've beenlooking for ways to connect
with people, and in collegethat was very much so the case.
And you know, most people,whenever they're put in a
position to engage with people,they kind of go down the
(04:42):
traditional sales route, butfor me it was more about
problem solving than it wasabout selling somebody on a
vision or a product that, thatwe wanted to promote. You know,
it's, it's always been for meabout how do I work, spend my
time, my hours in the day tohelp people solve the problems
or the needs that they have.
(05:02):
And that really goes into thatpeople over profit mentality.
Um, if you really work ondeveloping a, a deep tie with
somebody, if you can build astrong relationship with them,
you're gonna find multipledifferent avenues to work with
them on solving side problems,but most importantly, to feel
like to, to drive that personto feel like they have an
advocate or a champion on theirside.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
I love that. I was just gonna say that purpose
seems so strongly tied to whoyou are as a human, and it
seems like you almost had acalling towards customer
success, especially when yousaid people over profit and
building strong relationships.
Those seem like naturalcharacteristics that you would
say any great CSM should haveor any great CSS professional
(05:42):
should have. And I'm socurious, did that come from
your parents? Do you think thatthat's just who you are at the
core? Do you think that'ssomething that can be learned?
Because for everyone listening,maybe they don't have those as,
as core principles or coreskills that they have within
themselves, but I think they'regreat and very important to
have as a CSM. What would yousay is critical?
Speaker 3 (06:03):
I mean, I'd be remiss if I didn't say a large
part of it was earlyindoctrination by my parents
and, and them kind of puttingme in those areas where I could
engage with people from alldifferent walks of life and be
able to work with them and lovethem and support them in any
aspect. It doesn't matter ifI'm going over the neighbor's
house as a little kid andmowing their lawn, you know,
you wanna build a, a goodrelationship with them. In
part, it's due to myupbringing, but I do think it
(06:25):
could be taught, you know,empathy is something that I
don't think everybody'snecessarily born with, but
that's something that they candevelop. And if you can
understand an empathize with aperson and the issues or the ,
or the problems that they'refacing, you can really start to
cultivate a path forward whereyou can help them drive those
positive and successfuloutcomes. So between that and
then, you know, being theoldest of seven kids and
(06:46):
thinking that accounting wasthe right career trajectory for
me, and then quickly gettinginto that role and realizing
that's not gonna allow me towork with the people the way
that I wanna work with, I'vebeen very, very fortunate to
have a number of differentcareer experiences and
ultimately all of them drove medown this customer success
path.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I love that everyone I speak to on this podcast has
such a unique beginning and aunique way into customer
success. Hence why I asked thequestion, where did it all
start? And like you just said,you went into accounting and
you quickly realized, hey, thisisn't for me. I'm not able to
connect and build those strongrelationships that you said are
so critical and important towho you are as a person. I
personally also went down thelaw route, and when I was
(07:24):
working as a legal intern, Iwas just like, Nope, this isn't
for me . I'm not able to buildthose meaningful relationships,
but also be able to really seeoutcomes out of this. And I
think that a lot of being a CSMhas a calling to it. It has
almost a natural ability to bethe person that wants to help.
But also, like you said,there's so many things that can
be learned as you grow intoyour trajectory in as a CSM or
(07:50):
a CSS leader, which is again,really great to hear that you
have so many mixed bits thathave made you who you are
today, but you also have builtCSS at a number of different
places from the ground up.
Again, no easy task. If I wereto ask you, what is next for
your CSS career, what would youthink is the next big leap or
bet you would make in CSS foryour career? What would that
(08:12):
be? That's
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Really tough. You know, I really, really enjoy
being the first to build withinan organization CSS process.
And every organization is sodifferent in their unique
challenges. And so for me it's,you know , I haven't hit the
full gambits of all thedifferent challenges an
organization can face. And so,you know, that startup
lifestyle is, you know, forthose people that are listening
(08:33):
that have been in that startupenvironment, they know first
it's very addictive. Is it verydraining? Yes. But once you get
into startups, it's very hardto get out of it. Definitely.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
I know that feeling too well. I'm a startup like
junkie. I could never imaginelife outside of a startup
.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
No, and it's, you know, it's, it's the ability to
work with the business leadersearly on. It's , it's getting
exposure into new and uniqueproblems. And so there's always
the temptation to quote unquote, you know, sell out, go to a
big organization and be a smallcog in a big machine. But
there's something verysatisfying about being that big
cog in a smaller machinebecause you can really see the
(09:09):
fruits of your labor and how ifyou really do put the time and
energy in, if you're willing topay attention to the details,
if you're willing to take onthat mentality that there is no
task too small, it's a very,very rewarding experience. And
so of course having thataddiction to the startup space
is one thing, but there'salways new and , and
interesting problems to solvefor. And so whether that keeps
(09:30):
me in customer success or movesme into maybe a more
people-driven product, however,looking at the operations piece
of it all and kind of buildingout those processes, which is
also very enjoyable for me.
Every day is new and, and I tryand focus on where I'm right
now, of course, looking forwardto see what opportunities are
out there, but reallyultimately it boils down. The
way I got pulled away from mylast organization was I loved
(09:53):
ai, I love constructiontechnology. And that was what
was fascinating me at thatmoment. And so when Onset IQ
came calling , it was , it wasvery hard to deny.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
I love hearing that.
Again, the reason I ask isbecause a lot of CSS leaders
now move into CEO rolesactually as well. We see the
chief customer officer moveinto CEO , but also CSS leaders
because they are a jack of alltrades, they end up moving in
multiple different directions,like you just said, whether
it's ops, whether it's people,there just seems to be so many
(10:22):
avenues, and I think that's sogreat because we are business
strategists as CSS people. We,we think about customer
outcomes and how that affectsthe wider business. And the
reason I ask is because I thinktoday's topic directly relates
into it, is we are going totalk a lot about how customer
success gets mixed into sales,or even sometimes reports into
(10:44):
sales. But in this economicclimate, there's a lot of
pressure for CSS to sell intosales or be a really big
contributor to that revenuepiece. But I know you've told
me that your team at onsite isnot doing that. And I'd love to
hear a little bit more abouthow the CSS team is structured.
What does it look like there?
(11:05):
What is a CSM responsible forand how are you not part of
sales there?
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Well, I think first things first, you , you have to
acknowledge the people whosupport you and, and give you
that platform to where you canonly focus on customer success
and not so much on the selling.
And so , uh, withoutleadership, specifically our
CEO Ardo and cus repo who hasfirmly and from day one been
Brandon, your job is to makeour customers happy. Without
that level of support, youknow, you , you're kind of fly
(11:32):
directionless or fly under the,under the banner of whatever
organization is willing toleverage customer success the
most. So to have that CEOsupport and say the only thing
that CSS is gonna do is focuson making our customers happy,
and there's gonna be aseparation of church and state
between sales and betweencustomer success. It's very,
very empowering. It gives youall the flexibility in the
(11:54):
world to really look top downand go, how can I create the
best possible customerexperience? So, you know, when
it comes to building theprocess, you have to
acknowledge first that theleadership team within your
organization has to besupportive of this mentality.
So I understand that that's aluxury that I've been afforded,
but not necessarily every otherCSM has been
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Afforded. I was about to say, I'm pretty sure a
lot of CSS leaders arechallenged by their CEO of
like, Hey, why aren't youhitting these revenue targets?
Or a sales leader saying youshould be part of the renewal
cycle. And rather than sayingput the customer first at all
costs , which is great thatyour CEO is saying that, but
not everyone gets that.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Well, and I think to be absolutely fair, the
majority of CEOs probably willnot get to that place where
they're willing to say, if welet customer success be
customer success and drivethose successful outcomes, the
profit will follow suit.
Because people have such apositive experience, they, they
won't be able to separate theexperience they're having from
the organization, what they'retrying to achieve in the
revenue goals, right? And so inthe experience that we've had
(12:52):
just by driving those supersuccessful outcomes and, and
being those customer champions,customers naturally are coming
to us. It's, it's inbounding,you know, we're not going out
and selling or, or trying topromote a new product or new
solution. Customers are going,we need more of this
experience. Your product doeswhat it says it's gonna do. You
guys deliver on the things yousay you're gonna deliver on
whenever you kick us off as acustomer. And now there's a
(13:14):
relationship of trust that'sbeen built to where the
customer doesn't think they'rebeing sold into. They think
that there's somebody at yourorganization who's full-time
focused , is to make sure thatas long as you're a customer,
they're not gonna have anyneeds or concerns or issues.
And so they wanna continue towork with those people. I mean,
you've , you've interviewed anumber of people and you
probably know as well as I do,it's very, very easy to slip
(13:35):
from, Hey, this is a positivecustomer interaction. Oh by the
way, do you wanna spend 10%,20%, 30% more of your a CV on a
new product? And it almostbreaks that relationship of
trust to where they feel like,oh, this is another person
trying to sell me something.
And they don't necessarily lookforward to the engagement. I
tell my team all the time, atthe end of every single call,
you should feel good about thefact that the customer will
(13:57):
never hesitate to jump onanother call with you. And so
that's something that weemphasize on as a , as a
culture. That's where thepeople over profit mentality
comes from is, you know, we arestrongly devoted to our
customers because we've seenfirsthand that if you take a
customer and give them thetime, energy, and , and
attention that you've promisedthem from the outset, they will
expand. It's not a ma it's nota question of if, it's a matter
(14:18):
of when. That's what we've beenable to really hone in on as an
org and , and we've seen thosefruits come from that
investment.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
So if they're not focused on that revenue piece
or the upsell, or Hey, do youwanna spend a little bit more
money with us? Which is atricky question to get right in
the best of times, what is ACSM responsible for? What are
they held accountable to withinyour team?
Speaker 3 (14:40):
So we have a couple of obvious metrics that I think
every organization tracks. It'syour nps, it's your csat . Um ,
and of course , you know , weas a , as a team track in RRR
and GRR , we wanna know how howa customer is evolving with us
as our product evolves, right?
And, you know, regarding NPSand , and csat , that's, that's
something that we've seen thatas long as customer success is
(15:01):
doing, the things that we'vecommitted, those scores will
stay very high. And our scoreshave been very high. When I
first started at onsite , our ,our NPS was right around 18 and
it is now right around 68 to 72. That's kind of where we sit.
Wow,
Speaker 2 (15:14):
That's a , it's a huge jump.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
It , it's, and again, credit to the product
team for, for creating a betterproduct that customers do wanna
promote. But a large amount ofthe feedback that we've
received from our customer isthat, you know, NPS in their
mind is , is a sentiment notonly of the product, but of the
operations piece, right? It'show do we professionally
support our customers? And ofcourse we wanna extrapolate
(15:36):
that. And so we send outcustomer , uh, satisfaction
scores, right? And our CSATscore right now is at 9.9 out
of 10. And again, it comes fromthis mentality of there is no
task too small, there's nothingthat a customer can ask us that
we're not willing to jumpthrough hoops to do to try and
cater to that experience. Andin real estate, specifically in
property technology, you know,these are people that if you
(15:57):
can show them good value andgood support, they're gonna
stick around for a very, verylong time. And they're going to
, to continue to believe in thesolution that you're , that
you're offering and , and howit's improved their product.
And we have testimonials all upand down the chain coming from
people about how impactful theproduct in combination with the
support has been. It'sdefinitely been a long road to
(16:18):
get there. However, we havereally had the distinct
advantage of customers thatbelieve in our team as well.
And so that's a large part ofit with customer success.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Amazing. And I'm gonna play a little bit of
devil's advocate because I knowyou mentioned csat, NPS,
customer happiness, all ofthese are valid and very
important to make sure that youare ensuring long-term
relationship building withcustomers, but also ensuring
that your customer is seeingvalue from your product. Like
you said, you wanna be thattrusted advisor, but in today's
(16:49):
economic climate and with, youknow, everyone focused on
sustainable growth and ensuringthat revenue is secured and
renewable and regularlyincoming, how is it that you
and your team are tying GRR orNPS or csap back to company
revenue if you're not directlyresponsible for that renewal or
(17:13):
upsell? 'cause I know that thatcan get tricky and then
sometimes you're seen as a costcenter rather than part of the
revenue function, which you ,you rightfully are, you have
customer testimonials, but howare you doing that? How are you
justifying it to the widerteams?
Speaker 3 (17:26):
There are multiple different avenues of how
customer success can providevalue to a customer in a way
that is a revenue positiveevent, right? In a way that is,
that is promoting growth stillwithout being viewed as purely
a cost center. So number one isif you bring in customers that
are in fact ICP and that you'revery, very strict with how you
(17:47):
qualify accounts within thatICP domain, you can really
start to hone in a verysuccinct and fluid motion to
support said customers whilealso not necessarily sneaking
in the sales and the upsell andthe renewal, but making it seem
as though it's, it's automatic,right? Customers start to
believe that if they continueto use you and your services
(18:09):
and that support that you'reoffering them, that their
business as a whole is gonnacontinue to improve time and
time and time again. And so wereview every single quarter
with our customers, this isyour engagement today , this is
the adoption that we're seeingnow, what is it gonna take for
us to to promote this adoptionwithin your organization and
continue to grow ourpartnership together to create
more successful outcomes,right? And so, you know , when
(18:31):
I say CSS is not sales, what Imean is customer success is not
overt selling. We're not tryingto be sneaky, right? But at the
same time, if we do our jobsand we promote those successful
outcomes, the sale happensautomatically or naturally. So,
you know, our leadership teamand our sales team firmly
believes that if customersuccess delivers on the things
(18:52):
they're gonna deliver on, itserves as the support function
for the AE to go in and promotethe renewal or promote an
expansion because we have allthe data points that we need to
prove out that we havedelivered on the value said
we're gonna deliver on . So arethere sales activities that
happen within customer successand in our qbr? Absolutely, but
it's not as overt as a customersuccess going into a call and
(19:13):
saying, what is it gonna taketo get more of your business?
It's the CS saying, what is itgonna take for us to continue
to promote this partnership anddrive better adoption
throughout the organization?
Um, so by purely focusing onthe adoption, the
implementation, the continuedsupport of a customer, that
sales motion is elevated andpromoted automatically. So when
the AE does step in, they haveevery single piece of
(19:35):
information they need to makethat account , uh, grow and
expand or renew. So for us, itreally is just a function of if
CSS does our job, we aresupporting sales better than
any other sub salesorganization possibly can.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Awesome. And I don't wanna say quota here, but is
there some sort of quota orlevel of, hey, this is how many
accounts we hand off to our AEsto close per quarter. Like, do
you guys have almost likeA-C-S-Q-L or something that you
are tracking that if you'redoing your job correctly, like
you said, then naturally therenewal happens, but are you
(20:10):
tracking that or is there somesort of reporting happening
there? Or is it just based onrenewal rates and churn rates?
What are the the metrics thatare being tracked against the,
the revenue marker there?
Speaker 3 (20:21):
It is really purely a , a , a measure of retention,
right? And , and this in fulldisclosure is unique to the
industry that we're in. Youknow, we do not sell licenses
and seats. We have an unlimiteduser model. What we sell is
documentation on a per projectbasis. And so part of this
comes from the constraints ofhow much development is a
customer doing within a yearand how saturated into that
(20:43):
portfolio are we . So somethingwe do track is if a developer
is doing 10 apartment complexesa year and we're on two, how do
we get from two to four, how dowe get from four to eight, how
do we get the entire portfolioso we're measuring the
saturation of the TAM of thataccount.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Got it. Okay.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
And so every account is, is measured against that.
And then we look at NPS andcustomer satisfaction and the
sentiment of the customerthrough our customer success
platform through Plan Hat . Andthat ultimately informs how
primed an account is forexpansion. What we don't wanna
do is, is , is enter in theconversation too early and we
certainly don't wanna enter inthe conversation too ways . So
we use these leading indicatorsto inform when an account is,
(21:24):
is primed for that expansionand whether or not they have
room to expand in the firstplace.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Yeah, that sounds awesome though. That sounds
great that you have that levelof insight and operational
excellency, I should say, ofwhere you guys know when to
pull the right levelers to havethe right conversations to then
hand over the customer. And Ithink that a lot of people give
a bad rep to sales and CSSmixed in together because a lot
(21:50):
of people repurpose accountmanagement into customer
success, but it doesn't soundlike that's the case at onsite
. It sounds like you guys haveuniquely decided to make
customer success about customeroutcomes and happiness versus
sales is, like you said, makingsure there's a , someone
signing a contract essentiallyor, or buying more from you.
(22:10):
How did you guys come to buildout that model? I know you
mentioned your CEO had thatfundamental, this is what your
job is and what you're going todo, but operationally, how did
you separate the two? Because alot of times we're naturally
LinkedIn.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
There are two areas really where we, we, we really
took our focus and started tobuild out from there. Number
one, we knew what we didn'twanna be. We knew we didn't
want to be account managementrelabeled as customer success.
And that's what a , you know, alot of SaaS organizations do is
they'll take their accountmanagement team, they'll drop
their dedicated support team orreduce it significantly and
then you try and repurposethese account managers to be
(22:45):
technical account managers or,or support plus account
management. We knew we didn'twant that. What we did look for
from day one is how do we buildand hire people with a strong
sense of empathy for customersthat love to solve problems and
that are gonna view that everysingle customer as if it's
people in which they arebuilding meaningful
(23:05):
relationships with. Because atthe end of the day, a property
technology relationships areeverything. And so we looked
for people with experience inPropTech, but also people with
that no task is too smallmentality and work ethic. So,
you know, having identifiedearly on that we didn't wanna
relabel account management ascustomer success and then
knowing what our industry holdsfor us and how important the
(23:27):
relationship building aspect ofthat actually is that really
set for us the outline of howwe were gonna build customer
success. So for me, in myprevious experience, that was
the , a very similarrelationship that I had built
with our customers. Our CEOknew that and, and again gave
me that license to go out andbuild from there. And again,
we've evolved multiple timessince initially building that a
(23:47):
few years ago and , and theoutline of it, but at the heart
of all of it, at the core ofall of it is making sure that
no matter how hard we changeour process or , or whatever
ship that we make, that wenever lose sight of what we're
trying to accomplish, which isbuilding those deep, meaningful
relationships with the account.
And as you know, and , and asmost other CSMs know, there is
(24:07):
a strong delineation betweenbuilding a relationship that's
a business transactionalrelationship and building a
personal deep connection withyour account to where you know,
the brand of whiskey that yourcustomer drinks and that you
know, you know what their kidsare are up to and and where
they're going to school. Andyou can ask those personal
questions. So we always lookto, to make the relationship as
(24:28):
personal as possible, not sotransactional. And again, that
only comes from havingidentified early and often that
this is not gonna be atransactional relationship.
This is gonna be a verypersonal, meaningful
relationship.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah, I love that. I think it's something to always
come back to is that you arebuilding a partnership with
your customer rather than, likeyou said, a transactional
approach and everything you arebuilding is a meaningful step
forward together, notnecessarily you're using my
product so this is the way therelationship is gonna go, or
Hey, you are just this vendorand this is the way the
(25:00):
relationship is gonna go. It isabout coming together between
that vendor customerrelationship to build out that
partnership piece that you justmentioned. I wanna come back to
one of the really key thingsyou said earlier in our
conversation, which was a lotaround NPS and CSAT and you
achieved some amazing resultswithin that you like more than
(25:21):
quadrupled, I think 10 XD yourNPS at this rate and your CSAT
also is, is nine out of 10 orsomething that crazy that you
just mentioned, which isamazing and great metrics to be
tracking your CSMs. Again, howdid you come to receive those
results? How did you transformfrom such a low NPS to such a
high number?
Speaker 3 (25:40):
It's funny, I , you know, whenever we talk about
NPS as an organization, I'vealways brought back to a few
weeks into the job. I , I hadtold our leadership team what
my goal was for NPS and andunderstand the score and where
I wanted to go. I was like,yeah , we can get this from
eight to 70 , I'm telling you,and I don't wanna say I was
laughed out of the roomnecessarily, but it was very
(26:01):
much so met with a sure, yeah,we'll see. Right. And
sincerely, just by consistentlyfollowing up with customers,
even to this day, I get callsfrom customers who I have not
personally supported in months, um, that another CSM is, is
is engaging with on a regularbasis. But I'll get calls from
users who will be like, HeyBrandon , can you help me reset
(26:21):
my password or can you jump onthis and, and help me work
through a tool? Every singleperson on our team has to have
that mentality. And if they dohave that mentality, then the
NPS score will riseautomatically. Now again, you
gotta give flowers whereflowers are due. The product
has to be something that thecustomers are willing to
promote , right? And so doesfor us , the operations piece ,
how we're documenting job sites, but in combination with the
(26:43):
sentiment about how they feelwith the product and the
sentiment about how they feel,you know, they've been
supported throughout theengagement, you can really
create an impactful differenceon your NPS score. We always
ask, you know , in our NPSscores the traditional
question, how likely are you togo out and promote Onset IQ to
your friends and family or toyour colleagues and partners?
Right? My team is, is fullyaware that the greatest driver
(27:06):
right now for our business forNPS and improving that score is
making sure that thatrelationship with the customer
has been built strongly andthat when they think of
promoting onset iq, it's notjust promoting the product,
it's promoting the s serviceand support that we've offered
our customers to date . Sothat's one piece. In terms of
customer satisfaction, our goalis to get to a 10 out 10 on our
(27:27):
NPS or on our customersatisfaction score every single
time we send that survey out.
And it's funny, the people onour team, if they get a nine,
that is more frustrating tothem than if they get an eight.
If they get an eight or lower,that can easily be quantified
and, and we can teach and, andeducate on how to make that
relationship better. But a nineis the most frustrating score
(27:47):
you can get because you'realways left wondering, what's
that one point? What could Ihave done different to get that
10 out of 10 score? And sohaving that 9.9 as a matter of
pride within the organization,we, you know, as our CSS team
talks, we wanna be this bestCSS organization that any
customer interacts with everperiod of hard stop. And that
when they go to future programsor use other tools and they
(28:09):
have CSMs, that they're alwayswishing that that CSS team was
like our CSS team. And so youhave people who really care
about what they do day in andday out, people who really,
really do take that no task astoo small mentality and are
willing to jump on any callwith anybody at any time. If
you hire the best people,you're gonna get the best
outcomes. And I firmly believethat we've had the ability to
(28:29):
do that. And I'm superfortunate to have the teammates
that I have it , it is purely areflection of them. It's a
reflection of me and JasonLemkin says something super
interesting, which is everyyear his goal is to hire one
more incredible csm, just one.
And so I feel like every yearthat I've been at , at the
company, I've, I've been ableto do that. I've been be able
to hire one more incredible csmand whenever I go to hire csm,
(28:53):
I only look for people thatcould do my job better, should
I, for whatever reasondisappear. So I think a large
part of it too is making surethat you're not just hiring for
scale, that you're hiringpeople that genuinely care
about the cause that they'repromoting. So that all factors
in.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yeah, I love that. I love that. It seems like you're
hiring for a purpose ratherthan just the cause or the
problem. And you are reallytrying to solve for a real
reason and you're hiring forthe right reason . So that's
great to hear. You also seem tohave some really great mantras
on how to build and scaleteams. And I know you mentioned
earlier that you're a startupjunkie and that, you know, in
(29:28):
your next phase of your careerit would probably be another
startup where you're able toreally help and shape things.
Um, a lot of people listeningto this podcast is probably
building customer success at astartup and you've done it a
number of times. So in growinga CSS team from the ground up
and achieving the results thatyou have, which are amazing,
what is your advice to aspiringleaders and CSS teams that are
(29:51):
trying to achieve what you'vedone so far?
Speaker 3 (29:54):
First things first, nobody's gonna do the job for
you, right? So if you'rewaiting on some catalyst moment
where the company gets wellfunded and then all of a sudden
you've got a team of, you know,five, 10 people and you can
start to really, you know,diversify your strategies and,
and how you engage yourcustomers, that's a luxury you
may not ever be afforded,right? Yeah,
Speaker 2 (30:12):
I was about to say , in the startup world, that
might take years .
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Exactly. And so you have to enter in, if you're
gonna be a problem solver andyou're gonna build a CS team,
you have to enter into it withthe mentality of it's just
gonna be me for the foreseeablefuture and it's just gonna be
the work ethic that I have andwhat I put in to drive these
outcomes. And it's exhausting,don't get me wrong. It's not
for everybody, but if youreally wanna be a customer
success leader, if you reallywant to elevate your career to
(30:38):
that next level and build abest in class CS team, it
starts with you as that leader.
It starts with you and yourmentality and what you bring to
the table. And so are you gonnaget emails at nine o'clock at
night on a Saturday from acustomer who has a problem or
has a question? Yes, you are.
Are you going to face thedecision of do I wait to
address this on Monday or do Irespond right then, right now
(31:00):
and let this customer know thatI'm there for them no matter
what? In my mind, the answer isobvious. You have to take that
white glove approach. You haveto go in with the mindset of
there is no task too small,there is no time, that's too
inconvenient. You, you have topromote the customer and if you
do the rest of your life andengagement with that customer
is gonna be made so muchsimpler because they see you as
that champion, right? Andthat's where expansion renewal
(31:22):
almost becomes automatic. Ifyou're a new CSS leader in the
space and or you're a principalcsm or you're wondering how do
I go to that next tier? Havethe mentality, have the work
ethic to support that customersuccess isn't just about being
a customer person or just beinga people person. I jokingly say
this with our, with our team,the perfect CSM is someone with
(31:42):
a incessant need to be liked byas many people as possible and
the work ethic to support thatimpulse, that that desire to be
loved , that is , should bemanaged healthy. You shouldn't,
you know, throw everything atthat necessarily. But if you
are a, I'm a Monday to Fridayperson, guess what? The
customers are not a Monday toFriday group of people, right?
(32:04):
They are using your productthrough all days no matter
what. They're working hard,they expect you to work hard to
support them , right? So thereis of course a very healthy
work-life balance that you haveto account for. But if it takes
you five minutes on a Saturdayto respond to an email, that
customer's gonna view that ashours and hours and hours of
labor put into that. So for myteam, they know I want them to
(32:26):
have that healthy work-lifebalance, but we also expect
that our customers will feelsupported no matter when that
support is requested.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Awesome. Awesome.
And I feel like we could keepchatting about how you've built
out amazing teams that havegrown and been able to
transform your customerexperience at onsite , but we
do have to wrap up today'spodcast and I do wanna ask you
our quick fire questions whereI challenge each one of my
guests to answer the next fewquestions in one sentence or
(32:54):
less. Are you ready? Let's dothis . Awesome. My first
question to you is, what do youthink is next for the CSS
industry?
Speaker 3 (33:01):
Man, I think it's, you know, unfortunately obvious
of the role that AI is going totry and play in automating
customer engagements. And whileI do think there's a a time and
a place for that, and I dothink there , there are certain
moments within an accountlifecycle where you can
automate some of the stepsleveraging ai, it's gonna be
very obvious when an account istransitioned from fully css
(33:22):
managed to AI is what'sprimarily driving the responses
and the engagement with thecustomer. And I think you're
gonna lose a sense of the magicand you're definitely gonna
lose the close ties with therelationship. So for me,
looking forward at how AIstarts to play a part in
automatically responding tocustomers and automatically
trying to drive and promoteengagement, I'm concerned for
the state of CSS that it'sgonna lose its character, it's
(33:44):
gonna lose its color, and it'sgonna kind of become this beige
business system that'sautomatically managing
customers.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
I love that automagically, but I do think
it's, it's important . It is ,AI will play a big part in how
technology businesses, SaaSbusinesses, and customer
success works moving forward.
So it's interesting that youdid bring it up and I did love
that automatically, but you didnot answer that question in one
sentence or less, by the way.
I'm
Speaker 3 (34:11):
So sorry. ,
I'll, I'll do better.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
It's okay. We'll go . We'll move on to the second
one, which is, which SaaSproduct can you not live
without as a CSS professional?
Speaker 3 (34:20):
It's tough. There are a number of tools that we
use, you know, tools that havereally changed the way that I
work. The obvious ones likenotion, the not so obvious ones
like superhuman. But for me,the biggest tool that our
entire business has started toleverage and has created the
biggest impact is, is, and thisis gonna sound like a plug, is
is Plan Hat
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Not a plug. He was not paid to say that. That's,
Speaker 3 (34:39):
That's right.
, our entire teamleverages Plan hat . Our
instance of, of our customersuccess platform is, is very
robust and credit to our CSSops lead Tess who has , who has
built a lot of that. That isthe tool that we cannot live
without.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
I love hearing that.
I also love that so many peopleare bought into your entire
customer lifecycle journey,everything that a customer is
doing in one tool. So that'sgreat to hear. The next
question I have is, what isyour favorite CSS learning
resource, or where do you getthe most education around css?
Speaker 3 (35:07):
I mean, outside of podcasts like this one, Jason
Lempkin is, for all intents andpurposes, someone who has their
finger directly on the pulse ofcustomer success and is, is
seeing the trends andidentifying the most. So
anything that he promotes is anan awesome learning opportunity
for me. Any show that he's onor any podcast that he's on ,
but getting to read on LinkedInor , or other resources like
(35:31):
LinkedIn, like bravado, whathe's writing about, what he's
considering is a great learningopportunity for me personally.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Awesome. I love that. I also love his podcast
as well. He, he definitely haslots of insights into the whole
SaaS vc , CSS world, so lovethat. Right. My final question
for today before we wrap up is,whom is inspiring you in css?
Or who should I next have onthis podcast?
Speaker 3 (35:54):
So going back to Jason, I think Jason has a
super unique take.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Awesome. Well thank you so much, Brandon for
spending your time with metoday. I know there were so
many takeaways and insights andlearnings that everyone that's
listening today can take awayfrom this conversation. If any
of our listeners have any morequestions or wanna get in touch
with you, what is the best wayto reach out ? Reach?
Speaker 3 (36:14):
So LinkedIn is obviously a , a great platform
to, to connect with me, but inthe same way that I tell all of
our customers, if you ever needanything from me, please don't
hesitate to reach out. You canreach me at Brandon at onsite
IQ io . I am always happy toengage with people. I'm working
with a handful of startups onkind of helping build their CS
practice before they go out andhire, you know, a CSS leader.
(36:37):
So I'm always happy to take onthose conversations and, and
work with people on how theycan build that unique brand of
customer success for theirbusiness. So do not hesitate to
shoot me an email. We'll set upsome time. I'm , uh, I'm happy
to, to help anybody who'slooking to help make the
customer experience
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Better. Amazing.
Well, thank you so much Brandon. I really enjoyed this
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Same, thank you so much for having me again, and
this is an amazing format and,and you are an absolutely
incredible host. So again,thank you so much for, for
having me.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Thank you for listening to the Customer
Success Channel podcast today.
We hope you learned somethingnew to take back to your team
and your company. If you foundvalue in our podcast, please
make sure to give us a positivereview and make sure you
subscribe to our channel as werelease new podcasts every
month. Also, if you have anytopics that you would like me
to discuss in the future or youwould like to be a guest on the
(37:24):
podcast, please feel free toreach out. All my contact
details are in the show notes.
Thanks again for listening andtune in next time for more on
customer success.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Hello everyone. I'm your host, Anika Bert , and
welcome back to the nextepisode of the Customer Success
Channel podcast, brought to youby Plan Hat , the Modern
Customer platform. This podcastis created for anyone working
in or interested in thecustomer success field. On this
podcast, we will speak toleaders in the industry about
their experiences and theirdefinitions of customer success
(00:27):
and get their advice and bestpractices on how to run a CS
organization. Today I'mspeaking with Brandon Ramsey ,
head of Customer Success atOnsite iq. He has helped build
their CSS function from theground up, and Brandon has
spent a number of years as aprincipal, CSM, and with four
(00:48):
years of consulting experience,his focus has been on
maximizing efficiency. Customersuccess often gets tied into
sales more times than not, CSMshave revenue targets. But is
this the right way to structureyour CSS team? Should CSS be an
extension of sales? Today, weare going to chat with Brendan
all about his opinion on thistopic and how he has built
(01:09):
customer success teams from theground up that have not held
revenue targets and have beenmeasured for 9.9 out of 10 for
their CSAT scores. But thisdidn't happen overnight, and it
happened because he focused onpurpose over profit. Let's chat
to Brendan on how he made sureCSS is not sales. Welcome,
Brandon , to the podcast. I'mso very excited to have you
(01:32):
here with us today, but beforewe get into this very juicy
topic, I would love to hear inyour own words what it is you
do, who you are, where you'reworking. Give me the lowdown of
who the heck Brandon is. Yeah,
Speaker 3 (01:46):
First off, thank you for having me. It's, it's
always a absolute treat to beable to talk to another CSS
professional who is focused onkind of cultivating our message
as a, as a team and a programand , and advertising in the
space. And what you're doingis, in my opinion, the Lord's
work. So I, I truly appreciateyou having me on. Aw ,
Speaker 2 (02:02):
That's so
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Sweet. In terms of who I am , my name's Brendan
Ramsey who said , head ofCustomer Success at Onset iq.
Onset IQ is a constructionintelligence platform that
leverages AI to detect progresschanges throughout the life of
a capital asset. So any personbuilding any type of property,
it doesn't matter if it's ahome or a data center or a New
York skyscraper, we sendsomeone to capture that asset
(02:23):
on a regular basis. We processthat data through ai and then
we're able to spit out insights, uh, and information to key
project stakeholders on theowner, developer, and investor
side so that they can seeexactly how their projects are
coming along. We're in anincredibly innovative space,
and obviously AI is taking theforefront, and so we're super
privileged to be able toservice our customers to kind
(02:43):
of be the first to come to themarket with a truly
comprehensive solution. Interms of me and my customer
success experience background,I would consider myself a
serial principal. csm, youknow, I kind of have jumped
from a few organizations as thefirst CSM built the CSS team
and then, and, and then movedon. And really my mentality is
people over profit and, and I'msure we'll get into this in a
(03:04):
little bit, but my personalbelief is that if you can
develop deep, meaningfulrelationships with your
customers in a way that worksfor them, that's not invasive
to those customers, you canhave an incredibly
collaborative and productiverelationship with those people.
And so to that end, Ipersonally fall in the stance
of customer success is not afunction of sales. Customer
(03:24):
success has to be a function ofits own supportive customers
and driving those positiveoutcomes. And so you can only
do that if the customer viewsyou as a team player, as a
member of their team, and notso much a salesperson trying to
get their next dollar .
Speaker 2 (03:37):
So you've had a number of different roles being
a principal, CSM, and you saythat you've built custom
success from the ground up,which is no easy task. I think
a lot of people listening toour podcast have done it, but
it is an easy, and especiallyin the prop tech or AI space
that you find yourself in. Whatinspired you to actually start
in customer success and not godown a different avenue?
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Yeah, so first things first, in my upbringing,
I was very much so encouragedby my parents to always engage
people, try and buildconnections, try and build
relationships with people, andnot force a relationship,
right? Try and build deepmeaningful ties with people. So
from an early age, I was, youknow, really, really promoted
and put into an area where Icould actually engage with
(04:22):
people. My dad had a publicspeaking platform, he was
always engaging people in thecommunity, and so I was able to
watch firsthand on kind of whatthat looks like to, to love
people where they're at andengage with them. All
throughout my life, I've beenlooking for ways to connect
with people, and in collegethat was very much so the case.
And you know, most people,whenever they're put in a
position to engage with people,they kind of go down the
(04:42):
traditional sales route, butfor me it was more about
problem solving than it wasabout selling somebody on a
vision or a product that, thatwe wanted to promote. You know,
it's, it's always been for meabout how do I work, spend my
time, my hours in the day tohelp people solve the problems
or the needs that they have.
(05:02):
And that really goes into thatpeople over profit mentality.
Um, if you really work ondeveloping a, a deep tie with
somebody, if you can build astrong relationship with them,
you're gonna find multipledifferent avenues to work with
them on solving side problems,but most importantly, to feel
like to, to drive that personto feel like they have an
advocate or a champion on theirside.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
I love that. I was just gonna say that purpose
seems so strongly tied to whoyou are as a human, and it
seems like you almost had acalling towards customer
success, especially when yousaid people over profit and
building strong relationships.
Those seem like naturalcharacteristics that you would
say any great CSM should haveor any great CSS professional
(05:42):
should have. And I'm socurious, did that come from
your parents? Do you think thatthat's just who you are at the
core? Do you think that'ssomething that can be learned?
Because for everyone listening,maybe they don't have those as,
as core principles or coreskills that they have within
themselves, but I think they'regreat and very important to
have as a CSM. What would yousay is critical?
Speaker 3 (06:03):
I mean, I'd be remiss if I didn't say a large
part of it was earlyindoctrination by my parents
and, and them kind of puttingme in those areas where I could
engage with people from alldifferent walks of life and be
able to work with them and lovethem and support them in any
aspect. It doesn't matter ifI'm going over the neighbor's
house as a little kid andmowing their lawn, you know,
you wanna build a, a goodrelationship with them. In
part, it's due to myupbringing, but I do think it
(06:25):
could be taught, you know,empathy is something that I
don't think everybody'snecessarily born with, but
that's something that they candevelop. And if you can
understand an empathize with aperson and the issues or the ,
or the problems that they'refacing, you can really start to
cultivate a path forward whereyou can help them drive those
positive and successfuloutcomes. So between that and
then, you know, being theoldest of seven kids and
(06:46):
thinking that accounting wasthe right career trajectory for
me, and then quickly gettinginto that role and realizing
that's not gonna allow me towork with the people the way
that I wanna work with, I'vebeen very, very fortunate to
have a number of differentcareer experiences and
ultimately all of them drove medown this customer success
path.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I love that everyone I speak to on this podcast has
such a unique beginning and aunique way into customer
success. Hence why I asked thequestion, where did it all
start? And like you just said,you went into accounting and
you quickly realized, hey, thisisn't for me. I'm not able to
connect and build those strongrelationships that you said are
so critical and important towho you are as a person. I
personally also went down thelaw route, and when I was
(07:24):
working as a legal intern, Iwas just like, Nope, this isn't
for me . I'm not able to buildthose meaningful relationships,
but also be able to really seeoutcomes out of this. And I
think that a lot of being a CSMhas a calling to it. It has
almost a natural ability to bethe person that wants to help.
But also, like you said,there's so many things that can
be learned as you grow intoyour trajectory in as a CSM or
(07:50):
a CSS leader, which is again,really great to hear that you
have so many mixed bits thathave made you who you are
today, but you also have builtCSS at a number of different
places from the ground up.
Again, no easy task. If I wereto ask you, what is next for
your CSS career, what would youthink is the next big leap or
bet you would make in CSS foryour career? What would that
(08:12):
be? That's
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Really tough. You know, I really, really enjoy
being the first to build withinan organization CSS process.
And every organization is sodifferent in their unique
challenges. And so for me it's,you know , I haven't hit the
full gambits of all thedifferent challenges an
organization can face. And so,you know, that startup
lifestyle is, you know, forthose people that are listening
(08:33):
that have been in that startupenvironment, they know first
it's very addictive. Is it verydraining? Yes. But once you get
into startups, it's very hardto get out of it. Definitely.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
I know that feeling too well. I'm a startup like
junkie. I could never imaginelife outside of a startup
Speaker 3 (08:48):
No, and it's, you know, it's, it's the ability to
work with the business leadersearly on. It's , it's getting
exposure into new and uniqueproblems. And so there's always
the temptation to quote unquote, you know, sell out, go to a
big organization and be a smallcog in a big machine. But
there's something verysatisfying about being that big
cog in a smaller machinebecause you can really see the
(09:09):
fruits of your labor and how ifyou really do put the time and
energy in, if you're willing topay attention to the details,
if you're willing to take onthat mentality that there is no
task too small, it's a very,very rewarding experience. And
so of course having thataddiction to the startup space
is one thing, but there'salways new and , and
interesting problems to solvefor. And so whether that keeps
(09:30):
me in customer success or movesme into maybe a more
people-driven product, however,looking at the operations piece
of it all and kind of buildingout those processes, which is
also very enjoyable for me.
Every day is new and, and I tryand focus on where I'm right
now, of course, looking forwardto see what opportunities are
out there, but reallyultimately it boils down. The
way I got pulled away from mylast organization was I loved
(09:53):
ai, I love constructiontechnology. And that was what
was fascinating me at thatmoment. And so when Onset IQ
came calling , it was , it wasvery hard to deny.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
I love hearing that.
Again, the reason I ask isbecause a lot of CSS leaders
now move into CEO rolesactually as well. We see the
chief customer officer moveinto CEO , but also CSS leaders
because they are a jack of alltrades, they end up moving in
multiple different directions,like you just said, whether
it's ops, whether it's people,there just seems to be so many
(10:22):
avenues, and I think that's sogreat because we are business
strategists as CSS people. We,we think about customer
outcomes and how that affectsthe wider business. And the
reason I ask is because I thinktoday's topic directly relates
into it, is we are going totalk a lot about how customer
success gets mixed into sales,or even sometimes reports into
(10:44):
sales. But in this economicclimate, there's a lot of
pressure for CSS to sell intosales or be a really big
contributor to that revenuepiece. But I know you've told
me that your team at onsite isnot doing that. And I'd love to
hear a little bit more abouthow the CSS team is structured.
What does it look like there?
(11:05):
What is a CSM responsible forand how are you not part of
sales there?
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Well, I think first things first, you , you have to
acknowledge the people whosupport you and, and give you
that platform to where you canonly focus on customer success
and not so much on the selling.
And so , uh, withoutleadership, specifically our
CEO Ardo and cus repo who hasfirmly and from day one been
Brandon, your job is to makeour customers happy. Without
that level of support, youknow, you , you're kind of fly
(11:32):
directionless or fly under the,under the banner of whatever
organization is willing toleverage customer success the
most. So to have that CEOsupport and say the only thing
that CSS is gonna do is focuson making our customers happy,
and there's gonna be aseparation of church and state
between sales and betweencustomer success. It's very,
very empowering. It gives youall the flexibility in the
(11:54):
world to really look top downand go, how can I create the
best possible customerexperience? So, you know, when
it comes to building theprocess, you have to
acknowledge first that theleadership team within your
organization has to besupportive of this mentality.
So I understand that that's aluxury that I've been afforded,
but not necessarily every otherCSM has been
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Afforded. I was about to say, I'm pretty sure a
lot of CSS leaders arechallenged by their CEO of
like, Hey, why aren't youhitting these revenue targets?
Or a sales leader saying youshould be part of the renewal
cycle. And rather than sayingput the customer first at all
costs , which is great thatyour CEO is saying that, but
not everyone gets that.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Well, and I think to be absolutely fair, the
majority of CEOs probably willnot get to that place where
they're willing to say, if welet customer success be
customer success and drivethose successful outcomes, the
profit will follow suit.
Because people have such apositive experience, they, they
won't be able to separate theexperience they're having from
the organization, what they'retrying to achieve in the
revenue goals, right? And so inthe experience that we've had
(12:52):
just by driving those supersuccessful outcomes and, and
being those customer champions,customers naturally are coming
to us. It's, it's inbounding,you know, we're not going out
and selling or, or trying topromote a new product or new
solution. Customers are going,we need more of this
experience. Your product doeswhat it says it's gonna do. You
guys deliver on the things yousay you're gonna deliver on
whenever you kick us off as acustomer. And now there's a
(13:14):
relationship of trust that'sbeen built to where the
customer doesn't think they'rebeing sold into. They think
that there's somebody at yourorganization who's full-time
focused , is to make sure thatas long as you're a customer,
they're not gonna have anyneeds or concerns or issues.
And so they wanna continue towork with those people. I mean,
you've , you've interviewed anumber of people and you
probably know as well as I do,it's very, very easy to slip
(13:35):
from, Hey, this is a positivecustomer interaction. Oh by the
way, do you wanna spend 10%,20%, 30% more of your a CV on a
new product? And it almostbreaks that relationship of
trust to where they feel like,oh, this is another person
trying to sell me something.
And they don't necessarily lookforward to the engagement. I
tell my team all the time, atthe end of every single call,
you should feel good about thefact that the customer will
(13:57):
never hesitate to jump onanother call with you. And so
that's something that weemphasize on as a , as a
culture. That's where thepeople over profit mentality
comes from is, you know, we arestrongly devoted to our
customers because we've seenfirsthand that if you take a
customer and give them thetime, energy, and , and
attention that you've promisedthem from the outset, they will
expand. It's not a ma it's nota question of if, it's a matter
(14:18):
of when. That's what we've beenable to really hone in on as an
org and , and we've seen thosefruits come from that
investment.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
So if they're not focused on that revenue piece
or the upsell, or Hey, do youwanna spend a little bit more
money with us? Which is atricky question to get right in
the best of times, what is ACSM responsible for? What are
they held accountable to withinyour team?
Speaker 3 (14:40):
So we have a couple of obvious metrics that I think
every organization tracks. It'syour nps, it's your csat . Um ,
and of course , you know , weas a , as a team track in RRR
and GRR , we wanna know how howa customer is evolving with us
as our product evolves, right?
And, you know, regarding NPSand , and csat , that's, that's
something that we've seen thatas long as customer success is
(15:01):
doing, the things that we'vecommitted, those scores will
stay very high. And our scoreshave been very high. When I
first started at onsite , our ,our NPS was right around 18 and
it is now right around 68 to 72. That's kind of where we sit.
Wow,
Speaker 2 (15:14):
That's a , it's a huge jump.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
It , it's, and again, credit to the product
team for, for creating a betterproduct that customers do wanna
promote. But a large amount ofthe feedback that we've
received from our customer isthat, you know, NPS in their
mind is , is a sentiment notonly of the product, but of the
operations piece, right? It'show do we professionally
support our customers? And ofcourse we wanna extrapolate
(15:36):
that. And so we send outcustomer , uh, satisfaction
scores, right? And our CSATscore right now is at 9.9 out
of 10. And again, it comes fromthis mentality of there is no
task too small, there's nothingthat a customer can ask us that
we're not willing to jumpthrough hoops to do to try and
cater to that experience. Andin real estate, specifically in
property technology, you know,these are people that if you
(15:57):
can show them good value andgood support, they're gonna
stick around for a very, verylong time. And they're going to
, to continue to believe in thesolution that you're , that
you're offering and , and howit's improved their product.
And we have testimonials all upand down the chain coming from
people about how impactful theproduct in combination with the
support has been. It'sdefinitely been a long road to
(16:18):
get there. However, we havereally had the distinct
advantage of customers thatbelieve in our team as well.
And so that's a large part ofit with customer success.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Amazing. And I'm gonna play a little bit of
devil's advocate because I knowyou mentioned csat, NPS,
customer happiness, all ofthese are valid and very
important to make sure that youare ensuring long-term
relationship building withcustomers, but also ensuring
that your customer is seeingvalue from your product. Like
you said, you wanna be thattrusted advisor, but in today's
(16:49):
economic climate and with, youknow, everyone focused on
sustainable growth and ensuringthat revenue is secured and
renewable and regularlyincoming, how is it that you
and your team are tying GRR orNPS or csap back to company
revenue if you're not directlyresponsible for that renewal or
(17:13):
upsell? 'cause I know that thatcan get tricky and then
sometimes you're seen as a costcenter rather than part of the
revenue function, which you ,you rightfully are, you have
customer testimonials, but howare you doing that? How are you
justifying it to the widerteams?
Speaker 3 (17:26):
There are multiple different avenues of how
customer success can providevalue to a customer in a way
that is a revenue positiveevent, right? In a way that is,
that is promoting growth stillwithout being viewed as purely
a cost center. So number one isif you bring in customers that
are in fact ICP and that you'revery, very strict with how you
(17:47):
qualify accounts within thatICP domain, you can really
start to hone in a verysuccinct and fluid motion to
support said customers whilealso not necessarily sneaking
in the sales and the upsell andthe renewal, but making it seem
as though it's, it's automatic,right? Customers start to
believe that if they continueto use you and your services
(18:09):
and that support that you'reoffering them, that their
business as a whole is gonnacontinue to improve time and
time and time again. And so wereview every single quarter
with our customers, this isyour engagement today , this is
the adoption that we're seeingnow, what is it gonna take for
us to to promote this adoptionwithin your organization and
continue to grow ourpartnership together to create
more successful outcomes,right? And so, you know , when
(18:31):
I say CSS is not sales, what Imean is customer success is not
overt selling. We're not tryingto be sneaky, right? But at the
same time, if we do our jobsand we promote those successful
outcomes, the sale happensautomatically or naturally. So,
you know, our leadership teamand our sales team firmly
believes that if customersuccess delivers on the things
(18:52):
they're gonna deliver on, itserves as the support function
for the AE to go in and promotethe renewal or promote an
expansion because we have allthe data points that we need to
prove out that we havedelivered on the value said
we're gonna deliver on . So arethere sales activities that
happen within customer successand in our qbr? Absolutely, but
it's not as overt as a customersuccess going into a call and
(19:13):
saying, what is it gonna taketo get more of your business?
It's the CS saying, what is itgonna take for us to continue
to promote this partnership anddrive better adoption
throughout the organization?
Um, so by purely focusing onthe adoption, the
implementation, the continuedsupport of a customer, that
sales motion is elevated andpromoted automatically. So when
the AE does step in, they haveevery single piece of
(19:35):
information they need to makethat account , uh, grow and
expand or renew. So for us, itreally is just a function of if
CSS does our job, we aresupporting sales better than
any other sub salesorganization possibly can.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Awesome. And I don't wanna say quota here, but is
there some sort of quota orlevel of, hey, this is how many
accounts we hand off to our AEsto close per quarter. Like, do
you guys have almost likeA-C-S-Q-L or something that you
are tracking that if you'redoing your job correctly, like
you said, then naturally therenewal happens, but are you
(20:10):
tracking that or is there somesort of reporting happening
there? Or is it just based onrenewal rates and churn rates?
What are the the metrics thatare being tracked against the,
the revenue marker there?
Speaker 3 (20:21):
It is really purely a , a , a measure of retention,
right? And , and this in fulldisclosure is unique to the
industry that we're in. Youknow, we do not sell licenses
and seats. We have an unlimiteduser model. What we sell is
documentation on a per projectbasis. And so part of this
comes from the constraints ofhow much development is a
customer doing within a yearand how saturated into that
(20:43):
portfolio are we . So somethingwe do track is if a developer
is doing 10 apartment complexesa year and we're on two, how do
we get from two to four, how dowe get from four to eight, how
do we get the entire portfolioso we're measuring the
saturation of the TAM of thataccount.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Got it. Okay.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
And so every account is, is measured against that.
And then we look at NPS andcustomer satisfaction and the
sentiment of the customerthrough our customer success
platform through Plan Hat . Andthat ultimately informs how
primed an account is forexpansion. What we don't wanna
do is, is , is enter in theconversation too early and we
certainly don't wanna enter inthe conversation too ways . So
we use these leading indicatorsto inform when an account is,
(21:24):
is primed for that expansionand whether or not they have
room to expand in the firstplace.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Yeah, that sounds awesome though. That sounds
great that you have that levelof insight and operational
excellency, I should say, ofwhere you guys know when to
pull the right levelers to havethe right conversations to then
hand over the customer. And Ithink that a lot of people give
a bad rep to sales and CSSmixed in together because a lot
(21:50):
of people repurpose accountmanagement into customer
success, but it doesn't soundlike that's the case at onsite
. It sounds like you guys haveuniquely decided to make
customer success about customeroutcomes and happiness versus
sales is, like you said, makingsure there's a , someone
signing a contract essentiallyor, or buying more from you.
(22:10):
How did you guys come to buildout that model? I know you
mentioned your CEO had thatfundamental, this is what your
job is and what you're going todo, but operationally, how did
you separate the two? Because alot of times we're naturally
LinkedIn.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
There are two areas really where we, we, we really
took our focus and started tobuild out from there. Number
one, we knew what we didn'twanna be. We knew we didn't
want to be account managementrelabeled as customer success.
And that's what a , you know, alot of SaaS organizations do is
they'll take their accountmanagement team, they'll drop
their dedicated support team orreduce it significantly and
then you try and repurposethese account managers to be
(22:45):
technical account managers or,or support plus account
management. We knew we didn'twant that. What we did look for
from day one is how do we buildand hire people with a strong
sense of empathy for customersthat love to solve problems and
that are gonna view that everysingle customer as if it's
people in which they arebuilding meaningful
(23:05):
relationships with. Because atthe end of the day, a property
technology relationships areeverything. And so we looked
for people with experience inPropTech, but also people with
that no task is too smallmentality and work ethic. So,
you know, having identifiedearly on that we didn't wanna
relabel account management ascustomer success and then
knowing what our industry holdsfor us and how important the
(23:27):
relationship building aspect ofthat actually is that really
set for us the outline of howwe were gonna build customer
success. So for me, in myprevious experience, that was
the , a very similarrelationship that I had built
with our customers. Our CEOknew that and, and again gave
me that license to go out andbuild from there. And again,
we've evolved multiple timessince initially building that a
(23:47):
few years ago and , and theoutline of it, but at the heart
of all of it, at the core ofall of it is making sure that
no matter how hard we changeour process or , or whatever
ship that we make, that wenever lose sight of what we're
trying to accomplish, which isbuilding those deep, meaningful
relationships with the account.
And as you know, and , and asmost other CSMs know, there is
(24:07):
a strong delineation betweenbuilding a relationship that's
a business transactionalrelationship and building a
personal deep connection withyour account to where you know,
the brand of whiskey that yourcustomer drinks and that you
know, you know what their kidsare are up to and and where
they're going to school. Andyou can ask those personal
questions. So we always lookto, to make the relationship as
(24:28):
personal as possible, not sotransactional. And again, that
only comes from havingidentified early and often that
this is not gonna be atransactional relationship.
This is gonna be a verypersonal, meaningful
relationship.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah, I love that. I think it's something to always
come back to is that you arebuilding a partnership with
your customer rather than, likeyou said, a transactional
approach and everything you arebuilding is a meaningful step
forward together, notnecessarily you're using my
product so this is the way therelationship is gonna go, or
Hey, you are just this vendorand this is the way the
(25:00):
relationship is gonna go. It isabout coming together between
that vendor customerrelationship to build out that
partnership piece that you justmentioned. I wanna come back to
one of the really key thingsyou said earlier in our
conversation, which was a lotaround NPS and CSAT and you
achieved some amazing resultswithin that you like more than
(25:21):
quadrupled, I think 10 XD yourNPS at this rate and your CSAT
also is, is nine out of 10 orsomething that crazy that you
just mentioned, which isamazing and great metrics to be
tracking your CSMs. Again, howdid you come to receive those
results? How did you transformfrom such a low NPS to such a
high number?
Speaker 3 (25:40):
It's funny, I , you know, whenever we talk about
NPS as an organization, I'vealways brought back to a few
weeks into the job. I , I hadtold our leadership team what
my goal was for NPS and andunderstand the score and where
I wanted to go. I was like,yeah , we can get this from
eight to 70 , I'm telling you,and I don't wanna say I was
laughed out of the roomnecessarily, but it was very
(26:01):
much so met with a sure, yeah,we'll see. Right. And
sincerely, just by consistentlyfollowing up with customers,
even to this day, I get callsfrom customers who I have not
personally supported in months, um, that another CSM is, is
is engaging with on a regularbasis. But I'll get calls from
users who will be like, HeyBrandon , can you help me reset
(26:21):
my password or can you jump onthis and, and help me work
through a tool? Every singleperson on our team has to have
that mentality. And if they dohave that mentality, then the
NPS score will riseautomatically. Now again, you
gotta give flowers whereflowers are due. The product
has to be something that thecustomers are willing to
promote , right? And so doesfor us , the operations piece ,
how we're documenting job sites, but in combination with the
(26:43):
sentiment about how they feelwith the product and the
sentiment about how they feel,you know, they've been
supported throughout theengagement, you can really
create an impactful differenceon your NPS score. We always
ask, you know , in our NPSscores the traditional
question, how likely are you togo out and promote Onset IQ to
your friends and family or toyour colleagues and partners?
Right? My team is, is fullyaware that the greatest driver
(27:06):
right now for our business forNPS and improving that score is
making sure that thatrelationship with the customer
has been built strongly andthat when they think of
promoting onset iq, it's notjust promoting the product,
it's promoting the s serviceand support that we've offered
our customers to date . Sothat's one piece. In terms of
customer satisfaction, our goalis to get to a 10 out 10 on our
(27:27):
NPS or on our customersatisfaction score every single
time we send that survey out.
And it's funny, the people onour team, if they get a nine,
that is more frustrating tothem than if they get an eight.
If they get an eight or lower,that can easily be quantified
and, and we can teach and, andeducate on how to make that
relationship better. But a nineis the most frustrating score
(27:47):
you can get because you'realways left wondering, what's
that one point? What could Ihave done different to get that
10 out of 10 score? And sohaving that 9.9 as a matter of
pride within the organization,we, you know, as our CSS team
talks, we wanna be this bestCSS organization that any
customer interacts with everperiod of hard stop. And that
when they go to future programsor use other tools and they
(28:09):
have CSMs, that they're alwayswishing that that CSS team was
like our CSS team. And so youhave people who really care
about what they do day in andday out, people who really,
really do take that no task astoo small mentality and are
willing to jump on any callwith anybody at any time. If
you hire the best people,you're gonna get the best
outcomes. And I firmly believethat we've had the ability to
(28:29):
do that. And I'm superfortunate to have the teammates
that I have it , it is purely areflection of them. It's a
reflection of me and JasonLemkin says something super
interesting, which is everyyear his goal is to hire one
more incredible csm, just one.
And so I feel like every yearthat I've been at , at the
company, I've, I've been ableto do that. I've been be able
to hire one more incredible csmand whenever I go to hire csm,
(28:53):
I only look for people thatcould do my job better, should
I, for whatever reasondisappear. So I think a large
part of it too is making surethat you're not just hiring for
scale, that you're hiringpeople that genuinely care
about the cause that they'repromoting. So that all factors
in.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yeah, I love that. I love that. It seems like you're
hiring for a purpose ratherthan just the cause or the
problem. And you are reallytrying to solve for a real
reason and you're hiring forthe right reason . So that's
great to hear. You also seem tohave some really great mantras
on how to build and scaleteams. And I know you mentioned
earlier that you're a startupjunkie and that, you know, in
(29:28):
your next phase of your careerit would probably be another
startup where you're able toreally help and shape things.
Um, a lot of people listeningto this podcast is probably
building customer success at astartup and you've done it a
number of times. So in growinga CSS team from the ground up
and achieving the results thatyou have, which are amazing,
what is your advice to aspiringleaders and CSS teams that are
(29:51):
trying to achieve what you'vedone so far?
Speaker 3 (29:54):
First things first, nobody's gonna do the job for
you, right? So if you'rewaiting on some catalyst moment
where the company gets wellfunded and then all of a sudden
you've got a team of, you know,five, 10 people and you can
start to really, you know,diversify your strategies and,
and how you engage yourcustomers, that's a luxury you
may not ever be afforded,right? Yeah,
Speaker 2 (30:12):
I was about to say , in the startup world, that
might take years
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Exactly. And so you have to enter in, if you're
gonna be a problem solver andyou're gonna build a CS team,
you have to enter into it withthe mentality of it's just
gonna be me for the foreseeablefuture and it's just gonna be
the work ethic that I have andwhat I put in to drive these
outcomes. And it's exhausting,don't get me wrong. It's not
for everybody, but if youreally wanna be a customer
success leader, if you reallywant to elevate your career to
(30:38):
that next level and build abest in class CS team, it
starts with you as that leader.
It starts with you and yourmentality and what you bring to
the table. And so are you gonnaget emails at nine o'clock at
night on a Saturday from acustomer who has a problem or
has a question? Yes, you are.
Are you going to face thedecision of do I wait to
address this on Monday or do Irespond right then, right now
(31:00):
and let this customer know thatI'm there for them no matter
what? In my mind, the answer isobvious. You have to take that
white glove approach. You haveto go in with the mindset of
there is no task too small,there is no time, that's too
inconvenient. You, you have topromote the customer and if you
do the rest of your life andengagement with that customer
is gonna be made so muchsimpler because they see you as
that champion, right? Andthat's where expansion renewal
(31:22):
almost becomes automatic. Ifyou're a new CSS leader in the
space and or you're a principalcsm or you're wondering how do
I go to that next tier? Havethe mentality, have the work
ethic to support that customersuccess isn't just about being
a customer person or just beinga people person. I jokingly say
this with our, with our team,the perfect CSM is someone with
(31:42):
a incessant need to be liked byas many people as possible and
the work ethic to support thatimpulse, that that desire to be
loved , that is , should bemanaged healthy. You shouldn't,
you know, throw everything atthat necessarily. But if you
are a, I'm a Monday to Fridayperson, guess what? The
customers are not a Monday toFriday group of people, right?
(32:04):
They are using your productthrough all days no matter
what. They're working hard,they expect you to work hard to
support them , right? So thereis of course a very healthy
work-life balance that you haveto account for. But if it takes
you five minutes on a Saturdayto respond to an email, that
customer's gonna view that ashours and hours and hours of
labor put into that. So for myteam, they know I want them to
(32:26):
have that healthy work-lifebalance, but we also expect
that our customers will feelsupported no matter when that
support is requested.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Awesome. Awesome.
And I feel like we could keepchatting about how you've built
out amazing teams that havegrown and been able to
transform your customerexperience at onsite , but we
do have to wrap up today'spodcast and I do wanna ask you
our quick fire questions whereI challenge each one of my
guests to answer the next fewquestions in one sentence or
(32:54):
less. Are you ready? Let's dothis . Awesome. My first
question to you is, what do youthink is next for the CSS
industry?
Speaker 3 (33:01):
Man, I think it's, you know, unfortunately obvious
of the role that AI is going totry and play in automating
customer engagements. And whileI do think there's a a time and
a place for that, and I dothink there , there are certain
moments within an accountlifecycle where you can
automate some of the stepsleveraging ai, it's gonna be
very obvious when an account istransitioned from fully css
(33:22):
managed to AI is what'sprimarily driving the responses
and the engagement with thecustomer. And I think you're
gonna lose a sense of the magicand you're definitely gonna
lose the close ties with therelationship. So for me,
looking forward at how AIstarts to play a part in
automatically responding tocustomers and automatically
trying to drive and promoteengagement, I'm concerned for
the state of CSS that it'sgonna lose its character, it's
(33:44):
gonna lose its color, and it'sgonna kind of become this beige
business system that'sautomatically managing
customers
Speaker 2 (33:53):
I love that automagically, but I do think
it's, it's important . It is ,AI will play a big part in how
technology businesses, SaaSbusinesses, and customer
success works moving forward.
So it's interesting that youdid bring it up and I did love
that automatically, but you didnot answer that question in one
sentence or less, by the way.
I'm
Speaker 3 (34:11):
So sorry.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
It's okay. We'll go . We'll move on to the second
one, which is, which SaaSproduct can you not live
without as a CSS professional?
Speaker 3 (34:20):
It's tough. There are a number of tools that we
use, you know, tools that havereally changed the way that I
work. The obvious ones likenotion, the not so obvious ones
like superhuman. But for me,the biggest tool that our
entire business has started toleverage and has created the
biggest impact is, is, and thisis gonna sound like a plug, is
is Plan Hat
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Not a plug. He was not paid to say that. That's,
Speaker 3 (34:39):
That's right.
instance of, of our customersuccess platform is, is very
robust and credit to our CSSops lead Tess who has , who has
built a lot of that. That isthe tool that we cannot live
without.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
I love hearing that.
I also love that so many peopleare bought into your entire
customer lifecycle journey,everything that a customer is
doing in one tool. So that'sgreat to hear. The next
question I have is, what isyour favorite CSS learning
resource, or where do you getthe most education around css?
Speaker 3 (35:07):
I mean, outside of podcasts like this one, Jason
Lempkin is, for all intents andpurposes, someone who has their
finger directly on the pulse ofcustomer success and is, is
seeing the trends andidentifying the most. So
anything that he promotes is anan awesome learning opportunity
for me. Any show that he's onor any podcast that he's on ,
but getting to read on LinkedInor , or other resources like
(35:31):
LinkedIn, like bravado, whathe's writing about, what he's
considering is a great learningopportunity for me personally.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
Awesome. I love that. I also love his podcast
as well. He, he definitely haslots of insights into the whole
SaaS vc , CSS world, so lovethat. Right. My final question
for today before we wrap up is,whom is inspiring you in css?
Or who should I next have onthis podcast?
Speaker 3 (35:54):
So going back to Jason, I think Jason has a
super unique take.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Awesome. Well thank you so much, Brandon for
spending your time with metoday. I know there were so
many takeaways and insights andlearnings that everyone that's
listening today can take awayfrom this conversation. If any
of our listeners have any morequestions or wanna get in touch
with you, what is the best wayto reach out ? Reach?
Speaker 3 (36:14):
So LinkedIn is obviously a , a great platform
to, to connect with me, but inthe same way that I tell all of
our customers, if you ever needanything from me, please don't
hesitate to reach out. You canreach me at Brandon at onsite
IQ io . I am always happy toengage with people. I'm working
with a handful of startups onkind of helping build their CS
practice before they go out andhire, you know, a CSS leader.
(36:37):
So I'm always happy to take onthose conversations and, and
work with people on how theycan build that unique brand of
customer success for theirbusiness. So do not hesitate to
shoot me an email. We'll set upsome time. I'm , uh, I'm happy
to, to help anybody who'slooking to help make the
customer experience
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Better. Amazing.
Well, thank you so much Brandon. I really enjoyed this
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Same, thank you so much for having me again, and
this is an amazing format and,and you are an absolutely
incredible host. So again,thank you so much for, for
having me.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Thank you for listening to the Customer
Success Channel podcast today.
We hope you learned somethingnew to take back to your team
and your company. If you foundvalue in our podcast, please
make sure to give us a positivereview and make sure you
subscribe to our channel as werelease new podcasts every
month. Also, if you have anytopics that you would like me
to discuss in the future or youwould like to be a guest on the
(37:24):
podcast, please feel free toreach out. All my contact
details are in the show notes.
Thanks again for listening andtune in next time for more on
customer success.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.