Invariably, when you speak to someone in CS about Rob Zambito, the first comment that almost always comes back is, "He's a good guy". ...and I couldn't agree more.
I wouldn't say that I've known Rob for a very long - but the time we've spent both on Zoom and in-person has always been extremely high-quality, funny, impactful, personal and full of great questions.
This is the same approach Rob takes with all of his clients at Success Scaled, where he advises seed to B-series companies on CS strategies. He asks A LOT of questions and puts together a good picture of current-state before digging into solutioning.
This is also what makes him a phenomenal guest for this episode of the show because he has seen A LOT of stuff work - and a lot of stuff not work!
In this episode, we talk about:
- How his background in ‘consumer psychology’ has helped him in his CS ventures
- The parallels between the hospitality/service industry and being a CSM
- Using the ‘lunch break test’ to help identify what should and can be automated
- CS teams, if structured correctly can and should be catch-all
- CSMs should know about any interaction their customers have with the company - tickets, ideas submissions, community events, course completions, etc.
- Part of the digital remit should be focused on providing CSMs with easy access to customer data & telemetry for use in engaging their accounts
- Onboarding is an amazing first place to focus on digitizing as it is the most formative stage of the journey
- Rob’s approach to providing guidance and feedback to his clients in a productive manner
- Successful onboarding will have customers ready to expand immediately
- Approach your daily routine from the standpoint of scaling and making your everyday more efficient
- Don’t wait for leadership to design your own efficiencies as an IC
- Setting aside an hour per day to hone in on work that is meaningful to you
- Incorporate celebration into your digital flows
- Leveraging user data to really figure out the opportunities that exist within a customer
- Set the right expectations early when implementing digital motions
- Don’t build a community until it starts to build itself. Communities can swing wildly between ‘crickets’ and ‘group think’, so building them must be done so cautiously
Rob's LinkedIn
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's also the title of your next ebook, the lunch
break test.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Oh, that's good.
Just I like that.
Just kidding, but you can seethe next ebook, as if I've
written one already.
I do have ideas for one, butlook, we all have drafts, right.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Yeah, we all have drafts that we may or may not
get to.
Yeah, and once again, welcometo the digital customer success
podcast with me, alex Trokovich.
So glad you could join us heretoday and every week as I seek
out and interview leaders andpractitioners who are innovating
and building great scaled CSprograms.
My goal is to share what I'velearned and to bring you along
(00:39):
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.
Yeah, greetings, and welcome tothe digital customer success
podcast, episode 45, which iscrazy getting closer to 50.
(01:03):
So glad you're here, gladyou're here every week.
I love return listeners.
I love all your feedback andyour comments and your reviews
on Apple and Spotify and all theplaces and, of course, youtube.
Um, great to have you backtoday.
Um, I've I had a lovelyconversation with Rob Zambido,
(01:26):
who runs success scale.
I always have to think about it.
Is it scaled success or is itsuccess scaled?
It's success scaled.
Um, what you go should shouldgo check out his website and
whatnot.
But Rob is um one of thoselovely people in the CS
community that just everybody.
When you mentioned Rob Zambidoto people, um, invariably the
(01:50):
comment that comes back at youis what a good guy Cause he is.
Uh, rob's a great guy.
He's great to talk to, crazyknowledgeable about CS.
Um also is a very kind ofvulnerable forward person.
He's not afraid to kind of tellyou the mistakes he's made and
share you know some of thethings that he's learned from
(02:12):
those mistakes.
Um, so we talk a lot, obviously, about digital CS and digital
motions, but we also get intokind of career tracks and career
advice and, um, you know,building community and those
kinds of things.
So lots of great talking pointsin this episode with Rob
Zambido.
I hope you enjoy it, because Isure did.
(02:32):
Well, it's nice having you onthe podcast.
I know it's been a while coming.
In fact, we tried to record inperson at the CS festival in
Austin.
That failed miserably due tomultiple circumstances, some
within our control, some outsideof our control, um, but we made
it and we're speaking now,which is great.
You're one of my favoritepeople in CS, um, I can say that
(02:54):
cause it's true.
Oh, but I'm real happy to haveyou on the show and, uh, you
know, looking forward to thisconvo.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yeah, yeah, me too.
Um, I thought you skipped, uh,one of the our initial time that
we were supposed to speak.
I thought it was so ironic thatthe host of the digital success
podcast uh had to cancel due toan onsite, and I was like that
ironic.
But yeah, I also would havethought it was ironic if we
(03:29):
recorded in person in a way tooright, I mean.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
I know.
Yeah, like we were even jokingabout doing it like in in the
car or whatever.
Yeah, wow, um, that's a well,no, no, no, no, no, yeah, I
guess I'll just podcast my mom.
That's the promo clip rightthere.
Yeah, there you go, like youjust couldn't find a good place
to do it, so whatever.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah, I hope people are listening audibly, because
if they watch the video they'llsee me turning beat red right
now.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
So that's good, good stuff.
So go to YouTube and watch therest of this episode.
Yeah, um, hey look, I want to.
I want to turn back the clock alittle bit.
Um and um, I want to.
I want to learn more about yourdegree in psychology here and
(04:24):
kind of what led to that.
And then I want to know if kindof has that, has that kind of
okay?
I want to know your transitioninto CS, but then I want to know
like, has your psychologydegree helped you in any way
professionally?
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yes, definitely, and I think it's not in the way that
people expect.
Um, I actually chose to studypsych because I initially wanted
to study philosophy and I kindof recognized that I wanted a
more scientific way to view theworld, and psychology, as
(05:03):
opposed to philosophy, allowedme to tackle the big
philosophical questions, um,while providing me a more
scientific framework and aresearch methodology to approach
those questions.
Um, and that is so similar to alot of the work we do in
customer success Right, I mean,it's not even just the um, the
(05:26):
extent to which we sort ofrecognize the implicit
heuristics and biases thatcustomers and we ourselves take
into customer interactions, butalso to establish, like a, an
experimental framework where wecan A B test different
situations like customersituations, like, for example,
you know, in my last job, lastfull-time job, we uh, I guess I
(05:46):
technically still have afull-time job, but it's my you
know what, you understand what Imean.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
I'm working for myself.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
One of the coolest things we did was an experiment
where we were A B testing.
We were like A, b, c, d, etesting, uh, different sequences
of emails that we can sendcustomers to promote their
engagement and measuring thesuccess against those, and I
don't think that's an exercisethat I would have been able to
do if I didn't have a backgroundin in specifically consumer
(06:12):
psychology was what I studiedmost.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Interesting.
So you know, basically applyingthe the scientific method to
your email testing.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Having a little background instatistics and, uh, research
methodology Certainly doesn'thurt.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
No, yeah, that's cool , that's real cool.
Well, and then, you know, oneof the other things I wanted to
ask you about is is is relatedto kind of a a thing that I
don't know.
I maintain, I maintain thateverybody, at some point in
their life, should work inhospitality in some form or
fashion, whether it berestaurant or hotel or whatever,
(06:53):
like some kind of, you know uh,public facing thing.
You took that to an extreme and, I think, opened and ran a
chain of restaurants, if I, if Ihave that correctly.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yeah.
So when I graduated college, myinstinct was, especially after
failing out of the interviewprocess and self-sabotaging out
of the interview process for allthe sleek, cool consulting jobs
and banking jobs that myfriends were getting.
Um, I was like this isn't forme, I need to start my own thing
.
And I decided I'm going tostart a food business called
(07:28):
Fruzzy.
Fruzzy was like a fro-yo, madeonly out of frozen fruit.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Um.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
I started it with a guy who had a restaurant and
then we partnered on therestaurant.
We scaled up the restaurantfrom one location to four
locations in seven months, whichwas way too aggressive.
So I mean talk about burnout.
Uh, I was working like noshortage of a hundred hours a
week and eventually had to leave, but not without learning a
(07:55):
thing or two about.
Uh.
Well, actually that was where Ifirst became fascinated with
customer retention.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Mm, hmm.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Um, that's before I ever, long before I ever heard
the term customer success.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
I was fascinated with retention, um, and obviously
the things that lead to it, likesatisfaction and engagement and
all that stuff um in arestaurant setting, right, right
, um.
So I've often told new CSMpeople knew to CS that you can
learn most of what you need toknow on customer success just by
envisioning the best waiter orwaitress you've ever had.
(08:27):
You know.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think that's.
That's crazy wise because, um,you know, in that kind of a role
you have to be able to read theroom, you have to understand,
you know what level of serviceyour customer wants and needs
and you have to be you know.
I think the best waiters arethe consultative ones that can,
(08:54):
you know, they can really helpyou along that journey.
Now, you know, maybe not atMcDonald's or whatever, but you
know, if you're going, if you'regoing to go get, you know, a
really lovely meal, kind of the.
The service is part of that.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yeah, absolutely.
Someone who can guide you onthe menu, guide you on your
experience, make recommendationsas to like what wine pairs with
what dish, and you know thatkind of thing is that's.
That's an exceptionalexperience in my mind, and
that's not that different fromwhat we do in customer success,
guiding our customers toward the, you know, sometimes
(09:27):
opinionated, yet sometimescorrect ways to use our product.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Yeah, exactly One um I I was really looking forward
to this conversation because youknow we've we've talked on the
side quite a bit and and I knowthat you have um some
wonderfully unique um, I guess,opinions opinions is a weird
word to use, but more um justtakes on CS in general and you
(09:54):
know how we should navigate thislandscape of CS and whatnot.
And you have this wonderfulcombination of, like you know,
strategic, kind of unique out ofthe box thinking with just
tactical, like this is what youneed to do XYZ framework, blah,
blah, blah, blah blah.
So kind of applying that to ourtopic for today, which is
digital CS, I wanted to get yourtake, as I do with all my
(10:18):
guests, of you know what.
What would be kind of yourelevator pitch or your, um, your
definition of digital CS if youhad to describe it to somebody
that had no idea what you weretalking about.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah.
So if I assume that person isin customer success, then I
would describe it as it's reallya set of strategies that
leverage automations and data topromote customer value, with
the ultimate goal of renewingcustomers at a high rate,
expanding them at a high rateand turning them into customer
(10:52):
advocates.
Um, and the way that I actuallydescribed it to someone was
like think of, like, thecustomer success that you could
do in your sleep, right?
Or you know, the lunch breaktest is a test that you can talk
about, like, if you can docustomer success while taking a
break, right, what does thatlook like?
(11:14):
Well, it looks like automations.
It looks like, you know, itlooks like in-app workflows.
It looks like well-leveragedlearning management systems and
knowledge bases, things thathelp customers self-serve.
Those are all customer successmotions.
They just aren't ones thatnecessarily require a face in
front of a screen and hands on akeyboard and a person in front
(11:37):
of a computer at that verymoment.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
That's also the title of your next ebook, the lunch
break test.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Oh, that's good, I like that.
Just kidding, I like to see thenext ebook, as if I've written
one already.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
I do have ideas for one, but Look, we all have
drafts, right, we all havedrafts that we may or may not
get to.
Yeah, that's cool.
I love that definition.
And yeah, the lunch break test,that's a good one, because it
is the stuff that you, you knowA might have to do on your lunch
(12:13):
break because there's no oneelse doing it or the automation
isn't in place.
And really where your focusshould be as a CSM is having
those valuable conversations,not, like you know, pulling
reports and doing all that kindof fun stuff.
So you know we didn't reallycomplete the journey, but you
(12:34):
founded Success Scaled a fewyears ago, really to help people
along those ways and alongthose, you know, along that
journey to really scaling outteams and being efficient and
those kinds of things.
But was there like an initialproblem that you were trying to
solve, or you know, and has thatchanged over the years?
(12:57):
Or was it more kamikaze, like,hey, I'm a CS consultant?
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Yeah, no, it has not changed over the years, and I
trace it back to a series ofobservations that I had at
different SaaS companies that Ithink customer success teams
were not really built in verysuccessful ways.
(13:25):
What I mean by that is and Ithink there's still an extent to
which this is very true today Ithink a lot of customer success
teams emerged out of differentbusiness functions whether it
was support or a sales functionor an account management
function or whatever and therewas a period of time where I saw
customer success teams spinningup where, like founders and
CEOs and C level people weresaying like well, I don't know
(13:47):
what this customer success thingis, but I know we need to have
it, and you know that was likewhen money was flowing and you
know the venture world wasreally nice to all of our
companies and everything likethat A few years ago in
particular, although I feel likeI've seen a few of these cycles
now over the last decade or so.
But I think that the waycustomer success has been built
(14:11):
has often been a veryadministrative function at some
companies and a bit of a catchall at many companies, and I
have a very like controversialsort of opinion on this in many
ways, where I love a customersuccess team that actually can
catch all as long as it's donewith your charter and a clear
(14:34):
purpose for the organization.
So basically I guess like toanswer your question.
The problems that I was tryingto solve, the tactical problems
were like broken onboardingsbroken, or like high churn, lack
of expansion, lack of advocacy.
But when you really trace backwhy those were happening, it's
because most of the time thecustomer success team was built,
you know, in my opinion,suboptimally from the start, and
(14:59):
that's why I usually targetreally early stage companies to
work with seed through series Bto help them get the
foundational playbooks andproactive motions down and
digital motions down so thatthey can be really effective at
their jobs.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
So I don't want to go back to kind of your
controversial take there for asecond, because I agree with you
, you know, I think, I think, Ithink that there is this
sentiment I don't know if it'sprotectiveness or if it's maybe
(15:35):
ego or something like that butthere's this sentiment that, hey
, my CSMs should really only bedoing this stuff and they
shouldn't be doing, you know,wrangling support tickets and
things like that.
And while I certainly agree,right, your CSMs shouldn't be
frontline support and shouldn'tbe triaging technical issues and
(15:56):
shouldn't be doing all thatkind of stuff, I do think and
I'm curious if this is kind ofwhat you're getting at I do
think that they should be theconduit through which some of
those things start to get solved, especially if they uncover
those things.
But you do that by havingautomations in place and by
having killer cross-functionalrelationships, right?
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and I like that you
tapped into cross-functionalrelationships too.
The reason why my opinion onthis is often controversial is
in large part colored by mybackground, which is, you know,
I went from really scrappyrestaurant where if you said
that you weren't going to washthe dishes or something like
(16:38):
that, you'd get fired right Liketo then, you know, working in
SaaS where I carried a lot ofthose really scrappy principles
and I worked in very leanenvironments where, like, I
never had the privilege in mybackground to say, oh, I'm not
going to touch those supporttickets, like that's not right,
but I had to find scrappy waysto handle them.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
You're like let me at them.
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
So I have strong principles around or values, I
guess around this idea thatthere's no work that we're too
good for in customer success,and I often see the term
strategic used as a crutch toavoid work when I actually think
(17:25):
, like support is strategic,just by a different definition.
So I don't mean that CSMs shouldbe doing support with the
majority of the day In fact, Ithink the minority at best of a
CSM's day should be spent onthat.
But I do think that analyzingsupport trends is a really
critical part of churnprevention, expansion of,
(17:50):
frankly, just like making a goodimpression on your customer
right, because if they don'tthink that you have a pulse on
what their support needs are,well you know you could lock
selling them on more stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
And especially knowing you know, like the types of cases that
they've been entering and arereaching, like you know, if
there's a lot of trainingrelated tickets, hey, guess what
?
they could probably use yourtraining subscription or
whatever that is, or someconsultancy hours or something
(18:21):
like that.
You know it's like it's thatkind of seller mentality where
you're constantly looking forsure opportunities to increase,
you know, revenue and all thosekinds of things and expansion,
but also you're just looking foropportunities to help the
customer help themselves and tobe better.
And I think you know not onlysupport cases but, like you know
(18:44):
, knowing if your customer issubmitting ideas into the ideas
portal, you know, like stufflike that, like knowing how your
customer is actually engagingwith the systems around you, is
so critical because otherwiseyou're just flying blind.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Well, I love that.
You added that there.
I had a conversation onLinkedIn recently, which you
know those go.
But the conversation was youknow why should a CSM never be
owning tickets?
And I was like, well, thismight just be a matter of
verbiage, but in my languageeven feature requests are
tickets right.
Anything that's submitted to theproduct team, the engineering
(19:18):
team, the vehicle by which itgets, there is a ticket and I
like that.
You added the feature requestexample.
Some companies, some teamsdon't call it that.
I mean, I personally do, butit's kind of semantics at the
end of the day.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Yeah, it is.
I mean at the yeah and at theend of the day, you as a CSM,
you have kind of this fiduciaryresponsibility to just know
what's going on, so that you canwalk into those conversations
knowing what's going on and soyou can advise appropriately.
And I think to me anyway, thatis one of the golden areas for a
(19:56):
healthy digital program is ifyou can provide all of those
things and those insights andthat knowledge on a like a
silver platter to your CSM sothey don't have to go dig in
prior to the meeting.
They can, you know, just golook for five minutes and get a
lay of the land for what's beenhappening the last month.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
And I love that you said that too, because to me my
first interactions with digitalCS did start in support, where
support rolled up into CS.
And you know, in thatenvironment there was no
escaping support, or at leastthere seemed there didn't seem
to be and I had to start findingways to automate delivery of
(20:41):
both support and onboardingmaterials to customers, because
the volume was just more thanany one person could handle.
So that was kind of an entrypoint to then learn, well, how
do I ultimately automate usagemonitoring and satisfaction
(21:02):
monitoring and how do I automatemy, like, non responsive
customer playbook and myrenewals workflow and my upsell
workflows and that kind of thing?
So that was kind of my entrypoint.
Yeah to a whole world of digitalpost sale engagement.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Yeah, it is a whole world and and that is one that I
feel like you do a really goodjob on advising, and I think you
know, going back on what wewere talking about earlier, is
you currently advise like seedthrough be series, companies and
and Just picking up on onething that you said, which was
(21:42):
that you, you know you reallylike to lead with digital in in
those conversations, because Imean, I think goes without
saying that leading with digitalis a group you know helps you
build that strong foundation forgrowing on.
You know the teams on top of itand whatnot, but you, one of the
very common questions that Iget quite frequently is just
(22:05):
where do I start?
And and my answer to that is,well, it depends.
But yeah, I mean, you know, Ido think that you know there
there are some kind ofcommonalities for where people
should start.
You know down digitizing thingsand, and so I wanted to ask you
if there were like Some trends,some common things that you're
(22:30):
typically advising, you know,especially a new client, to to
look at, to go down to explorein terms of digitizing.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Sure, absolutely yeah .
In my experience it's almostalways on boarding the
onboarding process.
As opposed to the other domainsthat I would say, like I do
have in the back of my mind, orlike Customer health renewals,
chair and upsell advocacysupport all of that's in the
back of my mind, but onboardingis usually the the key place to
(23:00):
start, for a couple reasons.
Number one it helps you triagethe most what I consider to be
the most formative, the mostimportant part of the customer
journey.
But number two is that, like it, it's not an unsolved.
I mean, there's a lot ofcompanies that have figured this
out in really elegant waysaround Building out automated
(23:25):
onboarding programs, buildingin-app workflows, building
learning management systems andknowledge bases around those
learning management systems thatcan guide customers at scale in
a really effective way at areally important point in their
journey.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
There kind of is no more important point.
Yeah, onboarding and and it'salso one that's Very commonly
messed up yeah, I guess for thelack of a better, better word,
you know it's like Pre-sale topost-sale Handoff into
onboarding.
You've got a nice you knowJourney, your customer knows
(24:08):
exactly what to do and when todo it, and your teams are all
aligned.
That's it's.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
It's hard, it's really this is not me
challenging you, but I have sureworked with CEOs who have
challenged me on that and said,rob, we can afford to do bad
onboarding, we don't care aboutonboarding, we just care about
whether they renew.
And that is an always aninteresting conversation to have
(24:36):
a very early stage companiesthat may be thinking like what's
the least we can do that canget customers activated and
engaged and happy enough torenew.
I'm like man, that's kind ofDoesn't exactly get to the core
of what we're trying to do here,but I mean it does.
But yeah maybe, yeah, not not inthe most effective way.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
That's interesting and I love being challenged, by
the way, yeah, but you know thatthat is an interesting thing to
field and and I mean, I supposethere's a there's, there's some
semblance of truth to that,like you know.
You get them in and you getthem chugging and then you move
on to the next or whatever, andand you, but you're just, I mean
(25:25):
you're prolonging the pain,yeah, for teams after that,
right, right, yeah.
No like what's?
What's your feedback on whenyou hear that like how do you
approach that?
Speaker 2 (25:36):
so I Think you might remember from the presentation
that I did, I had to learn theskill of challenging myself to
agree with people when Idisagree with them, to start,
and Really understanding wherethey're coming from with this
sentiment.
And usually where they'recoming from is a Really strong
(25:58):
revenue focus and I like that.
So, like usually in having thatconversation, I'm like okay, I
see what you mean, I Agree withyou that, like, at the end of
the day, the renewal andExpansion dollars, those are the
things that matter most, thoseare things that drive, like the
financial outcomes of thecompany that we need, you know.
And then I often share.
(26:19):
Well, I have a very permissionbased approach in the workplace.
I usually ask permission tosort of share my experiences,
not just in the workplace butI'm facing conversations too
Sure.
My experience is usuallybasically say like okay, so I've
seen this before and I've seenalso how it's like really
expensive to try to unwind whatwas an improper onboarding
(26:42):
process or I can see how thatjust sets us up for an uphill
battle.
The most effective example thatI had at this there was one
company I worked with.
I credit the team for reallystrong execution on a lot of
what we talked about, butbasically by I mean they were
(27:03):
dealing with upwards of 8% churnevery month and.
We ended up by fixing theonboarding process and then a
lot of other you know processesthat came afterwards.
We got them down to sub 2%monthly churn, yeah, and so I
(27:23):
really credit them, for I meanthey also built a solid product
in addition to a really goodexecution on the playbooks that
we discussed.
But the onboarding process wasso obviously the core reason for
the financial outcomes that theC level executives really cared
about.
Yeah, and on the surface.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
You know it is.
It is.
There is a cost benefit.
You know where it doesn't makesense to like Invest in an
onboarding team and a platformand an X.
You know an experience and Ithink, on the very high level.
You look at, okay, this is myACV.
You know why am I gonna plungea chunk of money on the front,
(28:02):
you know, to prolong my, youknow my break even on this.
You know, on this account.
But that's exactly what thepoint is is like, you know, you
want to make sure there's abreak even, first and foremost
and then you know and then fromthere, like you know, I mean
that's the nature of a, of aSaaS renewal business as you
(28:24):
count on that, those renewals tokeep, you know, to keep that
revenue growing.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
And in particular I mean most of the models I work
with our land and expand modelswhen good onboarding motion will
get the customer expanding bythe time they finish onboarding.
That's really cool, I mean.
That was another controversialopinion that I held at one point
was that, like I was like I Betthis is when I was, you know,
(28:54):
back at one company I was like Ibet we can get customers
expanding before they're evendone with onboarding.
And yeah, my reaction to myselfand my colleagues reaction me
was like this seems a littlecrazy.
Like they just bought theproduct.
I don't know that they're gonnawant to buy more, but I was
like no.
But I also see the fact that,like when they're in their most
formative stages of theircustomer lifecycle, that is when
they're most curious, mostintrigued and and most actually
(29:17):
willing to Step out of theircomfort zone of the products
that they're trying to learn andthey're familiar with and
ultimately buy these additionalproducts.
Yeah, it was like super coolhow we ultimately aligned
incentives At that company andthen a couple other companies
after that.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Yeah, that's really cool.
Yeah, onboarding matters, asDonna Weber would say.
I want to get a little bit moretactical, maybe, because one of
the things that I want to makesure you know we do in every
single episode is just provideMassive value and provide, you
(29:56):
know, tips and tricks for peoplewho want to go do stuff.
You know, and I think one ofthe one of the way, one of the
areas that we tend to kind ofoverlook sometimes is Kind of
Leaders.
We tend to overlook kind ofmiddle managers and even
individual contributors a lot of, a lot of times, because it's
(30:18):
seen that like, okay, digital islike this program you have to
do and it comes.
You know it's like your CSP andall that kind of stuff.
But you know, at the end of theday, there there's things that
like Individuals can do to helpdrive their own efficiencies and
things like that.
And have you, have you kind ofseen Some of those things at
play?
(30:39):
Have you advised on some ofthose things?
Like what, what do you do todrive your own efficiencies?
Like, what are some of yourkind of hacks, your digital
hacks, that anyone can kind ofgo and pick up and do?
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Yeah, yeah, I've seen this a lot and I actually take
it really seriously right nowbecause Burnout and customer
success is maybe worse than I'veever seen it.
Yeah so much that, like I'veheard people you know, some
mutual friends of ours, even saythat customer success as we
(31:10):
know it today I just can'tcontinue existing, not in its
current state.
Yeah, so the the thing that Iused to do, the tactical advice
that I suppose I would give,like Someone who's looking to
manage a bigger book of business, maybe grow in their own
(31:31):
personal scale and ultimate eveninto leadership, is I Used to,
no matter how overwhelmed I was,I would try to do two things.
One, I would set an hour a dayBefore I open my email, before I
open Slack, knowing full wellthat I was gonna walk into a
bunch of fires.
I would challenge myself for anhour a day to just think about
(31:53):
how am I gonna scale this thing.
And Second part of this is thatI would ask myself okay, you
know I'm.
I had a funny interaction with acustomer, with a CEO, once you
know it's my first time doingonboarding, and I was like I am
so overwhelmed and he was likewell, how many customers are you
dealing with?
I was like six.
You need to deal with ten timesthat man.
(32:15):
And so I felt so embarrassed atthe time and the next day I
said to myself okay, what wouldthis look like if I ten X the
number of customers that I had?
How would I manage that?
How would I possibly manage?
them and I started finding allthese pockets of inefficiency,
for example, like if I wassaying the same thing over and
(32:36):
over again.
I was like, wow, this coulddefinitely be done by a training
video.
And Guess what this?
This training video can beautomated based on every single
new user, you know.
Login.
Or sign up flow or somethinglike that.
Or cancelation, though.
Right, like I've had thisconversation a million times,
negotiating with a customer ontheir price, but they're looking
(32:58):
to cancel over, like what, if Iautomate that, and that was one
of the best like things that Idid for myself that I would
recommend to anybody listeningto this.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Yeah, I mean like it's amazing.
I've done this a couple timesin the past where I've taken
like a week and, throughout theweek, made a very conscious
effort to just like write downall of the things that I did at
least twice.
Mm-hmm, right, same action, didit twice, wrote it down, you
(33:30):
know, maybe even keep a tallymark on there.
And it is amazing, likethroughout a given week or maybe
maybe a month, whatever it is,how many of those things on the
list that you will see thatyou're like well, okay, what
could I do about that and whatcould I do about that?
And and I think there's enoughlike free tooling out there,
like if you're CSM.
(33:51):
Yeah and you're doing this foryourself.
There's enough free tool.
I mean, loom is free.
You know there's some freestuff out there, like, yeah, you
know there's things that youcan do, and I think I think for
me that's that is also.
It weaves into a bit of careeradvice that I like to give folks
(34:11):
, which is to say, like you know, if, if there's something that
you want to go do or test or oryou know Inefficiency that you
see that you know how to solve,for let's go, frickin, do it.
Yeah, show your leadership andsay, hey, check this out, you
can, you could do this for theteam and leaders.
Frickin love that, because it'snot.
(34:32):
They don't have to waste cyclesBrainstorming on stuff and
figuring out stuff.
I was like, hey, here's asolution.
Okay, you know, let's goimplement it and that's.
You know it ups your game aswell, because then all of a
sudden, you're out of.
You're out of tactical land andyou're into strategic land all
of a sudden, right, and yourscene is a strategic player and
(34:55):
stuff, and so I don't know.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
I don't know where I'm going with that, but I love
that.
No, I, I.
I agree with you.
I think the hard thing is likemost people listening to this
might say that sounds great.
Where am I ever gonna find thattime?
Yeah exactly, and so mychallenge to most CSM's that I
work with is Look, even if yourwork has to take a backseat For
(35:18):
an hour out of the day, thatwill be the hour best spent of
the day.
Yeah, if you really put yourmind to achieving a specific
automated deliverable, or atleast a step in that direction,
by the end of that hour.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Yeah, it's amazing what you can do in that hour,
you know.
I mean, it's also amazing howmany TikTok videos you can view
in an hour.
I know that's a danger, it's adanger, but you know, if you're
concerted and focused and Iwould also challenge leaders in
that front, like you know beproactive and have your team
(35:58):
block an hour on their calendarand there's like that's your
time to do what it is you needto do, to like do something
different.
You know, don't care what it is,do something different if it's
related to the gig and it'srelated to efficiencies bonus
points, you know.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Yeah, yeah, no, and I think actually even getting on
a group call together, or evenif it's just at the beginning
and the end of that hour andjust saying here's what I worked
on, is a really good way tobuild mutual accountability
within CS organizations.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Mm.
I love it.
That's good stuff, Nuggets ofgoodness, Are there.
So back on the programmaticfront, are there like digital
motions that you've seen thatyou really like, either within
one of your clients or like outin the wild?
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Yeah, this is my favorite question that you ask,
because I actually, when I sawthis question come up, or when I
heard it come up in previouspodcasts, I dug up a document
that I have, dating back to 2016, that I have.
It's called model onboardingprograms, and it ended up
capturing all sorts of differentstuff, not even just onboarding
, like product led growthmotions, cancellation flows,
(37:10):
like I don't know if you've evertried to cancel an Amazon
membership.
They put you through hell.
I don't recommend that.
By the way, I hope I don't getyou sued by Amazon.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
No, amazon ain't listening to this podcast.
I'll tell you how much.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
But yeah, so I actually dug up that list and I
have recent additions to it,like I was.
I don't know, have you usedsuperhuman?
It's an email automation tool.
Their whole value propositionas a company is to make, to give
you the best email experiencethat you've ever had.
So what they do in theironboarding flow I mean their
(37:53):
product is largely based onkeyboard shortcuts, or at least
that's what I've been educatedon so far by their.
They have this really elegantproduct led motion where every
day, you get a tip and you cantry it out right on the spot and
you get immediate feedback fromsuperhuman as to if you're
(38:14):
doing this correctly or not, andyou also get congratulations
too, which doesn't hurt.
Love.
That it kind of reminds me ofyeah, I got.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
You gotta celebrate.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
I know right, it reminds me.
So the first time I built outan LMS, a learning management
system, what I remember, Ithought it was such a fugazi.
I was like, and I put acertification at the end.
I was like, congratulations,you completed our online
university.
And then I thought it was crazy.
Until I saw a resume come backand it says like I'm certified
(38:53):
in your software.
And I was like what, what?
And a customer also got a resumethat said like oh yeah, I'm
like certified in this softwareand I was like people are
actually taking this seriously,Like I thought this was just a
joke.
But what's the certification?
It's not just you know,something made up anyway.
It was so cool, though I meanhonestly, and that university
(39:16):
still exists and now it'sactually made a meaningful dent
in people's knowledge in theindustry.
Yeah, I'm so proud of the folkswho I worked on that with and
who we built that out with.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
That's cool.
That's cool.
Yeah, I just looked upsuperhuman and I have heard of
it before, mainly because theirmarketing tagline is just you
know, it's very simple, it's theworld's fastest email, which,
okay, cool, I'll bite Fastestemail experience ever made.
I'll have to check it out.
But yeah, I think it's soimportant to celebrate those
(39:58):
wins, like on a user level.
You can capture the user andsay, hey, you did something
really good and give them anad-a-boy.
It doesn't cost you anythingreally, unless you like
incorporate swag or whatever,but it's very powerful moments.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
Can I tell you about another cool one that I ran into
.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Please, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
This one was interesting.
You're a Notion user, right.
Uh-huh yep, so Notion released.
Q&a have you heard about this?
So turns out that's an upsell,at least for the organizations
that I'm a part of.
And I thought it was interestingbecause it was like there was a
(40:41):
pop-up told me about Q&A and Iwas like, do you wanna learn
more?
Do you wanna sign up?
And I was like, okay, cool,we've sent a notification to
your administrator that you'rereally interested in this.
And I was like, oh wow, lookwhat they just did to me there.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Like I thought it was really clever.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
It was really cool.
I felt a little bit played.
I respect the game.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Mm-hmm, yeah, props, props.
I think there's all kinds ofreally interesting ways that
people can leverage the user inthat level, you know, because if
you really know what your usersare doing and what grade out
links they're trying to click onand stuff like that, like it
(41:30):
can tell you a lot about youknow.
But that's where CS and digitalCS again it's that cross
collaborative thing you gotta bein lockstep with your product,
or to put some of that stuff in.
You gotta be in lockstep withyour marketing organization to
just coordinate on that,Otherwise you just fall flat on
your face and send outunsolicited kind of stuff and
(41:54):
it's really messy and gross, soyeah, super hard.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Yeah, yeah, the relationships with product that
most of the companies I workwith are usually usually product
saying.
We can't help build CS toolingbecause we're really busy
working on other stuff and theCS marketing relationship
usually doesn't exist.
So I'm really happy you calledout both of those.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
Yeah, I mean there are a few people I've talked to
where they have those things inplace and it's just a wonderful
thing.
Miro is a company that isreally good at cross
collaborative work and inproduct stuff, which is cool.
The only thing that I likebetter than learning from my
(42:44):
mistakes is learning from otherpeople's mistakes.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
You know I'm a fan of this.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Yeah, so I wanna learn from some of your mistakes
and what are some of the things?
This is gonna open thevulnerability box here.
But what are some of theboneheaded things that you've
done because we've all done themand that you've learned the
most from?
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Yeah, no tons.
I mean, I think you know mewell enough to know that.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
I love.
That's why I asked you aquestion.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
It's so cathartic to me just to talk about how I've
messed up and for anyone who isat the Customer Success Festival
that we were out shout out tothe Customer Success Collective.
By the way, know that mypresentation was all just me
pulling up true old emails thatI used and how bad they were,
(43:36):
and everybody just basicallythrew on Some doodles.
Yeah, it was great.
It was such a disaster,delightful disaster.
I've made a number of mistakes.
I think the LMS example is agood one.
That taught me basically, whenyou're introducing digital
motions, set the rightexpectations early, well in
(44:01):
advance.
Because what I did is I justbasically ripped out all our
in-person training and said well, guess what, you've got videos
and you've got this conciergeservice from a CSM who didn't
actually know what to do withtheir job.
And customers were not happybecause they were promised even
on-site visits from the salesteam, classroom training and
(44:24):
stuff.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Big miss.
So set the right expectations isone thing I learned, and
learned to frame that to thepositive Like one of the things
that I often do when introducingdigital motions is framing this
as supplementary to theservices that customers are
getting, and complementary tothe services that customers are
(44:47):
getting.
It's not a reduction in service, as long as you believe that to
be actually true.
Right Another mistake I'velearned is be really, really
cautious when trying to buildcommunity.
So that was like my entirety ofmy last job.
Basically, was building onlinecommunities, and they swing in
(45:12):
two widely different directions.
They're either like completecrickets- no one's talking or
it's complete group think andyou're just.
Your brand reputation isgetting trashed in a community
of people who are all havingcommon issues and that's a very
(45:34):
difficult and expensive.
It's expensive on both sides toeither promote engagement or to
manage and moderate engagementand I see a lot of companies say
like, oh, we should just builda community.
But they don't really fit a lotof thinking into, like what
that actually requires to.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
And what it entails.
Yeah, and they think, like youknow, somebody from a frontline
and support person can justmanage the whole thing, it'll be
fine.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, it can be very overwhelmingvery quickly.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
Yeah, yeah and that I think it's interesting that you
know, the group think thing isalmost as dangerous, I would say
, as the crickets communityexample, because I mean crickets
community it's does never great, you know it's like okay, our
customer base is super unengaged, but you know, the group thing
(46:30):
thing can actually be.
I've witnessed a couple ofplaces where there's been like
actual like harassment thingsthat happen.
Oh wow, community, and it'slike not, not good, and
obviously you know at that pointyou have to like kick people
out and you know that wholething and it's not.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
Yeah, yeah, no, it's not.
It's it's.
It's dangerous at times, mostof the time.
Basically, my rule of thumb forcommunities is don't build a
community until it builds itself.
Oh, good yeah, and what I meanby that is like you'll notice,
when people start organicallyforming communities around your
(47:09):
product.
Maybe it's like a Facebookgroup or something like that.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
I was going to say once there's a Facebook group,
you know you need to build acommunity.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
Yeah, then get ahead of it retain them getting
control of it.
You know, allocate resources toit, but most of the time like
using it prior to that, using acommunity prior to that, to me
is usually not affordable Formost early saved companies.
Speaker 1 (47:33):
Hey look, as as we kind of start to wrap things
down because I can't, we're justtime flies.
Yeah we talk, but do you wantto understand what's in your
content diet?
And I also want to understandwho is doing cool stuff in
digital that you may want tocall out.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
Yeah, I think there's .
So there's a lot in my contentdiet.
It's most.
I'm going to give you examplesof things that are not customer
success, because I feel likethat, Sure, yeah my experience
and customer success is mostenriched by actually like
content from other domains.
Yes, Lately I've been binging alot of sales podcasts, so one
(48:16):
is called 30 minutes toPresidents Club.
Cool really good one and it'sit's a lot of content that's
geared toward young sales peopleand those are the skills that I
think actually help customersuccess people most Sure,
because most CS people I knowthey haven't invested or they
(48:37):
haven't been able to invest.
Yeah, I'm in learning salesskills and I'll forget that at
the end of the day, we areselling renewals after all.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (48:46):
And up selling digital products.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Revenue builders.
Do you have your check outrevenue builders?
Speaker 1 (48:53):
No.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
It's another podcast out there.
I would say it's, you know,nothing like the digital CS
podcast, really, no, it's.
It's like a.
It's a popular sales podcastand they've just started now
Doing some customer successcontent as of like a week or two
ago.
Cool, yeah, yeah, I like thatone a lot.
(49:16):
There's also this, this podcastI've been listening to you
lately, called the economics ofeveryday things.
Speaker 1 (49:23):
Oh, I like that.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
Yeah, it's just it's from Freakonomics Radio.
Okay, yeah, I love Freakonomics.
Yeah yeah, and I I love likeunusual verticals, like and
understanding the economicsbehind, like ATMs and car washes
and junk mail and personalinjury lawyers and all that
(49:45):
stuff.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
Yeah, how do you afford all those billboards?
Speaker 2 (49:50):
Yeah, yeah so yeah, but yeah, I mean, those are some
of the things I've beenchecking out lately.
Speaker 1 (50:01):
Cool.
I like the sales tangentbecause, yeah, for two, for two
reasons.
I totally think you're rightthat those skills are
transferable.
I also feel like a lot of times, the the line between a really
effective seller and a reallyeffective consultant are they're
like almost non existent,because the thing that those two
(50:25):
have in common are the abilityto ask stellar questions.
Yeah, totally.
Totally yeah, yeah, the end ofthe day you want your CSMs to be
consultants, so yeah, yeah,yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
That's what I like about this 30 minutes of
residence club podcast is thatthey've just got really easy
playbooks, actionable playbooks.
I would say they're notnecessarily easy.
They're actionable books that,like you could try out work
tomorrow and you know, whateverthe setting is, whatever the
task is with a customer, ittends to work pretty effectively
.
Speaker 1 (50:59):
Yeah, yeah, cool.
How about shout outs You're so,I mean, you're so well
connected and everybody saidwhat I don't know about that
Shout out, let's see.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
So I couple people who I really appreciate their
work.
One I mentioned burnout, and Ihave a colleague friend based
here in Boston, Ryan Johansson,and he recently went off to do
his own thing building aconsulting practice around
(51:32):
managing burnout After hiscareer customer success.
So he mostly oh, wow, yeah,it's really, really legit and it
hits on to me like one of thethings that matters most in my
own personal line of work too.
I kind of describe my line ofwork as like I'm like a CSM for
CSMs.
Yeah, Actually, we both knowMickey Powell and the thing
(51:57):
Mickey and.
I said repeatedly, is that likethe world is just a Russian
nesting doll of CSMs, like we'reall just CSMs on CSMs on CS.
You know, like my wife's atherapist, she's a CSM, a
waiter's CSM.
Speaker 1 (52:14):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (52:14):
You know my my my accountant is a CSM.
We're all just CSMs.
Speaker 1 (52:20):
Different CSMs.
Yeah, exactly, yeah, I lovethat.
That's great Cool.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:28):
So my friend Lauren Solonichro as well.
She co founded a communitycalled Women of Customer Success
.
And I think that's a reallycool community.
I'm not a member, if youcouldn't guess, but she's
organizing a conference soon andI'm super stoked for what?
(52:48):
She's been able to do buildingreally meaningful connections
and connecting people with coolopportunities and jobs and that
kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
Cool.
Well, obviously people can findyou on LinkedIn, but you know
website like where else canpeople reach out to you?
Speaker 2 (53:04):
Yeah, sure, so website, if you're the go to
successscalecom or robzanbetacom, either one buscsscalecom too,
in case you want to check thatone out.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
Do they all redirect to the same place?
Speaker 2 (53:15):
That's the same same terrible website, yeah, but, but
yeah, that's an easy I mean,linkedin is an easy way to reach
me.
Hello, at robzanbetacom is myemail, and I mean I I've been
thinking about introducing justsome casual office hours for
anyone that wants to join.
(53:35):
Cool and ironically, a role,jokingly calling it jam with XAM
.
But nice, that's a, that's.
That's a, that's the total joke.
Speaker 1 (53:48):
The XAM Jam.
Speaker 2 (53:49):
The XAM Jam.
There you go, that's it.
No, it's, it's on.
I'm kidding.
I don't like anything that'sbranded with my name really.
Speaker 1 (54:00):
Robzanbetacom.
Yeah, well, I know that.
Speaker 2 (54:04):
So I started that years ago.
I was like well, it's available, I got to take it.
Well, there's two other guysnamed Robzanbeta out there.
One is some guy in Rochesterand then one is a corrupt
Montreal politician.
And I know that corrupt guy isgoing to take it if I didn't.
So I don't want it to be acorrupt politician.
(54:24):
I think he's corrupt.
Rob, if you're listening tothis, I know we haven't met.
Please don't send anyone tohurt me.
Speaker 1 (54:32):
Totally corrupt.
Cool Well, thanks for theinsights, thanks for the laughs.
Always great chatting with youand can't wait to share it with
everybody.
Speaker 2 (54:43):
Yeah, yeah, my pleasure.
Thank you for having me on.
I really appreciate it and lovewhat you're doing for the
customer success community.
Speaker 1 (54:49):
Thank you for joining me for this episode of the
Digital Customer Success podcast.
If you like what we're doing,consider leaving us a review on
your podcast platform of choice.
It really helps us to grow andto provide value to a broader
audience.
You can view the DigitalCustomer Success definition word
map and get more details aboutthe show at
digitalcustomersuccesscom.
My name is Alex Turgovich.
(55:10):
Thanks again for joining andwe'll see you next time.
It's also the title of your next ebook, the lunch
break test.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Oh, that's good.
Just I like that.
Just kidding, but you can seethe next ebook, as if I've
written one already.
I do have ideas for one, butlook, we all have drafts, right.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Yeah, we all have drafts that we may or may not
get to.
Yeah, and once again, welcometo the digital customer success
podcast with me, alex Trokovich.
So glad you could join us heretoday and every week as I seek
out and interview leaders andpractitioners who are innovating
and building great scaled CSprograms.
My goal is to share what I'velearned and to bring you along
(00:39):
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.
Yeah, greetings, and welcome tothe digital customer success
podcast, episode 45, which iscrazy getting closer to 50.
(01:03):
So glad you're here, gladyou're here every week.
I love return listeners.
I love all your feedback andyour comments and your reviews
on Apple and Spotify and all theplaces and, of course, youtube.
Um, great to have you backtoday.
Um, I've I had a lovelyconversation with Rob Zambido,
(01:26):
who runs success scale.
I always have to think about it.
Is it scaled success or is itsuccess scaled?
It's success scaled.
Um, what you go should shouldgo check out his website and
whatnot.
But Rob is um one of thoselovely people in the CS
community that just everybody.
When you mentioned Rob Zambidoto people, um, invariably the
(01:50):
comment that comes back at youis what a good guy Cause he is.
Uh, rob's a great guy.
He's great to talk to, crazyknowledgeable about CS.
Um also is a very kind ofvulnerable forward person.
He's not afraid to kind of tellyou the mistakes he's made and
share you know some of thethings that he's learned from
(02:12):
those mistakes.
Um, so we talk a lot, obviously, about digital CS and digital
motions, but we also get intokind of career tracks and career
advice and, um, you know,building community and those
kinds of things.
So lots of great talking pointsin this episode with Rob
Zambido.
I hope you enjoy it, because Isure did.
(02:32):
Well, it's nice having you onthe podcast.
I know it's been a while coming.
In fact, we tried to record inperson at the CS festival in
Austin.
That failed miserably due tomultiple circumstances, some
within our control, some outsideof our control, um, but we made
it and we're speaking now,which is great.
You're one of my favoritepeople in CS, um, I can say that
(02:54):
cause it's true.
Oh, but I'm real happy to haveyou on the show and, uh, you
know, looking forward to thisconvo.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yeah, yeah, me too.
Um, I thought you skipped, uh,one of the our initial time that
we were supposed to speak.
I thought it was so ironic thatthe host of the digital success
podcast uh had to cancel due toan onsite, and I was like that
ironic.
But yeah, I also would havethought it was ironic if we
(03:29):
recorded in person in a way tooright, I mean.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
I know.
Yeah, like we were even jokingabout doing it like in in the
car or whatever.
Yeah, wow, um, that's a well,no, no, no, no, no, yeah, I
guess I'll just podcast my mom.
That's the promo clip rightthere.
Yeah, there you go, like youjust couldn't find a good place
to do it, so whatever.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah, I hope people are listening audibly, because
if they watch the video they'llsee me turning beat red right
now.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
So that's good, good stuff.
So go to YouTube and watch therest of this episode.
Yeah, um, hey look, I want to.
I want to turn back the clock alittle bit.
Um and um, I want to.
I want to learn more about yourdegree in psychology here and
(04:24):
kind of what led to that.
And then I want to know if kindof has that, has that kind of
okay?
I want to know your transitioninto CS, but then I want to know
like, has your psychologydegree helped you in any way
professionally?
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yes, definitely, and I think it's not in the way that
people expect.
Um, I actually chose to studypsych because I initially wanted
to study philosophy and I kindof recognized that I wanted a
more scientific way to view theworld, and psychology, as
(05:03):
opposed to philosophy, allowedme to tackle the big
philosophical questions, um,while providing me a more
scientific framework and aresearch methodology to approach
those questions.
Um, and that is so similar to alot of the work we do in
customer success Right, I mean,it's not even just the um, the
(05:26):
extent to which we sort ofrecognize the implicit
heuristics and biases thatcustomers and we ourselves take
into customer interactions, butalso to establish, like a, an
experimental framework where wecan A B test different
situations like customersituations, like, for example,
you know, in my last job, lastfull-time job, we uh, I guess I
(05:46):
technically still have afull-time job, but it's my you
know what, you understand what Imean.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
I'm working for myself.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
One of the coolest things we did was an experiment
where we were A B testing.
We were like A, b, c, d, etesting, uh, different sequences
of emails that we can sendcustomers to promote their
engagement and measuring thesuccess against those, and I
don't think that's an exercisethat I would have been able to
do if I didn't have a backgroundin in specifically consumer
(06:12):
psychology was what I studiedmost.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Interesting.
So you know, basically applyingthe the scientific method to
your email testing.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Having a little background instatistics and, uh, research
methodology Certainly doesn'thurt.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
No, yeah, that's cool , that's real cool.
Well, and then, you know, oneof the other things I wanted to
ask you about is is is relatedto kind of a a thing that I
don't know.
I maintain, I maintain thateverybody, at some point in
their life, should work inhospitality in some form or
fashion, whether it berestaurant or hotel or whatever,
(06:53):
like some kind of, you know uh,public facing thing.
You took that to an extreme and, I think, opened and ran a
chain of restaurants, if I, if Ihave that correctly.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yeah.
So when I graduated college, myinstinct was, especially after
failing out of the interviewprocess and self-sabotaging out
of the interview process for allthe sleek, cool consulting jobs
and banking jobs that myfriends were getting.
Um, I was like this isn't forme, I need to start my own thing
.
And I decided I'm going tostart a food business called
(07:28):
Fruzzy.
Fruzzy was like a fro-yo, madeonly out of frozen fruit.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Um.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
I started it with a guy who had a restaurant and
then we partnered on therestaurant.
We scaled up the restaurantfrom one location to four
locations in seven months, whichwas way too aggressive.
So I mean talk about burnout.
Uh, I was working like noshortage of a hundred hours a
week and eventually had to leave, but not without learning a
(07:55):
thing or two about.
Uh.
Well, actually that was where Ifirst became fascinated with
customer retention.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Mm, hmm.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Um, that's before I ever, long before I ever heard
the term customer success.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
I was fascinated with retention, um, and obviously
the things that lead to it, likesatisfaction and engagement and
all that stuff um in arestaurant setting, right, right
, um.
So I've often told new CSMpeople knew to CS that you can
learn most of what you need toknow on customer success just by
envisioning the best waiter orwaitress you've ever had.
(08:27):
You know.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think that's.
That's crazy wise because, um,you know, in that kind of a role
you have to be able to read theroom, you have to understand,
you know what level of serviceyour customer wants and needs
and you have to be you know.
I think the best waiters arethe consultative ones that can,
(08:54):
you know, they can really helpyou along that journey.
Now, you know, maybe not atMcDonald's or whatever, but you
know, if you're going, if you'regoing to go get, you know, a
really lovely meal, kind of the.
The service is part of that.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yeah, absolutely.
Someone who can guide you onthe menu, guide you on your
experience, make recommendationsas to like what wine pairs with
what dish, and you know thatkind of thing is that's.
That's an exceptionalexperience in my mind, and
that's not that different fromwhat we do in customer success,
guiding our customers toward the, you know, sometimes
(09:27):
opinionated, yet sometimescorrect ways to use our product.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Yeah, exactly One um I I was really looking forward
to this conversation because youknow we've we've talked on the
side quite a bit and and I knowthat you have um some
wonderfully unique um, I guess,opinions opinions is a weird
word to use, but more um justtakes on CS in general and you
(09:54):
know how we should navigate thislandscape of CS and whatnot.
And you have this wonderfulcombination of, like you know,
strategic, kind of unique out ofthe box thinking with just
tactical, like this is what youneed to do XYZ framework, blah,
blah, blah, blah blah.
So kind of applying that to ourtopic for today, which is
digital CS, I wanted to get yourtake, as I do with all my
(10:18):
guests, of you know what.
What would be kind of yourelevator pitch or your, um, your
definition of digital CS if youhad to describe it to somebody
that had no idea what you weretalking about.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah.
So if I assume that person isin customer success, then I
would describe it as it's reallya set of strategies that
leverage automations and data topromote customer value, with
the ultimate goal of renewingcustomers at a high rate,
expanding them at a high rateand turning them into customer
(10:52):
advocates.
Um, and the way that I actuallydescribed it to someone was
like think of, like, thecustomer success that you could
do in your sleep, right?
Or you know, the lunch breaktest is a test that you can talk
about, like, if you can docustomer success while taking a
break, right, what does thatlook like?
(11:14):
Well, it looks like automations.
It looks like, you know, itlooks like in-app workflows.
It looks like well-leveragedlearning management systems and
knowledge bases, things thathelp customers self-serve.
Those are all customer successmotions.
They just aren't ones thatnecessarily require a face in
front of a screen and hands on akeyboard and a person in front
(11:37):
of a computer at that verymoment.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
That's also the title of your next ebook, the lunch
break test.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Oh, that's good, I like that.
Just kidding, I like to see thenext ebook, as if I've written
one already.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
I do have ideas for one, but Look, we all have
drafts, right, we all havedrafts that we may or may not
get to.
Yeah, that's cool.
I love that definition.
And yeah, the lunch break test,that's a good one, because it
is the stuff that you, you knowA might have to do on your lunch
(12:13):
break because there's no oneelse doing it or the automation
isn't in place.
And really where your focusshould be as a CSM is having
those valuable conversations,not, like you know, pulling
reports and doing all that kindof fun stuff.
So you know we didn't reallycomplete the journey, but you
(12:34):
founded Success Scaled a fewyears ago, really to help people
along those ways and alongthose, you know, along that
journey to really scaling outteams and being efficient and
those kinds of things.
But was there like an initialproblem that you were trying to
solve, or you know, and has thatchanged over the years?
(12:57):
Or was it more kamikaze, like,hey, I'm a CS consultant?
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Yeah, no, it has not changed over the years, and I
trace it back to a series ofobservations that I had at
different SaaS companies that Ithink customer success teams
were not really built in verysuccessful ways.
(13:25):
What I mean by that is and Ithink there's still an extent to
which this is very true today Ithink a lot of customer success
teams emerged out of differentbusiness functions whether it
was support or a sales functionor an account management
function or whatever and therewas a period of time where I saw
customer success teams spinningup where, like founders and
CEOs and C level people weresaying like well, I don't know
(13:47):
what this customer success thingis, but I know we need to have
it, and you know that was likewhen money was flowing and you
know the venture world wasreally nice to all of our
companies and everything likethat A few years ago in
particular, although I feel likeI've seen a few of these cycles
now over the last decade or so.
But I think that the waycustomer success has been built
(14:11):
has often been a veryadministrative function at some
companies and a bit of a catchall at many companies, and I
have a very like controversialsort of opinion on this in many
ways, where I love a customersuccess team that actually can
catch all as long as it's donewith your charter and a clear
(14:34):
purpose for the organization.
So basically I guess like toanswer your question.
The problems that I was tryingto solve, the tactical problems
were like broken onboardingsbroken, or like high churn, lack
of expansion, lack of advocacy.
But when you really trace backwhy those were happening, it's
because most of the time thecustomer success team was built,
you know, in my opinion,suboptimally from the start, and
(14:59):
that's why I usually targetreally early stage companies to
work with seed through series Bto help them get the
foundational playbooks andproactive motions down and
digital motions down so thatthey can be really effective at
their jobs.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
So I don't want to go back to kind of your
controversial take there for asecond, because I agree with you
, you know, I think, I think, Ithink that there is this
sentiment I don't know if it'sprotectiveness or if it's maybe
(15:35):
ego or something like that butthere's this sentiment that, hey
, my CSMs should really only bedoing this stuff and they
shouldn't be doing, you know,wrangling support tickets and
things like that.
And while I certainly agree,right, your CSMs shouldn't be
frontline support and shouldn'tbe triaging technical issues and
(15:56):
shouldn't be doing all thatkind of stuff, I do think and
I'm curious if this is kind ofwhat you're getting at I do
think that they should be theconduit through which some of
those things start to get solved, especially if they uncover
those things.
But you do that by havingautomations in place and by
having killer cross-functionalrelationships, right?
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and I like that you
tapped into cross-functionalrelationships too.
The reason why my opinion onthis is often controversial is
in large part colored by mybackground, which is, you know,
I went from really scrappyrestaurant where if you said
that you weren't going to washthe dishes or something like
(16:38):
that, you'd get fired right Liketo then, you know, working in
SaaS where I carried a lot ofthose really scrappy principles
and I worked in very leanenvironments where, like, I
never had the privilege in mybackground to say, oh, I'm not
going to touch those supporttickets, like that's not right,
but I had to find scrappy waysto handle them.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
You're like let me at them.
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
So I have strong principles around or values, I
guess around this idea thatthere's no work that we're too
good for in customer success,and I often see the term
strategic used as a crutch toavoid work when I actually think
(17:25):
, like support is strategic,just by a different definition.
So I don't mean that CSMs shouldbe doing support with the
majority of the day In fact, Ithink the minority at best of a
CSM's day should be spent onthat.
But I do think that analyzingsupport trends is a really
critical part of churnprevention, expansion of,
(17:50):
frankly, just like making a goodimpression on your customer
right, because if they don'tthink that you have a pulse on
what their support needs are,well you know you could lock
selling them on more stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
And especially knowing you know, like the types of cases that
they've been entering and arereaching, like you know, if
there's a lot of trainingrelated tickets, hey, guess what
?
they could probably use yourtraining subscription or
whatever that is, or someconsultancy hours or something
(18:21):
like that.
You know it's like it's thatkind of seller mentality where
you're constantly looking forsure opportunities to increase,
you know, revenue and all thosekinds of things and expansion,
but also you're just looking foropportunities to help the
customer help themselves and tobe better.
And I think you know not onlysupport cases but, like you know
(18:44):
, knowing if your customer issubmitting ideas into the ideas
portal, you know, like stufflike that, like knowing how your
customer is actually engagingwith the systems around you, is
so critical because otherwiseyou're just flying blind.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Well, I love that.
You added that there.
I had a conversation onLinkedIn recently, which you
know those go.
But the conversation was youknow why should a CSM never be
owning tickets?
And I was like, well, thismight just be a matter of
verbiage, but in my languageeven feature requests are
tickets right.
Anything that's submitted to theproduct team, the engineering
(19:18):
team, the vehicle by which itgets, there is a ticket and I
like that.
You added the feature requestexample.
Some companies, some teamsdon't call it that.
I mean, I personally do, butit's kind of semantics at the
end of the day.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Yeah, it is.
I mean at the yeah and at theend of the day, you as a CSM,
you have kind of this fiduciaryresponsibility to just know
what's going on, so that you canwalk into those conversations
knowing what's going on and soyou can advise appropriately.
And I think to me anyway, thatis one of the golden areas for a
(19:56):
healthy digital program is ifyou can provide all of those
things and those insights andthat knowledge on a like a
silver platter to your CSM sothey don't have to go dig in
prior to the meeting.
They can, you know, just golook for five minutes and get a
lay of the land for what's beenhappening the last month.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
And I love that you said that too, because to me my
first interactions with digitalCS did start in support, where
support rolled up into CS.
And you know, in thatenvironment there was no
escaping support, or at leastthere seemed there didn't seem
to be and I had to start findingways to automate delivery of
(20:41):
both support and onboardingmaterials to customers, because
the volume was just more thanany one person could handle.
So that was kind of an entrypoint to then learn, well, how
do I ultimately automate usagemonitoring and satisfaction
(21:02):
monitoring and how do I automatemy, like, non responsive
customer playbook and myrenewals workflow and my upsell
workflows and that kind of thing?
So that was kind of my entrypoint.
Yeah to a whole world of digitalpost sale engagement.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Yeah, it is a whole world and and that is one that I
feel like you do a really goodjob on advising, and I think you
know, going back on what wewere talking about earlier, is
you currently advise like seedthrough be series, companies and
and Just picking up on onething that you said, which was
(21:42):
that you, you know you reallylike to lead with digital in in
those conversations, because Imean, I think goes without
saying that leading with digitalis a group you know helps you
build that strong foundation forgrowing on.
You know the teams on top of itand whatnot, but you, one of the
very common questions that Iget quite frequently is just
(22:05):
where do I start?
And and my answer to that is,well, it depends.
But yeah, I mean, you know, Ido think that you know there
there are some kind ofcommonalities for where people
should start.
You know down digitizing thingsand, and so I wanted to ask you
if there were like Some trends,some common things that you're
(22:30):
typically advising, you know,especially a new client, to to
look at, to go down to explorein terms of digitizing.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Sure, absolutely yeah .
In my experience it's almostalways on boarding the
onboarding process.
As opposed to the other domainsthat I would say, like I do
have in the back of my mind, orlike Customer health renewals,
chair and upsell advocacysupport all of that's in the
back of my mind, but onboardingis usually the the key place to
(23:00):
start, for a couple reasons.
Number one it helps you triagethe most what I consider to be
the most formative, the mostimportant part of the customer
journey.
But number two is that, like it, it's not an unsolved.
I mean, there's a lot ofcompanies that have figured this
out in really elegant waysaround Building out automated
(23:25):
onboarding programs, buildingin-app workflows, building
learning management systems andknowledge bases around those
learning management systems thatcan guide customers at scale in
a really effective way at areally important point in their
journey.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
There kind of is no more important point.
Yeah, onboarding and and it'salso one that's Very commonly
messed up yeah, I guess for thelack of a better, better word,
you know it's like Pre-sale topost-sale Handoff into
onboarding.
You've got a nice you knowJourney, your customer knows
(24:08):
exactly what to do and when todo it, and your teams are all
aligned.
That's it's.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
It's hard, it's really this is not me
challenging you, but I have sureworked with CEOs who have
challenged me on that and said,rob, we can afford to do bad
onboarding, we don't care aboutonboarding, we just care about
whether they renew.
And that is an always aninteresting conversation to have
(24:36):
a very early stage companiesthat may be thinking like what's
the least we can do that canget customers activated and
engaged and happy enough torenew.
I'm like man, that's kind ofDoesn't exactly get to the core
of what we're trying to do here,but I mean it does.
But yeah maybe, yeah, not not inthe most effective way.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
That's interesting and I love being challenged, by
the way, yeah, but you know thatthat is an interesting thing to
field and and I mean, I supposethere's a there's, there's some
semblance of truth to that,like you know.
You get them in and you getthem chugging and then you move
on to the next or whatever, andand you, but you're just, I mean
(25:25):
you're prolonging the pain,yeah, for teams after that,
right, right, yeah.
No like what's?
What's your feedback on whenyou hear that like how do you
approach that?
Speaker 2 (25:36):
so I Think you might remember from the presentation
that I did, I had to learn theskill of challenging myself to
agree with people when Idisagree with them, to start,
and Really understanding wherethey're coming from with this
sentiment.
And usually where they'recoming from is a Really strong
(25:58):
revenue focus and I like that.
So, like usually in having thatconversation, I'm like okay, I
see what you mean, I Agree withyou that, like, at the end of
the day, the renewal andExpansion dollars, those are the
things that matter most, thoseare things that drive, like the
financial outcomes of thecompany that we need, you know.
And then I often share.
(26:19):
Well, I have a very permissionbased approach in the workplace.
I usually ask permission tosort of share my experiences,
not just in the workplace butI'm facing conversations too
Sure.
My experience is usuallybasically say like okay, so I've
seen this before and I've seenalso how it's like really
expensive to try to unwind whatwas an improper onboarding
(26:42):
process or I can see how thatjust sets us up for an uphill
battle.
The most effective example thatI had at this there was one
company I worked with.
I credit the team for reallystrong execution on a lot of
what we talked about, butbasically by I mean they were
(27:03):
dealing with upwards of 8% churnevery month and.
We ended up by fixing theonboarding process and then a
lot of other you know processesthat came afterwards.
We got them down to sub 2%monthly churn, yeah, and so I
(27:23):
really credit them, for I meanthey also built a solid product
in addition to a really goodexecution on the playbooks that
we discussed.
But the onboarding process wasso obviously the core reason for
the financial outcomes that theC level executives really cared
about.
Yeah, and on the surface.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
You know it is.
It is.
There is a cost benefit.
You know where it doesn't makesense to like Invest in an
onboarding team and a platformand an X.
You know an experience and Ithink, on the very high level.
You look at, okay, this is myACV.
You know why am I gonna plungea chunk of money on the front,
(28:02):
you know, to prolong my, youknow my break even on this.
You know, on this account.
But that's exactly what thepoint is is like, you know, you
want to make sure there's abreak even, first and foremost
and then you know and then fromthere, like you know, I mean
that's the nature of a, of aSaaS renewal business as you
(28:24):
count on that, those renewals tokeep, you know, to keep that
revenue growing.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
And in particular I mean most of the models I work
with our land and expand modelswhen good onboarding motion will
get the customer expanding bythe time they finish onboarding.
That's really cool, I mean.
That was another controversialopinion that I held at one point
was that, like I was like I Betthis is when I was, you know,
(28:54):
back at one company I was like Ibet we can get customers
expanding before they're evendone with onboarding.
And yeah, my reaction to myselfand my colleagues reaction me
was like this seems a littlecrazy.
Like they just bought theproduct.
I don't know that they're gonnawant to buy more, but I was
like no.
But I also see the fact that,like when they're in their most
formative stages of theircustomer lifecycle, that is when
they're most curious, mostintrigued and and most actually
(29:17):
willing to Step out of theircomfort zone of the products
that they're trying to learn andthey're familiar with and
ultimately buy these additionalproducts.
Yeah, it was like super coolhow we ultimately aligned
incentives At that company andthen a couple other companies
after that.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Yeah, that's really cool.
Yeah, onboarding matters, asDonna Weber would say.
I want to get a little bit moretactical, maybe, because one of
the things that I want to makesure you know we do in every
single episode is just provideMassive value and provide, you
(29:56):
know, tips and tricks for peoplewho want to go do stuff.
You know, and I think one ofthe one of the way, one of the
areas that we tend to kind ofoverlook sometimes is Kind of
Leaders.
We tend to overlook kind ofmiddle managers and even
individual contributors a lot of, a lot of times, because it's
(30:18):
seen that like, okay, digital islike this program you have to
do and it comes.
You know it's like your CSP andall that kind of stuff.
But you know, at the end of theday, there there's things that
like Individuals can do to helpdrive their own efficiencies and
things like that.
And have you, have you kind ofseen Some of those things at
play?
(30:39):
Have you advised on some ofthose things?
Like what, what do you do todrive your own efficiencies?
Like, what are some of yourkind of hacks, your digital
hacks, that anyone can kind ofgo and pick up and do?
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Yeah, yeah, I've seen this a lot and I actually take
it really seriously right nowbecause Burnout and customer
success is maybe worse than I'veever seen it.
Yeah so much that, like I'veheard people you know, some
mutual friends of ours, even saythat customer success as we
(31:10):
know it today I just can'tcontinue existing, not in its
current state.
Yeah, so the the thing that Iused to do, the tactical advice
that I suppose I would give,like Someone who's looking to
manage a bigger book of business, maybe grow in their own
(31:31):
personal scale and ultimate eveninto leadership, is I Used to,
no matter how overwhelmed I was,I would try to do two things.
One, I would set an hour a dayBefore I open my email, before I
open Slack, knowing full wellthat I was gonna walk into a
bunch of fires.
I would challenge myself for anhour a day to just think about
(31:53):
how am I gonna scale this thing.
And Second part of this is thatI would ask myself okay, you
know I'm.
I had a funny interaction with acustomer, with a CEO, once you
know it's my first time doingonboarding, and I was like I am
so overwhelmed and he was likewell, how many customers are you
dealing with?
I was like six.
You need to deal with ten timesthat man.
(32:15):
And so I felt so embarrassed atthe time and the next day I
said to myself okay, what wouldthis look like if I ten X the
number of customers that I had?
How would I manage that?
How would I possibly manage?
them and I started finding allthese pockets of inefficiency,
for example, like if I wassaying the same thing over and
(32:36):
over again.
I was like, wow, this coulddefinitely be done by a training
video.
And Guess what this?
This training video can beautomated based on every single
new user, you know.
Login.
Or sign up flow or somethinglike that.
Or cancelation, though.
Right, like I've had thisconversation a million times,
negotiating with a customer ontheir price, but they're looking
(32:58):
to cancel over, like what, if Iautomate that, and that was one
of the best like things that Idid for myself that I would
recommend to anybody listeningto this.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Yeah, I mean like it's amazing.
I've done this a couple timesin the past where I've taken
like a week and, throughout theweek, made a very conscious
effort to just like write downall of the things that I did at
least twice.
Mm-hmm, right, same action, didit twice, wrote it down, you
(33:30):
know, maybe even keep a tallymark on there.
And it is amazing, likethroughout a given week or maybe
maybe a month, whatever it is,how many of those things on the
list that you will see thatyou're like well, okay, what
could I do about that and whatcould I do about that?
And and I think there's enoughlike free tooling out there,
like if you're CSM.
(33:51):
Yeah and you're doing this foryourself.
There's enough free tool.
I mean, loom is free.
You know there's some freestuff out there, like, yeah, you
know there's things that youcan do, and I think I think for
me that's that is also.
It weaves into a bit of careeradvice that I like to give folks
(34:11):
, which is to say, like you know, if, if there's something that
you want to go do or test or oryou know Inefficiency that you
see that you know how to solve,for let's go, frickin, do it.
Yeah, show your leadership andsay, hey, check this out, you
can, you could do this for theteam and leaders.
Frickin love that, because it'snot.
(34:32):
They don't have to waste cyclesBrainstorming on stuff and
figuring out stuff.
I was like, hey, here's asolution.
Okay, you know, let's goimplement it and that's.
You know it ups your game aswell, because then all of a
sudden, you're out of.
You're out of tactical land andyou're into strategic land all
of a sudden, right, and yourscene is a strategic player and
(34:55):
stuff, and so I don't know.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
I don't know where I'm going with that, but I love
that.
No, I, I.
I agree with you.
I think the hard thing is likemost people listening to this
might say that sounds great.
Where am I ever gonna find thattime?
Yeah exactly, and so mychallenge to most CSM's that I
work with is Look, even if yourwork has to take a backseat For
(35:18):
an hour out of the day, thatwill be the hour best spent of
the day.
Yeah, if you really put yourmind to achieving a specific
automated deliverable, or atleast a step in that direction,
by the end of that hour.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Yeah, it's amazing what you can do in that hour,
you know.
I mean, it's also amazing howmany TikTok videos you can view
in an hour.
I know that's a danger, it's adanger, but you know, if you're
concerted and focused and Iwould also challenge leaders in
that front, like you know beproactive and have your team
(35:58):
block an hour on their calendarand there's like that's your
time to do what it is you needto do, to like do something
different.
You know, don't care what it is,do something different if it's
related to the gig and it'srelated to efficiencies bonus
points, you know.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Yeah, yeah, no, and I think actually even getting on
a group call together, or evenif it's just at the beginning
and the end of that hour andjust saying here's what I worked
on, is a really good way tobuild mutual accountability
within CS organizations.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Mm.
I love it.
That's good stuff, Nuggets ofgoodness, Are there.
So back on the programmaticfront, are there like digital
motions that you've seen thatyou really like, either within
one of your clients or like outin the wild?
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Yeah, this is my favorite question that you ask,
because I actually, when I sawthis question come up, or when I
heard it come up in previouspodcasts, I dug up a document
that I have, dating back to 2016, that I have.
It's called model onboardingprograms, and it ended up
capturing all sorts of differentstuff, not even just onboarding
, like product led growthmotions, cancellation flows,
(37:10):
like I don't know if you've evertried to cancel an Amazon
membership.
They put you through hell.
I don't recommend that.
By the way, I hope I don't getyou sued by Amazon.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
No, amazon ain't listening to this podcast.
I'll tell you how much.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
But yeah, so I actually dug up that list and I
have recent additions to it,like I was.
I don't know, have you usedsuperhuman?
It's an email automation tool.
Their whole value propositionas a company is to make, to give
you the best email experiencethat you've ever had.
So what they do in theironboarding flow I mean their
(37:53):
product is largely based onkeyboard shortcuts, or at least
that's what I've been educatedon so far by their.
They have this really elegantproduct led motion where every
day, you get a tip and you cantry it out right on the spot and
you get immediate feedback fromsuperhuman as to if you're
(38:14):
doing this correctly or not, andyou also get congratulations
too, which doesn't hurt.
Love.
That it kind of reminds me ofyeah, I got.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
You gotta celebrate.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
I know right, it reminds me.
So the first time I built outan LMS, a learning management
system, what I remember, Ithought it was such a fugazi.
I was like, and I put acertification at the end.
I was like, congratulations,you completed our online
university.
And then I thought it was crazy.
Until I saw a resume come backand it says like I'm certified
(38:53):
in your software.
And I was like what, what?
And a customer also got a resumethat said like oh yeah, I'm
like certified in this softwareand I was like people are
actually taking this seriously,Like I thought this was just a
joke.
But what's the certification?
It's not just you know,something made up anyway.
It was so cool, though I meanhonestly, and that university
(39:16):
still exists and now it'sactually made a meaningful dent
in people's knowledge in theindustry.
Yeah, I'm so proud of the folkswho I worked on that with and
who we built that out with.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
That's cool.
That's cool.
Yeah, I just looked upsuperhuman and I have heard of
it before, mainly because theirmarketing tagline is just you
know, it's very simple, it's theworld's fastest email, which,
okay, cool, I'll bite Fastestemail experience ever made.
I'll have to check it out.
But yeah, I think it's soimportant to celebrate those
(39:58):
wins, like on a user level.
You can capture the user andsay, hey, you did something
really good and give them anad-a-boy.
It doesn't cost you anythingreally, unless you like
incorporate swag or whatever,but it's very powerful moments.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
Can I tell you about another cool one that I ran into
.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Please, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
This one was interesting.
You're a Notion user, right.
Uh-huh yep, so Notion released.
Q&a have you heard about this?
So turns out that's an upsell,at least for the organizations
that I'm a part of.
And I thought it was interestingbecause it was like there was a
(40:41):
pop-up told me about Q&A and Iwas like, do you wanna learn
more?
Do you wanna sign up?
And I was like, okay, cool,we've sent a notification to
your administrator that you'rereally interested in this.
And I was like, oh wow, lookwhat they just did to me there.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Like I thought it was really clever.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
It was really cool.
I felt a little bit played.
I respect the game.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Mm-hmm, yeah, props, props.
I think there's all kinds ofreally interesting ways that
people can leverage the user inthat level, you know, because if
you really know what your usersare doing and what grade out
links they're trying to click onand stuff like that, like it
(41:30):
can tell you a lot about youknow.
But that's where CS and digitalCS again it's that cross
collaborative thing you gotta bein lockstep with your product,
or to put some of that stuff in.
You gotta be in lockstep withyour marketing organization to
just coordinate on that,Otherwise you just fall flat on
your face and send outunsolicited kind of stuff and
(41:54):
it's really messy and gross, soyeah, super hard.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Yeah, yeah, the relationships with product that
most of the companies I workwith are usually usually product
saying.
We can't help build CS toolingbecause we're really busy
working on other stuff and theCS marketing relationship
usually doesn't exist.
So I'm really happy you calledout both of those.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
Yeah, I mean there are a few people I've talked to
where they have those things inplace and it's just a wonderful
thing.
Miro is a company that isreally good at cross
collaborative work and inproduct stuff, which is cool.
The only thing that I likebetter than learning from my
(42:44):
mistakes is learning from otherpeople's mistakes.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
You know I'm a fan of this.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Yeah, so I wanna learn from some of your mistakes
and what are some of the things?
This is gonna open thevulnerability box here.
But what are some of theboneheaded things that you've
done because we've all done themand that you've learned the
most from?
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Yeah, no tons.
I mean, I think you know mewell enough to know that.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
I love.
That's why I asked you aquestion.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
It's so cathartic to me just to talk about how I've
messed up and for anyone who isat the Customer Success Festival
that we were out shout out tothe Customer Success Collective.
By the way, know that mypresentation was all just me
pulling up true old emails thatI used and how bad they were,
(43:36):
and everybody just basicallythrew on Some doodles.
Yeah, it was great.
It was such a disaster,delightful disaster.
I've made a number of mistakes.
I think the LMS example is agood one.
That taught me basically, whenyou're introducing digital
motions, set the rightexpectations early, well in
(44:01):
advance.
Because what I did is I justbasically ripped out all our
in-person training and said well, guess what, you've got videos
and you've got this conciergeservice from a CSM who didn't
actually know what to do withtheir job.
And customers were not happybecause they were promised even
on-site visits from the salesteam, classroom training and
(44:24):
stuff.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Big miss.
So set the right expectations isone thing I learned, and
learned to frame that to thepositive Like one of the things
that I often do when introducingdigital motions is framing this
as supplementary to theservices that customers are
getting, and complementary tothe services that customers are
(44:47):
getting.
It's not a reduction in service, as long as you believe that to
be actually true.
Right Another mistake I'velearned is be really, really
cautious when trying to buildcommunity.
So that was like my entirety ofmy last job.
Basically, was building onlinecommunities, and they swing in
(45:12):
two widely different directions.
They're either like completecrickets- no one's talking or
it's complete group think andyou're just.
Your brand reputation isgetting trashed in a community
of people who are all havingcommon issues and that's a very
(45:34):
difficult and expensive.
It's expensive on both sides toeither promote engagement or to
manage and moderate engagementand I see a lot of companies say
like, oh, we should just builda community.
But they don't really fit a lotof thinking into, like what
that actually requires to.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
And what it entails.
Yeah, and they think, like youknow, somebody from a frontline
and support person can justmanage the whole thing, it'll be
fine.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, it can be very overwhelmingvery quickly.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
Yeah, yeah and that I think it's interesting that you
know, the group think thing isalmost as dangerous, I would say
, as the crickets communityexample, because I mean crickets
community it's does never great, you know it's like okay, our
customer base is super unengaged, but you know, the group thing
(46:30):
thing can actually be.
I've witnessed a couple ofplaces where there's been like
actual like harassment thingsthat happen.
Oh wow, community, and it'slike not, not good, and
obviously you know at that pointyou have to like kick people
out and you know that wholething and it's not.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
Yeah, yeah, no, it's not.
It's it's.
It's dangerous at times, mostof the time.
Basically, my rule of thumb forcommunities is don't build a
community until it builds itself.
Oh, good yeah, and what I meanby that is like you'll notice,
when people start organicallyforming communities around your
(47:09):
product.
Maybe it's like a Facebookgroup or something like that.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
I was going to say once there's a Facebook group,
you know you need to build acommunity.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
Yeah, then get ahead of it retain them getting
control of it.
You know, allocate resources toit, but most of the time like
using it prior to that, using acommunity prior to that, to me
is usually not affordable Formost early saved companies.
Speaker 1 (47:33):
Hey look, as as we kind of start to wrap things
down because I can't, we're justtime flies.
Yeah we talk, but do you wantto understand what's in your
content diet?
And I also want to understandwho is doing cool stuff in
digital that you may want tocall out.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
Yeah, I think there's .
So there's a lot in my contentdiet.
It's most.
I'm going to give you examplesof things that are not customer
success, because I feel likethat, Sure, yeah my experience
and customer success is mostenriched by actually like
content from other domains.
Yes, Lately I've been binging alot of sales podcasts, so one
(48:16):
is called 30 minutes toPresidents Club.
Cool really good one and it'sit's a lot of content that's
geared toward young sales peopleand those are the skills that I
think actually help customersuccess people most Sure,
because most CS people I knowthey haven't invested or they
(48:37):
haven't been able to invest.
Yeah, I'm in learning salesskills and I'll forget that at
the end of the day, we areselling renewals after all.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (48:46):
And up selling digital products.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Revenue builders.
Do you have your check outrevenue builders?
Speaker 1 (48:53):
No.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
It's another podcast out there.
I would say it's, you know,nothing like the digital CS
podcast, really, no, it's.
It's like a.
It's a popular sales podcastand they've just started now
Doing some customer successcontent as of like a week or two
ago.
Cool, yeah, yeah, I like thatone a lot.
(49:16):
There's also this, this podcastI've been listening to you
lately, called the economics ofeveryday things.
Speaker 1 (49:23):
Oh, I like that.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
Yeah, it's just it's from Freakonomics Radio.
Okay, yeah, I love Freakonomics.
Yeah yeah, and I I love likeunusual verticals, like and
understanding the economicsbehind, like ATMs and car washes
and junk mail and personalinjury lawyers and all that
(49:45):
stuff.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
Yeah, how do you afford all those billboards?
Speaker 2 (49:50):
Yeah, yeah so yeah, but yeah, I mean, those are some
of the things I've beenchecking out lately.
Speaker 1 (50:01):
Cool.
I like the sales tangentbecause, yeah, for two, for two
reasons.
I totally think you're rightthat those skills are
transferable.
I also feel like a lot of times, the the line between a really
effective seller and a reallyeffective consultant are they're
like almost non existent,because the thing that those two
(50:25):
have in common are the abilityto ask stellar questions.
Yeah, totally.
Totally yeah, yeah, the end ofthe day you want your CSMs to be
consultants, so yeah, yeah,yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
That's what I like about this 30 minutes of
residence club podcast is thatthey've just got really easy
playbooks, actionable playbooks.
I would say they're notnecessarily easy.
They're actionable books that,like you could try out work
tomorrow and you know, whateverthe setting is, whatever the
task is with a customer, ittends to work pretty effectively
.
Speaker 1 (50:59):
Yeah, yeah, cool.
How about shout outs You're so,I mean, you're so well
connected and everybody saidwhat I don't know about that
Shout out, let's see.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
So I couple people who I really appreciate their
work.
One I mentioned burnout, and Ihave a colleague friend based
here in Boston, Ryan Johansson,and he recently went off to do
his own thing building aconsulting practice around
(51:32):
managing burnout After hiscareer customer success.
So he mostly oh, wow, yeah,it's really, really legit and it
hits on to me like one of thethings that matters most in my
own personal line of work too.
I kind of describe my line ofwork as like I'm like a CSM for
CSMs.
Yeah, Actually, we both knowMickey Powell and the thing
(51:57):
Mickey and.
I said repeatedly, is that likethe world is just a Russian
nesting doll of CSMs, like we'reall just CSMs on CSMs on CS.
You know, like my wife's atherapist, she's a CSM, a
waiter's CSM.
Speaker 1 (52:14):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (52:14):
You know my my my accountant is a CSM.
We're all just CSMs.
Speaker 1 (52:20):
Different CSMs.
Yeah, exactly, yeah, I lovethat.
That's great Cool.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:28):
So my friend Lauren Solonichro as well.
She co founded a communitycalled Women of Customer Success
.
And I think that's a reallycool community.
I'm not a member, if youcouldn't guess, but she's
organizing a conference soon andI'm super stoked for what?
(52:48):
She's been able to do buildingreally meaningful connections
and connecting people with coolopportunities and jobs and that
kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
Cool.
Well, obviously people can findyou on LinkedIn, but you know
website like where else canpeople reach out to you?
Speaker 2 (53:04):
Yeah, sure, so website, if you're the go to
successscalecom or robzanbetacom, either one buscsscalecom too,
in case you want to check thatone out.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
Do they all redirect to the same place?
Speaker 2 (53:15):
That's the same same terrible website, yeah, but, but
yeah, that's an easy I mean,linkedin is an easy way to reach
me.
Hello, at robzanbetacom is myemail, and I mean I I've been
thinking about introducing justsome casual office hours for
anyone that wants to join.
(53:35):
Cool and ironically, a role,jokingly calling it jam with XAM
.
But nice, that's a, that's.
That's a, that's the total joke.
Speaker 1 (53:48):
The XAM Jam.
Speaker 2 (53:49):
The XAM Jam.
There you go, that's it.
No, it's, it's on.
I'm kidding.
I don't like anything that'sbranded with my name really.
Speaker 1 (54:00):
Robzanbetacom.
Yeah, well, I know that.
Speaker 2 (54:04):
So I started that years ago.
I was like well, it's available, I got to take it.
Well, there's two other guysnamed Robzanbeta out there.
One is some guy in Rochesterand then one is a corrupt
Montreal politician.
And I know that corrupt guy isgoing to take it if I didn't.
So I don't want it to be acorrupt politician.
(54:24):
I think he's corrupt.
Rob, if you're listening tothis, I know we haven't met.
Please don't send anyone tohurt me.
Speaker 1 (54:32):
Totally corrupt.
Cool Well, thanks for theinsights, thanks for the laughs.
Always great chatting with youand can't wait to share it with
everybody.
Speaker 2 (54:43):
Yeah, yeah, my pleasure.
Thank you for having me on.
I really appreciate it and lovewhat you're doing for the
customer success community.
Speaker 1 (54:49):
Thank you for joining me for this episode of the
Digital Customer Success podcast.
If you like what we're doing,consider leaving us a review on
your podcast platform of choice.
It really helps us to grow andto provide value to a broader
audience.
You can view the DigitalCustomer Success definition word
map and get more details aboutthe show at
digitalcustomersuccesscom.
My name is Alex Turgovich.
(55:10):
Thanks again for joining andwe'll see you next time.
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