January 25, 2023 • 46 mins
In this episode, our host Anika Zubair chats with Jennifer Yorke, Chief Customer Officer at Omertria about how to ensure the success of your CS department during a recession.
With the recession looming, there are many things a CS leader has to consider in order to ensure that the customer success department is still thriving. For example, how are you able to keep your team focused on the success of their customers during such turbulent times? And how can you do more with potentially less resources?
Podcast enquiries: sofia@planhat.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello everyone, I'm your host, Anika Zub and welcome
back to the next episode of theCustomer Success Channel
podcast, brought to you by PlanHat, the Modern Customer
platform.
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 a c s
organization.
Today I am chatting withJennifer York, a true powerhouse
leader in customer success.
She has a passion for scalinghigh growth tech businesses with
a focus on international marketsand the post sales environment.
(00:47):
She is an experienced leaderdriving revenue growth through
sales, customer engagement, andbusiness development.
She has served as a leader and aCS professional at companies
like HubSpot, Hootsuite Box andBazaar Boys, and is currently
the Chief Customer Officer atAmetria, where she leads the
post sales organization.
Ametria has seen tremendousgrowth and success in the post
(01:09):
pandemic world that we findourselves in.
But with the recession looming,there are many things a CS
leader has to consider in orderto ensure customer success is
truly recession proof.
Today we will be chatting withJen about how to ensure the
success of your customer successdepartment during a recession.
Let's chat with Jen.
Welcome Jen, to the podcast.
(01:30):
I am so, so very excited to haveyou here with us.
I know you really, really well.
But for our listeners, can youplease tell them a little bit
more about yourself, your careerso far, and what you've been
doing in customer success?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, happy to and very excited to be here.
As you said, I'm Jen York.
I am currently Chief CustomerOfficer at ametria, which is a
customer data experienceplatform.
That sounds like a whole load ofjargon, but for people that are
interested, uh, what we do is webasically power the
communications that you wouldget from retailers.
So if you've ever shocked withthe likes of Hotel Shakka Lot or
(02:08):
Steve Madden or Brooklinen or avariety of other different
retailers and you've ever gottena message, an email, sms, push
on social at the right time,we're the company that helps
power that.
So you wouldn't know us, but youwould know of us through those
retailers.
So background for me, I was bornand raised in Canada, did all my
(02:29):
schooling there, and thenstarted my customer success
journey, uh, actually in theStates.
So I ended up being the first CS M for HubSpot way, way back in
the day because I am now an old,uh, experience person.
,
Speaker 1 (02:45):
We could let you run with that
Speaker 2 (02:47):
.
Then after a couple of years,uh, my now husband and I decided
we wanted to have, uh, anexperience abroad and so we
moved over to the UK parted wayswith HubSpot, very amicably.
They, they weren't yet, uh,internationally located and I
didn't wanna work remotely atthat time and help launched
Hootsuite, which is Social MediaEnterprise software, their uh,
(03:09):
first international office andgrow out the International CS
organization.
Then had the opportunity to moveover to Box, which is enterprise
content management and wasresponsible for their enterprise
clientele.
And when I talk enterprise, Imean one of our clients had
120,000 user globally, you know,multimillion dollar contracts
(03:30):
with the likes of AstraZenecaand then got to take on the long
tails.
So we went from 400 incrediblycomplex clients to having 11,000
clients that we needed toprovide great experience for.
And so you had multimilliondollar contracts down to Hey,
you're paying us a thousanddollars a year.
Then had the chance to move toBazaar Voice to run their entire
(03:51):
European, uh, customer successorganization and took back on
the uh, revenue componentbecause at Box it was separate
and that was a ton of fun.
And that sort of started myretail career.
And then I moved to ametria,which is an organization that
I'd known of for years.
I'd met the C E O back when Iwas working at Box, they were
(04:14):
seven gentlemen working in abasement.
I thought they had a really coolidea and I just the vibe.
Uh, and we stayed in touch andeventually one of the founders
who was doing the CS role waslooking to do something
different.
He always described himself as aship builder, not a ship sailor.
And so he didn't feel likesailing.
He wanted to do some buildingand did it in another area of
(04:35):
the business.
And so the role opened up.
We kept in touch, I interviewedand got it and here I am.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
.
That's amazing.
Oh my gosh.
So many tidbits that we're gonnajump into more in our
conversation around that.
But you've been at some greatlogos, like you said, HubSpot
Box, Hootsuite all early days bythe sounds of it.
But still we're able to reallygrow out customer success at all
those organizations.
And now you are cheap customerofficer at ametria, like you
mentioned.
(05:01):
It's a coveted title that Ithink a lot of CS leaders want
to have.
And I think not every businesshas C C O yet or is mm-hmm
something that I,like I said CS leaders are
aspiring to be.
What would you say contributedto you landing the C C O title
and role And any tips for any ofour leaders that are listening?
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Some of it truthfully is just the luck of being in the
right place at the right time.
So when I started in cs, CSMwasn't really a huge title.
It was sort of Salesforce thathad it.
And part of the reason whyHubSpot brought it in was
actually because the founderreally appreciated the work that
Salesforce was doing.
(05:43):
And so chief customer officer,it wasn't a role.
Everything sort of rolled up tosales or it was rolling up to
some sort of operation role atthe time.
Um, you may have found a a fewCCOs, but it wasn't something
that everyone would talk aboutit.
It was sort of a, ooh, this isvery different.
So I say that only to let peoplewho are interested in C C O keep
(06:04):
in mind that actually if theyhave another 10, 15, 20 years
ahead of them from a careerperspective, and there might be
roles actually that don't existyet or in very early days that
they might be interested in.
And two, not feel down if you'renot heading in a certain
direction because not everythingis set in stone, which doesn't
answer your question.
But something that I wanted tohighlight, uh, to answer your
(06:26):
actual question,, myintention was to have a more of
a, a voice and seat at thetable.
Uh, I wanted to be able toinfluence the strategy and
things that I as an individualcontributor or first line
manager was implementing.
And so it was looking at well ofthose leaders, what skillset did
they have?
(06:46):
And so it was okay, they need tohave an understanding of the
financial metrics of a business.
They need to be able tounderstand how you create, you
know, appropriate messaging tohighlight the value that you're
bringing to customers.
Some people may call it go tomarket, you know, whatever
phrasing works for you, you needto understand how to actually
deliver to customers, et cetera,et cetera.
(07:08):
So it was looking at all thecomponents and then basically
saying, well who can I learnfrom at this business in order
to try to actually be able to dothe role either at my own, the
business I'm at or if thereisn't gonna be that opportunity,
see if I can get it somewhereelse.
That was how I was thinkingabout fast tracking it.
It was more if I can get therole at the business I'm at,
(07:29):
great cuz it's easier thantrying to learn a new place.
But if it's not gonna beavailable, for example at Box it
was three years out Hmm.
If everything worked correctlycuz we, in order to have the
right amount of people there andso I wasn't actively looking but
if something came in thatmatched what I was looking for,
I would interview for it.
And my boss and I were very openabout that.
(07:51):
I kept him informed.
That's how I got the bazaarvoice role.
It was one of those ones thatsort of came up.
So the chief customer officerole really came about because
I, over time just to get theseat at the table was picking up
those little components at eachplace I was going.
And when I was interested injoining Meria, the C E o and I
(08:13):
had a conversation, I said,look, philosophically I think
having one outlook from acustomer perspective, having
somebody who has a scene on thetable who is championing these
things and helping to direct thethe product, the experience also
positively impacts net newbusiness.
Even if you don't hire me, Ithink you should evolve the role
(08:34):
in this way.
Hmm.
And he agreed.
And so I chose a place thatagreed with that philosophy and
then it was up to me to earnthat role.
Yeah.
But at least I knew we were inagreement about that being the
end goal.
Who knew what the timeframe wasgonna be.
It was open-ended.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But that's amazing.
(08:54):
That's
Speaker 1 (08:55):
A lot of experience that you're just sharing and
that's really helpful to a lotof people that are looking for
what's next in their career.
But especially like that CCOtitle, it's not always available
at the organization that you'reat currently.
Like you said, the scope of theactual role might be very
different depending on the sizeand location of where you are or
where the business is at.
But it was amazing that your um,CEO was open to that
(09:19):
conversation and that you wereable to articulate, Hey I want a
seat at the table and this iswhy I want it because I wanna
influence change and I wannamake sure the customer is the
center of everything we aredoing.
Which is again super critical.
Especially now more than ever.
I know I say that but before weget into today's topic, which I
know is gonna be very topical, Iwanna touch on a little bit more
around your experience in NorthAmerica versus here in Europe
(09:41):
and the uk.
Um, you said you are Canadianbut you worked in the US and now
you're working here in the UKand London.
Can you give us a little bit ofa uh, I guess snapshot of the
differences of what youexperienced in North America
versus the UK when it comes tothe startup world or the CS
world that you've been in?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
I should clarify that when I was working in the
States, I was an individualcontributor.
I was not at a management level.
And so I do think my abil likethe lens that I'm looking at is
slightly different because I'veonly been a manager in the UK
cause I've been here for a longtime.
And one thing I actually reallylove about America is that they
(10:22):
dream big and they think big andit's really more of a we wanna
do this big thing and lessquestioning about the
operational aspects of well howdo you actually do it?
It's like eh, we'll figure thatout as we go.
Like this is a big thing wewanna do.
And I think that's part of whatcreates the draw to America for
a lot of people.
It's like, oh there's just thisgreat sort of aura and mentality
(10:46):
of dream big, figure out therest later and somehow you'll
end up in a good place.
.
And the part of Canada that I'mfrom is relatively pragmatic.
And so that was something when Ibecame a customer success
manager in the States, I had tolearn to modulate that a little
bit because I tend to be more ofokay that's a great idea but
(11:08):
here's what's realistic.
So like let's talk about thatand I got a lot of friction.
Yeah.
So I, I think with respect toworking with the states, one
thing I've always kept in mindis saying, these ideas are
amazing.
Here's what we need to do tomake that possible versus a oh
that isn't possible and here'swhy.
Mm.
Because you get a lot morebuy-in if you talk about it from
the other perspect.
(11:29):
The other perspective of like,okay, let's aim for that.
Here's what we need, how do weget that?
Yeah.
And then uh, with respect toEurope, I mean I think it is
different after the pandemicbecause before the pandemic
there was a much more of anemphasis on in-person Yeah.
Than there is now.
And so I still think we'refiguring out a little bit more
of how we drive customer valueand get time at the right
(11:52):
stakeholders in a world wherethere isn't this drive to be an
office.
And that's something that Ithink is really interesting from
a post pandemic perspective Andwith Europeans, I do think you
need to focus more on thepragmatic elements of we're
gonna do these things and here'sthe how and let's talk it
through and get the buy-in inthat way because they wanna be
(12:13):
on board with the idea and to beon board with the idea they
wanna ensure that you've thoughtit through.
And that means you need to thinkabout some of the details.
And that's typically how I findyou get a lot of buy-in for
things.
If you say what do we wanna dotogether?
Let's talk about like where thechallenges will be and recognize
that it's not a negative thing,it's actually them wanting to be
on board.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Yeah, definitely.
Definitely.
I think you've highlighted somany things that I wanna talk
more about, but like beingAmerican myself, I was just
hearing some of the things youwere saying and you're like, I
was like yeah, that's so true.
Yep, that's definitely true.
And I completely agree that likebeing American or working in the
US ends up being larger risksare taken or you're much more
(12:53):
optimistic.
Yeah.
And now being in England and theBritish mentality is opposite,
it's almost pessimistic, notoptimistic.
And so it's really interestingto see how contrasting, you
know, startup or CS experiencesis on those two different
levels.
But funny that you mentioned alot of the things that you're
used to as a Canadian, cuz Ithink that relates back to
European way of doing businessas well.
(13:15):
The pragmatic way, like yousaid, in almost planning things
out rather than just taking theleap of faith, which is very
much how American startups or CSworld ends up taking large leaps
of faith and just doing thingsand hoping for the best rather
than planning things out.
Both have great reason behind me.
We won't go into the the theoryand and the deep thought behind
(13:35):
those things, but I do find itquite interesting the the
startup CS experiences,especially to other expats out
there that are experiencing thedifferent contrasting ways of
doing business across the pond.
So yeah, very, very interestingto highlight upon that.
But before we get into thetopic, I do wanna touch a little
bit more about Ametria and whatit is the business is doing and
(13:55):
what you've seen as growth aswell.
You came in as a, a VP of Cs nowcustomer officer, you've seen
tons of growth, which is awesomeAnd I'm now thinking in my head
all the notifications on myphone is Ometria, um, at
least in the, in the retailspace.
But what do you thinkcontributed to your growth but
also the customer success teamsgrowth?
(14:16):
Cuz I know we talked about thisbefore as well, right now
January, 2023, there are someeconomic hardships, there's some
things that businesses are goingthrough, but you guys continue
to grow, you continue to seesuccesses, small or large.
What do you think iscontributing to that?
Speaker 2 (14:31):
The organization itself?
So for context, when we startedit was uh, UK focus, so UK CS UK
client base, uh, UK supporthours.
And now our predominant marketsare UK English, speaking Europe
and the US we actually have a, ateam that's based out of New
York Al although I say quoteunquote based but you know
(14:53):
people can be anywhere in thestates.
And we now offer US-basedsupport to our US-based clients.
We have uh, US-based court hoursas well as European-based
support hours.
So from uh, business perspectivewe're now overseas and that has
been one of the fun things forus.
We also have clients in othergeographic jurisdictions, but I
(15:15):
will say it's not a strategicfocus for us.
It's more if a great customercomes to us and they like our
value proposition, we will, youknow, of course partner with
them but it's not a deliberateintention to move into the
region.
Example would be Australia, wehave a couple of clients there,
but it wasn't because wespecifically went out, it's just
they came to us and we told themwhat was available and they said
(15:38):
great.
And now they've been with us fora bunch of years, which is very
exciting.
So growth wise, what hashappened?
Well, I mean the pandemic for uswas actually hugely beneficial
because it brought digitalcommerce to the forefront.
We are doing customer experiencebut from a digital perspective
it put us in the conversationmuch more.
(16:00):
And so we saw a significantamount of growth once the
economy from the pandemic cameback during the, the initial
pandemic, everyone was sort oflike, we won't do anything cause
we wanna see what will happen.
And then when they realized theworld wasn't going to end, they
all decided to buy and that'swhen we, we had a great
experience.
And so I'm sort of noticingsimilar patterns right now and
(16:23):
so why have things been allright for us?
I think as a business and from asenior management team
perspective, we're prettyprudent with our money because
we wanna have the flexibility toput fuel to the fire and really
invest in sales when things arestrong but be able to also pull
(16:44):
back should there be some sortof something, be a pandemic or
recession or whatever it is, andnot have to dramatically change
our internal structure.
Cuz that comes with a lot ofdisruption to customers and also
to your sales motion as well,even if your sales aren't
happening to a big degree.
So with my own organization,I've always looked at it from
(17:08):
the perspective of what is thevalue that we're bringing to the
business from a financialstandpoint and how do I maximize
that without impacting theactual humans that are working
on my team?
So doing it in a way where I amlooking at it from a actual
(17:28):
reasonable workweek and thensaying like how do we maximize
the value that we're driving toclients?
And as you said, it's likelooking at, you know, digital
cs, thinking aboutprioritization of your customer
base.
If you need to be moreefficient, you can't keep doing
the same things.
So how do you try to maximizethe value overall from your
(17:51):
customer base, which usuallymeans how do you drive more
revenue for the business.
In our case we look at netretention and then looking at
how that impacts the service youoffer to each of your segments
of customers.
And so that is what has helpedus grow and not have change that
can be more challenging where itcan impact morale.
(18:13):
There is a reason why businessesdo restructuring, pause hiring,
things of that nature, but itdoes impact morale to a certain
degree and it's been nice that Ihaven't had to do that within my
organization.
Yeah,
Speaker 1 (18:25):
That's uh, a great point that you've just brought
up because we are talking aboutcustomer success during a
recession or during tough timesand how CS can be resilient,
which you bring up aninteresting point about how to
make sure the morale of yourteam stays up, which is really,
really important.
But the SAS slash CS industry isgoing through so much at the
(18:46):
moment.
Like you mentioned pandemic, wehad the great resignation or
what it was coined gained in2021 and now in 2022 we just saw
a lot of restructuring happeningand a lot of companies letting
go of people, lots of people onthe market, lots of funding
being pulled as well.
So it's a, it's a tough time outthere and that's what we're here
to talk about on today'spodcast.
(19:06):
But how have you been able tokeep your team focused on
customer success or the successof their customers essentially
during such turbulent times?
Speaker 2 (19:18):
So I, I think it's two things.
One, as a a member of the seniormanagement team, it was
partnering with thatorganization to say, well we're
going into another challengingperiod of time.
What is going to help us comeout the other side of this
stronger?
And we all were in agreementthat investing in our customers
(19:39):
was going to allow us to comeout the other side of are we
calling it a recession yet thisrecession, this, you know,
downward economic period.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
I think if you ask an economist, I think it's
officially a recession.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Okay.
So out of this recessionpositively it, it's gonna come
from our customers being with usand being ready to grow with us
and those customers beingwilling to talk to prospects who
were in a buying motion so thatthey'll buy from us.
And there was agreement acrossthe S M T, this was the C, the
cfo, F C T O, et cetera.
(20:13):
And so that meant that when wewere looking at where we needed
to be efficient from a budgetaryperspective, it was okay, we
wanna make sure that we'recontinuing to invest in r and d
cuz that benefits our customers,inevitably our prospects, but we
also need to ensure that we'redelivering to our customer base
if we, you know, reduce the teamby a certain size, that's gonna
(20:35):
negatively impact our customerbase.
And the reason that this workedwas because we were showing the
value of what we did during anup period.
Mm.
So there was agreement of it'sefficient already, it's
delivering a lot, don't mess upa good thing.
So that was sort of number oneof like getting agreement with
the people that hold the pursestrings as to where we're gonna
drive value and there wasagreement that value would be
(20:57):
driven by investing in ourcustomers.
And so from the team itselfstepping away from the s and t
component, it was working withmy management team, the, you
know, my VP of Cs, my directorof projects, my director of
support, et cetera, and listenedto them as to what their teams
needed to feel supported duringthis time because I'm not on the
(21:20):
ground, I'm not talking to themevery day.
And so I wanted to make sure toget the cover to say like look
this is the group we're stillhiring where it's necessary.
I am hiring if anyone is lookingfor a role, we have a couple
open
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Plug but I'm okay with
Speaker 2 (21:35):
That.
I mean I, I'll take greatcandidates anywhere I can find
them and listening to them as towhat is needed.
And so, you know, one of thethings that we did look at was
our compensation because we knowover the course of the last
couple years there have beenshifts in compensation and we
wanted to make sure that thegreat people we had, because
(21:57):
they are great, weren't gonna bewooed away because they were
going to get paid compensationthat's different elsewhere.
And so we actually were able todo compensation changes for
every single member of thecustomer team because we had
agreement from the s and t thatwe wanted to invest in customers
listen to my leaders that thatwas a re that was a necessary
thing and then brought therequest to the CFO F and she was
(22:19):
like, okay, like, this iswhat's needed to drive this net
retention like done.
So I think you need both sidesbecause without either side it
wouldn't have worked.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Yeah, I completely agree.
And like you said, proving valuewhen things are good is
something we should always befocused.
I know a lot of people arescrambling right now probably
thinking how am I gonna provevalue when you know companies
are going outta business or mycustomers are cutting costs or
you know, we're not getting thefunding we need to hire more
people.
And I think a lot of timespeople are trying to do more
(22:50):
with less at the wrong time.
And like you said, you made sureduring the uptick you were
proving value, which isextremely important.
And you already mentioned thatyou're a revenue leader as well.
You carry a revenue number thatyour uh, team is responsible for
and that the financial team orthe C F O let's say really knows
about that and knows what valueyou're proving out.
And it was almost an easy yesbut I think a lot of companies
(23:13):
right now are going to be fromtheir C F O, Hey you've gotta do
more with less.
I think that is a theme of 2023,which is, you know it, I don't
think it's too different from2020, like you were saying, what
happened in the early days, thepandemic, we were also forced to
do more with less.
And I think that it'll continueto be a theme this year, but
it's the first time CS hasprobably been very strongly
(23:35):
tasked with this because we'renow revenue holding, we're now
growing and building valuablerelationships with our
customers.
But how are you doing more withless right now with your team
and um, you didn't do anyrestructuring or anything but
you did give a compensation bumpwhich is great to hear, but I'm
sure there's a lot more thingsyou guys are looking at
(23:56):
internally to be I guessprepared for what, what the
turbulent times ahead mightbring.
What are you guys doing toprepare for that?
Speaker 2 (24:03):
We've definitely made changes in how we are are
directly servicing.
So from a a CS perspective, wehave made changes specifically
to our segmentation.
We've always had segments andthere has been slight
differentiation in how weservice those segments but
nothing dramatic.
And so, uh, one of the thingsthat we've been very deliberate
(24:25):
about and I wanna give allcredit to my VP C s and uh, his
manager because I basically saidlook, we need to be able to do,
you know, drive the sort amountretention guidepost, guideposts.
And they came up with an awesomeidea and and have implemented
it.
Uh, we have what we call ourideal customer profile where if
we were going to go out, cuzwe've been in business for 10,
(24:45):
almost 11 years, if we weregonna go out today and get a
customer, here's where we bestfit, here's where we see the
most success, here's where wesee the most longevity, here's
where we know we can drive themaximum amount of value.
And so of our customer base, wewanna make sure that we are
giving them the best experiencepossible because we know that
growth is driven by thoseindividuals and future growth is
(25:08):
gonna be driven by thoseindividuals.
And it was basically, hey team,we need to be structured in a
way to be able to service thesepeople more and here's what that
looks like.
And then we had uh, what weconsider our growth segment and
this is a group of individualswho I call our I CCP of
yesterday year who are fantasticcustomers.
They get good growth from us,it's just not as big as our uh,
(25:31):
what we call our ideal customerprofile.
And it was let's keep servicingthem the same way today as we
did yesterday and what thatlooks like.
And then it was okay here's agroup of individuals who, you
know, when we started 11 yearsago, we were a perfect fit.
We've all evolved since then.
And so if they were going tolook for someone today, the
likelihood is they shouldn'tpick us and that's not a bad
(25:52):
thing because we have changed.
Um, but we wanna make sure thatthey are supported for as long
as they wanna stay with us.
And we looked at more of adigital led and one to many
support team-based support forthat organization so that they
could get the support that theyneed.
But it's a little more customerled as opposed to us driving it
(26:14):
because we know that growthdoesn't come from them.
But we also don't want them allto leave today.
.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Yeah definitely
Speaker 2 (26:21):
cause that's
not helpful to anyone either.
And so that is something thatwe've done and there was not a
restructure but a change in sortof portfolios and associated uh,
approach for the CS team in andof itself.
And the leaders across myorganization in the professional
services and also our supportorganization have also ensured
(26:43):
that they have an understandingof the different segmentation so
that if something comes in fromone of our preeminent customers
it gets priority and that alsocarries through to our
engineering organization and ourproduct organization.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Amazing, amazing.
I think segmentation is supercritical, especially in any, in
any case but especially nowsegmentation really helps us
understand which customers toprioritize.
Especially when you're eitherstrapped for resource or you're
really looking at doing morewith less or you're trying to
figure out how do you serviceall these customers when you
might not be hiring as much asyou would hope to in in certain
(27:19):
economic climates.
Um, you mentioned threedifferent segments, which I
think is pretty typical.
Probably the, what we know isenterprise mid-market and the
SMB or long tail.
How did you guys go aboutprioritizing which customers
fell into each one of thosesegments that you just mentioned
Speaker 2 (27:34):
As an organization?
Since I started from actually aholistic S M T perspective, so
our go-to-market organizationplus also the customer org,
we've reviewed yearly all thedata we have on growth over the
years cuz again we're 11 so wehave a lot of data to be able to
pull from.
And so we've been able to haveone of the members of our our
data science organization lookthrough it and actually identify
(27:57):
where the best segments are andand what the actual parameters
were for those customer bases.
And so we then use that inter goto market strategy to do
targeted marketing and viceversa.
We looked at that from aretention standpoint and we made
a few augmentations to thecustomer side of things, but
we're pretty closely aligned andthat's been a whole company
initiative.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Yeah, that makes complete sense And I think the
data looking cross-functionallyas well as critical when you're
looking at segmentation you haveto hear out what like the whole
go-to market sales, marketing CShas to say, but I also think
it's important to have productin there as well cuz product
might be building for yourenterprise or your mid-market
more than your s and b or theother way around.
A lot of co product teams buildfor self-service as well.
(28:40):
And I think you have to have aholistic view across multiple
departments to understand whereyour I C P really lies as well.
But uh, I I do love that youguys took so much data cause I
think that's critical and noteveryone has that data, but it's
important that you guys tappedinto that.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Yeah, it's whatever data you have, everybody has
something unless you areliterally starting from pure
scratch and you're the firstperson, like everyone has
data
Speaker 1 (29:04):
definitely.
And I think it's a matter ofgetting into the data that you
need, which can be a wholenother podcast.
We can talk about CS data forsure for probably days.
But, I think during arecession a lot of businesses,
or especially now probably csbecause I think revenue should
live in customer success aswell, but a lot of businesses
are looking for new avenues ofrevenue and I think that's
(29:27):
something you have to beextremely creative with when you
are in customer success andespecially during a downturn.
What are your thoughts foreither paid for CS or have you
done any sort of pricingincrease or pricing change for
your customers?
How are you kind of thinkingabout that when it comes to new
revenue within your existingcustomer base?
Speaker 2 (29:47):
So this is another one of, there's multiple answers
to it and actually it's greattiming to talk about because
from an organizationperspective, and I mean all of
Ametria, we've gone throughpricing and packaging over the
course of Q4 and in q1 we're nowlooking at how do we
operationalize that as a part ofit.
We are actually looking atadditives to the product that we
(30:11):
have.
One of the additives is from apurely product perspective and
we're going to be looking at,you know, what we have come up
with, how does that actuallyplay in the market?
Are people interested?
Do we need to make tweaks andthen we're going to go and build
that and that will be apotential revenue stream.
And then the other one actuallyis, uh, more services led.
(30:31):
So something within the, theinfluence of my own organization
and hearing from a lot of ourcustomers over the course of
last year, you know, I'm beingasked to do more with less, I
have less people I need to dothese things.
Traditionally the answer is goto an agency or hire someone.
They don't have the ability tohire somebody because you know,
roles are being paused and goingto an agency is just a lot of
(30:54):
effort.
They're already working with us.
So we're looking at, we've puttogether a package that we think
will be of interest because ofthe feedback we've gotten in
EBRs and client calls and ourclient dinners.
And again, over the course ofq1, what we're basically going
to do is bring that to ourcustomers and say any interest.
And so if they do buy that, thenwhat we have from a, we'll be
(31:19):
able to budget it associatedwith, okay, we need this many
clients to do it, that's aheadcount sold, there's a
certain amount of margin on it.
So that's something that will beinteresting to see what the
outcome is over the course ofthis quarter, how much we need
to tweak because I do suspectthere will be tweaking.
There always is when you have anidea and then you bring it back
for feedback.
(31:40):
So time will tell with respectto the product as it is today,
we haven't raised the pricing onit.
What we have looked at is howcan we be more efficient from an
infrastructure standpoint.
And so this is where as aleader, I think there's benefit
to talking to your C T ounderstanding where the costs
from an infrastructurestandpoint to deliver the
(32:01):
product you have to customerswhere there are a lot of costs
and where actually you could cutcosts without a negative impact.
Uh, an example of our customerbase is that we have customers
that actually store, you know,we've had customers since the
beginning, so 11 years worth ofdata.
Well if somebody is doingcustomer marketing, they look
back maybe two or three years.
(32:22):
So why are we storing 10 yearsworth of data?
It literally just costs us a lotof money and there's no benefit
to anyone.
And so with our new customerscoming in, we're saying to them,
you know, we store X amount ofyears of data.
If you want more, no problem,you can can pay for it.
But that is helping to stem someof the infrastructure costs.
(32:42):
So that's another thing that youcan do if you have good
partnership with your C T O.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Yeah, that's amazing.
I think that finding thoselittle avenues or creative ways
of generating revenue, whetherit's, you know, working with
your C T O or infrastructureteam to fi figure out ways to
charge for, you know, overheadcosts basically.
Or if it's, again, reevaluatingyour segments and charging for
customer success depending onthe level of service your
(33:07):
customer is experiencing orwants to experience.
I think those are great ways tokind of test it out.
I know there's a lot ofdifferent people who are
trialing paid for cs, pat Felanat GoCardless, I had him on the
podcast, he's, he's doingsimilar things as well.
But I think it's something thatI think CS leaders have to be
considerate of.
I think we have to be therevenue leaders that we so want
(33:28):
to be, and having that seat atthe table, meaning you're
looking at the overall businessfinancials and you definitely
need to be considerate of thefact that your customer base can
generate more revenue for yourbusiness if done correctly and
thoughtfully and mindfully andmaking sure you have those
strong partnerships in place.
But I, I do think it's, it'scritical for us to start
thinking along those lines.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
I think it's an interesting one because I
remember when I was a CSM andpeople would say, oh, paying for
cs, I was like, ugh, never.
I will never do that.
I
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Know I be back to, I would, I would never, I'd be
like, oh my gosh, it needs to bein cost of goods sold.
Like, but I think the majororganizations always do it
anyways.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Well, I'm in a court controversy.
I still think I hold the samephilosophy and I don't think
that this is charging for csbecause we offer, as a part of,
you know, the overall cost ofgoods sold, uh, commissioner
amount of Cs that will ensurethat the typical ICP customer,
in our case, the ideal customerprofile will, will get a
(34:26):
beneficial outcome.
They'll, they'll drive enoughvalue that they will grow with
us.
There are customers who justwant more stuff.
They don't need it, butthey want more stuff and that's
fine and we can provide that.
But to me that's sort of like anadditive service.
It isn't the customer successpart because you don't need it
to be, to be successful.
You, you just want it.
(34:47):
Yeah, it's sort of the same oflike you're on a plane and you
have an economy seat.
Well that gets you from point Ato point B, but some people want
business class.
Yeah,
Speaker 1 (34:54):
No, I completely agree.
I think I would, I I agree withyou on that a hundred percent
yes.
Yes.
Shouldn't be like charged for aflatout.
I think you need to providecustomer success in order to see
success with the product, thelongevity of client
relationships and, and buildingout that advocacy that you want
outta your client base.
But I agree, customers sometimeswant way more than what we
factor in to cost of goods sold.
(35:16):
And that's really hard toservice when you have 10 CSMs
that are trying to handle allthese things, but then suddenly
there's like these one customerthat's like, but I want all your
time all week instead of, youknow, servicing all the
customers.
So I completely agree on that,that if you want more, you, you
should be willing to pay for it.
And if you are, then great, wecan provide that for you.
(35:36):
Add additive service.
I completely agree.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
I think it also gives your, your CSMs your frontline
protection.
Like it's incredibly difficultif you think about it like CSMs
are typically 3, 5, 7 years intotheir career experience.
Doesn't mean all I know, I knowcareer CSMs, but traditionally
it's, it's those that don'thave, you know, double digits of
(36:01):
experience.
And we're asking them to setexpectations with a client who
is challenged being hounded toget their numbers and all they
can say is, well, I can'tservice you more.
Or we're asking the CSMs to workevenings and weekends if we give
them the opportunity to say, Heylook, this is what we're able to
do.
I know you want this, we can doit.
(36:21):
There's a value associated.
At least it sort of gives themsomething to say, you know, you
want these things, it's morethan you should be getting So
that the other person perhapsgets a bit of perspective
definitely as to why they'rebeing told.
No, I think also helps protectthe CSMs to a certain degree as
well, which in turn hopefullykeeps them with you for longer.
(36:42):
Speaker 1 (36:43):
For sure.
I think you have to give yourCSMs the tools to make them
successful.
And I don't mean the software, Idon't mean the data.
I mean like the practical toolsand levers like you just
mentioned of hey, if you have adifficult customer, here are the
ways that you can help themunderstand or give them more
services.
But it comes at a cost or itcomes at this and sometimes,
(37:03):
like you said, A C S M early intheir career or someone who
hasn't been in cs, who'stransitioned into cs, they might
not necessarily know, Hey, thisis the way of the world and this
is what we have to do becauseyou're taught in customer
success.
What was client services, whatwas customer support?
What was, you know, in that way,service your client the best you
can and sometimes the best is istoo much for, for one particular
(37:27):
client.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
It is.
And as leaders we should also,there will be times when your C
S M has done the best that theycan that you also need to help
deflect some of it.
And I will say I've taken acustomer for cake and told them
that their expectations were fartoo high.
,
Speaker 1 (37:41):
That's a great way of putting it.
Let's have some cake.
But also fyi, you're a littlebit difficult,
Speaker 2 (37:48):
You're not gonna like what I say, but here's some
sugar.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
I love that.
I love that.
Okay, before we get way too offtopic here about cake and taking
customers out, I wanna talk alittle bit more about proving
value of customer success intough times.
We are obviously experiencing arecession like we talked about
and we already talked aboutproving value when times are
good, which is the ideal, it'sthe perfect scenario and I think
we should always aim for that.
(38:12):
But people listening today mighthave other, you know, tough
times ahead of them and they'reprobably proving value
internally to their customers,to their board, to their
investors.
What are some of your tips oryou know, what are some of your
experiences around proving valuewhen CS isn't having the best of
times?
Speaker 2 (38:30):
First off, good on you for proving value.
Doesn't matter when you startgreat.
That you start just whatever youdo, don't stop, keep
doing it.
Cause things will get good andyou'll be like, oh, things are
fine.
Uh, don't stop at that point.
So good that you're starting.
I think with anything related tothis, it always comes back to
prioritization.
That's like the, the magicphrase in, uh, customer land.
(38:52):
You can't do everything you wantto do.
Hmm.
If you try, your results will bemediocre.
As a leader, you're going tohave to be really brave and put
your money where your mouth isand basically take an educated
guess on where you think you candrive value and where you're
just gonna take a potentialchurn risk.
(39:14):
Hmm.
And if you are brave enough todo that, you can prove out the
value.
Because you can say we have putour resources in bucket A and B
and C, we are still supporting,but in a lower way, here's the
retention or the growth.
Look at the retention and growthin A and B and the amount of
resources, dollars, pounds thatyou've put towards it.
(39:37):
We need to do more of that.
Here's what we need to do inorder to, to drive it even more.
I will say it's scary because ifyou make the wrong call, which
is always possible, there's apotential that you might not be
at the organization long term,but if you go for trying to
service everyone, your resultsare gonna be mediocre.
So the likelihood is that youend up having a similar result
(39:58):
anyway.
Mm-hmm.
So I think there's actually morevalue in being brave, making a
call, putting a stake in theground, delivering where you
believe you can deliver, andusing that as a basis for
proving out the value.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Amazing prioritization is key I think.
And I think it especially is acustomer success leader.
We are told to do more and moreand more and take more and more
under our remit.
But you've gotta really provevalue and you've gotta show
where your strengths lie.
And at your organization thatmight be on the renewals, that
might be on, you know, productadoption, that might be on
(40:33):
customer advocacy, whatever thatis.
There's CS is a long game andthere's a lot of time that we
need to to spend on things.
But prioritizing tasks,projects, what your customers
need is, is critical.
Are there any other tacticaltips that you have for customer
success?
Um, in order to be, I guessrecession proof or get into this
(40:53):
recession on the right foot,
Speaker 2 (40:55):
We ask our customer facing people to set
expectations and you as a leaderneed to set expectations with
your own leadership team.
That means like if you call ityour exec team, senior
management team, whatever youcall it, of what you will and
won't be able to provide, yourcomment of CS is always being
asked to do more.
Unfortunately, your role asleader is to basically say, well
(41:19):
we can do that, but here's whatthe result is going to be and
it's probably gonna be bad andpush back.
Uh, if you're not doing that,how dare you ask your frontline
to do it because they have lessexperience than you probably
from a, you know, year'sperspective.
So now that I've harped on thatother tactical tips to be
reception proof, this is yourtime to be creative.
(41:40):
So look at, uh, what you candeliver from a digital
perspective versus using people.
People are smart.
Use them for things thatactually require their brain so
that you're getting maximumvalue from your your
individuals.
And that's probably moreinteresting to your individuals
too, rather than doing somethingthat can be automated.
I also think that there's anopportunity to look at things
(42:01):
you don't need to deliver toyour customers.
What are you doing that has justbeen done year after year after
year doesn't actually drivevalue that you can just cut out
.
Um, there might be one or twoclients that have a feeling
about that, but if they are notin your ideal customer profile
fit, it's okay.
.
(42:22):
We, we will listen to them,consider it and then just not do
it anyway.
,
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Amazing, amazing.
So many tips, so many tricks.
I loved our conversation.
I think we could keep talkingabout how to be I guess a
tactical or a leader of today in, in today's situation that we
find ourselves.
I don't even know what to say.
Like you said recession.
I, I'm not used to saying it.
It's, it's weird to say.
But we keep going on and on.
Thank you Jen for sharing your,your insights.
(42:50):
But before we wrap up today, I'mgoing to go into our quickfire
questions where I challengeevery single one of my guests to
try to answer the next questionsin a sentence or less.
Not very many have succeeded,but we'll see how you do.
Are you ready for quickfirequestions?
Speaker 2 (43:04):
I think I am.
Let's give it a go.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
Let's do it.
First question is, what do youthink is next for the CS
industry
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Other than an emphasis on digital cs?
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
.
Well I like that too.
I do like the the unknown.
Um, the next question is, whatis your favorite app that you
cannot live without either onyour phone or your
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Laptop?
Google Photos.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
That's the first time I've heard
Speaker 2 (43:27):
That.
I just don't have an affinityfor social media and I live
abroad, so I wanted to be ableto share the experience with
family and friends.
Google Photos allows me to dothat without necessarily needing
to share things with the broadercommunity.
And I also realize I have a sonand he's almost four 8,000
photos of him.
So that just tells you how manyphotos I take of not just him,
(43:48):
but like life in general.
Everything
Speaker 1 (43:50):
.
I feel like I should takesnippets of this podcast and
send it to the apps or productswe talk about because I feel
like they're great clientsuccess stories.
Cause I think some people are sopassionate about the app they
cannot live without.
So I love that answer.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
I mean, Google got me a paid for extra storage.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
.
Awesome.
And what is your favorite SAStool as a c s professional?
Speaker 2 (44:15):
I should probably say our CRM system, but I'm going to
say Slack.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Yeah.
Okay.
Fair enough.
And next question is, what sortof compensation should a CSM
get?
Should it be a base salary or abase salary with a commission
variable?
Speaker 2 (44:29):
Anyone who tells you it should should be one or the
other is incorrect.
It depends on your business andthe stage you're at and how you
need to maximize that retention.
Then you should choose the onethat's most appropriate for your
business and reevaluate it everycouple of years.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
I love that answer as well.
And the final question before wewrap up for today is, what is
your favorite part of customersuccess or being a C S
Speaker 2 (44:52):
M that you get to dabble in little bits of
everything.
I love the fact that I get to docontract negotiations and talk
to the product and lobby for theroadmap and talk to the CTO
about the fact that we need tolook at infrastructure costs and
talk to the C F O about where wecan tweak the budget and talk to
sales about what prospects theywant and how they can close that
(45:13):
deal faster.
I just, I love the fact that weget to do little bits of
everything.
It's super fun.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
Amazing.
Amazing.
Thank you so much, Jen, for allyour insights, all your input.
I know that there's so manypieces of this podcast I'm
taking away, but if there areany other questions from our
listeners, where's the bestplace to find you?
Speaker 2 (45:32):
LinkedIn, the one social app I really use.
.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
I love it.
Well, thank you so much Shannon,really appreciate your
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Time.
Oh, this is wonderful.
Thank you so much Anika.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
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 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.
Also, if you have any topicsthat you would like me to
discuss in the future or youwould like to be a guest on the
(46:04):
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 Zub and welcome
back to the next episode of theCustomer Success Channel
podcast, brought to you by PlanHat, the Modern Customer
platform.
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 a c s
organization.
Today I am chatting withJennifer York, a true powerhouse
leader in customer success.
She has a passion for scalinghigh growth tech businesses with
a focus on international marketsand the post sales environment.
(00:47):
She is an experienced leaderdriving revenue growth through
sales, customer engagement, andbusiness development.
She has served as a leader and aCS professional at companies
like HubSpot, Hootsuite Box andBazaar Boys, and is currently
the Chief Customer Officer atAmetria, where she leads the
post sales organization.
Ametria has seen tremendousgrowth and success in the post
(01:09):
pandemic world that we findourselves in.
But with the recession looming,there are many things a CS
leader has to consider in orderto ensure customer success is
truly recession proof.
Today we will be chatting withJen about how to ensure the
success of your customer successdepartment during a recession.
Let's chat with Jen.
Welcome Jen, to the podcast.
(01:30):
I am so, so very excited to haveyou here with us.
I know you really, really well.
But for our listeners, can youplease tell them a little bit
more about yourself, your careerso far, and what you've been
doing in customer success?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, happy to and very excited to be here.
As you said, I'm Jen York.
I am currently Chief CustomerOfficer at ametria, which is a
customer data experienceplatform.
That sounds like a whole load ofjargon, but for people that are
interested, uh, what we do is webasically power the
communications that you wouldget from retailers.
So if you've ever shocked withthe likes of Hotel Shakka Lot or
(02:08):
Steve Madden or Brooklinen or avariety of other different
retailers and you've ever gottena message, an email, sms, push
on social at the right time,we're the company that helps
power that.
So you wouldn't know us, but youwould know of us through those
retailers.
So background for me, I was bornand raised in Canada, did all my
(02:29):
schooling there, and thenstarted my customer success
journey, uh, actually in theStates.
So I ended up being the first CS M for HubSpot way, way back in
the day because I am now an old,uh, experience person.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
We could let you run with that
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Then after a couple of years,uh, my now husband and I decided
we wanted to have, uh, anexperience abroad and so we
moved over to the UK parted wayswith HubSpot, very amicably.
They, they weren't yet, uh,internationally located and I
didn't wanna work remotely atthat time and help launched
Hootsuite, which is Social MediaEnterprise software, their uh,
(03:09):
first international office andgrow out the International CS
organization.
Then had the opportunity to moveover to Box, which is enterprise
content management and wasresponsible for their enterprise
clientele.
And when I talk enterprise, Imean one of our clients had
120,000 user globally, you know,multimillion dollar contracts
(03:30):
with the likes of AstraZenecaand then got to take on the long
tails.
So we went from 400 incrediblycomplex clients to having 11,000
clients that we needed toprovide great experience for.
And so you had multimilliondollar contracts down to Hey,
you're paying us a thousanddollars a year.
Then had the chance to move toBazaar Voice to run their entire
(03:51):
European, uh, customer successorganization and took back on
the uh, revenue componentbecause at Box it was separate
and that was a ton of fun.
And that sort of started myretail career.
And then I moved to ametria,which is an organization that
I'd known of for years.
I'd met the C E O back when Iwas working at Box, they were
(04:14):
seven gentlemen working in abasement.
I thought they had a really coolidea and I just the vibe.
Uh, and we stayed in touch andeventually one of the founders
who was doing the CS role waslooking to do something
different.
He always described himself as aship builder, not a ship sailor.
And so he didn't feel likesailing.
He wanted to do some buildingand did it in another area of
(04:35):
the business.
And so the role opened up.
We kept in touch, I interviewedand got it and here I am
Speaker 1 (04:41):
That's amazing.
Oh my gosh.
So many tidbits that we're gonnajump into more in our
conversation around that.
But you've been at some greatlogos, like you said, HubSpot
Box, Hootsuite all early days bythe sounds of it.
But still we're able to reallygrow out customer success at all
those organizations.
And now you are cheap customerofficer at ametria, like you
mentioned.
(05:01):
It's a coveted title that Ithink a lot of CS leaders want
to have.
And I think not every businesshas C C O yet or is mm-hmm
aspiring to be.
What would you say contributedto you landing the C C O title
and role And any tips for any ofour leaders that are listening?
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Some of it truthfully is just the luck of being in the
right place at the right time.
So when I started in cs, CSMwasn't really a huge title.
It was sort of Salesforce thathad it.
And part of the reason whyHubSpot brought it in was
actually because the founderreally appreciated the work that
Salesforce was doing.
(05:43):
And so chief customer officer,it wasn't a role.
Everything sort of rolled up tosales or it was rolling up to
some sort of operation role atthe time.
Um, you may have found a a fewCCOs, but it wasn't something
that everyone would talk aboutit.
It was sort of a, ooh, this isvery different.
So I say that only to let peoplewho are interested in C C O keep
(06:04):
in mind that actually if theyhave another 10, 15, 20 years
ahead of them from a careerperspective, and there might be
roles actually that don't existyet or in very early days that
they might be interested in.
And two, not feel down if you'renot heading in a certain
direction because not everythingis set in stone, which doesn't
answer your question.
But something that I wanted tohighlight, uh, to answer your
(06:26):
actual question,
a, a voice and seat at thetable.
Uh, I wanted to be able toinfluence the strategy and
things that I as an individualcontributor or first line
manager was implementing.
And so it was looking at well ofthose leaders, what skillset did
they have?
(06:46):
And so it was okay, they need tohave an understanding of the
financial metrics of a business.
They need to be able tounderstand how you create, you
know, appropriate messaging tohighlight the value that you're
bringing to customers.
Some people may call it go tomarket, you know, whatever
phrasing works for you, you needto understand how to actually
deliver to customers, et cetera,et cetera.
(07:08):
So it was looking at all thecomponents and then basically
saying, well who can I learnfrom at this business in order
to try to actually be able to dothe role either at my own, the
business I'm at or if thereisn't gonna be that opportunity,
see if I can get it somewhereelse.
That was how I was thinkingabout fast tracking it.
It was more if I can get therole at the business I'm at,
(07:29):
great cuz it's easier thantrying to learn a new place.
But if it's not gonna beavailable, for example at Box it
was three years out Hmm.
If everything worked correctlycuz we, in order to have the
right amount of people there andso I wasn't actively looking but
if something came in thatmatched what I was looking for,
I would interview for it.
And my boss and I were very openabout that.
(07:51):
I kept him informed.
That's how I got the bazaarvoice role.
It was one of those ones thatsort of came up.
So the chief customer officerole really came about because
I, over time just to get theseat at the table was picking up
those little components at eachplace I was going.
And when I was interested injoining Meria, the C E o and I
(08:13):
had a conversation, I said,look, philosophically I think
having one outlook from acustomer perspective, having
somebody who has a scene on thetable who is championing these
things and helping to direct thethe product, the experience also
positively impacts net newbusiness.
Even if you don't hire me, Ithink you should evolve the role
(08:34):
in this way.
Hmm.
And he agreed.
And so I chose a place thatagreed with that philosophy and
then it was up to me to earnthat role.
Yeah.
But at least I knew we were inagreement about that being the
end goal.
Who knew what the timeframe wasgonna be.
It was open-ended.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But that's amazing.
(08:54):
That's
Speaker 1 (08:55):
A lot of experience that you're just sharing and
that's really helpful to a lotof people that are looking for
what's next in their career.
But especially like that CCOtitle, it's not always available
at the organization that you'reat currently.
Like you said, the scope of theactual role might be very
different depending on the sizeand location of where you are or
where the business is at.
But it was amazing that your um,CEO was open to that
(09:19):
conversation and that you wereable to articulate, Hey I want a
seat at the table and this iswhy I want it because I wanna
influence change and I wannamake sure the customer is the
center of everything we aredoing.
Which is again super critical.
Especially now more than ever.
I know I say that but before weget into today's topic, which I
know is gonna be very topical, Iwanna touch on a little bit more
around your experience in NorthAmerica versus here in Europe
(09:41):
and the uk.
Um, you said you are Canadianbut you worked in the US and now
you're working here in the UKand London.
Can you give us a little bit ofa uh, I guess snapshot of the
differences of what youexperienced in North America
versus the UK when it comes tothe startup world or the CS
world that you've been in?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
I should clarify that when I was working in the
States, I was an individualcontributor.
I was not at a management level.
And so I do think my abil likethe lens that I'm looking at is
slightly different because I'veonly been a manager in the UK
cause I've been here for a longtime.
And one thing I actually reallylove about America is that they
(10:22):
dream big and they think big andit's really more of a we wanna
do this big thing and lessquestioning about the
operational aspects of well howdo you actually do it?
It's like eh, we'll figure thatout as we go.
Like this is a big thing wewanna do.
And I think that's part of whatcreates the draw to America for
a lot of people.
It's like, oh there's just thisgreat sort of aura and mentality
(10:46):
of dream big, figure out therest later and somehow you'll
end up in a good place.
And the part of Canada that I'mfrom is relatively pragmatic.
And so that was something when Ibecame a customer success
manager in the States, I had tolearn to modulate that a little
bit because I tend to be more ofokay that's a great idea but
(11:08):
here's what's realistic.
So like let's talk about thatand I got a lot of friction.
Yeah.
So I, I think with respect toworking with the states, one
thing I've always kept in mindis saying, these ideas are
amazing.
Here's what we need to do tomake that possible versus a oh
that isn't possible and here'swhy.
Mm.
Because you get a lot morebuy-in if you talk about it from
the other perspect.
(11:29):
The other perspective of like,okay, let's aim for that.
Here's what we need, how do weget that?
Yeah.
And then uh, with respect toEurope, I mean I think it is
different after the pandemicbecause before the pandemic
there was a much more of anemphasis on in-person Yeah.
Than there is now.
And so I still think we'refiguring out a little bit more
of how we drive customer valueand get time at the right
(11:52):
stakeholders in a world wherethere isn't this drive to be an
office.
And that's something that Ithink is really interesting from
a post pandemic perspective Andwith Europeans, I do think you
need to focus more on thepragmatic elements of we're
gonna do these things and here'sthe how and let's talk it
through and get the buy-in inthat way because they wanna be
(12:13):
on board with the idea and to beon board with the idea they
wanna ensure that you've thoughtit through.
And that means you need to thinkabout some of the details.
And that's typically how I findyou get a lot of buy-in for
things.
If you say what do we wanna dotogether?
Let's talk about like where thechallenges will be and recognize
that it's not a negative thing,it's actually them wanting to be
on board.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
Yeah, definitely.
Definitely.
I think you've highlighted somany things that I wanna talk
more about, but like beingAmerican myself, I was just
hearing some of the things youwere saying and you're like, I
was like yeah, that's so true.
Yep, that's definitely true.
And I completely agree that likebeing American or working in the
US ends up being larger risksare taken or you're much more
(12:53):
optimistic.
Yeah.
And now being in England and theBritish mentality is opposite,
it's almost pessimistic, notoptimistic.
And so it's really interestingto see how contrasting, you
know, startup or CS experiencesis on those two different
levels.
But funny that you mentioned alot of the things that you're
used to as a Canadian, cuz Ithink that relates back to
European way of doing businessas well.
(13:15):
The pragmatic way, like yousaid, in almost planning things
out rather than just taking theleap of faith, which is very
much how American startups or CSworld ends up taking large leaps
of faith and just doing thingsand hoping for the best rather
than planning things out.
Both have great reason behind me.
We won't go into the the theoryand and the deep thought behind
(13:35):
those things, but I do find itquite interesting the the
startup CS experiences,especially to other expats out
there that are experiencing thedifferent contrasting ways of
doing business across the pond.
So yeah, very, very interestingto highlight upon that.
But before we get into thetopic, I do wanna touch a little
bit more about Ametria and whatit is the business is doing and
(13:55):
what you've seen as growth aswell.
You came in as a, a VP of Cs nowcustomer officer, you've seen
tons of growth, which is awesomeAnd I'm now thinking in my head
all the notifications on myphone is Ometria
least in the, in the retailspace.
But what do you thinkcontributed to your growth but
also the customer success teamsgrowth?
(14:16):
Cuz I know we talked about thisbefore as well, right now
January, 2023, there are someeconomic hardships, there's some
things that businesses are goingthrough, but you guys continue
to grow, you continue to seesuccesses, small or large.
What do you think iscontributing to that?
Speaker 2 (14:31):
The organization itself?
So for context, when we startedit was uh, UK focus, so UK CS UK
client base, uh, UK supporthours.
And now our predominant marketsare UK English, speaking Europe
and the US we actually have a, ateam that's based out of New
York Al although I say quoteunquote based but you know
(14:53):
people can be anywhere in thestates.
And we now offer US-basedsupport to our US-based clients.
We have uh, US-based court hoursas well as European-based
support hours.
So from uh, business perspectivewe're now overseas and that has
been one of the fun things forus.
We also have clients in othergeographic jurisdictions, but I
(15:15):
will say it's not a strategicfocus for us.
It's more if a great customercomes to us and they like our
value proposition, we will, youknow, of course partner with
them but it's not a deliberateintention to move into the
region.
Example would be Australia, wehave a couple of clients there,
but it wasn't because wespecifically went out, it's just
they came to us and we told themwhat was available and they said
(15:38):
great.
And now they've been with us fora bunch of years, which is very
exciting.
So growth wise, what hashappened?
Well, I mean the pandemic for uswas actually hugely beneficial
because it brought digitalcommerce to the forefront.
We are doing customer experiencebut from a digital perspective
it put us in the conversationmuch more.
(16:00):
And so we saw a significantamount of growth once the
economy from the pandemic cameback during the, the initial
pandemic, everyone was sort oflike, we won't do anything cause
we wanna see what will happen.
And then when they realized theworld wasn't going to end, they
all decided to buy and that'swhen we, we had a great
experience.
And so I'm sort of noticingsimilar patterns right now and
(16:23):
so why have things been allright for us?
I think as a business and from asenior management team
perspective, we're prettyprudent with our money because
we wanna have the flexibility toput fuel to the fire and really
invest in sales when things arestrong but be able to also pull
(16:44):
back should there be some sortof something, be a pandemic or
recession or whatever it is, andnot have to dramatically change
our internal structure.
Cuz that comes with a lot ofdisruption to customers and also
to your sales motion as well,even if your sales aren't
happening to a big degree.
So with my own organization,I've always looked at it from
(17:08):
the perspective of what is thevalue that we're bringing to the
business from a financialstandpoint and how do I maximize
that without impacting theactual humans that are working
on my team?
So doing it in a way where I amlooking at it from a actual
(17:28):
reasonable workweek and thensaying like how do we maximize
the value that we're driving toclients?
And as you said, it's likelooking at, you know, digital
cs, thinking aboutprioritization of your customer
base.
If you need to be moreefficient, you can't keep doing
the same things.
So how do you try to maximizethe value overall from your
(17:51):
customer base, which usuallymeans how do you drive more
revenue for the business.
In our case we look at netretention and then looking at
how that impacts the service youoffer to each of your segments
of customers.
And so that is what has helpedus grow and not have change that
can be more challenging where itcan impact morale.
(18:13):
There is a reason why businessesdo restructuring, pause hiring,
things of that nature, but itdoes impact morale to a certain
degree and it's been nice that Ihaven't had to do that within my
organization.
Yeah,
Speaker 1 (18:25):
That's uh, a great point that you've just brought
up because we are talking aboutcustomer success during a
recession or during tough timesand how CS can be resilient,
which you bring up aninteresting point about how to
make sure the morale of yourteam stays up, which is really,
really important.
But the SAS slash CS industry isgoing through so much at the
(18:46):
moment.
Like you mentioned pandemic, wehad the great resignation or
what it was coined gained in2021 and now in 2022 we just saw
a lot of restructuring happeningand a lot of companies letting
go of people, lots of people onthe market, lots of funding
being pulled as well.
So it's a, it's a tough time outthere and that's what we're here
to talk about on today'spodcast.
(19:06):
But how have you been able tokeep your team focused on
customer success or the successof their customers essentially
during such turbulent times?
Speaker 2 (19:18):
So I, I think it's two things.
One, as a a member of the seniormanagement team, it was
partnering with thatorganization to say, well we're
going into another challengingperiod of time.
What is going to help us comeout the other side of this
stronger?
And we all were in agreementthat investing in our customers
(19:39):
was going to allow us to comeout the other side of are we
calling it a recession yet thisrecession, this, you know,
downward economic period.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
I think if you ask an economist, I think it's
officially a recession.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Okay.
So out of this recessionpositively it, it's gonna come
from our customers being with usand being ready to grow with us
and those customers beingwilling to talk to prospects who
were in a buying motion so thatthey'll buy from us.
And there was agreement acrossthe S M T, this was the C, the
cfo, F C T O, et cetera.
(20:13):
And so that meant that when wewere looking at where we needed
to be efficient from a budgetaryperspective, it was okay, we
wanna make sure that we'recontinuing to invest in r and d
cuz that benefits our customers,inevitably our prospects, but we
also need to ensure that we'redelivering to our customer base
if we, you know, reduce the teamby a certain size, that's gonna
(20:35):
negatively impact our customerbase.
And the reason that this workedwas because we were showing the
value of what we did during anup period.
Mm.
So there was agreement of it'sefficient already, it's
delivering a lot, don't mess upa good thing.
So that was sort of number oneof like getting agreement with
the people that hold the pursestrings as to where we're gonna
drive value and there wasagreement that value would be
(20:57):
driven by investing in ourcustomers.
And so from the team itselfstepping away from the s and t
component, it was working withmy management team, the, you
know, my VP of Cs, my directorof projects, my director of
support, et cetera, and listenedto them as to what their teams
needed to feel supported duringthis time because I'm not on the
(21:20):
ground, I'm not talking to themevery day.
And so I wanted to make sure toget the cover to say like look
this is the group we're stillhiring where it's necessary.
I am hiring if anyone is lookingfor a role, we have a couple
open
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Plug but I'm okay with
Speaker 2 (21:35):
That.
I mean I, I'll take greatcandidates anywhere I can find
them and listening to them as towhat is needed.
And so, you know, one of thethings that we did look at was
our compensation because we knowover the course of the last
couple years there have beenshifts in compensation and we
wanted to make sure that thegreat people we had, because
(21:57):
they are great, weren't gonna bewooed away because they were
going to get paid compensationthat's different elsewhere.
And so we actually were able todo compensation changes for
every single member of thecustomer team because we had
agreement from the s and t thatwe wanted to invest in customers
listen to my leaders that thatwas a re that was a necessary
thing and then brought therequest to the CFO F and she was
(22:19):
like, okay, like
retention like done.
So I think you need both sidesbecause without either side it
wouldn't have worked.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Yeah, I completely agree.
And like you said, proving valuewhen things are good is
something we should always befocused.
I know a lot of people arescrambling right now probably
thinking how am I gonna provevalue when you know companies
are going outta business or mycustomers are cutting costs or
you know, we're not getting thefunding we need to hire more
people.
And I think a lot of timespeople are trying to do more
(22:50):
with less at the wrong time.
And like you said, you made sureduring the uptick you were
proving value, which isextremely important.
And you already mentioned thatyou're a revenue leader as well.
You carry a revenue number thatyour uh, team is responsible for
and that the financial team orthe C F O let's say really knows
about that and knows what valueyou're proving out.
And it was almost an easy yesbut I think a lot of companies
(23:13):
right now are going to be fromtheir C F O, Hey you've gotta do
more with less.
I think that is a theme of 2023,which is, you know it, I don't
think it's too different from2020, like you were saying, what
happened in the early days, thepandemic, we were also forced to
do more with less.
And I think that it'll continueto be a theme this year, but
it's the first time CS hasprobably been very strongly
(23:35):
tasked with this because we'renow revenue holding, we're now
growing and building valuablerelationships with our
customers.
But how are you doing more withless right now with your team
and um, you didn't do anyrestructuring or anything but
you did give a compensation bumpwhich is great to hear, but I'm
sure there's a lot more thingsyou guys are looking at
(23:56):
internally to be I guessprepared for what, what the
turbulent times ahead mightbring.
What are you guys doing toprepare for that?
Speaker 2 (24:03):
We've definitely made changes in how we are are
directly servicing.
So from a a CS perspective, wehave made changes specifically
to our segmentation.
We've always had segments andthere has been slight
differentiation in how weservice those segments but
nothing dramatic.
And so, uh, one of the thingsthat we've been very deliberate
(24:25):
about and I wanna give allcredit to my VP C s and uh, his
manager because I basically saidlook, we need to be able to do,
you know, drive the sort amountretention guidepost, guideposts.
And they came up with an awesomeidea and and have implemented
it.
Uh, we have what we call ourideal customer profile where if
we were going to go out, cuzwe've been in business for 10,
(24:45):
almost 11 years, if we weregonna go out today and get a
customer, here's where we bestfit, here's where we see the
most success, here's where wesee the most longevity, here's
where we know we can drive themaximum amount of value.
And so of our customer base, wewanna make sure that we are
giving them the best experiencepossible because we know that
growth is driven by thoseindividuals and future growth is
(25:08):
gonna be driven by thoseindividuals.
And it was basically, hey team,we need to be structured in a
way to be able to service thesepeople more and here's what that
looks like.
And then we had uh, what weconsider our growth segment and
this is a group of individualswho I call our I CCP of
yesterday year who are fantasticcustomers.
They get good growth from us,it's just not as big as our uh,
(25:31):
what we call our ideal customerprofile.
And it was let's keep servicingthem the same way today as we
did yesterday and what thatlooks like.
And then it was okay here's agroup of individuals who, you
know, when we started 11 yearsago, we were a perfect fit.
We've all evolved since then.
And so if they were going tolook for someone today, the
likelihood is they shouldn'tpick us and that's not a bad
(25:52):
thing because we have changed.
Um, but we wanna make sure thatthey are supported for as long
as they wanna stay with us.
And we looked at more of adigital led and one to many
support team-based support forthat organization so that they
could get the support that theyneed.
But it's a little more customerled as opposed to us driving it
(26:14):
because we know that growthdoesn't come from them.
But we also don't want them allto leave today.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Yeah definitely
Speaker 2 (26:21):
And so that is something thatwe've done and there was not a
restructure but a change in sortof portfolios and associated uh,
approach for the CS team in andof itself.
And the leaders across myorganization in the professional
services and also our supportorganization have also ensured
(26:43):
that they have an understandingof the different segmentation so
that if something comes in fromone of our preeminent customers
it gets priority and that alsocarries through to our
engineering organization and ourproduct organization.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Amazing, amazing.
I think segmentation is supercritical, especially in any, in
any case but especially nowsegmentation really helps us
understand which customers toprioritize.
Especially when you're eitherstrapped for resource or you're
really looking at doing morewith less or you're trying to
figure out how do you serviceall these customers when you
might not be hiring as much asyou would hope to in in certain
(27:19):
economic climates.
Um, you mentioned threedifferent segments, which I
think is pretty typical.
Probably the, what we know isenterprise mid-market and the
SMB or long tail.
How did you guys go aboutprioritizing which customers
fell into each one of thosesegments that you just mentioned
Speaker 2 (27:34):
As an organization?
Since I started from actually aholistic S M T perspective, so
our go-to-market organizationplus also the customer org,
we've reviewed yearly all thedata we have on growth over the
years cuz again we're 11 so wehave a lot of data to be able to
pull from.
And so we've been able to haveone of the members of our our
data science organization lookthrough it and actually identify
(27:57):
where the best segments are andand what the actual parameters
were for those customer bases.
And so we then use that inter goto market strategy to do
targeted marketing and viceversa.
We looked at that from aretention standpoint and we made
a few augmentations to thecustomer side of things, but
we're pretty closely aligned andthat's been a whole company
initiative.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Yeah, that makes complete sense And I think the
data looking cross-functionallyas well as critical when you're
looking at segmentation you haveto hear out what like the whole
go-to market sales, marketing CShas to say, but I also think
it's important to have productin there as well cuz product
might be building for yourenterprise or your mid-market
more than your s and b or theother way around.
A lot of co product teams buildfor self-service as well.
(28:40):
And I think you have to have aholistic view across multiple
departments to understand whereyour I C P really lies as well.
But uh, I I do love that youguys took so much data cause I
think that's critical and noteveryone has that data, but it's
important that you guys tappedinto that.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Yeah, it's whatever data you have, everybody has
something unless you areliterally starting from pure
scratch and you're the firstperson
data
Speaker 1 (29:04):
And I think it's a matter ofgetting into the data that you
need, which can be a wholenother podcast.
We can talk about CS data forsure for probably days.
But
or especially now probably csbecause I think revenue should
live in customer success aswell, but a lot of businesses
are looking for new avenues ofrevenue and I think that's
(29:27):
something you have to beextremely creative with when you
are in customer success andespecially during a downturn.
What are your thoughts foreither paid for CS or have you
done any sort of pricingincrease or pricing change for
your customers?
How are you kind of thinkingabout that when it comes to new
revenue within your existingcustomer base?
Speaker 2 (29:47):
So this is another one of, there's multiple answers
to it and actually it's greattiming to talk about because
from an organizationperspective, and I mean all of
Ametria, we've gone throughpricing and packaging over the
course of Q4 and in q1 we're nowlooking at how do we
operationalize that as a part ofit.
We are actually looking atadditives to the product that we
(30:11):
have.
One of the additives is from apurely product perspective and
we're going to be looking at,you know, what we have come up
with, how does that actuallyplay in the market?
Are people interested?
Do we need to make tweaks andthen we're going to go and build
that and that will be apotential revenue stream.
And then the other one actuallyis, uh, more services led.
(30:31):
So something within the, theinfluence of my own organization
and hearing from a lot of ourcustomers over the course of
last year, you know, I'm beingasked to do more with less, I
have less people I need to dothese things.
Traditionally the answer is goto an agency or hire someone.
They don't have the ability tohire somebody because you know,
roles are being paused and goingto an agency is just a lot of
(30:54):
effort.
They're already working with us.
So we're looking at, we've puttogether a package that we think
will be of interest because ofthe feedback we've gotten in
EBRs and client calls and ourclient dinners.
And again, over the course ofq1, what we're basically going
to do is bring that to ourcustomers and say any interest.
And so if they do buy that, thenwhat we have from a, we'll be
(31:19):
able to budget it associatedwith, okay, we need this many
clients to do it, that's aheadcount sold, there's a
certain amount of margin on it.
So that's something that will beinteresting to see what the
outcome is over the course ofthis quarter, how much we need
to tweak because I do suspectthere will be tweaking.
There always is when you have anidea and then you bring it back
for feedback.
(31:40):
So time will tell with respectto the product as it is today,
we haven't raised the pricing onit.
What we have looked at is howcan we be more efficient from an
infrastructure standpoint.
And so this is where as aleader, I think there's benefit
to talking to your C T ounderstanding where the costs
from an infrastructurestandpoint to deliver the
(32:01):
product you have to customerswhere there are a lot of costs
and where actually you could cutcosts without a negative impact.
Uh, an example of our customerbase is that we have customers
that actually store, you know,we've had customers since the
beginning, so 11 years worth ofdata.
Well if somebody is doingcustomer marketing, they look
back maybe two or three years.
(32:22):
So why are we storing 10 yearsworth of data?
It literally just costs us a lotof money and there's no benefit
to anyone.
And so with our new customerscoming in, we're saying to them,
you know, we store X amount ofyears of data.
If you want more, no problem,you can can pay for it.
But that is helping to stem someof the infrastructure costs.
(32:42):
So that's another thing that youcan do if you have good
partnership with your C T O.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Yeah, that's amazing.
I think that finding thoselittle avenues or creative ways
of generating revenue, whetherit's, you know, working with
your C T O or infrastructureteam to fi figure out ways to
charge for, you know, overheadcosts basically.
Or if it's, again, reevaluatingyour segments and charging for
customer success depending onthe level of service your
(33:07):
customer is experiencing orwants to experience.
I think those are great ways tokind of test it out.
I know there's a lot ofdifferent people who are
trialing paid for cs, pat Felanat GoCardless, I had him on the
podcast, he's, he's doingsimilar things as well.
But I think it's something thatI think CS leaders have to be
considerate of.
I think we have to be therevenue leaders that we so want
(33:28):
to be, and having that seat atthe table, meaning you're
looking at the overall businessfinancials and you definitely
need to be considerate of thefact that your customer base can
generate more revenue for yourbusiness if done correctly and
thoughtfully and mindfully andmaking sure you have those
strong partnerships in place.
But I, I do think it's, it'scritical for us to start
thinking along those lines.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
I think it's an interesting one because I
remember when I was a CSM andpeople would say, oh, paying for
cs, I was like, ugh, never.
I will never do that.
I
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Know I be back to, I would, I would never, I'd be
like, oh my gosh, it needs to bein cost of goods sold.
Like, but I think the majororganizations always do it
anyways.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Well, I'm in a court controversy.
I still think I hold the samephilosophy and I don't think
that this is charging for csbecause we offer, as a part of,
you know, the overall cost ofgoods sold, uh, commissioner
amount of Cs that will ensurethat the typical ICP customer,
in our case, the ideal customerprofile will, will get a
(34:26):
beneficial outcome.
They'll, they'll drive enoughvalue that they will grow with
us.
There are customers who justwant more stuff.
They don't need it
fine and we can provide that.
But to me that's sort of like anadditive service.
It isn't the customer successpart because you don't need it
to be, to be successful.
You, you just want it.
(34:47):
Yeah, it's sort of the same oflike you're on a plane and you
have an economy seat.
Well that gets you from point Ato point B, but some people want
business class.
Yeah,
Speaker 1 (34:54):
No, I completely agree.
I think I would, I I agree withyou on that a hundred percent
yes.
Yes.
Shouldn't be like charged for aflatout.
I think you need to providecustomer success in order to see
success with the product, thelongevity of client
relationships and, and buildingout that advocacy that you want
outta your client base.
But I agree, customers sometimeswant way more than what we
factor in to cost of goods sold.
(35:16):
And that's really hard toservice when you have 10 CSMs
that are trying to handle allthese things, but then suddenly
there's like these one customerthat's like, but I want all your
time all week instead of, youknow, servicing all the
customers.
So I completely agree on that,that if you want more, you, you
should be willing to pay for it.
And if you are, then great, wecan provide that for you.
(35:36):
Add additive service.
I completely agree.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
I think it also gives your, your CSMs your frontline
protection.
Like it's incredibly difficultif you think about it like CSMs
are typically 3, 5, 7 years intotheir career experience.
Doesn't mean all I know, I knowcareer CSMs, but traditionally
it's, it's those that don'thave, you know, double digits of
(36:01):
experience.
And we're asking them to setexpectations with a client who
is challenged being hounded toget their numbers and all they
can say is, well, I can'tservice you more.
Or we're asking the CSMs to workevenings and weekends if we give
them the opportunity to say, Heylook, this is what we're able to
do.
I know you want this, we can doit.
(36:21):
There's a value associated.
At least it sort of gives themsomething to say, you know, you
want these things, it's morethan you should be getting So
that the other person perhapsgets a bit of perspective
definitely as to why they'rebeing told.
No, I think also helps protectthe CSMs to a certain degree as
well, which in turn hopefullykeeps them with you for longer.
(36:42):
Speaker 1 (36:43):
For sure.
I think you have to give yourCSMs the tools to make them
successful.
And I don't mean the software, Idon't mean the data.
I mean like the practical toolsand levers like you just
mentioned of hey, if you have adifficult customer, here are the
ways that you can help themunderstand or give them more
services.
But it comes at a cost or itcomes at this and sometimes,
(37:03):
like you said, A C S M early intheir career or someone who
hasn't been in cs, who'stransitioned into cs, they might
not necessarily know, Hey, thisis the way of the world and this
is what we have to do becauseyou're taught in customer
success.
What was client services, whatwas customer support?
What was, you know, in that way,service your client the best you
can and sometimes the best is istoo much for, for one particular
(37:27):
client.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
It is.
And as leaders we should also,there will be times when your C
S M has done the best that theycan that you also need to help
deflect some of it.
And I will say I've taken acustomer for cake and told them
that their expectations were fartoo high.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
That's a great way of putting it.
Let's have some cake.
But also fyi, you're a littlebit difficult
Speaker 2 (37:48):
You're not gonna like what I say, but here's some
sugar
Speaker 1 (37:51):
I love that.
I love that.
Okay, before we get way too offtopic here about cake and taking
customers out, I wanna talk alittle bit more about proving
value of customer success intough times.
We are obviously experiencing arecession like we talked about
and we already talked aboutproving value when times are
good, which is the ideal, it'sthe perfect scenario and I think
we should always aim for that.
(38:12):
But people listening today mighthave other, you know, tough
times ahead of them and they'reprobably proving value
internally to their customers,to their board, to their
investors.
What are some of your tips oryou know, what are some of your
experiences around proving valuewhen CS isn't having the best of
times?
Speaker 2 (38:30):
First off, good on you for proving value.
Doesn't matter when you startgreat.
That you start just whatever youdo, don't stop
doing it.
Cause things will get good andyou'll be like, oh, things are
fine.
Uh, don't stop at that point.
So good that you're starting.
I think with anything related tothis, it always comes back to
prioritization.
That's like the, the magicphrase in, uh, customer land.
(38:52):
You can't do everything you wantto do.
Hmm.
If you try, your results will bemediocre.
As a leader, you're going tohave to be really brave and put
your money where your mouth isand basically take an educated
guess on where you think you candrive value and where you're
just gonna take a potentialchurn risk.
(39:14):
Hmm.
And if you are brave enough todo that, you can prove out the
value.
Because you can say we have putour resources in bucket A and B
and C, we are still supporting,but in a lower way, here's the
retention or the growth.
Look at the retention and growthin A and B and the amount of
resources, dollars, pounds thatyou've put towards it.
(39:37):
We need to do more of that.
Here's what we need to do inorder to, to drive it even more.
I will say it's scary because ifyou make the wrong call, which
is always possible, there's apotential that you might not be
at the organization long term,but if you go for trying to
service everyone, your resultsare gonna be mediocre.
So the likelihood is that youend up having a similar result
(39:58):
anyway.
Mm-hmm.
So I think there's actually morevalue in being brave, making a
call, putting a stake in theground, delivering where you
believe you can deliver, andusing that as a basis for
proving out the value.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Amazing prioritization is key I think.
And I think it especially is acustomer success leader.
We are told to do more and moreand more and take more and more
under our remit.
But you've gotta really provevalue and you've gotta show
where your strengths lie.
And at your organization thatmight be on the renewals, that
might be on, you know, productadoption, that might be on
(40:33):
customer advocacy, whatever thatis.
There's CS is a long game andthere's a lot of time that we
need to to spend on things.
But prioritizing tasks,projects, what your customers
need is, is critical.
Are there any other tacticaltips that you have for customer
success?
Um, in order to be, I guessrecession proof or get into this
(40:53):
recession on the right foot,
Speaker 2 (40:55):
We ask our customer facing people to set
expectations and you as a leaderneed to set expectations with
your own leadership team.
That means like if you call ityour exec team, senior
management team, whatever youcall it, of what you will and
won't be able to provide, yourcomment of CS is always being
asked to do more.
Unfortunately, your role asleader is to basically say, well
(41:19):
we can do that, but here's whatthe result is going to be and
it's probably gonna be bad andpush back.
Uh, if you're not doing that,how dare you ask your frontline
to do it because they have lessexperience than you probably
from a, you know, year'sperspective.
So now that I've harped on thatother tactical tips to be
reception proof, this is yourtime to be creative.
(41:40):
So look at, uh, what you candeliver from a digital
perspective versus using people.
People are smart.
Use them for things thatactually require their brain so
that you're getting maximumvalue from your your
individuals.
And that's probably moreinteresting to your individuals
too, rather than doing somethingthat can be automated.
I also think that there's anopportunity to look at things
(42:01):
you don't need to deliver toyour customers.
What are you doing that has justbeen done year after year after
year doesn't actually drivevalue that you can just cut out
Um, there might be one or twoclients that have a feeling
about that, but if they are notin your ideal customer profile
fit, it's okay.
(42:22):
We, we will listen to them,consider it and then just not do
it anyway.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Amazing, amazing.
So many tips, so many tricks.
I loved our conversation.
I think we could keep talkingabout how to be I guess a
tactical or a leader of today in, in today's situation that we
find ourselves.
I don't even know what to say.
Like you said recession.
I, I'm not used to saying it.
It's, it's weird to say.
But we keep going on and on.
Thank you Jen for sharing your,your insights.
(42:50):
But before we wrap up today, I'mgoing to go into our quickfire
questions where I challengeevery single one of my guests to
try to answer the next questionsin a sentence or less.
Not very many have succeeded,but we'll see how you do.
Are you ready for quickfirequestions?
Speaker 2 (43:04):
I think I am.
Let's give it a go.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
Let's do it.
First question is, what do youthink is next for the CS
industry
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Other than an emphasis on digital cs?
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Well I like that too.
I do like the the unknown.
Um, the next question is, whatis your favorite app that you
cannot live without either onyour phone or your
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Laptop?
Google Photos.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
That's the first time I've heard
Speaker 2 (43:27):
That.
I just don't have an affinityfor social media and I live
abroad, so I wanted to be ableto share the experience with
family and friends.
Google Photos allows me to dothat without necessarily needing
to share things with the broadercommunity.
And I also realize I have a sonand he's almost four 8,000
photos of him.
So that just tells you how manyphotos I take of not just him,
(43:48):
but like life in general.
Everything
Speaker 1 (43:50):
I feel like I should takesnippets of this podcast and
send it to the apps or productswe talk about because I feel
like they're great clientsuccess stories.
Cause I think some people are sopassionate about the app they
cannot live without.
So I love that answer.
Speaker 2 (44:04):
I mean, Google got me a paid for extra storage.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Awesome.
And what is your favorite SAStool as a c s professional?
Speaker 2 (44:15):
I should probably say our CRM system, but I'm going to
say Slack
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Yeah.
Okay.
Fair enough.
And next question is, what sortof compensation should a CSM
get?
Should it be a base salary or abase salary with a commission
variable?
Speaker 2 (44:29):
Anyone who tells you it should should be one or the
other is incorrect.
It depends on your business andthe stage you're at and how you
need to maximize that retention.
Then you should choose the onethat's most appropriate for your
business and reevaluate it everycouple of years.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
I love that answer as well.
And the final question before wewrap up for today is, what is
your favorite part of customersuccess or being a C S
Speaker 2 (44:52):
M that you get to dabble in little bits of
everything.
I love the fact that I get to docontract negotiations and talk
to the product and lobby for theroadmap and talk to the CTO
about the fact that we need tolook at infrastructure costs and
talk to the C F O about where wecan tweak the budget and talk to
sales about what prospects theywant and how they can close that
(45:13):
deal faster.
I just, I love the fact that weget to do little bits of
everything.
It's super fun.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
Amazing.
Amazing.
Thank you so much, Jen, for allyour insights, all your input.
I know that there's so manypieces of this podcast I'm
taking away, but if there areany other questions from our
listeners, where's the bestplace to find you?
Speaker 2 (45:32):
LinkedIn, the one social app I really use.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
I love it.
Well, thank you so much Shannon,really appreciate your
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Time.
Oh, this is wonderful.
Thank you so much Anika.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
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 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.
Also, if you have any topicsthat you would like me to
discuss in the future or youwould like to be a guest on the
(46:04):
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.
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.