April 30, 2024 • 32 mins
As we pop the champagne on our 50th show, a heartfelt thank you is in order for every listener & guest who's joined me on this wild ride through the evolving world of digital customer interactions. It's a transformational moment for the show as we shift from focusing on 'Digital Customer Success' to encompassing the broader 'Digital Customer Experience', ensuring we capture the essence of every digital touchpoint. As such, we are changing the name of the show to 'The Digital Customer Experience Podcast'!
In this episode, I'm going through and answering some of the most frequently asked questions that I get on a regular basis, which leads to the following topics:
- 00:47 - New Podcast Name Announcement
- 06:34 - What is Digital Customer Success
- 07:38 - Digital vs. Scaled
- 09:49 - Where to start with Digital Customer Success
- 11:52 - Commonly overlooked vehicles for digital motions
- 13:13 - Building health scores without product telemetry
- 14:31 - Identifying user personas based on their activity within your resource
- 15:05 - SaaS economics and how they impact the proliferation of digital
- 18:43 - Measuring the success of digital CS
- 21:54 - Team structure for digital cs
- 26:54 - Technology recommendations
- 30:45 - Outro & Thank you!
A couple of links from the show:
- Website & Newsletter signup: https://digitalcustomersuccess.com
- Digital CS Definition Word Map: https://digitalcustomersuccess.com/digital-cs-word-map/
- DCS Tech Stack: https://digitalcustomersuccess.com/tech-stack/
- Cover Your SaaS Course by Jeff Bruensbach & Jay Nathan: https://growthcurve.io/cover-your-saas
+++++++++++++++++
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Website:
For more information about the show or to get in touch, visit DigitalCustomerSuccess.com.
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Thank you for all of your support!
The Digital Customer Success Podcast is hosted by Alex Turkovic
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey, it's episode 50.
I've got a little bit of anannouncement for you and a
different format for you forthis episode, so stay tuned,
let's go Once again.
Welcome to the Digital CustomerExperience podcast with me,
alex Turkovich.
So glad you could join us heretoday and every week as we
explore how digital can helpenhance the customer and
(00:24):
employee experience.
My goal is to share what myguests and I have learned over
the years so that you can getthe insights that you need to
evolve your own digital programs.
If you'd like more info, needto get in touch or sign up for
the weekly companion newsletterthat has additional articles and
resources in it.
Go to digitalcustomersuccesscom, for now.
Let's get started in it.
(00:47):
Go to digitalcustomersuccesscom, for now.
Let's get started.
Hello and welcome to episode 50of the Digital Customer
Experience Podcast.
It's great to have you backthis week and every week.
For those of you who've beenlistening, for all 50 accounts,
thanks so much for yourlistenership.
(01:08):
And those of you who've beenlistening, for all 50 accounts,
thanks so much for yourlistenership.
And those of you who'verecently found the show, I
appreciate you just as much.
Um, so, thank you.
Thank you for all the support.
Um, I I when I started the showabout a year ago, um, I set
myself the goal of getting to 50and then evaluating, like are
we doing the right thing?
Are we hitting the rightaudiences?
Do we have the right messaging?
(01:30):
Are we towing the line betweenstrategic and tactical,
practical advice?
And you know there's been somefine adjustment over the course
of this past year.
But, thanks to a lot of yourfeedback and input and just
response to the show, you knowI'm energized and I'm really
(01:53):
grateful to you for listeningand just being a voice and
interacting with the show,because sometimes when you put
these things out, you don'treally know how they're going to
land, and so once in a while,you get a note here and there,
and the good notes are great.
Obviously, the littleconstructive feedback here and
(02:13):
there is also great because ithelps to improve the show.
All of that to say is thatwe've gotten to a year, I've
gotten to 50 episodes.
I'm going to continue goingbecause there's so much more to
talk about and digital keepsevolving and so does this show.
And so, as you might havenoticed a couple of times
already, the mention of digitalcustomer experience and, yeah,
(02:36):
we're changing the name of theshow slightly from digital
customer success to digitalcustomer experience.
Why are we doing that?
Really, one of the things thatI wanted to do at the outset of
the show was try to talk to apretty broad set of people, and
I would give myself, if I had togive myself a score on that my
(02:58):
own personal health score on,you know, speaking to a broad
set of people cross-functionallyI would give myself probably a
C.
Maybe.
I mean, we've had some customereducation folks on.
We haven't touched digitalsupport at all.
We've barely touched.
I mean, we've had some productpeople on, but that's because
(03:19):
they're building, you know,digital products.
I want to talk to a few moreproduct managers as well.
Um, I want to broaden the scopeof this show to basically
encompass the entire customerexperience, specifically from
the lens of digital, because somany other functions are
operating digitally and, and, um, as some recent guests have
(03:43):
pointed out, one of the mostimportant skills of someone in
digital customer success iscollaboration, especially on the
leadership level, being able tocollaborate cross-functionally
with other functions, especiallymarketing, product support,
(04:03):
sales, operating product supportsales.
I mean that collaboration withpeers in other departments is
key to operating a trulysuccessful digital program, and
so, you know, I kind of want toforce my own hand, so to speak,
of really broadening the scope alittle bit outside of CS so
that if you're in CS, great, youcan, you know, you know exactly
(04:26):
what makes other people tickand you can relate to those
other other folks um, a littlebit better.
But if you're outside of CS, Imean, you know, uh, there
there's tons of stuff happeningdigitally and support,
especially in you know productand with with telemetry and in
product and all that kind of funstuff.
So, digital customersexperience podcast going forward
(04:47):
Um, I'm a one man show, so, um,you know, if you see the old
logo kicking around here andthere, I may not get to all of
them We'll see Um, uh it, theylook exactly the same.
They just, you know, one has adifferent word in it.
So, anyway, that's theannouncement Not a huge shift in
(05:10):
terms of you know, phoneticsand grammar, but a huge shift in
terms of our scope and reallybroadening things out to BCX
folks.
That said, today I'm going to doa solo episode, and it's
actually the first solo episode,except for episode number one,
(05:30):
where I want to do a little bitof Q&A.
Specifically, I get questionsall the time from the audience
and I want to spend a little bitof time going through some of
those questions that I getfrequently.
So I's, it's I guess it's anFAQ episode to try and help out
a little bit, because you knowwe're we're five people ask a
question.
It probably means a hundredmore have that same question.
(05:52):
Um and uh, I'll do my best toto answer that in a kind of one
way forum.
If you do want to interact withme or you have some additional
kind of notes on the questionsI'm answering or want a little
bit more detail, a couple ofways to engage, I mean, if
you're on YouTube, leave somecomments, let me know your
(06:15):
thoughts.
If you're listening to thepodcast, go to the website, sign
up for the newsletter, butemail me,
alexatdigitalcustomersuccesscom.
Sign up for the newsletter, butemail me,
alexatdigitalcustomersuccesscom.
We'd love to hear from you andengage with you that way.
So we're going to kick off withquestion number one.
(06:38):
So the first question we aregoing to talk about well, we're
not going to talk about,actually is a question that I
still get quite often, which iswhat is digital customer success
?
Um, on this show we've beatenthat to the ground, uh, because
it is one of my standardquestions that every single
guest um, I ask every singleguest to answer.
All of those answers arecollated on the website, um, in
(06:58):
the in the digital CS worddefinition word map.
So, uh, go check that out.
Um, you know, uh, the the.
The crux of it, though, is thatit's different at every
organization.
Fundamentally, digital cs is athing that you can define, and
our guests have mostly given,you know, some similar themes
(07:20):
around that answer.
Um, you know, but, but theexact definition of what
constitutes a digital customersuccess program differs at every
single place that you try toimplement it.
So we're not going to go intodepth about that question, but
there is a question that doescome up quite a bit, that is
(07:41):
tangential, which is to saywhat's the difference between
scaled customer success anddigital customer success?
Comes up a lot, and the way Iwant to answer that is well.
First off, it also kind ofdepends on your specific set of
circumstances.
I want to start by saying thata lot of teams that are called
(08:04):
scaled CS are actuallycustomer-facing teams.
Right, your scaled CS team canbe, you know, a team of pooled
CSMs, for instance, that operateon a little bit more of a
one-to-many basis, but do abunch of outreach based on
triggers and things like that.
Right this, but do a bunch ofoutreach based on triggers and
(08:27):
things like that, right.
We're not talking aboutnecessarily scaled CS teams in
this definition, although thatis a part of scaling CS.
Really, when it comes to thedifference between scale and
digital, digital is a vehicle bywhich you can help scale your
customer success function, butit is not the only vehicle.
It's a part of you know ablended way of scaling your CS
(08:51):
team, whether that's you knowhelping your CSMs increase their
account coverage by makingcertain efficiencies you know
doing.
You know efficiencies you knowdoing.
You know webinars and otheroutreach focus on.
You know learning materials viaan academy or something like
that.
There's all kinds of thingsthat go into scaling a CS
(09:16):
function and digital CS, whichis to say you know the
automations of things helpingCSMs be more efficient, doing
customer facing automations,digital QBRs, distribution of
things helping CSMs be moreefficient, doing customer-facing
automations, digital QBRs,distribution of content all that
kind of stuff that falls within.
Digital is a healthy part of agood scaled program or a way to
(09:37):
scale your CS team.
Tons of different ways to talkabout this tons of different
flavors depending on yourspecific environment, but
overall, that's what I would say.
The difference between scaledCS and digital CS is.
One other very common questionwith regards to digital is where
to start with your digitalprograms, and again I'm going to
(09:58):
say it depends a little bit,but generally speaking, there's
two guiding principles that Iwould share with somebody when
they ask this question of whereto start with digital.
The first is to really you know, know what your desired
outcomes and objectives are withyour customer success team by
(10:22):
knowing what your coreobjectives are and also by
knowing where the problem areaslie in your customer journey.
That will help you identifywhat to start tackling first,
because you're not going toovernight build a massive
digital program and have it allin place overnight.
You're going to want to startwhere you can move the biggest
rocks with the least amount ofeffort, and so that includes
(10:45):
really understanding what yourcore objectives are, what your
highest priority objectives are,and then also looking at where
the problems are Do you have anonboarding problem?
Do you have a retention problem?
And starting with those areaswhere you can make the biggest
impact quickly On a tacticalkind of ground floor level.
(11:07):
A lot of people like to just goinvest in tools because it's
going to help them do digital,and I would say start with what
you have in place.
I guarantee you there's somesort of email vehicle in place.
You know whether you haveaccess to it directly or
marketing or in sales.
There's all kinds of free kindof automation tools like Zapier
(11:30):
out there where you can juststart and start with zero
investment, making those smallimprovements and incremental
kind of improvements over timeon those key areas of priority
that you identified earlier.
So that's really where youshould start looking at
digitizing within your CSprogram.
(11:52):
There are a couple of ideas thatI can share that a lot of
people kind of tend to overlook,but tend to be things that are
already in place, where you canstart, you know, doing some
digital motions without havingto invest in technology.
One of them is LinkedIn.
Invest in technology.
(12:12):
One of them is LinkedIn.
Unless you're in some weirdindustry, I guarantee you a lot
of your champions and executivesare on LinkedIn.
Why not engage them that way?
Data cleanliness is actually aphenomenal place to start your
digital program because guesswhat If your data is ratty and
if you haven't figured out whatcore data you need and haven't
started cleaning that up.
Down the road you're going toencounter a fair amount of
(12:34):
issues getting a digital programoff the ground, and so start
now cleaning some of that data,even if it's just basic contact
data cleanliness, knowing whatcertain personas are.
That will make a hugedifference down the road.
Another great place to start isan area like info handoff and
(12:54):
handing information from onedepartment to another and also
just setting clear expectationswith your customers along the
way.
That is a very commonlyoverlooked area.
For digital programs to reallymake a huge difference is that
info handoff.
While we're talking about data,I do get a fair amount of
(13:16):
questions related to scorecardsand gauging customer health and
also predicting churn viascorecards.
One of the most commonquestions is you know, what do I
do if I don't have producttelemetry?
Because there's a fair amountof us, myself included, that
operate in you know, in a mostlyon-prem kind of environment or
(13:40):
there's just no tooling to pullinsights out of.
You know the platform thatyou're supporting and, in those
cases where you do not haveproduct telemetry, look to the
other points of engagement thatyou are driving your customers
towards, whether that be yourcommunity, your LMS or your
learning resources, yourdocumentation.
(14:02):
Most of those platforms willallow you to see level of
engagement by person and tied toan email address or some sort
of Salesforce ID or whateverthat may be.
Some data lives there whichwill tell you how active not
just your customer as a as onthe aggregate, is, but
(14:22):
individuals within that customer.
You know that, that specificcustomer, what they're doing in
each one of those platforms, andif you get really sophisticated
with this, you can start totease out what kind of persona a
customer contact likely isbased on their activity,
especially in things like aknowledge base where you can see
(14:46):
what articles they may belooking at.
Or you know your academy, whereyou can see what courses
they've been enrolled in, forinstance, so you can start what
articles they may be looking at.
Or, um, you know your, youracademy, where you can see what
courses they've been enrolled in, for instance, so you can start
to tease, tease apart Okay, isthis an?
This is an admin, or an enduser?
Um and uh, you know, or anexecutive, if they don't log
into any of those things.
I want to go back to kind ofthat earlier question about
(15:08):
digital and scaled real quick,because I think there's an
important point about whydigital has become such a, I
guess, a popular thing or animportant thing within CS over
the past few years, and it'sreally directly tied to the
(15:32):
economy, yes, but specificallythe kind of investment landscape
when it comes specifically toSaaS software.
You know, a few years ago, ifyou were looking to, you know,
purchase or sell a SaaS company,a lot of times the valuation of
(15:54):
that company was directly tiedto growth rates and it was that
whole growth at all costs erathat we all enjoyed, where we
just threw warm bodies at stuffand hired like crazy and, you
know, really increased the humancapital investment, especially
within CS.
(16:15):
And now you know, fast forwardto really the last couple of
years, that has shifteddramatically to where investors
are looking at profitabilityover growth period.
Profitability has become, youknow, really the vehicle in
order to get your valuationwhere it needs to be if your
(16:37):
board is looking for an exit orsomething like that.
So I feel like that'sincredibly important context to
have, not just to understand whythere's such a proliferation in
digital programs but,unfortunately, also why we've
seen so many layoffs in recentyears, because companies are
really trying to control theirEBITDA.
(16:57):
But as somebody who's buildinga digital program guess what?
That is a place where you needto focus, and you need to focus
from a metric standpoint of howare your programs and the things
that you are implementingdriving the company
profitability and, specifically,cost savings or EBITDA.
(17:20):
You know how are the motionsthat you are putting in place
driving.
You know your renewal rates,your retention rates and all
those kinds of things that leadto a healthy SaaS business that
is actually profitable.
So, just figured, that was, youknow, important context to
bring up in this particularepisode.
We could probably do an entireepisode of that particular topic
(17:45):
, and I do want to give a shoutout to Jeff Brunsbach and Jay
Nathan, who have launched thisphenomenal course that is really
relevant for anyone in SaaS.
It's called Cover your SaaS,which is a great title, but it
is a, I think, like a five, four, five, six module course that
(18:05):
goes through all of the through,all of the minutia of you know
the finance elements behind aSaaS business and, as an
individual contributor as muchas a leader, it's super
important if you're in SaaS toknow these.
You know these topics insideand out so that you can speak
intelligently to them and alsodrive towards those company
(18:29):
metrics that are really going tomake a huge difference in, you
know, ultimately, your career,because you're going to be able
to display, like you know, howwell you know this stuff.
So go check out that course.
I'll put a link to it in theshow notes for you.
So a related question aroundmetrics and measuring your
programs is one that I want tospend a little bit of time on,
(18:51):
because, in a digital let's callit a digital CS program, for
right now, you're obviouslygoing to be tracking some of the
same customer success metricsthat we've, all you know, grown
to love, which is your NRR andyour GRR, your gross retention
rates, churn, all those kinds ofthings your classic CS metrics
(19:15):
are things that you're going towant to track very closely for
your digital program, because,ultimately, you want to prove
that your digital motions have apositive effect on those KPIs.
There is another element tothis as well, though, because a
lot of what we do in digitalhave a positive effect on those
KPIs.
There is another element tothis as well, though, because a
(19:36):
lot of what we do in digitalreally borrows tactics and
methodologies from marketing,and so I think it's very
important to look at digitalcampaign metrics as well, when
it comes to, like you know, openrates, engagement rates and
those kinds of things.
And I think for a digitalprogram, the goal, the gold,
lies at the intersection ofthose two things, and what I
(19:59):
mean by that is getting to aplace where you can measure,
measure the cohort of people whoengaged with your motions
versus the people who didn'tengage in your motions.
That's one element of it.
But then for those that didengage in your motions, did you
(20:24):
see a positive impact in yourmore standard kind of CS metrics
because of that engagement?
So let's take product adoption,for instance, if you did some
sort of in-app motion becauseyou've seen some high drop-off
rates with a specific module,for instance module.
(20:53):
For instance, if you'velaunched some kind of in-product
, you know, tour or kind of helpmodal, that with the intent of
driving engagement, you canmeasure the users that were
actually engaged with thatmotion and then over time, their
long tail usage of that versusthose that didn't engage with
that modal.
And if there's a positive deltabetween the two, you know
that's something that you canpoint back to when it comes time
(21:16):
to do like an internal QBR orwhen it comes time to, you know,
do your annual budget renewalcycle when you're trying to, you
know, prove out why Gainsightis so useful to you, those kinds
of things.
You know you're going to wantto spend a lot of time making
sure that you can actuallymeasure the digital motions that
(21:38):
you've put in place so that atno time, you know, there's ever
a question of the efficacy ofyour program or that your
program should exist.
Another very common questionthat I get is around team
structure.
And you know how should youstructure your team around
digital?
And I think a big element hereto consider is how you know how
(22:04):
big the company is is how bigthe company is.
Obviously, if you're an earlyseed series, a stage company,
you're gonna be a lot leanerthan a publicly traded company
or a company that's gotten intothe six, seven, 800s in terms of
staffing.
It's a completely differentpicture in those.
(22:26):
So I'll try to kind of paintthe picture of what it might
look like in a smallerenvironment versus, you know,
larger environment where there'sbeen some ability to make some
investments.
So, on the smaller side ofthings, you know, I think a
digital program should be onethat closely mirrors ops and, in
(22:50):
fact, your digital programs alot of times will be run out of
an ops environment.
And so really even pulling oneor two people in who are very
good with customer data, whohave kind of an eye for
programmatic improvements thatcan be made, and people who are
(23:15):
really lasered in on thecustomer journey, really just
pulling in a couple of peopleand having them operate in a
generalist kind of fashion towhere you know they're looking
at some of the customer datathat you have, they're making
some programmatic improvementsfor how that you know elements
(23:35):
of the customer journey can beimproved, but they're also
perhaps doing some of thatcustomer outreach and engaging
customers where they might begetting themselves into trouble.
So you know, I think it'salmost like you know when you
bring a first CSM into anorganization, for instance,
maybe even before you have a CSleader, you know equally, you
(23:57):
could bring somebody in that isa lifecycle manager who looks
after those kinds of things andis really your first stage in
digital and the first kind ofstep towards, you know, doing
email outreach and in-appoutreach and those kinds of
things.
If you're talking about largerorganizations, the way I like to
look at it is in three distinctbuckets.
(24:19):
The first one is yourcustomer-facing element, which
is oftentimes called a scaleteam or a pool team.
Not your full-blown pool team,not your full blown CSMs, so
your full enterprise CSMs, butit's a, it's a.
It's a.
It's a scaled team thatoperates, you know, ideally in a
pooled fashion.
That does a lot of the customeroutreach for your smallest
(24:41):
segment customers and reacts to,you know, telemetry and trigger
points and does a lot of thekind of survey response work for
the broader customer base andis really the, you know, the
customer facing element of yourdigital programs talk about is
(25:13):
is really closer to a productmanager, um, where they are, uh,
and I really like to advise umpeople to to look at product
management for digital motions,um, as an, as an agile
development environment whereyou have, uh, you know, a group
of people who are solely focusedon identifying areas where
improvements can be made in thecustomer journey, especially
(25:35):
digitally, or where improvementscan be made to help a CS team
be more effective Gatheringrequirements, designing what
that program should look like,developing it either themselves
or, you know, with an admin team, and then doing the testing
afterwards to make sure thatthose things are effective and
(25:59):
doing that iteration, so reallymanaging a development lifecycle
of these digital motions.
So in that way I would considerthem more of program managers
or product managers for yourdigital team.
And the third bucket would bekind of a hybrid, very ops heavy
role that's focused on yourtooling and administration of
(26:24):
that tooling that's focused onyour data.
So it's got to be people whoare really good at looking at
different data sets andcomparing them and also people
who are well-versed inintegrations, because you kind
of want to integrate somesystems together.
So it's really that operationsaspect of your digital program.
So those are really the threeelements.
(26:45):
It's that customer-facingelement, it's the program
management element and then it'sthe operations kind of data
system admin element.
(27:10):
Is, you know, like, what's thebest CSP, customer success
platform for digital?
And my answer to that is alwaysit's the one you have, um,
especially if you're startingout.
But you know I'm really tryingto be as platform agnostic as
possible when it comes to thisparticular show.
I'm a very heavy Gainsight userand you know I like Gainsight
(27:33):
in general, but you know there'sothers that I like too.
So you know, pick your flavorand I think ultimately, if
you're on a leadership level andyou're shopping for a CSP, you
got to put in the time to really, you know, put out a quality
RFP that all of the big playerscan respond to, so that you pick
(27:57):
the best system for yourenvironment, because just
because Gainsight is good in oneplace doesn't mean it's going
to be, you know, fit for purposein another.
Same goes forurn zero.
And to tango slash catalyst,because they're now together, um
, you know there's there's abunch of different players
obviously, uh, out there.
(28:17):
Um, a couple of highlights.
I would say that, um, I like topoint to is churned um
c-h-H-U-R-N-E-D, uh, which is areally cool company.
I had the co-founder brotherson a few episodes ago, um, but
they are doing a lot of reallycool stuff in terms of churn
(28:38):
prediction using machinelearning and they're on the
forefront of that.
There's a lot of CSPs that havebeen around for a while that
are crazy rules, rules based andheavy on rules engine.
And then there's a few that arepopping up out there that are
built from the ground up usingmachine learning and artificial
intelligence, which I think isgreat, especially when it comes
(29:02):
to, you know, collating yourcustomer data and really giving
you solid insights into, youknow, who's a churn risk and who
isn't.
So best CSP?
It depends Um.
There's some cool technology outthere that I do want to point
to um.
A couple of apps that I'm ahuge fan of Um first off cast
(29:25):
app, and I've had Dickie Singhon the podcast before.
Barry is another one.
Those are two apps thatessentially act as a digital
(29:45):
customer success manager, usingAI to be the customer-facing
kind of first help, if you will.
A couple of other cool toolsfor CSMs I often recommend
checking out Gamma G-A-M-M-A,which is AI generated PowerPoint
creation or slide deck creation.
Based on your own prompts thatyou put in, it can create
actually really really goodslide decks in a matter of
(30:07):
seconds.
Really that can be super usefuland huge time savings.
There's a ton of apps that I'velooked at and I have collated a
lot of that information for youon the website.
If you go todigitalcustomersuccesscom
forward slash tech stack, Ibelieve or just navigate to the
(30:27):
DCS tech stack, there's amassive list in categories of
cool apps and what they do, sodefinitely go check that out.
If you're kind of hunting fortechnology but don't quite know
where to start, that's a goodjumping off point to look at a
variety of technology.
We covered a lot of territory.
I hope that this little Q&Asession has been useful.
(30:48):
I don't really know how longit's been going, but I feel like
I've been talking forever, so Ishould probably leave you and
go about your day, and Iactually have a baseball game to
go to with the family, whichI'm looking forward to.
But again, thank you so muchfor your support over these last
50 episodes.
It has meant the world to meand, um, you know, I, I, um, I
(31:13):
can safely say that, uh, youknow, this endeavor and and
producing the show and, uh, youknow, helping the CS community
has been the most fulfillingthing I've done professionally
in my life, and so I want tothank you for your listenership
and thank you for coming backevery week and listening to me
(31:33):
drone on about stuff and, yeah,look for more things to come in
the next 50 episodes where webroaden the scope a little bit.
So, thanks so much forlistening and we'll talk to you
later.
Thank you for joining me forthis episode of the Digital CX
Podcast.
If you like what we're doing,consider leaving us a review on
your podcast platform of choice.
(31:54):
If you're watching on YouTube,leave a comment down below.
It really helps us to grow andprovide value to a broader
audience and get moreinformation about the show and
some of the other things thatwe're doing at
digitalcustomersuccesscom.
I'm Alex Tergovich.
Thanks so much for listening.
I'll talk to you next week.
Hey, it's episode 50.
I've got a little bit of anannouncement for you and a
different format for you forthis episode, so stay tuned,
let's go Once again.
Welcome to the Digital CustomerExperience podcast with me,
alex Turkovich.
So glad you could join us heretoday and every week as we
explore how digital can helpenhance the customer and
(00:24):
employee experience.
My goal is to share what myguests and I have learned over
the years so that you can getthe insights that you need to
evolve your own digital programs.
If you'd like more info, needto get in touch or sign up for
the weekly companion newsletterthat has additional articles and
resources in it.
Go to digitalcustomersuccesscom, for now.
Let's get started in it.
(00:47):
Go to digitalcustomersuccesscom, for now.
Let's get started.
Hello and welcome to episode 50of the Digital Customer
Experience Podcast.
It's great to have you backthis week and every week.
For those of you who've beenlistening, for all 50 accounts,
thanks so much for yourlistenership.
(01:08):
And those of you who've beenlistening, for all 50 accounts,
thanks so much for yourlistenership.
And those of you who'verecently found the show, I
appreciate you just as much.
Um, so, thank you.
Thank you for all the support.
Um, I I when I started the showabout a year ago, um, I set
myself the goal of getting to 50and then evaluating, like are
we doing the right thing?
Are we hitting the rightaudiences?
Do we have the right messaging?
(01:30):
Are we towing the line betweenstrategic and tactical,
practical advice?
And you know there's been somefine adjustment over the course
of this past year.
But, thanks to a lot of yourfeedback and input and just
response to the show, you knowI'm energized and I'm really
(01:53):
grateful to you for listeningand just being a voice and
interacting with the show,because sometimes when you put
these things out, you don'treally know how they're going to
land, and so once in a while,you get a note here and there,
and the good notes are great.
Obviously, the littleconstructive feedback here and
(02:13):
there is also great because ithelps to improve the show.
All of that to say is thatwe've gotten to a year, I've
gotten to 50 episodes.
I'm going to continue goingbecause there's so much more to
talk about and digital keepsevolving and so does this show.
And so, as you might havenoticed a couple of times
already, the mention of digitalcustomer experience and, yeah,
(02:36):
we're changing the name of theshow slightly from digital
customer success to digitalcustomer experience.
Why are we doing that?
Really, one of the things thatI wanted to do at the outset of
the show was try to talk to apretty broad set of people, and
I would give myself, if I had togive myself a score on that my
(02:58):
own personal health score on,you know, speaking to a broad
set of people cross-functionallyI would give myself probably a
C.
Maybe.
I mean, we've had some customereducation folks on.
We haven't touched digitalsupport at all.
We've barely touched.
I mean, we've had some productpeople on, but that's because
(03:19):
they're building, you know,digital products.
I want to talk to a few moreproduct managers as well.
Um, I want to broaden the scopeof this show to basically
encompass the entire customerexperience, specifically from
the lens of digital, because somany other functions are
operating digitally and, and, um, as some recent guests have
(03:43):
pointed out, one of the mostimportant skills of someone in
digital customer success iscollaboration, especially on the
leadership level, being able tocollaborate cross-functionally
with other functions, especiallymarketing, product support,
(04:03):
sales, operating product supportsales.
I mean that collaboration withpeers in other departments is
key to operating a trulysuccessful digital program, and
so, you know, I kind of want toforce my own hand, so to speak,
of really broadening the scope alittle bit outside of CS so
that if you're in CS, great, youcan, you know, you know exactly
(04:26):
what makes other people tickand you can relate to those
other other folks um, a littlebit better.
But if you're outside of CS, Imean, you know, uh, there
there's tons of stuff happeningdigitally and support,
especially in you know productand with with telemetry and in
product and all that kind of funstuff.
So, digital customersexperience podcast going forward
(04:47):
Um, I'm a one man show, so, um,you know, if you see the old
logo kicking around here andthere, I may not get to all of
them We'll see Um, uh it, theylook exactly the same.
They just, you know, one has adifferent word in it.
So, anyway, that's theannouncement Not a huge shift in
(05:10):
terms of you know, phoneticsand grammar, but a huge shift in
terms of our scope and reallybroadening things out to BCX
folks.
That said, today I'm going to doa solo episode, and it's
actually the first solo episode,except for episode number one,
(05:30):
where I want to do a little bitof Q&A.
Specifically, I get questionsall the time from the audience
and I want to spend a little bitof time going through some of
those questions that I getfrequently.
So I's, it's I guess it's anFAQ episode to try and help out
a little bit, because you knowwe're we're five people ask a
question.
It probably means a hundredmore have that same question.
(05:52):
Um and uh, I'll do my best toto answer that in a kind of one
way forum.
If you do want to interact withme or you have some additional
kind of notes on the questionsI'm answering or want a little
bit more detail, a couple ofways to engage, I mean, if
you're on YouTube, leave somecomments, let me know your
(06:15):
thoughts.
If you're listening to thepodcast, go to the website, sign
up for the newsletter, butemail me,
alexatdigitalcustomersuccesscom.
Sign up for the newsletter, butemail me,
alexatdigitalcustomersuccesscom.
We'd love to hear from you andengage with you that way.
So we're going to kick off withquestion number one.
(06:38):
So the first question we aregoing to talk about well, we're
not going to talk about,actually is a question that I
still get quite often, which iswhat is digital customer success
?
Um, on this show we've beatenthat to the ground, uh, because
it is one of my standardquestions that every single
guest um, I ask every singleguest to answer.
All of those answers arecollated on the website, um, in
(06:58):
the in the digital CS worddefinition word map.
So, uh, go check that out.
Um, you know, uh, the the.
The crux of it, though, is thatit's different at every
organization.
Fundamentally, digital cs is athing that you can define, and
our guests have mostly given,you know, some similar themes
(07:20):
around that answer.
Um, you know, but, but theexact definition of what
constitutes a digital customersuccess program differs at every
single place that you try toimplement it.
So we're not going to go intodepth about that question, but
there is a question that doescome up quite a bit, that is
(07:41):
tangential, which is to saywhat's the difference between
scaled customer success anddigital customer success?
Comes up a lot, and the way Iwant to answer that is well.
First off, it also kind ofdepends on your specific set of
circumstances.
I want to start by saying thata lot of teams that are called
(08:04):
scaled CS are actuallycustomer-facing teams.
Right, your scaled CS team canbe, you know, a team of pooled
CSMs, for instance, that operateon a little bit more of a
one-to-many basis, but do abunch of outreach based on
triggers and things like that.
Right this, but do a bunch ofoutreach based on triggers and
(08:27):
things like that, right.
We're not talking aboutnecessarily scaled CS teams in
this definition, although thatis a part of scaling CS.
Really, when it comes to thedifference between scale and
digital, digital is a vehicle bywhich you can help scale your
customer success function, butit is not the only vehicle.
It's a part of you know ablended way of scaling your CS
(08:51):
team, whether that's you knowhelping your CSMs increase their
account coverage by makingcertain efficiencies you know
doing.
You know efficiencies you knowdoing.
You know webinars and otheroutreach focus on.
You know learning materials viaan academy or something like
that.
There's all kinds of thingsthat go into scaling a CS
(09:16):
function and digital CS, whichis to say you know the
automations of things helpingCSMs be more efficient, doing
customer facing automations,digital QBRs, distribution of
things helping CSMs be moreefficient, doing customer-facing
automations, digital QBRs,distribution of content all that
kind of stuff that falls within.
Digital is a healthy part of agood scaled program or a way to
(09:37):
scale your CS team.
Tons of different ways to talkabout this tons of different
flavors depending on yourspecific environment, but
overall, that's what I would say.
The difference between scaledCS and digital CS is.
One other very common questionwith regards to digital is where
to start with your digitalprograms, and again I'm going to
(09:58):
say it depends a little bit,but generally speaking, there's
two guiding principles that Iwould share with somebody when
they ask this question of whereto start with digital.
The first is to really you know, know what your desired
outcomes and objectives are withyour customer success team by
(10:22):
knowing what your coreobjectives are and also by
knowing where the problem areaslie in your customer journey.
That will help you identifywhat to start tackling first,
because you're not going toovernight build a massive
digital program and have it allin place overnight.
You're going to want to startwhere you can move the biggest
rocks with the least amount ofeffort, and so that includes
(10:45):
really understanding what yourcore objectives are, what your
highest priority objectives are,and then also looking at where
the problems are Do you have anonboarding problem?
Do you have a retention problem?
And starting with those areaswhere you can make the biggest
impact quickly On a tacticalkind of ground floor level.
(11:07):
A lot of people like to just goinvest in tools because it's
going to help them do digital,and I would say start with what
you have in place.
I guarantee you there's somesort of email vehicle in place.
You know whether you haveaccess to it directly or
marketing or in sales.
There's all kinds of free kindof automation tools like Zapier
(11:30):
out there where you can juststart and start with zero
investment, making those smallimprovements and incremental
kind of improvements over timeon those key areas of priority
that you identified earlier.
So that's really where youshould start looking at
digitizing within your CSprogram.
(11:52):
There are a couple of ideas thatI can share that a lot of
people kind of tend to overlook,but tend to be things that are
already in place, where you canstart, you know, doing some
digital motions without havingto invest in technology.
One of them is LinkedIn.
Invest in technology.
(12:12):
One of them is LinkedIn.
Unless you're in some weirdindustry, I guarantee you a lot
of your champions and executivesare on LinkedIn.
Why not engage them that way?
Data cleanliness is actually aphenomenal place to start your
digital program because guesswhat If your data is ratty and
if you haven't figured out whatcore data you need and haven't
started cleaning that up.
Down the road you're going toencounter a fair amount of
(12:34):
issues getting a digital programoff the ground, and so start
now cleaning some of that data,even if it's just basic contact
data cleanliness, knowing whatcertain personas are.
That will make a hugedifference down the road.
Another great place to start isan area like info handoff and
(12:54):
handing information from onedepartment to another and also
just setting clear expectationswith your customers along the
way.
That is a very commonlyoverlooked area.
For digital programs to reallymake a huge difference is that
info handoff.
While we're talking about data,I do get a fair amount of
(13:16):
questions related to scorecardsand gauging customer health and
also predicting churn viascorecards.
One of the most commonquestions is you know, what do I
do if I don't have producttelemetry?
Because there's a fair amountof us, myself included, that
operate in you know, in a mostlyon-prem kind of environment or
(13:40):
there's just no tooling to pullinsights out of.
You know the platform thatyou're supporting and, in those
cases where you do not haveproduct telemetry, look to the
other points of engagement thatyou are driving your customers
towards, whether that be yourcommunity, your LMS or your
learning resources, yourdocumentation.
(14:02):
Most of those platforms willallow you to see level of
engagement by person and tied toan email address or some sort
of Salesforce ID or whateverthat may be.
Some data lives there whichwill tell you how active not
just your customer as a as onthe aggregate, is, but
(14:22):
individuals within that customer.
You know that, that specificcustomer, what they're doing in
each one of those platforms, andif you get really sophisticated
with this, you can start totease out what kind of persona a
customer contact likely isbased on their activity,
especially in things like aknowledge base where you can see
(14:46):
what articles they may belooking at.
Or you know your academy, whereyou can see what courses
they've been enrolled in, forinstance, so you can start what
articles they may be looking at.
Or, um, you know your, youracademy, where you can see what
courses they've been enrolled in, for instance, so you can start
to tease, tease apart Okay, isthis an?
This is an admin, or an enduser?
Um and uh, you know, or anexecutive, if they don't log
into any of those things.
I want to go back to kind ofthat earlier question about
(15:08):
digital and scaled real quick,because I think there's an
important point about whydigital has become such a, I
guess, a popular thing or animportant thing within CS over
the past few years, and it'sreally directly tied to the
(15:32):
economy, yes, but specificallythe kind of investment landscape
when it comes specifically toSaaS software.
You know, a few years ago, ifyou were looking to, you know,
purchase or sell a SaaS company,a lot of times the valuation of
(15:54):
that company was directly tiedto growth rates and it was that
whole growth at all costs erathat we all enjoyed, where we
just threw warm bodies at stuffand hired like crazy and, you
know, really increased the humancapital investment, especially
within CS.
(16:15):
And now you know, fast forwardto really the last couple of
years, that has shifteddramatically to where investors
are looking at profitabilityover growth period.
Profitability has become, youknow, really the vehicle in
order to get your valuationwhere it needs to be if your
(16:37):
board is looking for an exit orsomething like that.
So I feel like that'sincredibly important context to
have, not just to understand whythere's such a proliferation in
digital programs but,unfortunately, also why we've
seen so many layoffs in recentyears, because companies are
really trying to control theirEBITDA.
(16:57):
But as somebody who's buildinga digital program guess what?
That is a place where you needto focus, and you need to focus
from a metric standpoint of howare your programs and the things
that you are implementingdriving the company
profitability and, specifically,cost savings or EBITDA.
(17:20):
You know how are the motionsthat you are putting in place
driving.
You know your renewal rates,your retention rates and all
those kinds of things that leadto a healthy SaaS business that
is actually profitable.
So, just figured, that was, youknow, important context to
bring up in this particularepisode.
We could probably do an entireepisode of that particular topic
(17:45):
, and I do want to give a shoutout to Jeff Brunsbach and Jay
Nathan, who have launched thisphenomenal course that is really
relevant for anyone in SaaS.
It's called Cover your SaaS,which is a great title, but it
is a, I think, like a five, four, five, six module course that
(18:05):
goes through all of the through,all of the minutia of you know
the finance elements behind aSaaS business and, as an
individual contributor as muchas a leader, it's super
important if you're in SaaS toknow these.
You know these topics insideand out so that you can speak
intelligently to them and alsodrive towards those company
(18:29):
metrics that are really going tomake a huge difference in, you
know, ultimately, your career,because you're going to be able
to display, like you know, howwell you know this stuff.
So go check out that course.
I'll put a link to it in theshow notes for you.
So a related question aroundmetrics and measuring your
programs is one that I want tospend a little bit of time on,
(18:51):
because, in a digital let's callit a digital CS program, for
right now, you're obviouslygoing to be tracking some of the
same customer success metricsthat we've, all you know, grown
to love, which is your NRR andyour GRR, your gross retention
rates, churn, all those kinds ofthings your classic CS metrics
(19:15):
are things that you're going towant to track very closely for
your digital program, because,ultimately, you want to prove
that your digital motions have apositive effect on those KPIs.
There is another element tothis as well, though, because a
lot of what we do in digitalhave a positive effect on those
KPIs.
There is another element tothis as well, though, because a
(19:36):
lot of what we do in digitalreally borrows tactics and
methodologies from marketing,and so I think it's very
important to look at digitalcampaign metrics as well, when
it comes to, like you know, openrates, engagement rates and
those kinds of things.
And I think for a digitalprogram, the goal, the gold,
lies at the intersection ofthose two things, and what I
(19:59):
mean by that is getting to aplace where you can measure,
measure the cohort of people whoengaged with your motions
versus the people who didn'tengage in your motions.
That's one element of it.
But then for those that didengage in your motions, did you
(20:24):
see a positive impact in yourmore standard kind of CS metrics
because of that engagement?
So let's take product adoption,for instance, if you did some
sort of in-app motion becauseyou've seen some high drop-off
rates with a specific module,for instance module.
(20:53):
For instance, if you'velaunched some kind of in-product
, you know, tour or kind of helpmodal, that with the intent of
driving engagement, you canmeasure the users that were
actually engaged with thatmotion and then over time, their
long tail usage of that versusthose that didn't engage with
that modal.
And if there's a positive deltabetween the two, you know
that's something that you canpoint back to when it comes time
(21:16):
to do like an internal QBR orwhen it comes time to, you know,
do your annual budget renewalcycle when you're trying to, you
know, prove out why Gainsightis so useful to you, those kinds
of things.
You know you're going to wantto spend a lot of time making
sure that you can actuallymeasure the digital motions that
(21:38):
you've put in place so that atno time, you know, there's ever
a question of the efficacy ofyour program or that your
program should exist.
Another very common questionthat I get is around team
structure.
And you know how should youstructure your team around
digital?
And I think a big element hereto consider is how you know how
(22:04):
big the company is is how bigthe company is.
Obviously, if you're an earlyseed series, a stage company,
you're gonna be a lot leanerthan a publicly traded company
or a company that's gotten intothe six, seven, 800s in terms of
staffing.
It's a completely differentpicture in those.
(22:26):
So I'll try to kind of paintthe picture of what it might
look like in a smallerenvironment versus, you know,
larger environment where there'sbeen some ability to make some
investments.
So, on the smaller side ofthings, you know, I think a
digital program should be onethat closely mirrors ops and, in
(22:50):
fact, your digital programs alot of times will be run out of
an ops environment.
And so really even pulling oneor two people in who are very
good with customer data, whohave kind of an eye for
programmatic improvements thatcan be made, and people who are
(23:15):
really lasered in on thecustomer journey, really just
pulling in a couple of peopleand having them operate in a
generalist kind of fashion towhere you know they're looking
at some of the customer datathat you have, they're making
some programmatic improvementsfor how that you know elements
(23:35):
of the customer journey can beimproved, but they're also
perhaps doing some of thatcustomer outreach and engaging
customers where they might begetting themselves into trouble.
So you know, I think it'salmost like you know when you
bring a first CSM into anorganization, for instance,
maybe even before you have a CSleader, you know equally, you
(23:57):
could bring somebody in that isa lifecycle manager who looks
after those kinds of things andis really your first stage in
digital and the first kind ofstep towards, you know, doing
email outreach and in-appoutreach and those kinds of
things.
If you're talking about largerorganizations, the way I like to
look at it is in three distinctbuckets.
(24:19):
The first one is yourcustomer-facing element, which
is oftentimes called a scaleteam or a pool team.
Not your full-blown pool team,not your full blown CSMs, so
your full enterprise CSMs, butit's a, it's a.
It's a.
It's a scaled team thatoperates, you know, ideally in a
pooled fashion.
That does a lot of the customeroutreach for your smallest
(24:41):
segment customers and reacts to,you know, telemetry and trigger
points and does a lot of thekind of survey response work for
the broader customer base andis really the, you know, the
customer facing element of yourdigital programs talk about is
(25:13):
is really closer to a productmanager, um, where they are, uh,
and I really like to advise umpeople to to look at product
management for digital motions,um, as an, as an agile
development environment whereyou have, uh, you know, a group
of people who are solely focusedon identifying areas where
improvements can be made in thecustomer journey, especially
(25:35):
digitally, or where improvementscan be made to help a CS team
be more effective Gatheringrequirements, designing what
that program should look like,developing it either themselves
or, you know, with an admin team, and then doing the testing
afterwards to make sure thatthose things are effective and
(25:59):
doing that iteration, so reallymanaging a development lifecycle
of these digital motions.
So in that way I would considerthem more of program managers
or product managers for yourdigital team.
And the third bucket would bekind of a hybrid, very ops heavy
role that's focused on yourtooling and administration of
(26:24):
that tooling that's focused onyour data.
So it's got to be people whoare really good at looking at
different data sets andcomparing them and also people
who are well-versed inintegrations, because you kind
of want to integrate somesystems together.
So it's really that operationsaspect of your digital program.
So those are really the threeelements.
(26:45):
It's that customer-facingelement, it's the program
management element and then it'sthe operations kind of data
system admin element.
(27:10):
Is, you know, like, what's thebest CSP, customer success
platform for digital?
And my answer to that is alwaysit's the one you have, um,
especially if you're startingout.
But you know I'm really tryingto be as platform agnostic as
possible when it comes to thisparticular show.
I'm a very heavy Gainsight userand you know I like Gainsight
(27:33):
in general, but you know there'sothers that I like too.
So you know, pick your flavorand I think ultimately, if
you're on a leadership level andyou're shopping for a CSP, you
got to put in the time to really, you know, put out a quality
RFP that all of the big playerscan respond to, so that you pick
(27:57):
the best system for yourenvironment, because just
because Gainsight is good in oneplace doesn't mean it's going
to be, you know, fit for purposein another.
Same goes forurn zero.
And to tango slash catalyst,because they're now together, um
, you know there's there's abunch of different players
obviously, uh, out there.
(28:17):
Um, a couple of highlights.
I would say that, um, I like topoint to is churned um
c-h-H-U-R-N-E-D, uh, which is areally cool company.
I had the co-founder brotherson a few episodes ago, um, but
they are doing a lot of reallycool stuff in terms of churn
(28:38):
prediction using machinelearning and they're on the
forefront of that.
There's a lot of CSPs that havebeen around for a while that
are crazy rules, rules based andheavy on rules engine.
And then there's a few that arepopping up out there that are
built from the ground up usingmachine learning and artificial
intelligence, which I think isgreat, especially when it comes
(29:02):
to, you know, collating yourcustomer data and really giving
you solid insights into, youknow, who's a churn risk and who
isn't.
So best CSP?
It depends Um.
There's some cool technology outthere that I do want to point
to um.
A couple of apps that I'm ahuge fan of Um first off cast
(29:25):
app, and I've had Dickie Singhon the podcast before.
Barry is another one.
Those are two apps thatessentially act as a digital
(29:45):
customer success manager, usingAI to be the customer-facing
kind of first help, if you will.
A couple of other cool toolsfor CSMs I often recommend
checking out Gamma G-A-M-M-A,which is AI generated PowerPoint
creation or slide deck creation.
Based on your own prompts thatyou put in, it can create
actually really really goodslide decks in a matter of
(30:07):
seconds.
Really that can be super usefuland huge time savings.
There's a ton of apps that I'velooked at and I have collated a
lot of that information for youon the website.
If you go todigitalcustomersuccesscom
forward slash tech stack, Ibelieve or just navigate to the
(30:27):
DCS tech stack, there's amassive list in categories of
cool apps and what they do, sodefinitely go check that out.
If you're kind of hunting fortechnology but don't quite know
where to start, that's a goodjumping off point to look at a
variety of technology.
We covered a lot of territory.
I hope that this little Q&Asession has been useful.
(30:48):
I don't really know how longit's been going, but I feel like
I've been talking forever, so Ishould probably leave you and
go about your day, and Iactually have a baseball game to
go to with the family, whichI'm looking forward to.
But again, thank you so muchfor your support over these last
50 episodes.
It has meant the world to meand, um, you know, I, I, um, I
(31:13):
can safely say that, uh, youknow, this endeavor and and
producing the show and, uh, youknow, helping the CS community
has been the most fulfillingthing I've done professionally
in my life, and so I want tothank you for your listenership
and thank you for coming backevery week and listening to me
(31:33):
drone on about stuff and, yeah,look for more things to come in
the next 50 episodes where webroaden the scope a little bit.
So, thanks so much forlistening and we'll talk to you
later.
Thank you for joining me forthis episode of the Digital CX
Podcast.
If you like what we're doing,consider leaving us a review on
your podcast platform of choice.
(31:54):
If you're watching on YouTube,leave a comment down below.
It really helps us to grow andprovide value to a broader
audience and get moreinformation about the show and
some of the other things thatwe're doing at
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I'm Alex Tergovich.
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