November 22, 2022 • 44 mins
In this episode, our host Anika Zubair chats with Gemma Cipriani-Espineira, Chief Customer Officer (CCO) at Chili Piper about what metrics are important and how to report them correctly.
Metrics are critical in customer success – especially when reporting to the leadership team. But often SaaS businesses are unsure on how and what to report. For example, when it comes to customer success, what does leadership want to know? And what are the metrics that really matter?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello everyone.
I'm your host, Anika Zuber, andwelcome back to the next episode
of the Customer Success Channelpodcast, brought to you by Plan
Hat, the Modern Customerplatform.
This podcast is created foranyone working in or interested
in the customer success field.
On this podcast, we will speakto leaders in the industry about
their experiences and theirdefinitions of customer success,
(00:27):
and get their advice and bestpractices on how to run ACS
organization.
Today I have the honor ofspeaking with Gemma Sari Espara,
the Chief Customer Officer atChili Piper.
Gemma has had an amazing careerin customer success where she
has grown and led internationalcustomer success teams.
(00:49):
And her career acceleration hasled from CSM to cco due to her
resilience and perseverance as aleader.
Not only is she an amazing CSleader, she is also a fellow
podcast host of CCO Secrets, butshe is also an award-winning
leader that has recently beenawarded top 50 women CS leaders
of 2022 and Top 25 Cs influencerof 2022.
(01:13):
Today, she will be sharing withus her career progression into
becoming a Chief CustomerOfficer, what a CCO does, and
more importantly, how to preparea board deck As a cco, let's
chat to Gemma about what metricsare important as a CCO and how
to report on them.
Welcome, Gemma to the podcast.
I am so very excited, honored,overjoyed that you are joining
(01:37):
me today to share your wealth ofexperience and knowledge with
our listeners.
I know you very well and Iconsider you a good friend, but
for our listeners, can youplease tell us a little bit more
about yourself, um, what it isyou do at Chili Piper, and, uh,
kind of how it all startedthere?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Oh, thank you so much Anika for that gracious
introduction.
I wish we were doing this inperson, it's been too long.
But yeah, for, for anyone who Ihaven't met yet, uh, my name's
PRI Panera.
I'm currently the Chief CustomerOfficer for Chili Piper, which
is a series B startup thatprovide routing and scheduling
(02:19):
solutions for revenue teams.
So in essence, our mission is tomake meetings happen.
So it's a highly valuable toolused by a lot of my friends and
peers in the SA world, which isfantastic.
And as cco, I'm responsible forthe entire customer experience.
So I'm looking after, uh, sosolutions consultants, customer
(02:45):
success managers, customersupport engineers, and the
digital CS group, which makesthe rest of everyone in CS a
little bit more effective andsaves time for our customers.
So that's my, my team.
And, you know, our, ouragreement is, is highly
technical in ensuring that wedeliver everything that
(03:10):
customers require to makemeetings happen as effectively
as possible.
So it's a lot of integrations,uh, that kind of thing to ensure
that value is being receivedupon our technology.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Amazing.
I love that tagline.
I always have, I think, makemeetings happen.
I do like that.
I think Chili Piper's done areally great job with that.
Um, but before, beforeyour time at Chili Piper, you've
worked in a number of customersuccess roles, you have a
amazing career.
Um, what kind of inspired you tostart working in customer
success and become the leaderthat you are today?
Speaker 2 (03:47):
You know, I think I, I was inspired to work in
customer success from a love ofworking with people.
I really do enjoy working withpeople.
I find that I'm someone who canget the best out of people,
who's good at bringing peopletogether behind a shared mission
(04:07):
and in customer success.
That is an essential part of thegame, right?
We have to take, uh, differentperspectives from our customers,
from, uh, from our own internalteams, uh, from our investors
and shareholders.
Then we have to take thoseperspectives and, and put them
together and find some kind ofreality where everybody is
(04:30):
happy.
So that's what I really enjoyabout customer success, bringing
people together behind a sharedmission.
And I definitely didn't start mycareer going into it thinking
I'm gonna be a CCO because therewasn't CCOs at the time that I
(04:50):
started
Speaker 1 (04:50):
.
Definitely I feel the same.
I'm so, I love it that theirtitle is there now, but when I
was a csm, who knew what a CCOwas doing?
.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yes.
I mean, I think you, I think youprobably had shared experiences
as, as CSMs where the, thereporting line was always into
sales.
Um, and I knew that I didn'treally wanna do sales, but I, I
knew that I liked working inthat fast-paced environment and
that tech environment.
And it was actually, um, one ofmy CROs who I was reporting into
(05:26):
at the time was as a VP whosuggested the path into CCO and
connected me with some otherCCOs.
And that's where I, I realizedthat was the, the path I wanted
to take.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Amazing.
I love that too.
But I also shared experiencewhere a lot of my early days in
success was reporting into asales or revenue leader, and
there wasn't a clear path tocco.
So I will dive a little bitdeeper into that in a second,
but I wanna jump back into whatit is Chili Piper is doing, you
guys race series B, amazingamount of growth you guys have
(06:01):
gone through recently.
And, uh, really just tell us alittle bit more about kind of
what the business does and thedifferent teams that you own do.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah.
So as a business, we are mostlyworking with B2B SAS companies
who have large revenue teamsthat need to spend time with
prospects or customers.
And so the challenge is inensuring that you're getting
your prospects straight tomeetings with the right people.
(06:31):
And the same, same kind ofchallenge occurs with customers.
How do we make it easy forcustomers to get through to the
appropriate person based ontheir request?
And then in doing that, uh, withour routing and scheduling
solutions, we also then have alot of reporting behind it,
which is highly valuable forunderstanding, um, speed to lead
(06:53):
deal velocity, as well as, youknow, capacity planning for more
post-sales teams.
So, um, our teams, uh, on, youknow, at a, at a very high
level, we've obviously gotproduct, uh, marketing,
engineering people, team.
On the revenue side, we splitsales and CS with sales being
(07:16):
focused on, um, proving out thevalue in order to get the
paperwork done.
And Cs being focused onproviding all of the domain
expertise and technicalexpertise to get the value
going.
Right.
So we, um, under, under thecustomer success org, we are
(07:38):
really focused on having highlytechnical people who know the
domain that we're working in,which is, you know, Salesforce
domain, HubSpot domain, aninbound domain, a rev sales op,
CS ops, everyone on our CS orgis, is effectively an op
specialist, um, helping their,helping their customer get all
(08:01):
these amazing automations inplace.
Um, and that's been, that's beengreat for us.
It's, it's been a competitivedifferentiator, right?
Because we are not just thereresponding to inbound queries
from customers, we'reproactively giving them experts
who effectively are a part oftheir team, who are willing to
(08:23):
put the graft in, do whatever ittakes to ensure that Shell Piper
is delivering the value forwhich they, they joined us for,
which is really about improvingefficiencies and improving
performance, which is, you know,everybody wants to do that right
now.
And on the sales side, we, wehave typical sds, AEs, and we
also have account managerssitting in sales mm-hmm.
(08:45):
.
So that allows the accountmanagers to focus more on who do
we, who do we see as a customerthat is, that has potential to
grow from across ourperspective.
This is a really big focus forour account managers.
How can we take Chili Piper fromjust being used in the sales
team to also being used in theCS team, or how can we take, you
(09:05):
know, one of these products intoanother product for that
customer?
So that's how the, the org isbuilt right now, and it's, it's
working very well with thatmodel.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Yeah.
And all of that obviouslyfunneling up into the cheap
customer officer role that youcurrently hold, and we were just
chatting about how that role isrelatively new to the CS space.
And when we both started incustomer success, it's not
something that you aspire to oryou didn't even know which
direction to become a cco.
Um, and we'll, we'll get intomore details about, you know,
(09:36):
what it is you're, you're doingand building and what you have
to do.
But for those listeners who arealso maybe new to the title of
Chief Customer Officer and whatit is a chief customer officer
does, can you give us a briefsneak peek into what it is
you're doing as a Chief Customerofficer?
Speaker 2 (09:52):
So, as a Chief Customer Officer, I'm
effectively the owner of the,the customer journey.
So I, I have to be the, the gluethat ensures that we're telling
prospects ahead of time, theright expectations.
(10:15):
We're setting people up forsuccess.
Mm-hmm.
, you know, veryearly stages before they even
have a demo with us, that we arethen delivering that promise in
their sales experience.
We're setting them the rightthings at the right time.
Um, and then when it comes toonboarding and adoption and
growth and advocacy, these areasare really within my remit
(10:38):
because I have to ensure thatthey receive value quickly
during onboarding with a greatexperience that we are taking
them from being recentlyonboarded to highly adopted, so
that they're actually utilizingwhat they're, what they've
purchased, and there's nosoftware sitting on the shelf or
licenses sitting on the shelf.
(10:58):
Um, and then on the growthstage, you know, it's all about
understanding the customer'sbusiness objectives, the
original ones.
Have we met them and do we nowhave the right to work with them
on, on more business objectivesthrough even more products, more
integrations, different waysthat we could be embedding our
(11:21):
solution around, across theirorganizations and partners.
Um, and advocacy.
Advocacy is, you know, the fun,the fun part of the role where
you've got customers who havegone through that journey and
they're willing to tell othersabout how great it was, and they
effectively become your newsales people,, but
(11:44):
they're also customers, right?
So they're, they're the best,they're the best type of, um,
sales when, when you get someoneto that point of advocacy where
they're willing to refer you andrecommend you.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
I totally agree.
I think that advocacy isunderrated because really, like
you just said, they become yourbest sales associate or sales
executive because they areliterally singing your praises
and getting to that point, Ithink of where a business is
seeing so much success with yourproduct, that they're able to
then sing your praises for youis, is really a great place to
(12:16):
be.
And I think, um, you guys havedone a great job at Chili Pipe,
at least what I see, what youguys share about your customer
story, so that's awesome to see.
But, um, let's dive into, uh,CCO board metrics.
What we're really here to kindof discuss today, and you just
mentioned some of the thingsthat your team is responsible
for, like time to value, likebusiness objectives, like really
(12:38):
delivering that value, um, overthe course of their, their life
cycle with you.
Metrics I think are somethingthat's super important in
customer success, especially inleadership, but a lot of times,
a lot of SaaS businesses areunsure what it is we should be
reporting on how we shouldreport on it.
What does the board even careabout when it comes to customer
success?
In your experience?
(12:58):
Can you like give us some of themetrics that really matter to
you and your board, um, forreport purposes?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Yeah, so let, let's start with the board.
The most important number andour stage of business, you know,
as a series B business is nr.
So net revenue retention, itcould be called net dollar
retention.
Um, different ways to explainthe same things.
(13:26):
Are you making more money out ofthe customers that were with you
a year ago?
What does that percentage looklike?
Because it is the truestindicator of the product
providing value.
People are not gonna stay withyou and increase their spend if
they don't see value in yourproduct.
(13:49):
Um, so NR is definitely thenorth star metric and it's a
north star metric for the board,but co coincidentally, it is
not, it is not how I paycommission in my team.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Interesting.
Yeah, you tell what, what's, uh,what's your team looking at
then?
Speaker 2 (14:08):
So we do have people who are focused on that.
Um, the account managers arefocused on that net net
retention number.
Um, and their comp plans arevery much built on, um,
cross-selling.
That's, that's a big focus ontheir comp plan.
They do have some portion ofLego retention, but it's mostly
(14:28):
cross-selling.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
So you do have two different teams that are then
looking after things then by thesounds of it.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah, so we've got these account managers, they are
with the sales, uh, team who wepartner with highly, closely,
but you know, they are focusedon optimizing that number.
And I say optimizing because itis an optimization point at this
point, right?
You cannot just create thatnumber as a, as a great, um,
(14:55):
heroic account manager.
You, the customer has to havereceived and delivered and
realize the value through goingthrough a great purchasing
experience, onboardingexperience on, um, adoption
experience.
So for that reason, our CSMs,they're not focused on NR in
that, in that way because theywould be focusing on something
(15:17):
that is a organic output of, ofonboarding a customer quickly,
of ensuring that they'rereceiving the right value from
the products that they're using,the products as, um, they
intended to, that they've gotthat adoption at a high level
that their sentiment is strong.
So for the CSM team, we look at,um, two things.
(15:40):
We look at logo retention, whichis obvious, you know, you need
to keep your customers.
Um, and then we look at productadoption.
Those are the two big thingsthat we actually CSMs on.
The idea being that we don'twant our CSMs to try and sell to
customers, it's just nothelpful.
We want them to be part of thecustomer team.
(16:02):
So we want to ensure that thatteam remains like a retention,
but we wanna be part of thatteam to ensure that the team is
getting the full value of theproduct measured through product
adoption.
And then we have someadditional, um, SPS in there
for, um, onboarding customers,quickly gearing, great
onboarding experience, uh,survey results and identifying
(16:25):
opportunities that could lead toupsell and cross-sell.
Um, but we, we, we don't put aquota on it because we don't
want our CSM to say, I'm notgonna work with these customers
over here that don't have aimmediate path to grow today.
(16:46):
Because that would be focusingon customers who are good for
chili Piper as opposed tocustomers who need us.
And the thing is like, you haveto be proactive in, in customer
success.
You can't just be there whenyour customer's about to renew
or when they've just come intonew money.
You have to be there for themwhen they need you,.
(17:09):
And then the organic, theorganic thing that happens is
they give you more money whenthey have it, right?
So it's like, um, we're, we're,we are focused on nrss and North
Star metric, but we understandthat it is an organic outcome of
customers having a greatexperience and achieving their
(17:29):
desired outcomes and an organicoutcome of us being there for
them when they need us the most,not the other way
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Around.
I love that mantra as well.
I think that's so important.
Cuz again, a lot of businessesfocus on success of like, oh, we
need to make our customersuccessful so we as a business
are successful.
But really it's the the otherway around, like you said, being
there for a customer when theyneed you.
Interesting.
Where you have the team splitand we could probably have a
whole nother podcast
Speaker 2 (17:56):
That'll debate.
I have, by the way, Anna, I willsay I have run other CSM teams
that are focused on a NR numberin different products.
So I think, you know, if wewanna go into that debate, I
would say it really depends onthe type of product that you are
providing.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
I agree, and I think CS has done so differently at
every org, depending on whatstage of maturity you're at,
what side of maturity of yourcustomers.
I think all of that trulydepends on how you structure and
balance out metrics and who'sresponsible for who.
But let's not get too off topichere.
I wanna come back to that boarddeck cause that's what we're
talking about.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
I will say this is one of the reasons why we
recently went public with ourhandbook.
So we took inspiration fromGitLab who've done this for
many, many years, and they'vegot a very extensive handbook.
And we said, you know what?
We're gonna, we are gonna, um,post ours and make it publicly
available.
So it is publicly available.
You can actually look at howChili Piper organized the teams
(18:53):
and comp and all that stuff andall of our processes and rules
of engagement.
But it's out there with thecontact, with the hope that
people will tell us what we'remissing out of.
But also we're not scared toshare it because whatever we are
doing here is like very uniquefor us.
So if you were to just like, tryand rip it and put it in
somewhere else, it doesn't meanit's gonna work.
(19:14):
You know, that you have to, youhave to do the work to create
Speaker 1 (19:17):
It.
You've just highlighted likewhat you do today at Chili Piper
might not be what you have to do10 years from now at Chili Piper
because customer success is everevolving and it's never gonna be
the same because your product,your customer, your maturity of
your business is never the same.
And again, we're getting into somany topics, Java, and I wanna
keep talking about all of them.
(19:37):
The handbook, by the way, isbrilliant.
For anyone who hasn't seen it,go check it out.
I, I love it.
I love that the community herein customer success share so
much and that that handbook is,is great to see and, and take
away what you, what you mighttake away from it.
Um, but again, coming back tothat board deck,, I
definitely wanna talk aboutthat.
Um,
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Let's be in the present,
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Okay, let's be in the present of CS leaders, CCOs, VPs
of cs.
You're starting to report to aboard, which is awesome.
They have to start structuring aboard deck.
Cool, great new challenge, butfor some people that are
listening, that's brand new.
So how do you go ahead andstructure or prep your board
deck?
What do you include, youmentioned tons of metrics that
(20:18):
we just talked about, but whatis important to include in your
deck to the board?
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Maybe I'll start with the, the big, the big takeaway,
which is board decks only workwhen you're highly prepared.
So we actually, the process ofcreating a board deck and what
it, when it comes down to, youknow, like 10 slides, that whole
(20:42):
process is a quarter longprocess.
It is not something that we justpull together the day before the
board is, the board ishappening, you know, and I'm
talking about this from arelatively, um, small company.
Um, you know, we're, we're under300 people and 25 million arr,
(21:02):
right?
We're not, we're not huge, butwe, we spend that much time
preparing for it.
So, you know, if you're thinkingof these like large, large
companies, they're spending alot a, a lot more time probably
than, than we are.
But really the preparation iskey.
And I use the board as a methodto drive the entire team that I
(21:22):
have to towards the same goals.
So I'm bringing, um, mydirectors from customer
onboarding, from customersuccess management, from digital
customer success from customerlove, which is our support team.
I'm bringing them together atthe start of the quarter and we
(21:44):
are saying, you know, what is itthat we really want to deliver?
What is it that we were able todeliver?
What is it that we arestruggling with?
And we're, we are debating witheach other as to the high level
objectives that we're, we wantto achieve.
And then we agree upon them andwe take them into monthly OKRs.
So every month we also cometogether and we say, okay, out
(22:08):
of the 20 things that we wantedto do, what are we doing this
month?
What are we doing next month, etcetera.
And we review progress andthere's a, there's a lot of
collaboration.
We're all holding each otheraccountable to different things
that we need to put in motion.
So, um, that preparation ishappening consistently.
Then we get to the point wherewe are, let's say we are, um, a
(22:33):
month out from the board, we'lldo something called an internal
board.
So I'll have all of my directorscreate, um, slides showing for
the past quarter what insightsthey've learned, learned what
actions they wanna take uponthose insights and what is their
(22:54):
forward looking view.
And we'll go through this andwe'll, we'll spot where people
maybe have similar insights,similar actions that they wanna
partner together on.
And, you know, we'll try andkind of trim that, trim that
slide deck down so it's moreconsistent, but it will still be
pretty comprehensive.
It'll probably be like a 30 pageslide deck at this point.
(23:16):
And then we'll present it to theentire team.
So the entire team, includingall the individual contributors,
solution consultants, customersupport, um, people, uh,
customer success managers.
And we'll say to the team, thisis what we see happening.
These are, um, the insights thatwe've seen happening, the
(23:38):
actions we wanna take upon them.
This is our forward lookingview.
Tell us what risks anddependencies we are missing.
And this is so valuable becausethen we have input from people
who are closest to the problem,you know, actually working on
support tickets, working withcustomers, um, and we'll, we'll
(24:00):
learn other things that maybewe're missing that we needed to
put into our forward, like inview.
And then, and then after thathappens, I'm able to kind of
bring that down into a smallerdeck.
Next step is share with myexecutives.
Ensure that my executivesunderstand, um, the insights and
(24:21):
actions that I'm taking from myperspective, that they
understand what my forwardlooking view is and that I'm
giving them value.
I'm, I'm, I'm helping them.
If I see an insight around, um,a certain type of customer,
ideal customer that isonboarding really quickly, I
will give that value to my SB ofsales and say, Hey, these are
(24:45):
the types that we really shouldbe focusing on because we know
that these types getting value.
Um, and if I see that there's a,a feature request that is
potentially holding back someexpansion, then I will share
that with a product team andgive them the opportunity to
bring, to bake, to bake thatinto their forward looking view
(25:09):
as well.
So it's a lot of prep, it's alot of collaboration, um, for
what comes down to very fewslides.
There is, um, a big workflowbehind it to, to make it work.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Amazing.
I love, there's so many piecesof that that I wanna dive in a
little bit deeper.
I love the collaboration piece.
So obviously this is somethingthat your whole team is behind,
something that you're presentingback, something that you're
talking about internal.
I love the mention of theinternal board.
I think that's so important cuzit's great that your team is
doing great work and you'rehighlighting that, but there
(25:47):
might be pieces you're missingbecause they're the daily
operators like you just said,but you also mentioned 30
slides, 10 slides.
There's a, there's a lot of backand forth on how big this deck
is.
I get it, there's a lot ofpreparation that's going in
there.
It's smaller and solid.
But what's your, what's yourfinal presentation?
What is it that actually Gemmawhen she goes in front of the
(26:07):
board, what is it that you'retaking to the board at that
point after all months ofpresenta uh, preparation?
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Yeah, so structure wise, it starts with, um,
highlights and challenges slide.
So this is a great, greatopportunity to talk about the
kind of high level observationsthat you are observing in the
business.
And observations by the way isjust a great way to talk to, to
explain these because it,neither is good or bad, it's
(26:36):
just what, what is happening,right?
So you're proving highlightssome challenges with real data,
always start with that.
Um, that was a recommendationfrom one of our board members
actually to start with that.
And I really like that approach.
Um, second we look at insightsand actions.
Um, and then third we look atthe forward looking view.
(26:58):
But the content within, withinit is very much, um, retention,
which includes care.
Oh my gosh, it is, we'rerecording this on a Friday, so
you're gonna have to give me forthat one.
Um, so we've got retention,which is chan or Contraction.
(27:23):
Um, and then we've also gotexpansion in that retention deep
dive adoption.
So we are looking at productadoption in terms of breadth,
how many licenses are active anddepth in terms of what type of
products are being used, um,self-service.
So within here I'm combiningefforts that we are making to
(27:48):
help customers help themselvesand help customers help each
other.
So this could be through, um,optimizations we're doing to our
Chile hub, which is ourknowledge base, our
certification programs and soforth.
Um, advocacy, which is gonna betalking about what, what we are
(28:09):
learning from customers who areadvocates, what we're learning
through voice of customerprograms, what we're learning
through customer advisoryboards, what we are seeing in
terms of their recommendationson how we should go to market.
And I always, within there, Ialways try to bake something
innovative that we've done in,in the quarter because there is
(28:29):
always, there is always in astartup, there's always
something new that you've done.
So I always try to bakesomething in there, um, to show
the momentum that the team teamis having.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Yeah.
And you mentioned a lot ofthings and I know it's hard to
visualize cuz we're talkingabout things, but curious, are
you doing, um, some sort ofmetric graph or visual or is it
bullet points?
Like what is it that in thecombination of presenting back
either the new initiatives orlooking forward, looking back,
all of the things that you'vejust mentioned, how do you best
(29:01):
present it in a pretty packageso that it's well received?
Speaker 2 (29:05):
So I think I, I would think the way to think about it
is for each piece of content,let's take retention as an
example.
Have in, in one slide if youcan, um, insights, actions and
forward looking view, that's theway to think about it.
But always less text.
And if you are gonna show somedata, make sure the data tells a
(29:30):
clear story, right?
So you are there to providecontext to the data.
So yeah, I think in terms of thebullets, keep them short and
sweet, what insights have youlearned?
What actions are you takingbased on that and what's your
forward looking view?
Um, and try to keep graphs to aminimum and make them easy to
(29:54):
understand.
And this is something that I, I,I will do, you know, before a
final presentation, I will gothrough and I will say what,
what questions do I thinksomeone might ask me?
And if there's anything thatisn't very clear, I'll try to
ensure that I'm, I'm describing
Speaker 1 (30:10):
That and obviously lots of time preparing for board
decks, as you mentioned, it's a,a full quarter before you have
have to actually go and presentthe information.
You've probably done quite a fewnow at Chili Piper or in
previous roles.
What is kind of like a biglearning or something you
definitely wouldn't put into aboard deck today that you might
(30:31):
have done before?
Speaker 2 (30:32):
You know, I don't know.
That's a tough question.
Annika, cuz this, I don't thinkthere's any wrong or right thing
to include.
I think it's all contextual.
I think you really have toconsider that board members,
they, they want to help, they'rein, they're on the team with
(30:53):
you.
So take that into your mindsetas you're going into it.
Like ideally this should be adiscussion and not a lecture.
This should be, this is what I'mseeing, this is what I'm
thinking at at this point.
I I always start, are there anyquestions I send, we send the
deck in advance, right?
So we start with any questionsso that it really can be a
(31:15):
discussion rather than alecture, rather than them
finding out something for thefirst time.
They should be briefed inadvance and we should be using
the opportunity to discuss.
So they do want to help, butthey also want to see continual
progress.
And the reality is if um, theprogress is great, then that's,
that's great.
(31:35):
It's kind of talking about how,how do we, how do we continue to
optimize upon that?
And if the progress isn't greator isn't what you expected, you
just have to be really clear inexplaining what it is that
you're gonna do differently toimprove it.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Yep.
It is a story, it's a story of,of the quarter of what you guys
have done, haven't done what'sworked, what hasn't worked.
And I love that you justmentioned that because it's so
true.
It is a conversation.
It is not educating, it isbrainstorming at the end of the
day.
It's, it's pretty package ofeverything that's happened and
what do you take from that andhow do you move forward or how
do you learn from something orhow do you double down or triple
(32:14):
down on, on a successful moment.
So I completely agree that it's,it is something that should be
conversational and somethingthat both parties take away from
the deck as well.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Right?
Right.
And you know, if a change isneeded, um, because something
that you tried isn't working,that's okay.
You are the subject matterexpert, so you, you should take
control.
Um, but the board is there as a,as a sounding board, right?
So, um, I guess what I'mthinking about the question you
(32:45):
asked, which is what have Ilearned through doing it?
Don't let there be any surprisesunless they're get surprises,
you know?
So if, if you, if you are gonnapropose a change to the
structure of your team, let'ssay let's totally fine, but
ensure that your peers on theexecutive team are aligned with
that, that they've had a chanceto, um, to collaborate with you
(33:09):
on it, you know, to potentiallyidentify any, any gaps that you
weren't aware of or align itwith any other programs that
they were doing.
So try to minimize that elementof surprise.
And again, that comes from prep,it comes from prep and
discussion and collaboration,which is really hard to do in a
start, is really hard to do in astart world for some reason, I'm
(33:31):
, this is what I enjoy doing, soI found that works.
That works well for me.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Yeah, it's really important, that communication
piece that you just said, andit's easier said than done.
Also, like you said, it's justyou need to make sure you're
continuously collaborating withyour peers and your fellow exec
team and your wider team aswell.
It shouldn't be a, I don't thinka board deck should be a
surprise to anyone within thebusiness, especially like you
said, in the startup world.
Everyone should be aware of, ofmetrics of what's went well,
(33:59):
what hasn't gone well, because alot of people contribute to
those, to those numbers day inand day out, which is super
important.
Um, one thing we didn't touchupon, which I've seen in board
decks that have been sharedonline and stuff is a lot of
people highlight lagging leadingindicators in customer success
or just across the board,whether in marketing, sales, et
(34:20):
cetera.
Is that something you've seendone before?
Is that a good way to go downwith the board deck?
What do you think about leadinglagging indicators?
Speaker 2 (34:28):
We look at that and we obsess, we obsess about, um,
we call it our scorecard, whichis activities and leading
indicators as well as thelagging outcomes.
We, we do that every week,multiple times, um, in the week
as a team.
Um, so when it comes to theboard, you know, they, the north
star metric, let's say is NRokay, but I need a very good
(34:52):
understanding of the activitiesand the indicators that are
driving that number to be ableto provide the context around
the NR number, for example.
So I think, you know,potentially you might wanna show
them, um, that's really yourcall, but the most important
thing is measure them and knowthem so that you can talk to
(35:15):
them so that you can providethat context in a discussion.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Yeah, fair, fair.
Awesome.
I wanna talk a little bit moreabout your career progression,
chief customer officer.
We could keep going on about theboard deck.
I've taken so many notes,, but, um, career
progression.
What was yours like forlisteners that are looking to
become a chief customer officer,what can you share, um, about
(35:41):
your career that's led you to,to where you are today?
Speaker 2 (35:44):
You know, I think it was a mixture of, um,
performance and opportunity andit's hard to get both things
right and I was fortunate to, um, be in different places where
that worked.
But I guess what's quite uniqueabout the CCO role, um, is that
(36:05):
because because there aren'tthat many CCOs still, there's
definitely been an an increasein the past couple of years, but
there's still relatively notthat many.
It's not a role where you arelikely to be given a clear
progression path by anyone else.
You're probably gonna have to doa lot of the graphs yourself in
(36:27):
terms of researching the role,explaining what value it can
provide, explaining how it canwork with other roles on the
executive team.
And so that, that, that was abig part of my journey.
Um, you know, as a, when I gotto the VP level, um, there was
(36:51):
no path ahead of me.
I had to, I had to create thatpath into cco.
I was fortunate to, to be ableto do it.
Um, but it took a lot, it took ahighly academic research driven
approach.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Interesting.
Another, another podcast wecould probably go into deep.
How do you research and how doyou like present the CCO to your
ceo, basically?
But, um, in that, in saying thatChili Piper is a series B
company and a lot of companiesare evaluating when to bring in
a cco and what point is pivotalto have a cheap customer
(37:29):
officer, um, you speak to, to CSleaders day in and day out.
Where, when do you think is apivotal moment for a company to,
to really have the role and, andpossibly if someone is at a
company that that's at thatpoint, how do they shape into
that role?
Speaker 2 (37:44):
I have spoken to a lot of people about this Anika
with CCO secrets, which you, youremember actually, you haven't
been on it, so we gotta
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Yeah, we should.
We should.
But I love, I love your podcast.
Good, good.
Shout out.
CCO Secrets is an amazingpodcast.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Yeah, I need to, I need to pick it up.
But, um, in talking to people on, on that podcast, the trend was
the point at which a companyreaches 10 million ARR is when
it makes sense to have a cco.
Because the idea is at thatpoint you have a solid product
market fit.
That was kind of the, the, thebig takeaway there.
(38:22):
And in larger companies, I thinkit's challenging to create the
role just because largercompanies will tend to move, uh,
more slowly.
But we're, you know, we, we areseeing, we're seeing change
happen and I think the industryis the, the CS industry is on
the cusp of, of boundless growthbecause of what we are learning
(38:48):
from growing at all costs.
That is like, you know, justhiring a bunch of salespeople
and try to bring in as manydeals as you can.
Um, it doesn't work.
It doesn't work.
We're we're seeing the economicdownturn and um, a lot of that
was that, you know, growth, thatthat wasn't necessarily good
growth.
(39:08):
And so the CCO role is one thatreally addresses that problem of
bad growth in terms bad growthinto better growth, customer
driven growth.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Yeah, I completely agree with you by the way, on
when a CCO should be brought in.
Speaking of that 10 millionmark, I think it's 10, 15,
whatever, like around that mark.
But it's more about the pivotalmoment where you've got that
flywheel already set where youalready have an ideal customer
profile, you're selling to theright people, you have a good
established base of whatcustomer success might be doing
(39:43):
or figuring out, let's say likeyou're not, you're no longer
just reactive.
You do have some sort of teambehind you and you're now
doubling, tripling, whateverdown on customer success and the
revenue predictability andgrowth that CS can bring.
I think that's when having thatchief customer officer really
makes an impact to that, thatfuture trajectory of growth.
So, um, thanks for sharing that.
(40:04):
Um, one more question before wego into quickfire, um, questions
is, looking back at your careeror just anyone who's aspiring to
become a cco, what's yourbiggest piece of advice to them
or biggest piece of learning?
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Be resilient.
Resiliency is key.
You know, you have to be able tomaintain a positive mindset and
a solutions driven approach toeverything that comes your way.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
I agree.
I think that that comes alsofrom the, the startup and scale
up world too.
Whether you're ncs, CCO or not,I think resiliency is the
characteristic quality that youshould carry throughout your
career.
Cuz I think it, it results inyou getting to where you need to
be if you are a resilientperson.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
The role is so rewarding.
Like it really is a dream careerif you enjoy working with people
and helping people and thatreally makes it all worthwhile
When you see people, whetherthey're in your team or on in in
your customers, when you seethem progress and expand their
learning and progress in theircareers, it's, it's incredible.
(41:18):
It's so rewarding.
But, um, it's, if it was easy,everybody would do it, you know,
so it's not easy
Speaker 1 (41:25):
, it is not.
And you have to be resilient inorder to get through those tough
times.
.
I completely agree.
Awesome.
Um, let's jump into quickfirequestions.
I could keep chatting Geva, butwe should, we should wrap up
here.
So I'm gonna challenge you totry to answer these next few
questions in a sentence or less.
I know it's gonna be difficult,but are you ready?
Speaker 2 (41:45):
I'm ready.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
Let's do it.
So the first question is, whatdo you think is next for the CS
industry?
Speaker 2 (41:52):
I think digital CS is the most exciting part of our
industry and I'm very much, uh,looking forward to expanding our
digital CS efforts in 2023.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Amazing.
Next question is, what is yourfavorite app that you cannot
live without, either on yourphone or your laptop?
Speaker 2 (42:16):
I can't say chili Piper can I?
Speaker 1 (42:18):
can, but
maybe
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Something else saves time, saves ton of time for me.
I meet with lots of people.
I wouldn't be able to live, livewithout it.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
That's true.
We did book in this podcastrecording with Chili Piper, so
very true.
You sent me your link and said,find some time in my calendar,
.
Awesome.
Okay.
And then, um, next question is,what sort of compensations
should a CSM get?
Should it be just a base salaryor a base salary plus a
commission variable piece?
Speaker 2 (42:46):
I think having skin in the game is, is always a good
idea.
So base plus commissionvariable.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
Final part is what is your favorite part of customer
success or being a CS leader,
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Helping people.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
I love that.
I do thank you so much Gemma,for sharing all your insights,
tips, tricks, all the pieces.
Really appreciate your time.
I've learned so much.
I'm sure our listeners have aswell is that if there are
questions or people wanna cometo you for further discussion,
what's the best way to find you?
Speaker 2 (43:20):
Yeah, reach out to me on LinkedIn and I'll be more
than happy to add any additionalcontext to the ramblings that
I've shared with Atika today.
.
But it's been a lot of fun andjust thank you so, so much for
having me.
You know, I'm so passionateabout, um, what you do and what
you stand for in terms ofhelping others progress in their
(43:41):
career path in, in customersuccess.
So honor to to have been on thiswith you.
Thank you Annika.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Thanks Trevor.
That was so sweet.
Way to end it on, on a hi there.
Thanks so much and, uh, thanksfor being here.
Thank you for listening to theCustomer Success Channel podcast
today.
We hope you learn something newto take back to your team and
your company.
If you found value in ourpodcast, please make sure to
give us a positive review andmake sure you subscribe to our
channel as we release newpodcasts every month.
(44:09):
Also, if you have any topicsthat you would like me to
discuss in the future or youwould like to be a guest on the
podcast, please feel free toreach out.
All my contact details are inthe show notes.
Thanks again for listening andtune in next time for more on
customer success.
Hello everyone.
I'm your host, Anika Zuber, andwelcome back to the next episode
of the Customer Success Channelpodcast, brought to you by Plan
Hat, the Modern Customerplatform.
This podcast is created foranyone working in or interested
in the customer success field.
On this podcast, we will speakto leaders in the industry about
their experiences and theirdefinitions of customer success,
(00:27):
and get their advice and bestpractices on how to run ACS
organization.
Today I have the honor ofspeaking with Gemma Sari Espara,
the Chief Customer Officer atChili Piper.
Gemma has had an amazing careerin customer success where she
has grown and led internationalcustomer success teams.
(00:49):
And her career acceleration hasled from CSM to cco due to her
resilience and perseverance as aleader.
Not only is she an amazing CSleader, she is also a fellow
podcast host of CCO Secrets, butshe is also an award-winning
leader that has recently beenawarded top 50 women CS leaders
of 2022 and Top 25 Cs influencerof 2022.
(01:13):
Today, she will be sharing withus her career progression into
becoming a Chief CustomerOfficer, what a CCO does, and
more importantly, how to preparea board deck As a cco, let's
chat to Gemma about what metricsare important as a CCO and how
to report on them.
Welcome, Gemma to the podcast.
I am so very excited, honored,overjoyed that you are joining
(01:37):
me today to share your wealth ofexperience and knowledge with
our listeners.
I know you very well and Iconsider you a good friend, but
for our listeners, can youplease tell us a little bit more
about yourself, um, what it isyou do at Chili Piper, and, uh,
kind of how it all startedthere?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Oh, thank you so much Anika for that gracious
introduction.
I wish we were doing this inperson, it's been too long.
But yeah, for, for anyone who Ihaven't met yet, uh, my name's
PRI Panera.
I'm currently the Chief CustomerOfficer for Chili Piper, which
is a series B startup thatprovide routing and scheduling
(02:19):
solutions for revenue teams.
So in essence, our mission is tomake meetings happen.
So it's a highly valuable toolused by a lot of my friends and
peers in the SA world, which isfantastic.
And as cco, I'm responsible forthe entire customer experience.
So I'm looking after, uh, sosolutions consultants, customer
(02:45):
success managers, customersupport engineers, and the
digital CS group, which makesthe rest of everyone in CS a
little bit more effective andsaves time for our customers.
So that's my, my team.
And, you know, our, ouragreement is, is highly
technical in ensuring that wedeliver everything that
(03:10):
customers require to makemeetings happen as effectively
as possible.
So it's a lot of integrations,uh, that kind of thing to ensure
that value is being receivedupon our technology.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Amazing.
I love that tagline.
I always have, I think, makemeetings happen.
I do like that.
I think Chili Piper's done areally great job with that.
Um, but before
worked in a number of customersuccess roles, you have a
amazing career.
Um, what kind of inspired you tostart working in customer
success and become the leaderthat you are today?
Speaker 2 (03:47):
You know, I think I, I was inspired to work in
customer success from a love ofworking with people.
I really do enjoy working withpeople.
I find that I'm someone who canget the best out of people,
who's good at bringing peopletogether behind a shared mission
(04:07):
and in customer success.
That is an essential part of thegame, right?
We have to take, uh, differentperspectives from our customers,
from, uh, from our own internalteams, uh, from our investors
and shareholders.
Then we have to take thoseperspectives and, and put them
together and find some kind ofreality where everybody is
(04:30):
happy.
So that's what I really enjoyabout customer success, bringing
people together behind a sharedmission.
And I definitely didn't start mycareer going into it thinking
I'm gonna be a CCO because therewasn't CCOs at the time that I
(04:50):
started
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Definitely I feel the same.
I'm so, I love it that theirtitle is there now, but when I
was a csm, who knew what a CCOwas doing?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yes.
I mean, I think you, I think youprobably had shared experiences
as, as CSMs where the, thereporting line was always into
sales.
Um, and I knew that I didn'treally wanna do sales, but I, I
knew that I liked working inthat fast-paced environment and
that tech environment.
And it was actually, um, one ofmy CROs who I was reporting into
(05:26):
at the time was as a VP whosuggested the path into CCO and
connected me with some otherCCOs.
And that's where I, I realizedthat was the, the path I wanted
to take.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Amazing.
I love that too.
But I also shared experiencewhere a lot of my early days in
success was reporting into asales or revenue leader, and
there wasn't a clear path tocco.
So I will dive a little bitdeeper into that in a second,
but I wanna jump back into whatit is Chili Piper is doing, you
guys race series B, amazingamount of growth you guys have
(06:01):
gone through recently.
And, uh, really just tell us alittle bit more about kind of
what the business does and thedifferent teams that you own do.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah.
So as a business, we are mostlyworking with B2B SAS companies
who have large revenue teamsthat need to spend time with
prospects or customers.
And so the challenge is inensuring that you're getting
your prospects straight tomeetings with the right people.
(06:31):
And the same, same kind ofchallenge occurs with customers.
How do we make it easy forcustomers to get through to the
appropriate person based ontheir request?
And then in doing that, uh, withour routing and scheduling
solutions, we also then have alot of reporting behind it,
which is highly valuable forunderstanding, um, speed to lead
(06:53):
deal velocity, as well as, youknow, capacity planning for more
post-sales teams.
So, um, our teams, uh, on, youknow, at a, at a very high
level, we've obviously gotproduct, uh, marketing,
engineering people, team.
On the revenue side, we splitsales and CS with sales being
(07:16):
focused on, um, proving out thevalue in order to get the
paperwork done.
And Cs being focused onproviding all of the domain
expertise and technicalexpertise to get the value
going.
Right.
So we, um, under, under thecustomer success org, we are
(07:38):
really focused on having highlytechnical people who know the
domain that we're working in,which is, you know, Salesforce
domain, HubSpot domain, aninbound domain, a rev sales op,
CS ops, everyone on our CS orgis, is effectively an op
specialist, um, helping their,helping their customer get all
(08:01):
these amazing automations inplace.
Um, and that's been, that's beengreat for us.
It's, it's been a competitivedifferentiator, right?
Because we are not just thereresponding to inbound queries
from customers, we'reproactively giving them experts
who effectively are a part oftheir team, who are willing to
(08:23):
put the graft in, do whatever ittakes to ensure that Shell Piper
is delivering the value forwhich they, they joined us for,
which is really about improvingefficiencies and improving
performance, which is, you know,everybody wants to do that right
now.
And on the sales side, we, wehave typical sds, AEs, and we
also have account managerssitting in sales mm-hmm.
(08:45):
So that allows the accountmanagers to focus more on who do
we, who do we see as a customerthat is, that has potential to
grow from across ourperspective.
This is a really big focus forour account managers.
How can we take Chili Piper fromjust being used in the sales
team to also being used in theCS team, or how can we take, you
(09:05):
know, one of these products intoanother product for that
customer?
So that's how the, the org isbuilt right now, and it's, it's
working very well with thatmodel.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Yeah.
And all of that obviouslyfunneling up into the cheap
customer officer role that youcurrently hold, and we were just
chatting about how that role isrelatively new to the CS space.
And when we both started incustomer success, it's not
something that you aspire to oryou didn't even know which
direction to become a cco.
Um, and we'll, we'll get intomore details about, you know,
(09:36):
what it is you're, you're doingand building and what you have
to do.
But for those listeners who arealso maybe new to the title of
Chief Customer Officer and whatit is a chief customer officer
does, can you give us a briefsneak peek into what it is
you're doing as a Chief Customerofficer?
Speaker 2 (09:52):
So, as a Chief Customer Officer, I'm
effectively the owner of the,the customer journey.
So I, I have to be the, the gluethat ensures that we're telling
prospects ahead of time, theright expectations.
(10:15):
We're setting people up forsuccess.
Mm-hmm.
have a demo with us, that we arethen delivering that promise in
their sales experience.
We're setting them the rightthings at the right time.
Um, and then when it comes toonboarding and adoption and
growth and advocacy, these areasare really within my remit
(10:38):
because I have to ensure thatthey receive value quickly
during onboarding with a greatexperience that we are taking
them from being recentlyonboarded to highly adopted, so
that they're actually utilizingwhat they're, what they've
purchased, and there's nosoftware sitting on the shelf or
licenses sitting on the shelf.
(10:58):
Um, and then on the growthstage, you know, it's all about
understanding the customer'sbusiness objectives, the
original ones.
Have we met them and do we nowhave the right to work with them
on, on more business objectivesthrough even more products, more
integrations, different waysthat we could be embedding our
(11:21):
solution around, across theirorganizations and partners.
Um, and advocacy.
Advocacy is, you know, the fun,the fun part of the role where
you've got customers who havegone through that journey and
they're willing to tell othersabout how great it was, and they
effectively become your newsales people,
(11:44):
they're also customers, right?
So they're, they're the best,they're the best type of, um,
sales when, when you get someoneto that point of advocacy where
they're willing to refer you andrecommend you.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
I totally agree.
I think that advocacy isunderrated because really, like
you just said, they become yourbest sales associate or sales
executive because they areliterally singing your praises
and getting to that point, Ithink of where a business is
seeing so much success with yourproduct, that they're able to
then sing your praises for youis, is really a great place to
(12:16):
be.
And I think, um, you guys havedone a great job at Chili Pipe,
at least what I see, what youguys share about your customer
story, so that's awesome to see.
But, um, let's dive into, uh,CCO board metrics.
What we're really here to kindof discuss today, and you just
mentioned some of the thingsthat your team is responsible
for, like time to value, likebusiness objectives, like really
(12:38):
delivering that value, um, overthe course of their, their life
cycle with you.
Metrics I think are somethingthat's super important in
customer success, especially inleadership, but a lot of times,
a lot of SaaS businesses areunsure what it is we should be
reporting on how we shouldreport on it.
What does the board even careabout when it comes to customer
success?
In your experience?
(12:58):
Can you like give us some of themetrics that really matter to
you and your board, um, forreport purposes?
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Yeah, so let, let's start with the board.
The most important number andour stage of business, you know,
as a series B business is nr.
So net revenue retention, itcould be called net dollar
retention.
Um, different ways to explainthe same things.
(13:26):
Are you making more money out ofthe customers that were with you
a year ago?
What does that percentage looklike?
Because it is the truestindicator of the product
providing value.
People are not gonna stay withyou and increase their spend if
they don't see value in yourproduct.
(13:49):
Um, so NR is definitely thenorth star metric and it's a
north star metric for the board,but co coincidentally, it is
not, it is not how I paycommission in my team.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Interesting.
Yeah, you tell what, what's, uh,what's your team looking at
then?
Speaker 2 (14:08):
So we do have people who are focused on that.
Um, the account managers arefocused on that net net
retention number.
Um, and their comp plans arevery much built on, um,
cross-selling.
That's, that's a big focus ontheir comp plan.
They do have some portion ofLego retention, but it's mostly
(14:28):
cross-selling.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
So you do have two different teams that are then
looking after things then by thesounds of it.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah, so we've got these account managers, they are
with the sales, uh, team who wepartner with highly, closely,
but you know, they are focusedon optimizing that number.
And I say optimizing because itis an optimization point at this
point, right?
You cannot just create thatnumber as a, as a great, um,
(14:55):
heroic account manager.
You, the customer has to havereceived and delivered and
realize the value through goingthrough a great purchasing
experience, onboardingexperience on, um, adoption
experience.
So for that reason, our CSMs,they're not focused on NR in
that, in that way because theywould be focusing on something
(15:17):
that is a organic output of, ofonboarding a customer quickly,
of ensuring that they'rereceiving the right value from
the products that they're using,the products as, um, they
intended to, that they've gotthat adoption at a high level
that their sentiment is strong.
So for the CSM team, we look at,um, two things.
(15:40):
We look at logo retention, whichis obvious, you know, you need
to keep your customers.
Um, and then we look at productadoption.
Those are the two big thingsthat we actually CSMs on.
The idea being that we don'twant our CSMs to try and sell to
customers, it's just nothelpful.
We want them to be part of thecustomer team.
(16:02):
So we want to ensure that thatteam remains like a retention,
but we wanna be part of thatteam to ensure that the team is
getting the full value of theproduct measured through product
adoption.
And then we have someadditional, um, SPS in there
for, um, onboarding customers,quickly gearing, great
onboarding experience, uh,survey results and identifying
(16:25):
opportunities that could lead toupsell and cross-sell.
Um, but we, we, we don't put aquota on it because we don't
want our CSM to say, I'm notgonna work with these customers
over here that don't have aimmediate path to grow today.
(16:46):
Because that would be focusingon customers who are good for
chili Piper as opposed tocustomers who need us.
And the thing is like, you haveto be proactive in, in customer
success.
You can't just be there whenyour customer's about to renew
or when they've just come intonew money.
You have to be there for themwhen they need you,
(17:09):
And then the organic, theorganic thing that happens is
they give you more money whenthey have it, right?
So it's like, um, we're, we're,we are focused on nrss and North
Star metric, but we understandthat it is an organic outcome of
customers having a greatexperience and achieving their
(17:29):
desired outcomes and an organicoutcome of us being there for
them when they need us the most,not the other way
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Around.
I love that mantra as well.
I think that's so important.
Cuz again, a lot of businessesfocus on success of like, oh, we
need to make our customersuccessful so we as a business
are successful.
But really it's the the otherway around, like you said, being
there for a customer when theyneed you.
Interesting.
Where you have the team splitand we could probably have a
whole nother podcast
Speaker 2 (17:56):
That'll debate.
I have, by the way, Anna, I willsay I have run other CSM teams
that are focused on a NR numberin different products.
So I think, you know, if wewanna go into that debate, I
would say it really depends onthe type of product that you are
providing.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
I agree, and I think CS has done so differently at
every org, depending on whatstage of maturity you're at,
what side of maturity of yourcustomers.
I think all of that trulydepends on how you structure and
balance out metrics and who'sresponsible for who.
But let's not get too off topichere.
I wanna come back to that boarddeck cause that's what we're
talking about.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
I will say this is one of the reasons why we
recently went public with ourhandbook.
So we took inspiration fromGitLab who've done this for
many, many years, and they'vegot a very extensive handbook.
And we said, you know what?
We're gonna, we are gonna, um,post ours and make it publicly
available.
So it is publicly available.
You can actually look at howChili Piper organized the teams
(18:53):
and comp and all that stuff andall of our processes and rules
of engagement.
But it's out there with thecontact, with the hope that
people will tell us what we'remissing out of.
But also we're not scared toshare it because whatever we are
doing here is like very uniquefor us
So if you were to just like, tryand rip it and put it in
somewhere else, it doesn't meanit's gonna work.
(19:14):
You know, that you have to, youhave to do the work to create
Speaker 1 (19:17):
It.
You've just highlighted likewhat you do today at Chili Piper
might not be what you have to do10 years from now at Chili Piper
because customer success is everevolving and it's never gonna be
the same because your product,your customer, your maturity of
your business is never the same.
And again, we're getting into somany topics, Java, and I wanna
keep talking about all of them.
(19:37):
The handbook, by the way, isbrilliant.
For anyone who hasn't seen it,go check it out.
I, I love it.
I love that the community herein customer success share so
much and that that handbook is,is great to see and, and take
away what you, what you mighttake away from it.
Um, but again, coming back tothat board deck,
definitely wanna talk aboutthat.
Um,
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Let's be in the present,
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Okay, let's be in the present of CS leaders, CCOs, VPs
of cs.
You're starting to report to aboard, which is awesome.
They have to start structuring aboard deck.
Cool, great new challenge, butfor some people that are
listening, that's brand new.
So how do you go ahead andstructure or prep your board
deck?
What do you include, youmentioned tons of metrics that
(20:18):
we just talked about, but whatis important to include in your
deck to the board?
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Maybe I'll start with the, the big, the big takeaway,
which is board decks only workwhen you're highly prepared.
So we actually, the process ofcreating a board deck and what
it, when it comes down to, youknow, like 10 slides, that whole
(20:42):
process is a quarter longprocess.
It is not something that we justpull together the day before the
board is, the board ishappening, you know, and I'm
talking about this from arelatively, um, small company.
Um, you know, we're, we're under300 people and 25 million arr,
(21:02):
right?
We're not, we're not huge, butwe, we spend that much time
preparing for it.
So, you know, if you're thinkingof these like large, large
companies, they're spending alot a, a lot more time probably
than, than we are.
But really the preparation iskey.
And I use the board as a methodto drive the entire team that I
(21:22):
have to towards the same goals.
So I'm bringing, um, mydirectors from customer
onboarding, from customersuccess management, from digital
customer success from customerlove, which is our support team.
I'm bringing them together atthe start of the quarter and we
(21:44):
are saying, you know, what is itthat we really want to deliver?
What is it that we were able todeliver?
What is it that we arestruggling with?
And we're, we are debating witheach other as to the high level
objectives that we're, we wantto achieve.
And then we agree upon them andwe take them into monthly OKRs.
So every month we also cometogether and we say, okay, out
(22:08):
of the 20 things that we wantedto do, what are we doing this
month?
What are we doing next month, etcetera.
And we review progress andthere's a, there's a lot of
collaboration.
We're all holding each otheraccountable to different things
that we need to put in motion.
So, um, that preparation ishappening consistently.
Then we get to the point wherewe are, let's say we are, um, a
(22:33):
month out from the board, we'lldo something called an internal
board.
So I'll have all of my directorscreate, um, slides showing for
the past quarter what insightsthey've learned, learned what
actions they wanna take uponthose insights and what is their
(22:54):
forward looking view.
And we'll go through this andwe'll, we'll spot where people
maybe have similar insights,similar actions that they wanna
partner together on.
And, you know, we'll try andkind of trim that, trim that
slide deck down so it's moreconsistent, but it will still be
pretty comprehensive.
It'll probably be like a 30 pageslide deck at this point.
(23:16):
And then we'll present it to theentire team.
So the entire team, includingall the individual contributors,
solution consultants, customersupport, um, people, uh,
customer success managers.
And we'll say to the team, thisis what we see happening.
These are, um, the insights thatwe've seen happening, the
(23:38):
actions we wanna take upon them.
This is our forward lookingview.
Tell us what risks anddependencies we are missing.
And this is so valuable becausethen we have input from people
who are closest to the problem,you know, actually working on
support tickets, working withcustomers, um, and we'll, we'll
(24:00):
learn other things that maybewe're missing that we needed to
put into our forward, like inview.
And then, and then after thathappens, I'm able to kind of
bring that down into a smallerdeck.
Next step is share with myexecutives.
Ensure that my executivesunderstand, um, the insights and
(24:21):
actions that I'm taking from myperspective, that they
understand what my forwardlooking view is and that I'm
giving them value.
I'm, I'm, I'm helping them.
If I see an insight around, um,a certain type of customer,
ideal customer that isonboarding really quickly, I
will give that value to my SB ofsales and say, Hey, these are
(24:45):
the types that we really shouldbe focusing on because we know
that these types getting value.
Um, and if I see that there's a,a feature request that is
potentially holding back someexpansion, then I will share
that with a product team andgive them the opportunity to
bring, to bake, to bake thatinto their forward looking view
(25:09):
as well.
So it's a lot of prep, it's alot of collaboration, um, for
what comes down to very fewslides.
There is, um, a big workflowbehind it to, to make it work.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
Amazing.
I love, there's so many piecesof that that I wanna dive in a
little bit deeper.
I love the collaboration piece.
So obviously this is somethingthat your whole team is behind,
something that you're presentingback, something that you're
talking about internal.
I love the mention of theinternal board.
I think that's so important cuzit's great that your team is
doing great work and you'rehighlighting that, but there
(25:47):
might be pieces you're missingbecause they're the daily
operators like you just said,but you also mentioned 30
slides, 10 slides.
There's a, there's a lot of backand forth on how big this deck
is.
I get it, there's a lot ofpreparation that's going in
there.
It's smaller and solid.
But what's your, what's yourfinal presentation?
What is it that actually Gemmawhen she goes in front of the
(26:07):
board, what is it that you'retaking to the board at that
point after all months ofpresenta uh, preparation?
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Yeah, so structure wise, it starts with, um,
highlights and challenges slide.
So this is a great, greatopportunity to talk about the
kind of high level observationsthat you are observing in the
business.
And observations by the way isjust a great way to talk to, to
explain these because it,neither is good or bad, it's
(26:36):
just what, what is happening,right?
So you're proving highlightssome challenges with real data,
always start with that.
Um, that was a recommendationfrom one of our board members
actually to start with that.
And I really like that approach.
Um, second we look at insightsand actions.
Um, and then third we look atthe forward looking view.
(26:58):
But the content within, withinit is very much, um, retention,
which includes care.
Oh my gosh, it is, we'rerecording this on a Friday, so
you're gonna have to give me forthat one.
Um, so we've got retention,which is chan or Contraction.
(27:23):
Um, and then we've also gotexpansion in that retention deep
dive adoption.
So we are looking at productadoption in terms of breadth,
how many licenses are active anddepth in terms of what type of
products are being used, um,self-service.
So within here I'm combiningefforts that we are making to
(27:48):
help customers help themselvesand help customers help each
other.
So this could be through, um,optimizations we're doing to our
Chile hub, which is ourknowledge base, our
certification programs and soforth.
Um, advocacy, which is gonna betalking about what, what we are
(28:09):
learning from customers who areadvocates, what we're learning
through voice of customerprograms, what we're learning
through customer advisoryboards, what we are seeing in
terms of their recommendationson how we should go to market.
And I always, within there, Ialways try to bake something
innovative that we've done in,in the quarter because there is
(28:29):
always, there is always in astartup, there's always
something new that you've done.
So I always try to bakesomething in there, um, to show
the momentum that the team teamis having.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Yeah.
And you mentioned a lot ofthings and I know it's hard to
visualize cuz we're talkingabout things, but curious, are
you doing, um, some sort ofmetric graph or visual or is it
bullet points?
Like what is it that in thecombination of presenting back
either the new initiatives orlooking forward, looking back,
all of the things that you'vejust mentioned, how do you best
(29:01):
present it in a pretty packageso that it's well received?
Speaker 2 (29:05):
So I think I, I would think the way to think about it
is for each piece of content,let's take retention as an
example.
Have in, in one slide if youcan, um, insights, actions and
forward looking view, that's theway to think about it.
But always less text.
And if you are gonna show somedata, make sure the data tells a
(29:30):
clear story, right?
So you are there to providecontext to the data.
So yeah, I think in terms of thebullets, keep them short and
sweet, what insights have youlearned?
What actions are you takingbased on that and what's your
forward looking view?
Um, and try to keep graphs to aminimum and make them easy to
(29:54):
understand.
And this is something that I, I,I will do, you know, before a
final presentation, I will gothrough and I will say what,
what questions do I thinksomeone might ask me?
And if there's anything thatisn't very clear, I'll try to
ensure that I'm, I'm describing
Speaker 1 (30:10):
That and obviously lots of time preparing for board
decks, as you mentioned, it's a,a full quarter before you have
have to actually go and presentthe information.
You've probably done quite a fewnow at Chili Piper or in
previous roles.
What is kind of like a biglearning or something you
definitely wouldn't put into aboard deck today that you might
(30:31):
have done before?
Speaker 2 (30:32):
You know, I don't know.
That's a tough question.
Annika, cuz this, I don't thinkthere's any wrong or right thing
to include.
I think it's all contextual.
I think you really have toconsider that board members,
they, they want to help, they'rein, they're on the team with
(30:53):
you.
So take that into your mindsetas you're going into it.
Like ideally this should be adiscussion and not a lecture.
This should be, this is what I'mseeing, this is what I'm
thinking at at this point.
I I always start, are there anyquestions I send, we send the
deck in advance, right?
So we start with any questionsso that it really can be a
(31:15):
discussion rather than alecture, rather than them
finding out something for thefirst time.
They should be briefed inadvance and we should be using
the opportunity to discuss.
So they do want to help, butthey also want to see continual
progress.
And the reality is if um, theprogress is great, then that's,
that's great.
(31:35):
It's kind of talking about how,how do we, how do we continue to
optimize upon that?
And if the progress isn't greator isn't what you expected, you
just have to be really clear inexplaining what it is that
you're gonna do differently toimprove it.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Yep.
It is a story, it's a story of,of the quarter of what you guys
have done, haven't done what'sworked, what hasn't worked.
And I love that you justmentioned that because it's so
true.
It is a conversation.
It is not educating, it isbrainstorming at the end of the
day.
It's, it's pretty package ofeverything that's happened and
what do you take from that andhow do you move forward or how
do you learn from something orhow do you double down or triple
(32:14):
down on, on a successful moment.
So I completely agree that it's,it is something that should be
conversational and somethingthat both parties take away from
the deck as well.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Right?
Right.
And you know, if a change isneeded, um, because something
that you tried isn't working,that's okay.
You are the subject matterexpert, so you, you should take
control.
Um, but the board is there as a,as a sounding board, right?
So, um, I guess what I'mthinking about the question you
(32:45):
asked, which is what have Ilearned through doing it?
Don't let there be any surprisesunless they're get surprises,
you know?
So if, if you, if you are gonnapropose a change to the
structure of your team, let'ssay let's totally fine, but
ensure that your peers on theexecutive team are aligned with
that, that they've had a chanceto, um, to collaborate with you
(33:09):
on it, you know, to potentiallyidentify any, any gaps that you
weren't aware of or align itwith any other programs that
they were doing.
So try to minimize that elementof surprise.
And again, that comes from prep,it comes from prep and
discussion and collaboration,which is really hard to do in a
start, is really hard to do in astart world for some reason, I'm
(33:31):
, this is what I enjoy doing, soI found that works.
That works well for me.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Yeah, it's really important, that communication
piece that you just said, andit's easier said than done.
Also, like you said, it's justyou need to make sure you're
continuously collaborating withyour peers and your fellow exec
team and your wider team aswell.
It shouldn't be a, I don't thinka board deck should be a
surprise to anyone within thebusiness, especially like you
said, in the startup world.
Everyone should be aware of, ofmetrics of what's went well,
(33:59):
what hasn't gone well, because alot of people contribute to
those, to those numbers day inand day out, which is super
important.
Um, one thing we didn't touchupon, which I've seen in board
decks that have been sharedonline and stuff is a lot of
people highlight lagging leadingindicators in customer success
or just across the board,whether in marketing, sales, et
(34:20):
cetera.
Is that something you've seendone before?
Is that a good way to go downwith the board deck?
What do you think about leadinglagging indicators?
Speaker 2 (34:28):
We look at that and we obsess, we obsess about, um,
we call it our scorecard, whichis activities and leading
indicators as well as thelagging outcomes.
We, we do that every week,multiple times, um, in the week
as a team.
Um, so when it comes to theboard, you know, they, the north
star metric, let's say is NRokay, but I need a very good
(34:52):
understanding of the activitiesand the indicators that are
driving that number to be ableto provide the context around
the NR number, for example.
So I think, you know,potentially you might wanna show
them, um, that's really yourcall, but the most important
thing is measure them and knowthem so that you can talk to
(35:15):
them so that you can providethat context in a discussion.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Yeah, fair, fair.
Awesome.
I wanna talk a little bit moreabout your career progression,
chief customer officer.
We could keep going on about theboard deck.
I've taken so many notes,
progression.
What was yours like forlisteners that are looking to
become a chief customer officer,what can you share, um, about
(35:41):
your career that's led you to,to where you are today?
Speaker 2 (35:44):
You know, I think it was a mixture of, um,
performance and opportunity andit's hard to get both things
right and I was fortunate to, um, be in different places where
that worked.
But I guess what's quite uniqueabout the CCO role, um, is that
(36:05):
because because there aren'tthat many CCOs still, there's
definitely been an an increasein the past couple of years, but
there's still relatively notthat many.
It's not a role where you arelikely to be given a clear
progression path by anyone else.
You're probably gonna have to doa lot of the graphs yourself in
(36:27):
terms of researching the role,explaining what value it can
provide, explaining how it canwork with other roles on the
executive team.
And so that, that, that was abig part of my journey.
Um, you know, as a, when I gotto the VP level, um, there was
(36:51):
no path ahead of me.
I had to, I had to create thatpath into cco.
I was fortunate to, to be ableto do it.
Um, but it took a lot, it took ahighly academic research driven
approach.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
Interesting.
Another, another podcast wecould probably go into deep.
How do you research and how doyou like present the CCO to your
ceo, basically?
But, um, in that, in saying thatChili Piper is a series B
company and a lot of companiesare evaluating when to bring in
a cco and what point is pivotalto have a cheap customer
(37:29):
officer, um, you speak to, to CSleaders day in and day out.
Where, when do you think is apivotal moment for a company to,
to really have the role and, andpossibly if someone is at a
company that that's at thatpoint, how do they shape into
that role?
Speaker 2 (37:44):
I have spoken to a lot of people about this Anika
with CCO secrets, which you, youremember actually, you haven't
been on it, so we gotta
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Yeah, we should.
We should.
But I love, I love your podcast.
Good, good.
Shout out.
CCO Secrets is an amazingpodcast.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Yeah, I need to, I need to pick it up.
But, um, in talking to people on, on that podcast, the trend was
the point at which a companyreaches 10 million ARR is when
it makes sense to have a cco.
Because the idea is at thatpoint you have a solid product
market fit.
That was kind of the, the, thebig takeaway there.
(38:22):
And in larger companies, I thinkit's challenging to create the
role just because largercompanies will tend to move, uh,
more slowly.
But we're, you know, we, we areseeing, we're seeing change
happen and I think the industryis the, the CS industry is on
the cusp of, of boundless growthbecause of what we are learning
(38:48):
from growing at all costs.
That is like, you know, justhiring a bunch of salespeople
and try to bring in as manydeals as you can.
Um, it doesn't work.
It doesn't work.
We're we're seeing the economicdownturn and um, a lot of that
was that, you know, growth, thatthat wasn't necessarily good
growth.
(39:08):
And so the CCO role is one thatreally addresses that problem of
bad growth in terms bad growthinto better growth, customer
driven growth.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Yeah, I completely agree with you by the way, on
when a CCO should be brought in.
Speaking of that 10 millionmark, I think it's 10, 15,
whatever, like around that mark.
But it's more about the pivotalmoment where you've got that
flywheel already set where youalready have an ideal customer
profile, you're selling to theright people, you have a good
established base of whatcustomer success might be doing
(39:43):
or figuring out, let's say likeyou're not, you're no longer
just reactive.
You do have some sort of teambehind you and you're now
doubling, tripling, whateverdown on customer success and the
revenue predictability andgrowth that CS can bring.
I think that's when having thatchief customer officer really
makes an impact to that, thatfuture trajectory of growth.
So, um, thanks for sharing that.
(40:04):
Um, one more question before wego into quickfire, um, questions
is, looking back at your careeror just anyone who's aspiring to
become a cco, what's yourbiggest piece of advice to them
or biggest piece of learning?
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Be resilient.
Resiliency is key.
You know, you have to be able tomaintain a positive mindset and
a solutions driven approach toeverything that comes your way.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
I agree.
I think that that comes alsofrom the, the startup and scale
up world too.
Whether you're ncs, CCO or not,I think resiliency is the
characteristic quality that youshould carry throughout your
career.
Cuz I think it, it results inyou getting to where you need to
be if you are a resilientperson.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
The role is so rewarding.
Like it really is a dream careerif you enjoy working with people
and helping people and thatreally makes it all worthwhile
When you see people, whetherthey're in your team or on in in
your customers, when you seethem progress and expand their
learning and progress in theircareers, it's, it's incredible.
(41:18):
It's so rewarding.
But, um, it's, if it was easy,everybody would do it, you know,
so it's not easy
Speaker 1 (41:25):
And you have to be resilient inorder to get through those tough
times.
I completely agree.
Awesome.
Um, let's jump into quickfirequestions.
I could keep chatting Geva, butwe should, we should wrap up
here.
So I'm gonna challenge you totry to answer these next few
questions in a sentence or less.
I know it's gonna be difficult,but are you ready?
Speaker 2 (41:45):
I'm ready.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
Let's do it.
So the first question is, whatdo you think is next for the CS
industry?
Speaker 2 (41:52):
I think digital CS is the most exciting part of our
industry and I'm very much, uh,looking forward to expanding our
digital CS efforts in 2023.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Amazing.
Next question is, what is yourfavorite app that you cannot
live without, either on yourphone or your laptop?
Speaker 2 (42:16):
I can't say chili Piper can I?
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Something else saves time, saves ton of time for me.
I meet with lots of people.
I wouldn't be able to live, livewithout it.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
That's true.
We did book in this podcastrecording with Chili Piper, so
very true.
You sent me your link and said,find some time in my calendar,
Awesome.
Okay.
And then, um, next question is,what sort of compensations
should a CSM get?
Should it be just a base salaryor a base salary plus a
commission variable piece?
Speaker 2 (42:46):
I think having skin in the game is, is always a good
idea.
So base plus commissionvariable.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
Final part is what is your favorite part of customer
success or being a CS leader,
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Helping people.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
I love that.
I do thank you so much Gemma,for sharing all your insights,
tips, tricks, all the pieces.
Really appreciate your time.
I've learned so much.
I'm sure our listeners have aswell is that if there are
questions or people wanna cometo you for further discussion,
what's the best way to find you?
Speaker 2 (43:20):
Yeah, reach out to me on LinkedIn and I'll be more
than happy to add any additionalcontext to the ramblings that
I've shared with Atika today.
But it's been a lot of fun andjust thank you so, so much for
having me.
You know, I'm so passionateabout, um, what you do and what
you stand for in terms ofhelping others progress in their
(43:41):
career path in, in customersuccess.
So honor to to have been on thiswith you.
Thank you Annika.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Thanks Trevor.
That was so sweet.
Way to end it on, on a hi there.
Thanks so much and, uh, thanksfor being here.
Thank you for listening to theCustomer Success Channel podcast
today.
We hope you learn something newto take back to your team and
your company.
If you found value in ourpodcast, please make sure to
give us a positive review andmake sure you subscribe to our
channel as we release newpodcasts every month.
(44:09):
Also, if you have any topicsthat you would like me to
discuss in the future or youwould like to be a guest on the
podcast, please feel free toreach out.
All my contact details are inthe show notes.
Thanks again for listening andtune in next time for more on
customer success.
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