September 20, 2022 • 31 mins
In this episode, our host Anika Zubair chats with Markus Rentsch, CEO at Remark-able about how to grow customer success while focusing on customer outcomes.
Many companies talk about customer-led growth and customer-focused business plans. But what does that actually mean? For example, how do you measure customer outcomes and what is the limitation of those metrics?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello everyone.
I'm your host, Anika zer.
And welcome back to the nextepisode of the customer success
channel podcast brought to youby plan hat, 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 ACS
organization.
Today.
We are speaking to Marcus wrench, CEO at remarkable.
He's a customer successconsultant and keynote speaker.
And today we are speaking aboutcustomer outcomes.
Many companies talk aboutcustomer led growth and customer
(00:50):
focused business plans.
But what does this actuallymean?
Marcus has helped a number ofSaaS businesses create the
customer value led growthbusiness model, which is unique
approach to delivering, growing,and monetizing customer value.
Let's chat to him all about howhe is able to grow customer
success while focusing solely oncustomer outcomes.
(01:11):
Welcome Marcus to the podcast.
I'm so very excited to have youhere with us today, but before
we get into today's topic, itwould be great.
If you could tell our listenersa little bit more about
yourself, how did you kind ofend up in customer success?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah.
Thanks for invitation.
Aika yeah, I'm a customersuccess consultant, uh, running
my own company here in Austriaat the outskirts of Vienna.
How did I get into customersuccess?
You could really say it's been acoincidence.
So when I started my consultingbusiness, about five years ago,
I started on consulting in adifferent scope and set for SaaS
(01:50):
companies.
So my focus back then was calledthe company's positioning.
So you could say the top levelof customer success.
And it's been roughly two yearsago when I've come to realize
that there are so many companiesthat really struggle from
setting these customerexpectations until the point
(02:10):
where they really can deliver onthe promise to the customers.
So, and that's when I reallyyeah.
Started to get into customersuccess and learn more about it.
Yeah.
And, and finally decided, okay,that's, that's the right call.
So I into customer successconsulting.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah.
Awesome.
And you didn't originallyobviously start in customer
success.
Where did you start and whycustomer success?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Customer success has really been fascinating for me.
It's like an man.
You can always do better thatthat's, what's fascinating me
and that's, what's motivatingme.
And I think there are so manycompanies to today that really,
really could do better when itcomes to delivering on customer
value and customer experience.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Awesome.
And is that what made you startremarkable as a company?
Is that what inspired you?
What actually inspired you tostart becoming, becoming a
consultant in the customersuccess space?
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Like most people that I'm consulting.
I have a, yeah.
Corporate history day chefcontinuously faced back then was
that yeah.
I wanted to deliver the inputsto move forward, but yeah,
things didn't didn't happen theway I, I would like them to.
So I usually ended up incompanies where yeah, whether
(03:24):
the mantra was to preserve thestatus quo, even though there
will be many, many things thatyou really could improve.
So that's what I said.
Okay.
I, I want to do more.
I want to work with customersthat want to move forward and
Speaker 1 (03:38):
You mention a lot around customer value led
growth, which is what we'regonna talk about in a little bit
more detail today at some point.
But what kind of business wouldbe one that's focused on
customer value, led growth?
Cause you, you mentioned youwork with quite a few of them.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Yeah.
So basically that frameworkwould work for every company.
But my focus is on salescompanies for a single reason.
And that's because the SAbusiness model itself is built
on customer success and customervalue because it's part by
retention and only reason whycustomers would keep paying for
your product is when they becomesuccessful customer success is
(04:17):
business success.
It's more true SA than anywhereelse.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
I couldn't agree anymore.
And I think the last few yearshas really shown that the
customer success industrydoesn't need any kind of proof.
The proof is really in thepudding, as you just said, every
business that's focused on theircustomer will lead to some level
of success.
So I, I completely agree.
You mentioned that the verystart of our conversation that
you've been based in Vienna andthat's where you've, uh, started
(04:42):
up your business and yourconsultancy, why Vienna and
what's so special about thearea.
Not everyone thinks of SAS orcustomer success first when they
think of Vienna.
I think of music personally, butwhat's so unique about the
region that you're in.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
There is absolutely nothing unique.
It's simply where I live.
all my life.
So that's where I started mybusiness.
And yeah, initially I've alsoworked with Austria companies,
but in the SA space, yeah.
You quickly, um, come to an endof, because there are only a few
companies to work with.
So here the startups seen it.
It's yeah, it's really slow.
(05:18):
So it's basically, it's a mix ofthe, the mindset here and the
bureaucracy.
So, but we are really, reallyfar behind, unfortunately in, in
the startup industry and in SAsays too,
Speaker 1 (05:31):
But I'm guessing you've obviously worked with
businesses across Europe andmaybe into other parts of the,
the world, us Australia, etcetera.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yes.
That's true.
So I've quickly yeah.
Looked for, for working withcustomers outside of Austria and
yeah.
Focused on Europe.
So I have customers from, fromSweden Netlands UK.
So yeah, I think it's customersuccess.
It's, it's a global movementanyway.
So I don't even want to restrictmyself to, to working only with
(06:00):
companies in my country
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Makes sense.
We have customers all around theworld.
Why can't, why can't everybusiness do the same.
That's so true.
Customer success is somethingthat is budding and, and
growing.
But here on the podcast, we liketo talk about how customer
success has influenced growth.
And we're gonna talk about thatin more detail, but you
mentioned that your, thecompanies that come to you for
(06:22):
your services and your help,that's what they're looking for.
What's kind of the commondenominator.
What's the main reason behindthat search for customer growth?
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah.
There are basically twodifferent groups of issues for
co for my customers.
So one is the ongoing battlebetween being proactive and
reactive.
So that, that usually comes fromthe customer success teams
itself.
But for me, customer success isnot the responsibility of a
singing team, but customersuccess.
(06:51):
It's really a mindsetedoperating system for the whole
company because it takes morethan, than delivering services
to your customers.
So you also need to have a greatproduct.
You need to work with the rightcustomers.
You need to set the rightcustomer expectations.
And only if you put these thingstogether, customers will become
successful.
(07:12):
And that's, that's something you, you really often see.
So that, that the company isfocused on, on really on growth.
So they, they rush out productfeatures.
They acquire every customerpulse.
So, and in the end they reallyhave very bad economic side drug
rates and they have face allkinds of issues and they are
(07:32):
most importantly, they, they arerunning dryer funds very
quickly.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Yeah.
And I couldn't agree more aboutthe fact that you just said the
reactive to proactive.
I think that's something everybusiness struggles with, I think
you end up stemming customersuccess from a level of support
and customer success.
Like you said, needs to be acompany wide strategy.
And it's usually not, it's adesire.
(07:57):
Don't get me wrong.
I think a lot of companiesdesire to have customer success
as a company wide strategy, butwe tend to operate from the
inside out.
Like usually, like you said,reactive based on churn rather
than on net dollar retention andgrowth.
So in your opinion and yourexperience, how does a company
start to think about customeroutcomes first or, you know,
(08:21):
thinking more in the companywide strategy of success?
Speaker 2 (08:24):
So I would like to elaborate a bit more on, on what
we've talked before.
So it doesn't happen that often,unfortunately, but I really love
working with the CEO because ifthe CEO is approaching me, I
know the CEO will yeah.
Participate in, in the wholestrategy.
And that's really important.
So if the CEOs buy in,everything becomes way easier
because it's much easier to getbuyin from marketing sales and
(08:48):
product.
And
Speaker 1 (08:48):
What do you mean by buy in there?
Because I think we talk a lotabout that.
Get the CEO buy in.
How, how do you actually thenget the CEO buy in and what,
what does a CEO have to do toreally make that shift and
change?
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Yeah.
So I have said, ideally, the CEOalready has the mindset, but
lack of, of the means to executein it.
But most of time, the people whoapproach me are the VPs of
customer success or head ofcustomer success.
So when they want to become moreproactive to create the results
that will get them to buy infrom the CEO.
So it's, it's really often theproblem that, that, that the
(09:21):
leadership of the company reallycan see what's the ROI of
customer success.
And the problem that most CSteams have to really turn it
into a company-wide initiativeis that it don't really create
the results and it will get themto buy in.
So they focus on, on optimizingtheir processes, getting their
net promoter scores, sky high,et cetera, but these are not
(09:46):
business results.
So what CS teams need to, tocreate, they need to really
create business outcomes.
They need to create revenue.
They need to create the highrenewal rate.
You need to get customers toexpand and upsell.
You need to drive advocacy.
And if you have these numbersand something to, to show your
to a leadership, it's mucheasier to get the buyin.
(10:07):
You give them a taste of how thefuture could be.
If they had, you had the buyinmore resources,
Speaker 1 (10:12):
You kind of nicely just transition into what I
wanted to ask you next, allthese things, advocacy, getting
the buy in, showing the rightmetrics.
This is super key.
Like you said, for a customersuccess leader or team to bring
up to their leadership.
But how do you start to reporton customer outcome metrics to
senior leadership or to theboard?
(10:34):
Like which metrics really matterhere?
If I was, you know, a VP of CSand I was trying to make my CEO
buy into customer success as acompany wide strategy.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
So the biggest issue I've identified for customer
success teams is that they areframeworks and processes and
playbooks.
They are not based on thecustomer, but they are, they are
built from their own point ofview.
Most often it's really builtfrom the point of view of what
fits with the technology.
So we have these companies thatare obsessed about net promoter
(11:06):
scores, user activity, andhealth scores.
But here's the thing, none ofthese metrics really matters
unless they translate into realcustomer outcomes.
So if you could say everycustomer with a net promoter
score of eight or nine buys morefrom us every year, but the
truth is it's not going tohappen.
(11:28):
So high net promoter scoredoesn't even mean that customers
will renew.
And obviously renewals are upthe lowest hanging fruit when
you want to achieve growth withexpansion upsells.
And so we need to make a shiftand then rethink customer
success from the customer'spoint of view.
(11:49):
And that means our customersuccess metrics need to measure
customer outcomes.
So customers buy our product forexample, because they want to
increase their revenue or oursave time.
So we need to measure how ourproduct contributes to the goal,
because that's what customers dotoo.
(12:09):
They are not paying just for funto use our product.
So they, they will evaluate ourproduct and then measure the
ROI.
And we need to align with thecustomer on the same metrics.
And if we then can say, okay,we've helped 90% of our
customers to grow their revenueby 10% annually.
And then we measure thecorrelation between achieving
(12:33):
these outcomes and the revenueimpact.
That's when we have something toshow for.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
That's amazing.
I love hearing that that's aunique way on obviously metrics.
Like you said, normally peoplewould say, okay, our customer
health is at, you know, thispercentage, which is good or bad
or, or in between.
And then we have an NPS score ofthis.
So it means that we havehealthy, happy customers, but
it's great to align to customerbusiness goals.
(13:00):
Is there anything else that isin your experience, how you
measure on customer outcomes,cuz you were just talking about
a customer, increasing revenue.
Are there other metrics or otherways that we can make sure that
we're measuring customeroutcomes instead of just a, a
metric that satisfiesinternally?
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Yes.
We need to talk to customers.
We need to identify what theycare about.
I mean, in, in some situations,like I said before, if they're
buying a sales tool, it's quiteobvious why they bought the
product, but in other cases it'squite different.
If you're selling a, let's say alearning tool, a learning
platform, it's, it's quite, it'sway more complex because
(13:41):
customers could bite for, we areprobably hundreds of different
reasons, so different goals theywant to achieve.
But the important thing is weneed to find out to find out why
customers bought the product andwhat they're expecting of the
product.
And then we align with thecustomer on these metrics.
And
Speaker 1 (13:58):
You just mentioned something that I wanna ask as
well, a little bit more indetail.
You mentioned that there'shundreds of reasons why a
customer might purchase asoftware.
They have hundreds of reasonsfor outcomes with that software
as a CSM.
How do you narrow down thatlist?
I'm just thinking like, okay, ifa customer came for a hundred
different reasons, how do I makesure that we're focused on the
(14:19):
right outcomes?
Speaker 2 (14:21):
So ideally the customer tells you exactly why
they bought the product.
I I've brought up that examplewith the learning platform
because I had a customer in thepast that had exactly that kind
of problem.
There were so many options andthen their customers were not
able to, to nail down exactlywhy they bought the product and
what they are trying to achievewith it.
(14:42):
In that case, you need to growinto the, the consulting, uh,
consultant and talk to yourcustomer and say, okay, if you
Don don't know what, whatoutcome you want to achieve.
We have 10 of your peers workingwith us already for years.
And they cared about these fivemetrics or these five goals and
(15:02):
measured it with these fivemetrics.
So as I've said, ideally,customers are telling you
straight away what they want andwhat they care about.
But if not, you need to identifythe customer goals.
And the important part of it isto create accountability so that
(15:23):
when you have your, your QBR.
So however you call it, when youmeet with a customers, you need
to be able to say, okay, threemonths ago, six months ago, we
both agreed that this is yourgoal and that's how we are going
to measure it.
And then you discuss, okay, arewe on track or did we fall
(15:45):
behind?
Did we exceed the goals already?
So we really need to have thiswell discussion all the time.
We really need to track customervalue throughout the whole
customer life cycle.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I have two questions that are probably playing a
little bit of devil's advocatehere.
One is how do you identify goalsproactively or prescribe goals
to customers when they don'tknow, like you said, or they
don't have a clear understandingof everything the software can
do.
And how do you make sure thatthose goals are not aligned to
(16:19):
what we want, but rather whatto, what customers want?
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah.
So we, maybe we don't have tobecause if we can, yeah.
Push the customers in ourdirection, it's a great thing
for us.
So if they don't know what theywant, and if you say, okay, your
peers wanted these and thatoutcomes, do you think that
applies for you as well?
Because it's, it's obviouslygreat for us because we already
(16:43):
have the experience with 10different customers before that
wanted exactly the same thingthat we have experience with the
processes and the goals and, andthe metrics.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
I completely agree.
I think that using best practiceand case studies of other
customers that are using yoursoftware in similar ways and how
they've seen outcomes andsuccess with your software is a
great way to bring on customersthat either have too many goals
or they're just, you know,they're unclear of, of the ROI
they're trying to get with yourproduct.
(17:12):
So I completely agree with that.
The other question I had as kindof a devil's advocate moment is
what if you're not speaking tocustomers, you mentioned
speaking to your customersasking them questions, but what
if you have a product led growthcompany and you have not
hundreds, but thousands and tensof thousands of customers, how
(17:34):
do you handle customer ledoutcomes in that scenario?
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Yeah.
One important thing is youalways need to understand your
market and the audience so thatyou can narrow things down.
And the second important thingis to work with samples.
So you really need to identifythe goals and the processes, um,
from, yeah, let's say 10% ofyour audience and then apply it
(17:59):
for the rest of your customers.
So that's also something I oftenrun into these companies.
They want to, they want to scaleeverything really quickly, but
the problem is they don't, theydon't really know whether these
things, uh, work out.
So, but if you don't know, ifthe content you provide or the
services you provide leads tocustomer success, it does make
(18:21):
sense to automate these things.
So you really need to startdoing it manually the beginning
and then really scale it for thethousands of customers you've
said before, but you need to beconstantly learning about your
customers.
So you, you don't, you're notallowed to work with
assumptions.
So that's, that's something Ioften see.
(18:42):
So companies work withassumptions and then that's when
they end up doing all thefirefighting and bandaid and
quick fixing, that's really allthat kind of reactive stuff.
So because it's really theconsequence of, of guessing
wrong of doing the wrong guessyou really need to know it.
It doesn't matter if you, if youwork with small companies,
(19:03):
enterprises, high touch, lowtouch, you really need to
understand what's going on withyour customers to provide the
right services and to beeffective and efficient in the
same way.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
And you mentioned that being able to understand
your market and, and really knowkind of what your customers are
doing, is there some metrics orsomething a customer success
manager should be tracking?
Is that like number of logins isfeatures used.
Is there anything that's kind ofstandard in the industry that's
best way for a CSM to measurecustomer outcomes when they have
(19:38):
such a large scale book ofbusiness?
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Yeah.
So one interesting thing Ialways run into is I sign up for
some kind of application and theapplication asks me, okay, what
industry do we use it for?
Personal use?
Are we a company, et cetera, etcetera.
And what I don't see is that inthese applications, the vendors
actually ask what customers wantto achieve.
(20:01):
So that's something I reallyunderstand.
I mean, if you can ask me these,these useless questions for
yeah.
Statistical purposes, why can'tyou ask customers questions that
help you to understand what theyneed and where they want to go?
So my advice is to really, ifyou provide these low touch
services, you really need tostart asking your customers in
(20:26):
the application itself, but askthem smart questions, ask them
the questions you need to ask tohelp them achieve the course.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Yep.
Agreed.
I think just asking whetherthat's in a survey or in a
one-to-one conversation, askingthe question, what is it you're
hoping to look and get afterour, our software?
I hope what are you hoping toget out of?
Everything can make a bigdifference to how you're
building those goals andoutcomes.
Marcus, we have been talking alot about customer outcomes and,
(20:53):
and goals and how to achievethem, how to build them, which
is great.
But I think another thing ourlisteners can benefit is how to
actually start to build customersuccess playbooks in order to
ensure these metrics are beingmet.
Because like we talked aboutearlier, a lot of times customer
success teams will see a healthscore dip, and that's the
(21:16):
playbook that they then startworking on, which is, you know,
correcting customer health or acustomer didn't log in.
So then they have a playbook onthat as well.
How do we start to buildplaybooks that ensure customer
outcome metrics are being met?
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yeah, the problem with playbooks is the same.
As I've mentioned before, theyare really based on assumptions
and they are not really based on, on outcomes.
So the best way to createplaybooks by far is to reverse
engineer them from your bestcustomers.
If you understand how your bestcustomers became successful.
(21:54):
So if you understand theprocesses and the activities
they did and, um, the templatesthey created or whatever, and
then you, if you can thencustomize these, these
playbooks, these processes toyour other customers, you will
see a, a really, a huge shift in, in, in performance
increasement.
So, but if, if it, if that's notpossible, we really need to
(22:18):
under understand every step ofthe, of the wave.
So we need to create a customersuccess plan.
So customers there some pointthe journey now, and there is a
big gap between where they arenow and where they want to go.
And we need to understand, okay,what are the steps in between?
So what are the milestones youneed to achieve?
(22:38):
What are the problems to solvethe tasks to complete?
And most importantly, what arethe skills and knowledge
customers need to build to beable to do these things, to
complete these things?
So the real problem I have withthis playbook is they are, yeah,
they are all, they are reactiveand they're not, not
customer-centric.
I
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Can see that being a point there on the reactive, cuz
like we just said, oh, somethinghappens.
And then the playbook startsrather than focusing on the
outcomes regularly, which kindof leads to another question I
have.
Marcus is around.
How long do you think it wouldtake to achieve these metrics?
Most companies track metrics ona yearly basis.
(23:19):
We're usually looking at NRRover a year or churn that year
or renewals.
But like you said, these are notcustomer outcome metrics.
These are internal metrics forthe business.
How long does it take to reallysee a metric over time,
especially with customeroutcomes,
Speaker 2 (23:37):
The easiest metric you can create the fast impact
for is what I've said before.
It's the customer outcomes.
So if you have the customer whowants to, to grow their sales,
you can measure it every singlemonth.
And after 12 months you can say,okay, that customer grew their
sales by 20% year over year.
So that that's the easiest way.
(23:58):
So that's, that's your, yourleading indicator and the
revenue impact.
It's the selecting indicatorbecause at the end of the day,
what we want to achieve is thatcustomers stick with us and buy
more from us and, and refer us.
But all these things, you willonly get all these things if you
help customers to become overlysuccessful.
(24:19):
So really most companies did thefocus on, on their own fortune.
But if you focus on thecustomer's fortune, that's when
you will create the mostprofitable growth for your
companies, you will ever see.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
I love that focusing on customer's fortune over your
own fortune, which is reallygreat.
And I think we spend a lot oftoday's conversation talking
about customer outcomes and themetrics around customer
outcomes.
And then you know how to makethose metrics successful for a
company-wide success strategy.
But I do believe metrics aregreat.
They're super important.
(24:53):
Data is super valuable, but dataalso has limitations and metrics
are great, but also havelimitations.
So what's kind of the limitationof these customer success
metrics that we talked
Speaker 2 (25:06):
About.
So we need to understand thatdata has two parts.
So you have the what and the why.
So you, you, on one side youhave numbers and on the other
side you have the context.
So if your customer saves 20%time doing something, that's
great, but we also want tounderstand why it happens.
(25:27):
And more, more importantly, inother scenario, we want to
understand why it didn't happen.
Why did customers fail?
So, and the context is the mainingredient that is lacking in
literally all customer datatoday.
So we, we have this, what I'vementioned before the net
promoter scores, the productusage, the health scores, they
(25:50):
tell you what's going on, butthere is no context.
So there's no context that says,okay, if a customer gives you a
net promoter score of five,that's bad.
If it's six, it's better.
If it's 10, it's great.
So because there is no nostandard for, so one customer
gives you maybe a seven and youthink, Hey, okay, we are doing
(26:10):
really okay.
We could do better, but thatcustomer's not at risk.
But what we don't know is thatfor that customer, every product
they can give a higher scoreabout nine or 10 or nine, five,
let's say is a failure.
So we don't know the standardsof the customer and that's,
that's what's really makesanything different, uh,
(26:32):
difficult in customer success.
The most CSMs that don't huntfor the context, they only see
the metrics and come up withinterpretations.
So one of our favorite examplesis that so many companies think,
okay, product usage is a suresign if customers are successful
or not, but there may becustomers that log into the
(26:53):
product only once per week andcreate a ton of success because
they're highly efficient.
And on the other side, you havea customer who is literally
online day at night, but theyare not successful.
They just keep trying and tryingwithout success.
And in these scenarios, we wouldthink, okay, the customer that,
(27:14):
that is only online once a weekis the trend risk while the
other customer is a, is a surerenewal, but in reality, it's
the exact opposite.
And there are back again, we areguessing based on these, on
these numbers without anycontext, but we really need to
understand what's going on.
(27:34):
We need to know.
And to me, all this guessing andassuming in customer success, it
needs to become an OGO becauseit really creates so much
negative impact.
And that's really the reason whyso many customer success teams
are completely stuck in reactivework.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
And would you say that's kind of like your biggest
tip or your biggest takeaway inlearning from all of this when
you're speaking to companiesabout customer success and
customer outcomes.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Yeah.
That's something I promote overand over.
You need to really abandon allthat, that guessing and
assuming, and drill, starttalking to our customers and
really find out what's going on.
So you really need to, to mindthe context, you need to
understand what's going on andwhy it happens super
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Helpful.
What and why?
Super, super helpful.
Thank you so much, Marcus, forsharing so much with us today
around customer success andcustomer outcomes, very much
learned something new today.
I think our listeners did aswell, but as we wrap up, I wanna
challenge you to our quick firequestions.
So the next few questions I'mgonna ask you.
I want you to try to answer themin one sentence or less.
(28:46):
Are you ready?
Yes.
Okay.
Awesome.
First question is, what do youthink is next for the CS
industry?
Speaker 2 (28:52):
I really hope it's, it's going back to common sense
and really focusing on thecustomer again.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Awesome.
I think that that should be thebasis of our direction and, and
how we work because customer isthe first part of success.
The next question is what isyour favorite app you cannot
live without, and this could beon your phone or on your laptop?
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Yeah, that's probably LinkedIn.
I really love spending timethere writing and reading.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
awesome.
Spending way too much timethere.
I spend too much time there.
amazing.
And then the next question iswhat sort of compensation should
a CSM get?
Should it be a base salary orshould it be a base salary plus
a variable
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Base salary and a
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Variable.
Amazing.
And my last question for you iswhat is your favorite part of
customer success or being a CSM?
Speaker 2 (29:41):
That's really easy to answer.
It's celebrating wins with your
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Customers.
I love that.
I love, love, love that.
I totally agree.
I love celebrating my customer'swins.
I almost feel like they're mywins.
So thank you so much for sharingthat with us today.
Marcus really appreciate thetime.
If our listeners have anyquestions or wanna get in touch,
what's the best way to reach outto you?
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Yeah, the easiest ways to, to talk to me on
LinkedIn.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Awesome.
Thank you.
And we'll put everything down inthis show note.
Thank you again, Marcus for yourtime.
Really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Thanks for invitation.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
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
(30:36):
podcast, please feel free toreach out all my contact details
are in this show notes.
Thanks again for listening andtune in next time for more on
customer success.
Hello everyone.
I'm your host, Anika zer.
And welcome back to the nextepisode of the customer success
channel podcast brought to youby plan hat, 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 ACS
organization.
Today.
We are speaking to Marcus wrench, CEO at remarkable.
He's a customer successconsultant and keynote speaker.
And today we are speaking aboutcustomer outcomes.
Many companies talk aboutcustomer led growth and customer
(00:50):
focused business plans.
But what does this actuallymean?
Marcus has helped a number ofSaaS businesses create the
customer value led growthbusiness model, which is unique
approach to delivering, growing,and monetizing customer value.
Let's chat to him all about howhe is able to grow customer
success while focusing solely oncustomer outcomes.
(01:11):
Welcome Marcus to the podcast.
I'm so very excited to have youhere with us today, but before
we get into today's topic, itwould be great.
If you could tell our listenersa little bit more about
yourself, how did you kind ofend up in customer success?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah.
Thanks for invitation.
Aika yeah, I'm a customersuccess consultant, uh, running
my own company here in Austriaat the outskirts of Vienna.
How did I get into customersuccess?
You could really say it's been acoincidence.
So when I started my consultingbusiness, about five years ago,
I started on consulting in adifferent scope and set for SaaS
(01:50):
companies.
So my focus back then was calledthe company's positioning.
So you could say the top levelof customer success.
And it's been roughly two yearsago when I've come to realize
that there are so many companiesthat really struggle from
setting these customerexpectations until the point
(02:10):
where they really can deliver onthe promise to the customers.
So, and that's when I reallyyeah.
Started to get into customersuccess and learn more about it.
Yeah.
And, and finally decided, okay,that's, that's the right call.
So I into customer successconsulting.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah.
Awesome.
And you didn't originallyobviously start in customer
success.
Where did you start and whycustomer success?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
Customer success has really been fascinating for me.
It's like an man.
You can always do better thatthat's, what's fascinating me
and that's, what's motivatingme.
And I think there are so manycompanies to today that really,
really could do better when itcomes to delivering on customer
value and customer experience.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Awesome.
And is that what made you startremarkable as a company?
Is that what inspired you?
What actually inspired you tostart becoming, becoming a
consultant in the customersuccess space?
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Like most people that I'm consulting.
I have a, yeah.
Corporate history day chefcontinuously faced back then was
that yeah.
I wanted to deliver the inputsto move forward, but yeah,
things didn't didn't happen theway I, I would like them to.
So I usually ended up incompanies where yeah, whether
(03:24):
the mantra was to preserve thestatus quo, even though there
will be many, many things thatyou really could improve.
So that's what I said.
Okay.
I, I want to do more.
I want to work with customersthat want to move forward and
Speaker 1 (03:38):
You mention a lot around customer value led
growth, which is what we'regonna talk about in a little bit
more detail today at some point.
But what kind of business wouldbe one that's focused on
customer value, led growth?
Cause you, you mentioned youwork with quite a few of them.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Yeah.
So basically that frameworkwould work for every company.
But my focus is on salescompanies for a single reason.
And that's because the SAbusiness model itself is built
on customer success and customervalue because it's part by
retention and only reason whycustomers would keep paying for
your product is when they becomesuccessful customer success is
(04:17):
business success.
It's more true SA than anywhereelse.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
I couldn't agree anymore.
And I think the last few yearshas really shown that the
customer success industrydoesn't need any kind of proof.
The proof is really in thepudding, as you just said, every
business that's focused on theircustomer will lead to some level
of success.
So I, I completely agree.
You mentioned that the verystart of our conversation that
you've been based in Vienna andthat's where you've, uh, started
(04:42):
up your business and yourconsultancy, why Vienna and
what's so special about thearea.
Not everyone thinks of SAS orcustomer success first when they
think of Vienna.
I think of music personally, butwhat's so unique about the
region that you're in.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
There is absolutely nothing unique.
It's simply where I live.
So that's where I started mybusiness.
And yeah, initially I've alsoworked with Austria companies,
but in the SA space, yeah.
You quickly, um, come to an endof, because there are only a few
companies to work with.
So here the startups seen it.
It's yeah, it's really slow.
(05:18):
So it's basically, it's a mix ofthe, the mindset here and the
bureaucracy.
So, but we are really, reallyfar behind, unfortunately in, in
the startup industry and in SAsays too,
Speaker 1 (05:31):
But I'm guessing you've obviously worked with
businesses across Europe andmaybe into other parts of the,
the world, us Australia, etcetera.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yes.
That's true.
So I've quickly yeah.
Looked for, for working withcustomers outside of Austria and
yeah.
Focused on Europe.
So I have customers from, fromSweden Netlands UK.
So yeah, I think it's customersuccess.
It's, it's a global movementanyway.
So I don't even want to restrictmyself to, to working only with
(06:00):
companies in my country
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Makes sense.
We have customers all around theworld.
Why can't, why can't everybusiness do the same.
That's so true.
Customer success is somethingthat is budding and, and
growing.
But here on the podcast, we liketo talk about how customer
success has influenced growth.
And we're gonna talk about thatin more detail, but you
mentioned that your, thecompanies that come to you for
(06:22):
your services and your help,that's what they're looking for.
What's kind of the commondenominator.
What's the main reason behindthat search for customer growth?
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah.
There are basically twodifferent groups of issues for
co for my customers.
So one is the ongoing battlebetween being proactive and
reactive.
So that, that usually comes fromthe customer success teams
itself.
But for me, customer success isnot the responsibility of a
singing team, but customersuccess.
(06:51):
It's really a mindsetedoperating system for the whole
company because it takes morethan, than delivering services
to your customers.
So you also need to have a greatproduct.
You need to work with the rightcustomers.
You need to set the rightcustomer expectations.
And only if you put these thingstogether, customers will become
successful.
(07:12):
And that's, that's something you, you really often see.
So that, that the company isfocused on, on really on growth.
So they, they rush out productfeatures.
They acquire every customerpulse.
So, and in the end they reallyhave very bad economic side drug
rates and they have face allkinds of issues and they are
(07:32):
most importantly, they, they arerunning dryer funds very
quickly.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Yeah.
And I couldn't agree more aboutthe fact that you just said the
reactive to proactive.
I think that's something everybusiness struggles with, I think
you end up stemming customersuccess from a level of support
and customer success.
Like you said, needs to be acompany wide strategy.
And it's usually not, it's adesire.
(07:57):
Don't get me wrong.
I think a lot of companiesdesire to have customer success
as a company wide strategy, butwe tend to operate from the
inside out.
Like usually, like you said,reactive based on churn rather
than on net dollar retention andgrowth.
So in your opinion and yourexperience, how does a company
start to think about customeroutcomes first or, you know,
(08:21):
thinking more in the companywide strategy of success?
Speaker 2 (08:24):
So I would like to elaborate a bit more on, on what
we've talked before.
So it doesn't happen that often,unfortunately, but I really love
working with the CEO because ifthe CEO is approaching me, I
know the CEO will yeah.
Participate in, in the wholestrategy.
And that's really important.
So if the CEOs buy in,everything becomes way easier
because it's much easier to getbuyin from marketing sales and
(08:48):
product.
And
Speaker 1 (08:48):
What do you mean by buy in there?
Because I think we talk a lotabout that.
Get the CEO buy in.
How, how do you actually thenget the CEO buy in and what,
what does a CEO have to do toreally make that shift and
change?
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Yeah.
So I have said, ideally, the CEOalready has the mindset, but
lack of, of the means to executein it.
But most of time, the people whoapproach me are the VPs of
customer success or head ofcustomer success.
So when they want to become moreproactive to create the results
that will get them to buy infrom the CEO.
So it's, it's really often theproblem that, that, that the
(09:21):
leadership of the company reallycan see what's the ROI of
customer success.
And the problem that most CSteams have to really turn it
into a company-wide initiativeis that it don't really create
the results and it will get themto buy in.
So they focus on, on optimizingtheir processes, getting their
net promoter scores, sky high,et cetera, but these are not
(09:46):
business results.
So what CS teams need to, tocreate, they need to really
create business outcomes.
They need to create revenue.
They need to create the highrenewal rate.
You need to get customers toexpand and upsell.
You need to drive advocacy.
And if you have these numbersand something to, to show your
to a leadership, it's mucheasier to get the buyin.
(10:07):
You give them a taste of how thefuture could be.
If they had, you had the buyinmore resources,
Speaker 1 (10:12):
You kind of nicely just transition into what I
wanted to ask you next, allthese things, advocacy, getting
the buy in, showing the rightmetrics.
This is super key.
Like you said, for a customersuccess leader or team to bring
up to their leadership.
But how do you start to reporton customer outcome metrics to
senior leadership or to theboard?
(10:34):
Like which metrics really matterhere?
If I was, you know, a VP of CSand I was trying to make my CEO
buy into customer success as acompany wide strategy.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
So the biggest issue I've identified for customer
success teams is that they areframeworks and processes and
playbooks.
They are not based on thecustomer, but they are, they are
built from their own point ofview.
Most often it's really builtfrom the point of view of what
fits with the technology.
So we have these companies thatare obsessed about net promoter
(11:06):
scores, user activity, andhealth scores.
But here's the thing, none ofthese metrics really matters
unless they translate into realcustomer outcomes.
So if you could say everycustomer with a net promoter
score of eight or nine buys morefrom us every year, but the
truth is it's not going tohappen.
(11:28):
So high net promoter scoredoesn't even mean that customers
will renew.
And obviously renewals are upthe lowest hanging fruit when
you want to achieve growth withexpansion upsells.
And so we need to make a shiftand then rethink customer
success from the customer'spoint of view.
(11:49):
And that means our customersuccess metrics need to measure
customer outcomes.
So customers buy our product forexample, because they want to
increase their revenue or oursave time.
So we need to measure how ourproduct contributes to the goal,
because that's what customers dotoo.
(12:09):
They are not paying just for funto use our product.
So they, they will evaluate ourproduct and then measure the
ROI.
And we need to align with thecustomer on the same metrics.
And if we then can say, okay,we've helped 90% of our
customers to grow their revenueby 10% annually.
And then we measure thecorrelation between achieving
(12:33):
these outcomes and the revenueimpact.
That's when we have something toshow for.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
That's amazing.
I love hearing that that's aunique way on obviously metrics.
Like you said, normally peoplewould say, okay, our customer
health is at, you know, thispercentage, which is good or bad
or, or in between.
And then we have an NPS score ofthis.
So it means that we havehealthy, happy customers, but
it's great to align to customerbusiness goals.
(13:00):
Is there anything else that isin your experience, how you
measure on customer outcomes,cuz you were just talking about
a customer, increasing revenue.
Are there other metrics or otherways that we can make sure that
we're measuring customeroutcomes instead of just a, a
metric that satisfiesinternally?
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Yes.
We need to talk to customers.
We need to identify what theycare about.
I mean, in, in some situations,like I said before, if they're
buying a sales tool, it's quiteobvious why they bought the
product, but in other cases it'squite different.
If you're selling a, let's say alearning tool, a learning
platform, it's, it's quite, it'sway more complex because
(13:41):
customers could bite for, we areprobably hundreds of different
reasons, so different goals theywant to achieve.
But the important thing is weneed to find out to find out why
customers bought the product andwhat they're expecting of the
product.
And then we align with thecustomer on these metrics.
And
Speaker 1 (13:58):
You just mentioned something that I wanna ask as
well, a little bit more indetail.
You mentioned that there'shundreds of reasons why a
customer might purchase asoftware.
They have hundreds of reasonsfor outcomes with that software
as a CSM.
How do you narrow down thatlist?
I'm just thinking like, okay, ifa customer came for a hundred
different reasons, how do I makesure that we're focused on the
(14:19):
right outcomes?
Speaker 2 (14:21):
So ideally the customer tells you exactly why
they bought the product.
I I've brought up that examplewith the learning platform
because I had a customer in thepast that had exactly that kind
of problem.
There were so many options andthen their customers were not
able to, to nail down exactlywhy they bought the product and
what they are trying to achievewith it.
(14:42):
In that case, you need to growinto the, the consulting, uh,
consultant and talk to yourcustomer and say, okay, if you
Don don't know what, whatoutcome you want to achieve.
We have 10 of your peers workingwith us already for years.
And they cared about these fivemetrics or these five goals and
(15:02):
measured it with these fivemetrics.
So as I've said, ideally,customers are telling you
straight away what they want andwhat they care about.
But if not, you need to identifythe customer goals.
And the important part of it isto create accountability so that
(15:23):
when you have your, your QBR.
So however you call it, when youmeet with a customers, you need
to be able to say, okay, threemonths ago, six months ago, we
both agreed that this is yourgoal and that's how we are going
to measure it.
And then you discuss, okay, arewe on track or did we fall
(15:45):
behind?
Did we exceed the goals already?
So we really need to have thiswell discussion all the time.
We really need to track customervalue throughout the whole
customer life cycle.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I have two questions that are probably playing a
little bit of devil's advocatehere.
One is how do you identify goalsproactively or prescribe goals
to customers when they don'tknow, like you said, or they
don't have a clear understandingof everything the software can
do.
And how do you make sure thatthose goals are not aligned to
(16:19):
what we want, but rather whatto, what customers want?
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah.
So we, maybe we don't have tobecause if we can, yeah.
Push the customers in ourdirection, it's a great thing
for us.
So if they don't know what theywant, and if you say, okay, your
peers wanted these and thatoutcomes, do you think that
applies for you as well?
Because it's, it's obviouslygreat for us because we already
(16:43):
have the experience with 10different customers before that
wanted exactly the same thingthat we have experience with the
processes and the goals and, andthe metrics.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
I completely agree.
I think that using best practiceand case studies of other
customers that are using yoursoftware in similar ways and how
they've seen outcomes andsuccess with your software is a
great way to bring on customersthat either have too many goals
or they're just, you know,they're unclear of, of the ROI
they're trying to get with yourproduct.
(17:12):
So I completely agree with that.
The other question I had as kindof a devil's advocate moment is
what if you're not speaking tocustomers, you mentioned
speaking to your customersasking them questions, but what
if you have a product led growthcompany and you have not
hundreds, but thousands and tensof thousands of customers, how
(17:34):
do you handle customer ledoutcomes in that scenario?
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Yeah.
One important thing is youalways need to understand your
market and the audience so thatyou can narrow things down.
And the second important thingis to work with samples.
So you really need to identifythe goals and the processes, um,
from, yeah, let's say 10% ofyour audience and then apply it
(17:59):
for the rest of your customers.
So that's also something I oftenrun into these companies.
They want to, they want to scaleeverything really quickly, but
the problem is they don't, theydon't really know whether these
things, uh, work out.
So, but if you don't know, ifthe content you provide or the
services you provide leads tocustomer success, it does make
(18:21):
sense to automate these things.
So you really need to startdoing it manually the beginning
and then really scale it for thethousands of customers you've
said before, but you need to beconstantly learning about your
customers.
So you, you don't, you're notallowed to work with
assumptions.
So that's, that's something Ioften see.
(18:42):
So companies work withassumptions and then that's when
they end up doing all thefirefighting and bandaid and
quick fixing, that's really allthat kind of reactive stuff.
So because it's really theconsequence of, of guessing
wrong of doing the wrong guessyou really need to know it.
It doesn't matter if you, if youwork with small companies,
(19:03):
enterprises, high touch, lowtouch, you really need to
understand what's going on withyour customers to provide the
right services and to beeffective and efficient in the
same way.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
And you mentioned that being able to understand
your market and, and really knowkind of what your customers are
doing, is there some metrics orsomething a customer success
manager should be tracking?
Is that like number of logins isfeatures used.
Is there anything that's kind ofstandard in the industry that's
best way for a CSM to measurecustomer outcomes when they have
(19:38):
such a large scale book ofbusiness?
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Yeah.
So one interesting thing Ialways run into is I sign up for
some kind of application and theapplication asks me, okay, what
industry do we use it for?
Personal use?
Are we a company, et cetera, etcetera.
And what I don't see is that inthese applications, the vendors
actually ask what customers wantto achieve.
(20:01):
So that's something I reallyunderstand.
I mean, if you can ask me these,these useless questions for
yeah.
Statistical purposes, why can'tyou ask customers questions that
help you to understand what theyneed and where they want to go?
So my advice is to really, ifyou provide these low touch
services, you really need tostart asking your customers in
(20:26):
the application itself, but askthem smart questions, ask them
the questions you need to ask tohelp them achieve the course.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Yep.
Agreed.
I think just asking whetherthat's in a survey or in a
one-to-one conversation, askingthe question, what is it you're
hoping to look and get afterour, our software?
I hope what are you hoping toget out of?
Everything can make a bigdifference to how you're
building those goals andoutcomes.
Marcus, we have been talking alot about customer outcomes and,
(20:53):
and goals and how to achievethem, how to build them, which
is great.
But I think another thing ourlisteners can benefit is how to
actually start to build customersuccess playbooks in order to
ensure these metrics are beingmet.
Because like we talked aboutearlier, a lot of times customer
success teams will see a healthscore dip, and that's the
(21:16):
playbook that they then startworking on, which is, you know,
correcting customer health or acustomer didn't log in.
So then they have a playbook onthat as well.
How do we start to buildplaybooks that ensure customer
outcome metrics are being met?
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yeah, the problem with playbooks is the same.
As I've mentioned before, theyare really based on assumptions
and they are not really based on, on outcomes.
So the best way to createplaybooks by far is to reverse
engineer them from your bestcustomers.
If you understand how your bestcustomers became successful.
(21:54):
So if you understand theprocesses and the activities
they did and, um, the templatesthey created or whatever, and
then you, if you can thencustomize these, these
playbooks, these processes toyour other customers, you will
see a, a really, a huge shift in, in, in performance
increasement.
So, but if, if it, if that's notpossible, we really need to
(22:18):
under understand every step ofthe, of the wave.
So we need to create a customersuccess plan.
So customers there some pointthe journey now, and there is a
big gap between where they arenow and where they want to go.
And we need to understand, okay,what are the steps in between?
So what are the milestones youneed to achieve?
(22:38):
What are the problems to solvethe tasks to complete?
And most importantly, what arethe skills and knowledge
customers need to build to beable to do these things, to
complete these things?
So the real problem I have withthis playbook is they are, yeah,
they are all, they are reactiveand they're not, not
customer-centric.
I
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Can see that being a point there on the reactive, cuz
like we just said, oh, somethinghappens.
And then the playbook startsrather than focusing on the
outcomes regularly, which kindof leads to another question I
have.
Marcus is around.
How long do you think it wouldtake to achieve these metrics?
Most companies track metrics ona yearly basis.
(23:19):
We're usually looking at NRRover a year or churn that year
or renewals.
But like you said, these are notcustomer outcome metrics.
These are internal metrics forthe business.
How long does it take to reallysee a metric over time,
especially with customeroutcomes,
Speaker 2 (23:37):
The easiest metric you can create the fast impact
for is what I've said before.
It's the customer outcomes.
So if you have the customer whowants to, to grow their sales,
you can measure it every singlemonth.
And after 12 months you can say,okay, that customer grew their
sales by 20% year over year.
So that that's the easiest way.
(23:58):
So that's, that's your, yourleading indicator and the
revenue impact.
It's the selecting indicatorbecause at the end of the day,
what we want to achieve is thatcustomers stick with us and buy
more from us and, and refer us.
But all these things, you willonly get all these things if you
help customers to become overlysuccessful.
(24:19):
So really most companies did thefocus on, on their own fortune.
But if you focus on thecustomer's fortune, that's when
you will create the mostprofitable growth for your
companies, you will ever see.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
I love that focusing on customer's fortune over your
own fortune, which is reallygreat.
And I think we spend a lot oftoday's conversation talking
about customer outcomes and themetrics around customer
outcomes.
And then you know how to makethose metrics successful for a
company-wide success strategy.
But I do believe metrics aregreat.
They're super important.
(24:53):
Data is super valuable, but dataalso has limitations and metrics
are great, but also havelimitations.
So what's kind of the limitationof these customer success
metrics that we talked
Speaker 2 (25:06):
About.
So we need to understand thatdata has two parts.
So you have the what and the why.
So you, you, on one side youhave numbers and on the other
side you have the context.
So if your customer saves 20%time doing something, that's
great, but we also want tounderstand why it happens.
(25:27):
And more, more importantly, inother scenario, we want to
understand why it didn't happen.
Why did customers fail?
So, and the context is the mainingredient that is lacking in
literally all customer datatoday.
So we, we have this, what I'vementioned before the net
promoter scores, the productusage, the health scores, they
(25:50):
tell you what's going on, butthere is no context.
So there's no context that says,okay, if a customer gives you a
net promoter score of five,that's bad.
If it's six, it's better.
If it's 10, it's great.
So because there is no nostandard for, so one customer
gives you maybe a seven and youthink, Hey, okay, we are doing
(26:10):
really okay.
We could do better, but thatcustomer's not at risk.
But what we don't know is thatfor that customer, every product
they can give a higher scoreabout nine or 10 or nine, five,
let's say is a failure.
So we don't know the standardsof the customer and that's,
that's what's really makesanything different, uh,
(26:32):
difficult in customer success.
The most CSMs that don't huntfor the context, they only see
the metrics and come up withinterpretations.
So one of our favorite examplesis that so many companies think,
okay, product usage is a suresign if customers are successful
or not, but there may becustomers that log into the
(26:53):
product only once per week andcreate a ton of success because
they're highly efficient.
And on the other side, you havea customer who is literally
online day at night, but theyare not successful.
They just keep trying and tryingwithout success.
And in these scenarios, we wouldthink, okay, the customer that,
(27:14):
that is only online once a weekis the trend risk while the
other customer is a, is a surerenewal, but in reality, it's
the exact opposite.
And there are back again, we areguessing based on these, on
these numbers without anycontext, but we really need to
understand what's going on.
(27:34):
We need to know.
And to me, all this guessing andassuming in customer success, it
needs to become an OGO becauseit really creates so much
negative impact.
And that's really the reason whyso many customer success teams
are completely stuck in reactivework.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
And would you say that's kind of like your biggest
tip or your biggest takeaway inlearning from all of this when
you're speaking to companiesabout customer success and
customer outcomes.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Yeah.
That's something I promote overand over.
You need to really abandon allthat, that guessing and
assuming, and drill, starttalking to our customers and
really find out what's going on.
So you really need to, to mindthe context, you need to
understand what's going on andwhy it happens super
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Helpful.
What and why?
Super, super helpful.
Thank you so much, Marcus, forsharing so much with us today
around customer success andcustomer outcomes, very much
learned something new today.
I think our listeners did aswell, but as we wrap up, I wanna
challenge you to our quick firequestions.
So the next few questions I'mgonna ask you.
I want you to try to answer themin one sentence or less.
(28:46):
Are you ready?
Yes.
Okay.
Awesome.
First question is, what do youthink is next for the CS
industry?
Speaker 2 (28:52):
I really hope it's, it's going back to common sense
and really focusing on thecustomer again.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Awesome.
I think that that should be thebasis of our direction and, and
how we work because customer isthe first part of success.
The next question is what isyour favorite app you cannot
live without, and this could beon your phone or on your laptop?
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Yeah, that's probably LinkedIn.
I really love spending timethere writing and reading.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Spending way too much timethere.
I spend too much time there.
And then the next question iswhat sort of compensation should
a CSM get?
Should it be a base salary orshould it be a base salary plus
a variable
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Base salary and a
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Variable.
Amazing.
And my last question for you iswhat is your favorite part of
customer success or being a CSM?
Speaker 2 (29:41):
That's really easy to answer.
It's celebrating wins with your
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Customers.
I love that.
I love, love, love that.
I totally agree.
I love celebrating my customer'swins.
I almost feel like they're mywins.
So thank you so much for sharingthat with us today.
Marcus really appreciate thetime.
If our listeners have anyquestions or wanna get in touch,
what's the best way to reach outto you?
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Yeah, the easiest ways to, to talk to me on
LinkedIn.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Awesome.
Thank you.
And we'll put everything down inthis show note.
Thank you again, Marcus for yourtime.
Really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Thanks for invitation.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
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
(30:36):
podcast, please feel free toreach out all my contact details
are in this show notes.
Thanks again for listening andtune in next time for more on
customer success.
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