May 14, 2024 • 34 mins
Link to Matik's Scale + CS Virtual Conference: https://bit.ly/scalecs-aturkovic.
Today, I'm joined by Jeff Heckler - a CS veteran with a lot of wisdom to share around the state of the industry, the AI tools with the most promise, and Slack overwhelm.
In this episode, we cover a wide variety of topics, including:
- 00:00:00 - Welcome To The Digital Customer Experience Podcast
- 00:01:31 - Join The Matik Conference, Earn A $20 Uber Eats Gift Card Giveaway
- 00:02:56 - Introduction
- 00:04:21 - Leaving Business Intelligence & Falling Into Software
- 00:10:17 - Digital Customer Success Since Covid-19
- 00:11:43 - The Rise Of QR Code
- 00:13:19 - Contraction In Headcounts And Budgets
- 00:14:51 - The Economics Of AI And Tech’s Current Struggles In Today’s Economy
- 00:16:26 - The Most Prominent Digital Trends In CS
- 00:19:36 - Leveraging Ai Chat Bots For Support Ticket Deflection, Among Other Things
- 00:20:58 - Communication Overload And Digital Emotions
- 00:22:29 - Optimizing Digital Workflows And Tools
- 00:23:58 - The Stickiness Of Tools
- 00:25:34 - Learning From Mistakes And Cross-Functional Allegiances
- 00:27:05 - Setting Up A Cadence For Product Sales Marketing Support
- 00:28:20 - Shifting Mindset For Customer Success Managers
- 00:29:36 - The Importance Of Cross Collaboration
- 00:31:01 - Shout Out To Dickey Singh And Cast.App
Enjoy! I know I sure did...
Jeff's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffheckler/
Shoutouts:
- Irit Eizips: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eizips/
- Dickey Singh of Cast.app: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dickey/
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This episode was edited by Lifetime Value Media, a media production company founded by my good friend and fellow CS veteran Dillon Young. Lifetime Value aims to serve the audio/video content production and editing needs of CS and Post-Sales professionals. Lifetime Value is offering select services at a deeply discounted rate for a limited time. Navigate to lifetimevaluemedia.com to learn more.
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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):
and the minute I did that, my coo said yeah, that's
going to go over the market, ohgood so yeah, uh, completely
lost.
You're welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
So yeah, well, exactly, I mean I did and, once
again, welcome to the digitalcustomer success podcast with me
, alex trukovich, so glad youcould join us here today and
every week as I seek out andinterview leaders and
practitioners who are innovatingand building great scaled CS
programs.
My goal is to share what I'velearned and to bring you along
(00:33):
with me for the ride so that youget the insights that you need
to build and evolve your owndigital CS program.
If you'd like more info, wantto get in touch or sign up for
the latest updates, go todigitalcustomersuccesscom.
For now, let's get started.
Hello and welcome back to theDigital Customer Experience
podcast.
(00:53):
So great to see you.
It is episode 52 today andbefore we get started, I wanted
to ask you to please bookmarkyour calendars for June 6th,
because I'll be taking part inMaddox Scale and CS Summit.
It's an online virtual eventthat's going to be taking place
all about scaling CS, and thereare so many incredibly talented
(01:20):
people on the roster for thisevent.
It's one not to be missed, andit's virtual, so you don't have
to travel anywhere, which isgreat.
If you sign up with a linkthat's down in the description
or the show notes, the firstfive people will get a $20 Uber
Eats gift card, which is prettyawesome because when you go to
conferences during the breaks,you want some snacks, and so
(01:43):
this way, you can order your owndang snacks for the summit.
So, again, june 6th mark yourcalendars and check out the link
that's in the description.
For today's episode, I'm joinedby none other than Jeff Heckler,
who I was pleased to have onthe show because he's quite well
known in the CS community, hasa lot of great things to say.
(02:05):
We talk about a bit of a stateof the union of you know what
he's seeing out there right nowand you know specifically
talking about.
You know the economics of SaaSand how that's impacting digital
, the proliferation of AI, andyou know how that has a little
bit of ways to go as well.
We cover a fair amount oftopics.
(02:28):
So I really hope that you enjoymy conversation with Jeff
Heckler today, because I suredid.
Dude, jeff, I appreciate youbeing on.
I was excited to have you onbecause you're like one of those
voices that's like continuallyin CS and you're a you know,
you've, you're multi awardwinner and, uh, you, just you've
(02:49):
, you've been a present voice inCS forever and, um, I think a
lot of people really look up toyour opinion and thought
leadership on stuff.
So obviously it was happy tohave you on the show and I'm
pleased that you um accepted myinvitation.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Well, it's my pleasure.
I um had the joy of listeningto some of the uh, some of their
pieces.
You've done and surreal serviceto the community.
So, um, delighted and andflattered to be here with you
and some of the folks that havealso contributed.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
So, so you, you're the one who listened hey,
there's a.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
There are a lot of thumbs up on youtube.
I can tell you from being thereand watching.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
So there's some I wanted to ask you, uh, a little
bit about, obviously, your, yourbackground.
I'm starting out because I sawat first I got confused because
I saw king's college on there.
It's like what's homeboy doinggoing to school in london.
But then I realized it wasn'tthat famous college, but I was
LinkedIn stalking you, of course, and your career has taken an
(03:50):
interesting, I think, arch overthe last you know, 20 or so
years and I noticed you spent aton of time in BI, right, what
was that arc that led you intoBI and then that transition into
CS, and I would imagine thatthe BI stuff has really served
you well after.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
You know that's not included on there is when I was
a high school teacher before BI.
We'll throw that in there.
But no, I get into businessintelligence through
MicroStrategy, which is stillout there and one of the tools
that didn't get gobbled up inany sort of acquisition.
That's because the CEO wouldnever allow that to happen.
But I got into software in thelate 90s, which is an
(04:32):
embarrassing amount of time ago.
I really fell into the complexproblem solving of it.
A lot of chemistry, a lot ofscience and math in my
background and that just kind offit.
I never.
When I was in college, thecomputer on campus were used for
um writing papers.
You know we just got out ofword processing, yeah, processor
(04:54):
.
So, anyways, my roles in biwere customer facing and that
was, um the biggest joy, andshoulder to shoulder with
customers solving problems andgetting getting to know their
use cases.
And so I now think about ifcustomer success would have been
around as early as it came onand I found it, I would have
been in it.
I got into customer successaround 2011, 2012 for a similar
(05:16):
thing, trying to solve businessintelligence problems for a
startup and then learning alittle bit about customer
success.
And then I came from aprofessional services background
on the BI side and so talkingto my leadership and saying if
we sat with our customers andinnate margin gave a little bit
more on the PS side of way, wewould have great feedback loops
(05:39):
for our product.
And then it came with sales andmarketing and so customer
success for me as a person andmy character and how I like to
work with people just fits, andso that's where it really works.
Two things I explain to myfamily and friends that aren't
familiar with maybe even tech Isit in the Penn Station of my
customers and my company andthat kind of buzz and energy of
(06:00):
my customers and my company andthat kind of buzz and energy I
feed off of, I hope I feed intoit.
And if I wasn't doing customersuccess in tech, I'd find a hot
dog vendor on the corner andhelp them out with their
customer lifecycle and journey.
So it's just been great.
You get to interact with somany different people every day.
It's never anything the samething twice, and so it's been a
(06:24):
great life.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
What you just said kind of um sparked something in
my brain which is a lot of timeson the show I've talked about
with you know, with variousguests.
I've talked about this too,about how, like b2c I think
needs to be more of a presencein b2b and I think customer
success can learn a lot,especially digital cs can learn
a lot from, from b2c.
(06:46):
But you're you're mentioning ofthe hot dog vendor kind of
sparked that thing which is likewhat you know, why do you think
that customer success is sofocused on tech and why does it
not so kind of prevalent inother industries like
manufacturing and stuff likethat?
Speaker 1 (07:05):
I'll be devil's advocate and think b2c the
company's vendors are so muchcloser to their customer.
Yeah, so I I think there's partof it there.
Um, and in tech, dealing withso many different unless you're
hyper verticalized as a product,um, you're dealing with so many
different use cases and andtrying to go to market in that
way, I think, oh gosh, I'll getmyself in trouble.
(07:27):
But PLG has also thrown more ofa problem into it.
So, tech one of the big thingsis you have startups in tech and
early mid-stage companies thatare still trying to figure their
way to the GTM and they usecustomer success as not a
feedback loop but as a bridgeand as just a second tier of
support.
(07:48):
And so all of those commonproblems that we've heard of and
know of and lived through.
It's just been more of, attimes, a crutch, a kind of a
hodgepodge Venn diagram ofprofessional services meets
support.
Let's throw customer success inthere as turn.
In terms of head count and cost, you can do it generally at a
(08:08):
better rate than you would a psorg and just slightly above what
you could do with a support org.
And I'm not I'm talking in vastgeneralities, but that standing
up a cs org and and theflexibility to it.
You can pivot it and you canevolve an iterator really
rapidly.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
It doesn't have a form, um like a support or a ps
org, so that's yeah, because Imean in in ps, you know I mean
the majority of ps lives intimes and materials world.
At that point it becomes aalmost a red tape bureaucratic
situation to throw more ps at it, you know, at a customer and
within cs2 it's got.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
You know this is also double-edged, as you can go,
you know cogs with or you goop-ex and yeah sure, or you can
split it and so you know finance.
People see a lot of opportunitythere yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Well, um, you know you've I think you've obviously
been in cs long enough to whereyou've experienced a lot in
terms of the genesis of CS overthe years, and this is the
Digital CS Podcast, and we'vebeen on this really big wave of
digital over the last I don'tknow few years.
Really, I guess I would askfirst off, obviously, what is
(09:19):
your elevator pitch of digitalCS?
How would you describe it inlay terms?
Speaker 1 (09:24):
We live in digital age and CS really hinges on
delivering seamless andpersonalized experiences at
scale.
So data automation, which iscontinually growing in our
opportunities through digitalchannels, which is the
software's, tooling, theprocesses to guide customers
(09:49):
proactively through theirjourney, and onboarding,
adoption, expansion, renewal andadvocacy.
And so that's, that's the, thewhy, a little bit of the how,
more of the why.
Reducing churn, driving valuerealization, particularly first,
(10:10):
value and value milestonesalong the customer journey.
Then we go back to the lastpart of it, advocacy, fostering
loyalty, turning customers intoraving fans and flywheel growth
engines for companies.
So digital CS is a must-have.
I think it kind of morphed froma scale than DCS along the way.
(10:32):
Also, as I say, scale, thatscale sometimes gets run over in
the street now by digital.
That's also important to keepin mind.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah, it's so true.
I think COVID had obviously alot of side effects, no pun
intended, or maybe pun intended,I think, one of the things in
CS obviously, we saw massiveshifts in the job market.
We saw this kind of fundamentalshift in CS where, you know,
all of a sudden now we're notthrowing bodies at a CS org as
(11:04):
we used to do, which is probablya good thing and people have
gotten more used to beingdigital and being remote and
being connected that way andusing chatbots and things like
that.
For me, one of the things thatI find fascinating is the
evolution of the QR code, whichis like it was this really cool
thing for a while, and then itbecame kind of this thing where,
(11:25):
like you know why are you goingto use a QR code.
Which is like it was thisreally cool thing for a while,
and then it became kind of thisthing where, like ah, you know
why are you going to use a QRcode?
Like that's stupid.
In fact, in one org I wasbuilding like an employee
onboarding program and we weredoing like a QR code scavenger
hunt where people would goaround and they would scan a QR
code.
They'd see a video from the CFOor see a whatever.
And even then this was maybe 10years ago it was like, yeah,
(11:52):
okay, that's kind of cool, butalso kind of not.
And then, all of a sudden,covid hits and every restaurant
has their menu on a QR code andwhatever.
It's just being used all overthe place because it's actually
a cool tool and I think digitalCS probably stands to benefit
from that.
I don't know where I'm goingwith that, but what do you make
of?
You know the state of cs today.
You've been in the industry fora while.
You've seen things evolve.
Obviously, the digital is is ahuge wave at the moment.
(12:13):
What, what's the state ofthings based on what you're
seeing?
Speaker 1 (12:18):
state of things.
Uh gosh, I pressure.
I guess I had to say word ofthe day in all directions.
Let's think about themacroeconomics for a minute,
because this is where all thethings for the vast majority are
coming from.
I think you're on your growthrates from 2020, 2022, growth
(12:41):
rates were in the low 30s andthen last year almost halved, so
in the high teens for publicSaaS companies.
So that's massive Median netretention fallen over the same
period of time by over 10percentage points from roughly
120, which used to be okay 120is kind of like baseline down to
(13:04):
110.
And then companies used to gettheir cap back in 12 to 18 on
average months, and now we'relooking at three years.
So that's where you knowinvestors are looking and saying
, well, that's not sittingaround waiting for long term,
looking at three to five yearsjust in generalities to move
(13:24):
investments and then, if I'vegot to wait for a cap to come
back at over three years andsomething has got to change so
that all just comes down andtrickles down.
I think there's, you see, a lotof contraction in headcount,
see a lot of contraction ofbudgets and see a lot of M&A
activity around this, not justin CS and SAS, but across the
(13:49):
board in other companies, giantcompanies that are not SaaS, and
tech and outside tech.
And then the most simplisticthing we've all heard is a
million times, but, as youmentioned, more with less, and
that's where some of the digitalstuff gets more eyeballs in it.
Ai has gotten a ton of oxygen,uh, just basically out of hope.
(14:09):
Um, I mean there's, there'ssome stuff there.
It's like kind of grasping at alever.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, you know I want to getback to the uh, you know, to the
macroeconomic discussion herein a bit.
But from an AI perspective,there's some cool stuff.
There's no doubt about that.
There's some really cool stuffthat's happening in AI, but
we're not there yet.
(14:41):
This coming together of likepredictive, prescriptive,
generative models to where, like, there's a end all be all of
how we're going to use AI Rightnow it's a bunch of tools and
those bunch of tools are tryingto figure out, like, where they
want to live and what they wantto do, and it'll be interesting
to see where that comes togetherand help solve some of those
(15:03):
problems.
But, like you know, back to theeconomics of things.
You know it's a confusing time,I think, for a lot of people,
because indications are that theeconomy is doing relatively
well at the moment right, butSaaS seems to be like this
straggler and tech seems to be astraggler.
Do you feel like that's justkind of lagging behind and
(15:24):
waiting for this wave?
Or do you feel like it's justkind of lagging behind and
waiting for this wave, or do youfeel like it's a new normal?
Speaker 1 (15:32):
I think it's more new normal than lag, and I say that
because I look back at historythat I've experienced.
So 9-11, housing crisis, techbubble, housing crisis, tech
bubble and so it changes.
When you go through periodslike this, there are certain
experiences where it changesbehavior on a level that's not
going to be waved off.
(15:52):
These are this is scar tissuethat's going to sit with us, and
so there's no one now creatinga org.
Um, and this is any customerfacing org is not looking at
maximum efficiencies, toolingand digital scale before they
(16:14):
look at well, I'm going toheadcount my way through this.
Not even a sales orgs you canlook at taking less headcount up
in quota and up in compensationand just seeing how it rolls
outside of models that we neverwould have looked at two years
ago.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
That's why I'm saying it.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Yeah, happening across the board, which makes
digitization all the moreimportant.
Doing that more with less.
Are there some strong trendsthat you're seeing in digital
Things that you've seen, likenew platforms or people doing
some really innovative, uniquethings that you've seen?
Speaker 1 (17:00):
I think well, before we go into the new stuff, I
think some of the things thathave been working we see really
growing in their efficacy callrecording analysis, moving on to
not just next steps but writingyour comms for you, aggregating
those and looking at whatfeedback can we give back to
(17:21):
what we used to do not so longago all of this by hand.
We had some reporting in tools.
But we used to do not so longago all of this by hand.
Primarily, we had somereporting in tools, but it
wasn't great.
And now you have, rapidly youhave these tools that can do
analysis and an aggregation foryou at such a scale that really
matters.
(17:41):
Especially if you have anywhereabove 10,000, 20,000 customers.
You need some critical mass ofdata to make it play.
But I just think and comingback just a little bit, some of
the CS folks that are digital CSright now, outside of tools and
(18:02):
real constructs, is there aretens of thousands of CS
professionals who roll up theirsleeves every day, get into one
of the Gen AI tools and maximizethe heck out of their time and
then take this and templatize itand share it within their orgs
to make mass communication athing.
(18:22):
So those things I think are tobe applauded.
Mass communication, I think.
So those things I think are tobe applauded.
There's a lot of sweat equitythat's going into how digital CS
is being carried out and theempathy of how we're utilizing
AI and other tools on aday-to-day.
I think, going further withdigital CS and trans
self-service, which wasgenerally async stuff that we
(18:44):
would look at kind of steal fromsupport or maybe use in
conjunction with marketing, Ithink the self-service options
have gotten really much wider intheir usage
Hyperpersonalization, comingfrom a lot of sales
methodologies as well, but alsointegration with some of the
tooling that's coming out andsome tech that's out now.
Social media, kind of in thesame basket, but also not with
(19:10):
how people are utilizing Slack.
It's gotten a lot more traction.
There's a lot of hesitation inhow to use Slack and how to not
get overburdened from it andjust turn on a fire hose, but
there's been good methodologyaround that.
And then sales engagement tools, which have been beneficial to
(19:31):
really staying in touch with thesame head of the company.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Funny you say that because it's like the common
gripe is that in CS we have sofew CS specific built tools, so
we've got to leverage all thesesales tools and hack around them
to make them work on the postsale.
But yeah, you mentioned a lotof really great things and I do
find a lot more orgs installingAI chatbots, which is super cool
(19:59):
when you can train your chatboton your community and your
knowledge base and that wealthof knowledge that's there.
I think that gets into,obviously, support ticket
deflection and things like that.
There are a couple of peopleI've been talking to where the
best practice seems to be launchthat thing internally first,
let your internal teams use itfirst, poke holes in it, make
(20:20):
sure it's serving up the rightinformation, but then also use
it as a tool to help you do yourjob more effectively, because I
think so much of digital isn'tand you've touched on this so
much of digital isn't justcustomer facing.
It's building thoseefficiencies internally and
those call transcripts andwriting recap emails and it's
like all those things that we'redoing on a daily basis, a
(20:44):
repeated basis, where we can seea lot of efficiency.
So that's cool and, yeah, slackis an interesting one.
I had Ralphie English on thepodcast half a year ago, I don't
know so whenever that was andshe is in an interesting
scenario where, like she doesn'thave a platform, you know she
can't do in-app messaging, it'san api and so, yeah, her, their,
(21:07):
her primary method ofcommunication with customers is
slack, for better or for worse,I think.
I think you can get intooverwhelm real quick with slack
too, though.
What happens internally?
Yeah, I mean I don't know.
You know I've lost track of howmany channels I'm in and I've
lost track of how many channelsI'm in and I've lost track of
how many notifications I'veignored notification overload.
(21:30):
I always like to ask if you'veseen any like digital emotions
in your everyday life thatyou've been kind of like
impressed by, or you've kind ofexperienced and you've been like
, oh, I know what that is.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Yeah, I think for the audience listening, I'll come
back to sales engagement tools.
So, using something like SalesLoft or Marketo and I say that
because it's got a wide reachand you're using IP that already
exists and hopefully, you knowcontent can also be utilized as
well from marketing and sales,and so I think that's for a lot
(22:10):
of folks that are probably inyour audience those are good
places to start and get a bigbang for your buck, provided you
have solid journey mapping andprovided you have content which
is, you know, right message,right time, right person.
We're not trying to get intothe, you know, wave my hand in
the air so you can see me, butreally look at, you know what
(22:32):
milestones and what points ofvalue can I drive at particular
moments in the life cycle, sothat one I would say with a wide
swath of coverage can do.
And if you're looking atbudgeting, it's already in-house
so it might just be a slightaddition and it's already been
approved into security and soyou have a lot of upside there.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
I love the scrappiness that digital CS
folks have.
It's just like what data do wehave?
What tools do we have?
One top tip that I've heard acouple of times now is make best
friends with your IT people,because they know every SaaS
application that exists withinthe org and who has it, Because
chances are, if you're lookingat Calendly, somebody already
(23:18):
has Calendly.
Or if you're looking atwhatever, somebody's got it or
something in the family, right,yeah, yeah yeah, yeah.
I mean, we had a practicalexample of that recently where
we were literally looking atpurchasing Calendly I think it
was Calendly, and you know we'rea Microsoft shop.
So it was like well, does M365have something?
(23:40):
And yes, it does, it's calledbooking and it works just fine.
Yeah, Integrates with all yourstuff that you already have.
Whether you love or hate theMicrosoft ecosystem, they've got
it.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Well, there's a reason why it's an ecosystem.
There's a reason why they'llacquire a tool and throw it in
for free.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
That's right, absolutely Make it sticky and
it's.
I mean, those things are hardto rip out right.
I mean, if you, I've actuallybeen through a Google to
Microsoft transition and it'satrocious, and it's probably
atrocious on purpose.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Yeah, ripple place is supposed to be painful.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Have you always loved to learn from not only my
mistakes, but I love learningfrom other people's mistakes and
things that I see around me.
But are there any massiveblunders that you've seen people
do digitally where you're like,oh God, shouldn't have done
that or didn't quite land theway you wanted it to?
Speaker 1 (24:54):
you wanted it to.
You know the one that I that Imade um, I was first getting
into to looking at content andcs and um, how we were going to
own it.
And you know I had greatjourney mapping, process maps
and I was like, all right, nowwe're going to do.
And I had built this cs opsteams and added some headcounts
of these teams, really kind ofoutside the full, like an
internal trainer just for CSsitting in Ops, data analyst,
(25:17):
which isn't new, but it was thenproject management and stuff
like that Sitting in Ops, cs Ops, not RevOps.
And so my next step was to docontent and so wrote the JD,
worked out the RACI and all thisand I called it customer
success, marketing.
(25:37):
And the minute I did that, myCOO said, yeah, that's going to
go over to marketing.
Oh, good, yeah, completely lostthat one, you're welcome.
Good, yeah, completely lostthat one, you're welcome.
Well, exactly, I mean, I did itwith a smile on my face and
very quickly because I knewwhere I had gone and I was like,
(26:02):
well, that's just, you know,going to have to learn from that
one.
That was a big one whichdoesn't sound huge, but when
you're flying down the highwayat, you know, 140 miles an hour.
Um, that would have been key toto getting to where we're going
.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
And then, having lost complete control of it, um, but
handing it over I did, happily,but uh and and you know you've
probably been hyping it with theteam and all this stuff, like
they're all like in it.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
No, I I'm pretty good at trumpeting something until
it's ready to go, but I thinksome other things that I wish I
would have learned more quicklyhow important cross-functional
allegiances and alliances are,building initiatives that are
going to cross, pollinate andwork for everyone, for everyone.
(26:54):
Yeah, sharing clips of of callsum cross-functionally carries
so much value for how you'retrying to advocate for customers
or trying to provide feedbackacross across the board.
Those are two things that cometo tell me more about that.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
How did that look?
What did that look liketactically?
How would you go about doingthat?
Because that involves goingback to the recording and
clipping out a segment anddistributing.
That's time right regularcadences with.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
You're aggregating, you're saying here's the AR or
the MRR that we have at riskwith these top key issues and
give me your top five.
And we're doing this biweeklyor we're doing this monthly and
(27:36):
we're all tracking on it.
And there's ownership and youhave executive sponsor that's
sitting over this and makingsure, hawkishly, that everyone's
doing what they're supposed tobe doing and owning.
And then coming back from thatand saying I, I'm going to put
this in, you just throw it inthe spreadsheet.
But you've got to get your teaminto, whether it's even
anecdotal or it's sentiment.
(27:57):
If you don't have an object inyour crm or your csp where
you're coding this stuff, it'slike, okay, here's the issue and
I have ears to it.
If you have some call recordingsoftware that you can do
keyword stuff, that that'shelpful.
But it's really about your team, your CS team, identifying and
being with you, even if they'renot there, but sharing this with
(28:18):
the team and saying here's thetop five things that we're
reporting back to support,here's the top five things that
we're reporting to marketing andflagging those.
And then getting the snippetand saying here it is and
sharing that as high as you canto get visibility into it.
So that's the tactic.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
That's cool.
It's a mindset shift, right.
Because as a CSM, going into acall, you're prepping for the
call.
You have things you want to hitor whatever, but then, as the
call is happening, you kind ofalmost have to have this thing
in the back of your brain thatsays we need to grab that out of
(28:56):
there, because if you're notthinking about it, then going
back to it is it's makes itdefinitely harder.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Well, and for the csm , the amount of empowerment that
you give to them and that theycan express the share to the
customer.
I'm going to take exactly whatyou just said and I'm going to
share that because we have thesebiweekly or monthly updates
with support or product andthey're going to get this in
that 15 minutes.
It's 15 seconds of what youjust said.
They're going to hear directlyand so the customer can say I
(29:20):
can't hold myself, my company,accountable for what might come
out of it, but I know thatyou'll be there.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
That's so cool.
I love that because you'reright that cross-collaborative
work is something that is kindof inherent in the nature of cs
in general.
But then if you're buildingthese digital strategies on top
of that stuff, you got to makesure it aligns with like, okay,
when is marketing communicatingcertain things and what inputs
do they need from the customer,and when is product doing xyz
(29:48):
and and of that kind of stuff.
So cross collaboration is hugeIn my opinion.
I've been actually writingabout it in the newsletter, so
if you're not subscribed to thenewsletter, go subscribe to the
newsletter.
Speaking of newsletters, I wantto you know, as we kind of
start to wrap up our convo, I'dlove to understand what you're
paying attention to.
What's your content diet, whatare your books, podcasts, what
(30:11):
are you ingesting?
Speaker 1 (30:16):
I'll start.
I guess the highest level ofstuff I listen to broadly
there's.
Scott Galloway has a podcastcalled Prof G Sastra Podcast.
So broad to SaaS, to CS.
Yes, most people have heard ofLincoln Murphy abroad to sass,
to cs, cs.
Um, most people have heard oflincoln murphy.
So lincoln murphy and hiscolleague, uh, johan nelson, do
impact weekly, which is reallysolid.
(30:37):
It's great at every level of cs, the things that they cover.
Dave kellogg's kell blog a lotof people know that.
Yeah, so those, those are somethings that I find immense
amount of value out of.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
That's a good collection, for sure.
Yeah, that Kell blog is spot on.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
I had the fortune of working at Business Objects
while he was our CMO.
That's where a big point intime at that period of time, we
went from being a tool to aplatform, and that was before
SaaS hit.
That was a revolution.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Yeah for sure.
Sure, that's cool.
Do you want to give any shoutouts to anybody who's like doing
great things in digital or isparticularly forward thinking in
cs?
Speaker 1 (31:20):
just recently listened to your podcast with um
our friend reid is it and shewas talking about some digital
stuff and um use of digitalpersonas, if I remember
correctly, and there is a toolby a company called Castapp, led
(31:41):
by CEO Diki Singh, and thatopportunity there for not just
CS, but I think there's otheropportunities and the way the
tool has grown and theirofferings have grown.
Those folks are doing somereally great work.
There's hyper-personalization,there's massive efficiencies,
there's aggregation, there'ssome predictive in there, and so
(32:02):
as a total package, it'ssomething that is really
eye-opening.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah, I'm a huge cast fan fan, in fact, dickie was on
the episode.
I'm trying to see what uh, hewas episode 40, um, so not too
long ago.
But he, he's like a breath offresh air in cs and he I think
part of the reason is he comesto it from an outsider's
perspective.
You know, lifelong engineer andhe's just trying to solve some
(32:30):
problems and see, you know, sawthis, this problem that we've
been talking about, likebuilding economy into serving a
customer the right way, and he's, he's doing a cool job and a
bunch of ai stuff in thebackground there, so it's,
that's super cool.
Where can people find you?
What have you been up to?
Anything you want to plug likeit's your time?
(32:50):
I'll just say anybody wants toconnect um linkedin is the place
and stuff that I think aboutgets dropped in yeah, cool, I
love following you on linkedinand um love that you're here and
thanks for sharing yourknowledge and dealing with our
connection issues that we'vesomehow battled through.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Well, thank, thank you alex and again for battled
through Well.
Thank you, alex, and again forwhat you do for the community.
Thank you Much appreciated.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Yeah, for sure Appreciate it.
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.
If you're watching on YouTube,leave a comment down below.
It really helps us to grow andprovide value to a broader
audience.
You can view the DigitalCustomer Success Definition
(33:35):
Wordmap and get more informationabout the show and some of the
other things that we're doing atdigitalcustomersuccesscom.
This episode was edited byLifetime Value Media, a media
production company founded byour good mutual friend, dylan
Young.
Lifetime Value aims to servethe content video audio
production needs of the CS andpost-sale community.
(33:57):
They're offering services at asteep discount for a limited
time.
So navigate tolifetimevaluemediacom, go have a
chat with Dylan and make sureyou mention the Digital CX
podcast sent you.
I'm Alex Trukovich.
Thanks so much for listening.
We'll talk to you next week.
and the minute I did that, my coo said yeah, that's
going to go over the market, ohgood so yeah, uh, completely
lost.
You're welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
So yeah, well, exactly, I mean I did and, once
again, welcome to the digitalcustomer success podcast with me
, alex trukovich, so glad youcould join us here today and
every week as I seek out andinterview leaders and
practitioners who are innovatingand building great scaled CS
programs.
My goal is to share what I'velearned and to bring you along
(00:33):
with me for the ride so that youget the insights that you need
to build and evolve your owndigital CS program.
If you'd like more info, wantto get in touch or sign up for
the latest updates, go todigitalcustomersuccesscom.
For now, let's get started.
Hello and welcome back to theDigital Customer Experience
podcast.
(00:53):
So great to see you.
It is episode 52 today andbefore we get started, I wanted
to ask you to please bookmarkyour calendars for June 6th,
because I'll be taking part inMaddox Scale and CS Summit.
It's an online virtual eventthat's going to be taking place
all about scaling CS, and thereare so many incredibly talented
(01:20):
people on the roster for thisevent.
It's one not to be missed, andit's virtual, so you don't have
to travel anywhere, which isgreat.
If you sign up with a linkthat's down in the description
or the show notes, the firstfive people will get a $20 Uber
Eats gift card, which is prettyawesome because when you go to
conferences during the breaks,you want some snacks, and so
(01:43):
this way, you can order your owndang snacks for the summit.
So, again, june 6th mark yourcalendars and check out the link
that's in the description.
For today's episode, I'm joinedby none other than Jeff Heckler,
who I was pleased to have onthe show because he's quite well
known in the CS community, hasa lot of great things to say.
(02:05):
We talk about a bit of a stateof the union of you know what
he's seeing out there right nowand you know specifically
talking about.
You know the economics of SaaSand how that's impacting digital
, the proliferation of AI, andyou know how that has a little
bit of ways to go as well.
We cover a fair amount oftopics.
(02:28):
So I really hope that you enjoymy conversation with Jeff
Heckler today, because I suredid.
Dude, jeff, I appreciate youbeing on.
I was excited to have you onbecause you're like one of those
voices that's like continuallyin CS and you're a you know,
you've, you're multi awardwinner and, uh, you, just you've
(02:49):
, you've been a present voice inCS forever and, um, I think a
lot of people really look up toyour opinion and thought
leadership on stuff.
So obviously it was happy tohave you on the show and I'm
pleased that you um accepted myinvitation.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Well, it's my pleasure.
I um had the joy of listeningto some of the uh, some of their
pieces.
You've done and surreal serviceto the community.
So, um, delighted and andflattered to be here with you
and some of the folks that havealso contributed.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
So, so you, you're the one who listened hey,
there's a.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
There are a lot of thumbs up on youtube.
I can tell you from being thereand watching.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
So there's some I wanted to ask you, uh, a little
bit about, obviously, your, yourbackground.
I'm starting out because I sawat first I got confused because
I saw king's college on there.
It's like what's homeboy doinggoing to school in london.
But then I realized it wasn'tthat famous college, but I was
LinkedIn stalking you, of course, and your career has taken an
(03:50):
interesting, I think, arch overthe last you know, 20 or so
years and I noticed you spent aton of time in BI, right, what
was that arc that led you intoBI and then that transition into
CS, and I would imagine thatthe BI stuff has really served
you well after.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
You know that's not included on there is when I was
a high school teacher before BI.
We'll throw that in there.
But no, I get into businessintelligence through
MicroStrategy, which is stillout there and one of the tools
that didn't get gobbled up inany sort of acquisition.
That's because the CEO wouldnever allow that to happen.
But I got into software in thelate 90s, which is an
(04:32):
embarrassing amount of time ago.
I really fell into the complexproblem solving of it.
A lot of chemistry, a lot ofscience and math in my
background and that just kind offit.
I never.
When I was in college, thecomputer on campus were used for
um writing papers.
You know we just got out ofword processing, yeah, processor
(04:54):
.
So, anyways, my roles in biwere customer facing and that
was, um the biggest joy, andshoulder to shoulder with
customers solving problems andgetting getting to know their
use cases.
And so I now think about ifcustomer success would have been
around as early as it came onand I found it, I would have
been in it.
I got into customer successaround 2011, 2012 for a similar
(05:16):
thing, trying to solve businessintelligence problems for a
startup and then learning alittle bit about customer
success.
And then I came from aprofessional services background
on the BI side and so talkingto my leadership and saying if
we sat with our customers andinnate margin gave a little bit
more on the PS side of way, wewould have great feedback loops
(05:39):
for our product.
And then it came with sales andmarketing and so customer
success for me as a person andmy character and how I like to
work with people just fits, andso that's where it really works.
Two things I explain to myfamily and friends that aren't
familiar with maybe even tech Isit in the Penn Station of my
customers and my company andthat kind of buzz and energy of
(06:00):
my customers and my company andthat kind of buzz and energy I
feed off of, I hope I feed intoit.
And if I wasn't doing customersuccess in tech, I'd find a hot
dog vendor on the corner andhelp them out with their
customer lifecycle and journey.
So it's just been great.
You get to interact with somany different people every day.
It's never anything the samething twice, and so it's been a
(06:24):
great life.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
What you just said kind of um sparked something in
my brain which is a lot of timeson the show I've talked about
with you know, with variousguests.
I've talked about this too,about how, like b2c I think
needs to be more of a presencein b2b and I think customer
success can learn a lot,especially digital cs can learn
a lot from, from b2c.
(06:46):
But you're you're mentioning ofthe hot dog vendor kind of
sparked that thing which is likewhat you know, why do you think
that customer success is sofocused on tech and why does it
not so kind of prevalent inother industries like
manufacturing and stuff likethat?
Speaker 1 (07:05):
I'll be devil's advocate and think b2c the
company's vendors are so muchcloser to their customer.
Yeah, so I I think there's partof it there.
Um, and in tech, dealing withso many different unless you're
hyper verticalized as a product,um, you're dealing with so many
different use cases and andtrying to go to market in that
way, I think, oh gosh, I'll getmyself in trouble.
(07:27):
But PLG has also thrown more ofa problem into it.
So, tech one of the big thingsis you have startups in tech and
early mid-stage companies thatare still trying to figure their
way to the GTM and they usecustomer success as not a
feedback loop but as a bridgeand as just a second tier of
support.
(07:48):
And so all of those commonproblems that we've heard of and
know of and lived through.
It's just been more of, attimes, a crutch, a kind of a
hodgepodge Venn diagram ofprofessional services meets
support.
Let's throw customer success inthere as turn.
In terms of head count and cost, you can do it generally at a
(08:08):
better rate than you would a psorg and just slightly above what
you could do with a support org.
And I'm not I'm talking in vastgeneralities, but that standing
up a cs org and and theflexibility to it.
You can pivot it and you canevolve an iterator really
rapidly.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
It doesn't have a form, um like a support or a ps
org, so that's yeah, because Imean in in ps, you know I mean
the majority of ps lives intimes and materials world.
At that point it becomes aalmost a red tape bureaucratic
situation to throw more ps at it, you know, at a customer and
within cs2 it's got.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
You know this is also double-edged, as you can go,
you know cogs with or you goop-ex and yeah sure, or you can
split it and so you know finance.
People see a lot of opportunitythere yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Well, um, you know you've I think you've obviously
been in cs long enough to whereyou've experienced a lot in
terms of the genesis of CS overthe years, and this is the
Digital CS Podcast, and we'vebeen on this really big wave of
digital over the last I don'tknow few years.
Really, I guess I would askfirst off, obviously, what is
(09:19):
your elevator pitch of digitalCS?
How would you describe it inlay terms?
Speaker 1 (09:24):
We live in digital age and CS really hinges on
delivering seamless andpersonalized experiences at
scale.
So data automation, which iscontinually growing in our
opportunities through digitalchannels, which is the
software's, tooling, theprocesses to guide customers
(09:49):
proactively through theirjourney, and onboarding,
adoption, expansion, renewal andadvocacy.
And so that's, that's the, thewhy, a little bit of the how,
more of the why.
Reducing churn, driving valuerealization, particularly first,
(10:10):
value and value milestonesalong the customer journey.
Then we go back to the lastpart of it, advocacy, fostering
loyalty, turning customers intoraving fans and flywheel growth
engines for companies.
So digital CS is a must-have.
I think it kind of morphed froma scale than DCS along the way.
(10:32):
Also, as I say, scale, thatscale sometimes gets run over in
the street now by digital.
That's also important to keepin mind.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah, it's so true.
I think COVID had obviously alot of side effects, no pun
intended, or maybe pun intended,I think, one of the things in
CS obviously, we saw massiveshifts in the job market.
We saw this kind of fundamentalshift in CS where, you know,
all of a sudden now we're notthrowing bodies at a CS org as
(11:04):
we used to do, which is probablya good thing and people have
gotten more used to beingdigital and being remote and
being connected that way andusing chatbots and things like
that.
For me, one of the things thatI find fascinating is the
evolution of the QR code, whichis like it was this really cool
thing for a while, and then itbecame kind of this thing where,
(11:25):
like you know why are you goingto use a QR code.
Which is like it was thisreally cool thing for a while,
and then it became kind of thisthing where, like ah, you know
why are you going to use a QRcode?
Like that's stupid.
In fact, in one org I wasbuilding like an employee
onboarding program and we weredoing like a QR code scavenger
hunt where people would goaround and they would scan a QR
code.
They'd see a video from the CFOor see a whatever.
And even then this was maybe 10years ago it was like, yeah,
(11:52):
okay, that's kind of cool, butalso kind of not.
And then, all of a sudden,covid hits and every restaurant
has their menu on a QR code andwhatever.
It's just being used all overthe place because it's actually
a cool tool and I think digitalCS probably stands to benefit
from that.
I don't know where I'm goingwith that, but what do you make
of?
You know the state of cs today.
You've been in the industry fora while.
You've seen things evolve.
Obviously, the digital is is ahuge wave at the moment.
(12:13):
What, what's the state ofthings based on what you're
seeing?
Speaker 1 (12:18):
state of things.
Uh gosh, I pressure.
I guess I had to say word ofthe day in all directions.
Let's think about themacroeconomics for a minute,
because this is where all thethings for the vast majority are
coming from.
I think you're on your growthrates from 2020, 2022, growth
(12:41):
rates were in the low 30s andthen last year almost halved, so
in the high teens for publicSaaS companies.
So that's massive Median netretention fallen over the same
period of time by over 10percentage points from roughly
120, which used to be okay 120is kind of like baseline down to
(13:04):
110.
And then companies used to gettheir cap back in 12 to 18 on
average months, and now we'relooking at three years.
So that's where you knowinvestors are looking and saying
, well, that's not sittingaround waiting for long term,
looking at three to five yearsjust in generalities to move
(13:24):
investments and then, if I'vegot to wait for a cap to come
back at over three years andsomething has got to change so
that all just comes down andtrickles down.
I think there's, you see, a lotof contraction in headcount,
see a lot of contraction ofbudgets and see a lot of M&A
activity around this, not justin CS and SAS, but across the
(13:49):
board in other companies, giantcompanies that are not SaaS, and
tech and outside tech.
And then the most simplisticthing we've all heard is a
million times, but, as youmentioned, more with less, and
that's where some of the digitalstuff gets more eyeballs in it.
Ai has gotten a ton of oxygen,uh, just basically out of hope.
(14:09):
Um, I mean there's, there'ssome stuff there.
It's like kind of grasping at alever.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, you know I want to getback to the uh, you know, to the
macroeconomic discussion herein a bit.
But from an AI perspective,there's some cool stuff.
There's no doubt about that.
There's some really cool stuffthat's happening in AI, but
we're not there yet.
(14:41):
This coming together of likepredictive, prescriptive,
generative models to where, like, there's a end all be all of
how we're going to use AI Rightnow it's a bunch of tools and
those bunch of tools are tryingto figure out, like, where they
want to live and what they wantto do, and it'll be interesting
to see where that comes togetherand help solve some of those
(15:03):
problems.
But, like you know, back to theeconomics of things.
You know it's a confusing time,I think, for a lot of people,
because indications are that theeconomy is doing relatively
well at the moment right, butSaaS seems to be like this
straggler and tech seems to be astraggler.
Do you feel like that's justkind of lagging behind and
(15:24):
waiting for this wave?
Or do you feel like it's justkind of lagging behind and
waiting for this wave, or do youfeel like it's a new normal?
Speaker 1 (15:32):
I think it's more new normal than lag, and I say that
because I look back at historythat I've experienced.
So 9-11, housing crisis, techbubble, housing crisis, tech
bubble and so it changes.
When you go through periodslike this, there are certain
experiences where it changesbehavior on a level that's not
going to be waved off.
(15:52):
These are this is scar tissuethat's going to sit with us, and
so there's no one now creatinga org.
Um, and this is any customerfacing org is not looking at
maximum efficiencies, toolingand digital scale before they
(16:14):
look at well, I'm going toheadcount my way through this.
Not even a sales orgs you canlook at taking less headcount up
in quota and up in compensationand just seeing how it rolls
outside of models that we neverwould have looked at two years
ago.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
That's why I'm saying it.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Yeah, happening across the board, which makes
digitization all the moreimportant.
Doing that more with less.
Are there some strong trendsthat you're seeing in digital
Things that you've seen, likenew platforms or people doing
some really innovative, uniquethings that you've seen?
Speaker 1 (17:00):
I think well, before we go into the new stuff, I
think some of the things thathave been working we see really
growing in their efficacy callrecording analysis, moving on to
not just next steps but writingyour comms for you, aggregating
those and looking at whatfeedback can we give back to
(17:21):
what we used to do not so longago all of this by hand.
We had some reporting in tools.
But we used to do not so longago all of this by hand.
Primarily, we had somereporting in tools, but it
wasn't great.
And now you have, rapidly youhave these tools that can do
analysis and an aggregation foryou at such a scale that really
matters.
(17:41):
Especially if you have anywhereabove 10,000, 20,000 customers.
You need some critical mass ofdata to make it play.
But I just think and comingback just a little bit, some of
the CS folks that are digital CSright now, outside of tools and
(18:02):
real constructs, is there aretens of thousands of CS
professionals who roll up theirsleeves every day, get into one
of the Gen AI tools and maximizethe heck out of their time and
then take this and templatize itand share it within their orgs
to make mass communication athing.
(18:22):
So those things I think are tobe applauded.
Mass communication, I think.
So those things I think are tobe applauded.
There's a lot of sweat equitythat's going into how digital CS
is being carried out and theempathy of how we're utilizing
AI and other tools on aday-to-day.
I think, going further withdigital CS and trans
self-service, which wasgenerally async stuff that we
(18:44):
would look at kind of steal fromsupport or maybe use in
conjunction with marketing, Ithink the self-service options
have gotten really much wider intheir usage
Hyperpersonalization, comingfrom a lot of sales
methodologies as well, but alsointegration with some of the
tooling that's coming out andsome tech that's out now.
Social media, kind of in thesame basket, but also not with
(19:10):
how people are utilizing Slack.
It's gotten a lot more traction.
There's a lot of hesitation inhow to use Slack and how to not
get overburdened from it andjust turn on a fire hose, but
there's been good methodologyaround that.
And then sales engagement tools, which have been beneficial to
(19:31):
really staying in touch with thesame head of the company.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Funny you say that because it's like the common
gripe is that in CS we have sofew CS specific built tools, so
we've got to leverage all thesesales tools and hack around them
to make them work on the postsale.
But yeah, you mentioned a lotof really great things and I do
find a lot more orgs installingAI chatbots, which is super cool
(19:59):
when you can train your chatboton your community and your
knowledge base and that wealthof knowledge that's there.
I think that gets into,obviously, support ticket
deflection and things like that.
There are a couple of peopleI've been talking to where the
best practice seems to be launchthat thing internally first,
let your internal teams use itfirst, poke holes in it, make
(20:20):
sure it's serving up the rightinformation, but then also use
it as a tool to help you do yourjob more effectively, because I
think so much of digital isn'tand you've touched on this so
much of digital isn't justcustomer facing.
It's building thoseefficiencies internally and
those call transcripts andwriting recap emails and it's
like all those things that we'redoing on a daily basis, a
(20:44):
repeated basis, where we can seea lot of efficiency.
So that's cool and, yeah, slackis an interesting one.
I had Ralphie English on thepodcast half a year ago, I don't
know so whenever that was andshe is in an interesting
scenario where, like she doesn'thave a platform, you know she
can't do in-app messaging, it'san api and so, yeah, her, their,
(21:07):
her primary method ofcommunication with customers is
slack, for better or for worse,I think.
I think you can get intooverwhelm real quick with slack
too, though.
What happens internally?
Yeah, I mean I don't know.
You know I've lost track of howmany channels I'm in and I've
lost track of how many channelsI'm in and I've lost track of
how many notifications I'veignored notification overload.
(21:30):
I always like to ask if you'veseen any like digital emotions
in your everyday life thatyou've been kind of like
impressed by, or you've kind ofexperienced and you've been like
, oh, I know what that is.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Yeah, I think for the audience listening, I'll come
back to sales engagement tools.
So, using something like SalesLoft or Marketo and I say that
because it's got a wide reachand you're using IP that already
exists and hopefully, you knowcontent can also be utilized as
well from marketing and sales,and so I think that's for a lot
(22:10):
of folks that are probably inyour audience those are good
places to start and get a bigbang for your buck, provided you
have solid journey mapping andprovided you have content which
is, you know, right message,right time, right person.
We're not trying to get intothe, you know, wave my hand in
the air so you can see me, butreally look at, you know what
(22:32):
milestones and what points ofvalue can I drive at particular
moments in the life cycle, sothat one I would say with a wide
swath of coverage can do.
And if you're looking atbudgeting, it's already in-house
so it might just be a slightaddition and it's already been
approved into security and soyou have a lot of upside there.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
I love the scrappiness that digital CS
folks have.
It's just like what data do wehave?
What tools do we have?
One top tip that I've heard acouple of times now is make best
friends with your IT people,because they know every SaaS
application that exists withinthe org and who has it, Because
chances are, if you're lookingat Calendly, somebody already
(23:18):
has Calendly.
Or if you're looking atwhatever, somebody's got it or
something in the family, right,yeah, yeah yeah, yeah.
I mean, we had a practicalexample of that recently where
we were literally looking atpurchasing Calendly I think it
was Calendly, and you know we'rea Microsoft shop.
So it was like well, does M365have something?
(23:40):
And yes, it does, it's calledbooking and it works just fine.
Yeah, Integrates with all yourstuff that you already have.
Whether you love or hate theMicrosoft ecosystem, they've got
it.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Well, there's a reason why it's an ecosystem.
There's a reason why they'llacquire a tool and throw it in
for free.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
That's right, absolutely Make it sticky and
it's.
I mean, those things are hardto rip out right.
I mean, if you, I've actuallybeen through a Google to
Microsoft transition and it'satrocious, and it's probably
atrocious on purpose.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Yeah, ripple place is supposed to be painful.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Have you always loved to learn from not only my
mistakes, but I love learningfrom other people's mistakes and
things that I see around me.
But are there any massiveblunders that you've seen people
do digitally where you're like,oh God, shouldn't have done
that or didn't quite land theway you wanted it to?
Speaker 1 (24:54):
you wanted it to.
You know the one that I that Imade um, I was first getting
into to looking at content andcs and um, how we were going to
own it.
And you know I had greatjourney mapping, process maps
and I was like, all right, nowwe're going to do.
And I had built this cs opsteams and added some headcounts
of these teams, really kind ofoutside the full, like an
internal trainer just for CSsitting in Ops, data analyst,
(25:17):
which isn't new, but it was thenproject management and stuff
like that Sitting in Ops, cs Ops, not RevOps.
And so my next step was to docontent and so wrote the JD,
worked out the RACI and all thisand I called it customer
success, marketing.
(25:37):
And the minute I did that, myCOO said, yeah, that's going to
go over to marketing.
Oh, good, yeah, completely lostthat one, you're welcome.
Good, yeah, completely lostthat one, you're welcome.
Well, exactly, I mean, I did itwith a smile on my face and
very quickly because I knewwhere I had gone and I was like,
(26:02):
well, that's just, you know,going to have to learn from that
one.
That was a big one whichdoesn't sound huge, but when
you're flying down the highwayat, you know, 140 miles an hour.
Um, that would have been key toto getting to where we're going
.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
And then, having lost complete control of it, um, but
handing it over I did, happily,but uh and and you know you've
probably been hyping it with theteam and all this stuff, like
they're all like in it.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
No, I I'm pretty good at trumpeting something until
it's ready to go, but I thinksome other things that I wish I
would have learned more quicklyhow important cross-functional
allegiances and alliances are,building initiatives that are
going to cross, pollinate andwork for everyone, for everyone.
(26:54):
Yeah, sharing clips of of callsum cross-functionally carries
so much value for how you'retrying to advocate for customers
or trying to provide feedbackacross across the board.
Those are two things that cometo tell me more about that.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
How did that look?
What did that look liketactically?
How would you go about doingthat?
Because that involves goingback to the recording and
clipping out a segment anddistributing.
That's time right regularcadences with.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
You're aggregating, you're saying here's the AR or
the MRR that we have at riskwith these top key issues and
give me your top five.
And we're doing this biweeklyor we're doing this monthly and
(27:36):
we're all tracking on it.
And there's ownership and youhave executive sponsor that's
sitting over this and makingsure, hawkishly, that everyone's
doing what they're supposed tobe doing and owning.
And then coming back from thatand saying I, I'm going to put
this in, you just throw it inthe spreadsheet.
But you've got to get your teaminto, whether it's even
anecdotal or it's sentiment.
(27:57):
If you don't have an object inyour crm or your csp where
you're coding this stuff, it'slike, okay, here's the issue and
I have ears to it.
If you have some call recordingsoftware that you can do
keyword stuff, that that'shelpful.
But it's really about your team, your CS team, identifying and
being with you, even if they'renot there, but sharing this with
(28:18):
the team and saying here's thetop five things that we're
reporting back to support,here's the top five things that
we're reporting to marketing andflagging those.
And then getting the snippetand saying here it is and
sharing that as high as you canto get visibility into it.
So that's the tactic.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
That's cool.
It's a mindset shift, right.
Because as a CSM, going into acall, you're prepping for the
call.
You have things you want to hitor whatever, but then, as the
call is happening, you kind ofalmost have to have this thing
in the back of your brain thatsays we need to grab that out of
(28:56):
there, because if you're notthinking about it, then going
back to it is it's makes itdefinitely harder.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Well, and for the csm , the amount of empowerment that
you give to them and that theycan express the share to the
customer.
I'm going to take exactly whatyou just said and I'm going to
share that because we have thesebiweekly or monthly updates
with support or product andthey're going to get this in
that 15 minutes.
It's 15 seconds of what youjust said.
They're going to hear directlyand so the customer can say I
(29:20):
can't hold myself, my company,accountable for what might come
out of it, but I know thatyou'll be there.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
That's so cool.
I love that because you'reright that cross-collaborative
work is something that is kindof inherent in the nature of cs
in general.
But then if you're buildingthese digital strategies on top
of that stuff, you got to makesure it aligns with like, okay,
when is marketing communicatingcertain things and what inputs
do they need from the customer,and when is product doing xyz
(29:48):
and and of that kind of stuff.
So cross collaboration is hugeIn my opinion.
I've been actually writingabout it in the newsletter, so
if you're not subscribed to thenewsletter, go subscribe to the
newsletter.
Speaking of newsletters, I wantto you know, as we kind of
start to wrap up our convo, I'dlove to understand what you're
paying attention to.
What's your content diet, whatare your books, podcasts, what
(30:11):
are you ingesting?
Speaker 1 (30:16):
I'll start.
I guess the highest level ofstuff I listen to broadly
there's.
Scott Galloway has a podcastcalled Prof G Sastra Podcast.
So broad to SaaS, to CS.
Yes, most people have heard ofLincoln Murphy abroad to sass,
to cs, cs.
Um, most people have heard oflincoln murphy.
So lincoln murphy and hiscolleague, uh, johan nelson, do
impact weekly, which is reallysolid.
(30:37):
It's great at every level of cs, the things that they cover.
Dave kellogg's kell blog a lotof people know that.
Yeah, so those, those are somethings that I find immense
amount of value out of.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
That's a good collection, for sure.
Yeah, that Kell blog is spot on.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
I had the fortune of working at Business Objects
while he was our CMO.
That's where a big point intime at that period of time, we
went from being a tool to aplatform, and that was before
SaaS hit.
That was a revolution.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Yeah for sure.
Sure, that's cool.
Do you want to give any shoutouts to anybody who's like doing
great things in digital or isparticularly forward thinking in
cs?
Speaker 1 (31:20):
just recently listened to your podcast with um
our friend reid is it and shewas talking about some digital
stuff and um use of digitalpersonas, if I remember
correctly, and there is a toolby a company called Castapp, led
(31:41):
by CEO Diki Singh, and thatopportunity there for not just
CS, but I think there's otheropportunities and the way the
tool has grown and theirofferings have grown.
Those folks are doing somereally great work.
There's hyper-personalization,there's massive efficiencies,
there's aggregation, there'ssome predictive in there, and so
(32:02):
as a total package, it'ssomething that is really
eye-opening.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah, I'm a huge cast fan fan, in fact, dickie was on
the episode.
I'm trying to see what uh, hewas episode 40, um, so not too
long ago.
But he, he's like a breath offresh air in cs and he I think
part of the reason is he comesto it from an outsider's
perspective.
You know, lifelong engineer andhe's just trying to solve some
(32:30):
problems and see, you know, sawthis, this problem that we've
been talking about, likebuilding economy into serving a
customer the right way, and he's, he's doing a cool job and a
bunch of ai stuff in thebackground there, so it's,
that's super cool.
Where can people find you?
What have you been up to?
Anything you want to plug likeit's your time?
(32:50):
I'll just say anybody wants toconnect um linkedin is the place
and stuff that I think aboutgets dropped in yeah, cool, I
love following you on linkedinand um love that you're here and
thanks for sharing yourknowledge and dealing with our
connection issues that we'vesomehow battled through.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Well, thank, thank you alex and again for battled
through Well.
Thank you, alex, and again forwhat you do for the community.
Thank you Much appreciated.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Yeah, for sure Appreciate it.
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.
If you're watching on YouTube,leave a comment down below.
It really helps us to grow andprovide value to a broader
audience.
You can view the DigitalCustomer Success Definition
(33:35):
Wordmap and get more informationabout the show and some of the
other things that we're doing atdigitalcustomersuccesscom.
This episode was edited byLifetime Value Media, a media
production company founded byour good mutual friend, dylan
Young.
Lifetime Value aims to servethe content video audio
production needs of the CS andpost-sale community.
(33:57):
They're offering services at asteep discount for a limited
time.
So navigate tolifetimevaluemediacom, go have a
chat with Dylan and make sureyou mention the Digital CX
podcast sent you.
I'm Alex Trukovich.
Thanks so much for listening.
We'll talk to you next week.
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