February 20, 2024 • 52 mins
James Lawson of River Consultancy Group joins us this week in a fun conversation that spans a wide range of topics including a growing sentiment among CS leaders that contributions to the customer journey should be cross collaborative in nature.
James is the founder of River Consultancy Group and currently serves as CCO at key Computer Applications Ltd. It is this along with his long history in CS that have shaped his unique and healthy outlook on CS and how CSMs specifically can best position themselves in the future.
In this episode, we cover topics including:
- Why CS is so prevalent in software and not as much elsewhere
- Customer success as a company-wide capability, not just CS function
- Internal collaboration around customer journey actions
- Providing value at scale with the illusion of it being personal
- Making sure we don’t forget to celebrate the success of our users and various personas
- CSMs who have strong consultative skills will have the edge in the future
- Storytelling on the back of data points is where humans excel and this can be supported by digital
- Personalizing digital engagement by asking personas about their engagement preferences
- The importance of having your product and digital motions lead with simplicity
- Continually tweaking your ICP using internal and external indicators - especially among your smaller customers that are scaling, vs the largest customers.
Enjoy! I know I sure did...
James' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jlaw-customersuccess/
River Consultancy Group: https://www.riverconsultancygroup.co.uk/
Resources:
- The Daily Stoic: https://dailystoic.com/
- Deep Work: https://amzn.to/3SHZaby
Shoutouts:
- Mickey Powell (Episode 001): https://www.linkedin.com/in/mickeypowell/
- Markus Rentsch (Episode 026): https://www.linkedin.com/in/markus-rentsch-customer-value-led-growth-for-saas/
+++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++
Like/Subscribe/Review:
If you are getting value from the show, please follow/subscribe so that you don't miss an episode and consider leaving us a review.
Website:
For more information about the show or to get in touch, visit DigitalCustomerSuccess.com.
Buy Alex a Cup of Coffee:
This show runs exclusively on caffeine - and lots of it. If you like what we're, consider supporting our habit by buying us a cup of coffee: https://bmc.link/dcsp
Thank you for all of your support!
The Digital Customer Success Podcast is hosted by Alex Turkovic
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
You can do all of that total cost of ownership
stuff, but actually the game iswhat did you promise?
Yeah.
What did you say back there?
Yeah, you know Right.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
What did you say before I signed on the dotted
line versus what's?
Speaker 1 (00:18):
actually happening.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah, and once again, welcome to the Digital Customer
Success Podcast with me, AlexTrokovich.
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
with me for the ride so that youget the insights that you need
(00:40):
to build and evolve your owndigital CS program.
If you'd like more info, wantto get in touch or sign up for
the latest updates, go todigitalcustomersuccesscom.
For now, let's get started.
Hello and welcome to theDigital Customer Success Podcast
.
This is episode 39.
It's so great to have you backeach and every week where we
(01:03):
talk about all things customersuccess and, specifically,
digital CS.
Before we get started today, Ido want to give a quick shout
out to the Customer SuccessCollective for putting on an
amazing event last week.
The Customer Success Festivalin Austin was on Tuesday and
Wednesday, and not only was I,you know, part of the event and
(01:23):
had a great time at the eventmet lots of really great people.
Special shout out to Sophie forall your coordination work as
part of the event, andespecially Janelle Friday who
was the MC kind of chairpersonof the event as well, gave a
great keynote on emotionalintelligence, so it was just
great all around and it wasgreat meeting some of you there
(01:46):
as well.
Today we're speaking with JamesLawson.
He's a UK based CS leader, hasbeen in the game for a long time
, currently runs RiverConsultancy Group, where he
helps leaders just excel interms of scaling CS and growing
their CS orgs and doing it theright way.
He has a lot of really uniqueinsights, I would say, into
(02:08):
what's what a modern CS orglooks like and specifically how
you know you can leverage crosscollaboration and company wide
inputs into the customer journey.
So we talk a lot about that.
We talk a lot aboutstorytelling and personalization
of content and how, you know,some of these digital emotions
(02:30):
lead into that kind of companywide collaboration around the
customer journey.
And he's just a good guy.
Very funny there's.
There's a couple of prettyfunny points in the conversation
as well.
So I hope you enjoyed thisconversation with James Lawson,
because I sure did.
Well, you ready to go now thatwe're going already?
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Yeah, this guy, this James.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
James Lawson.
The way that I can always tellit's you on LinkedIn is not
obviously your name, but thenyou've got that big, big check
mark right by your name.
That's how I always know.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Oh yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
James, that's awesome , but I wanted to welcome you to
the show.
Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Thank you.
Thank you, that's just a tick,by the way, a winging.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
It's good.
Yeah, there's, there's a coupleof people that use things like
that and you can always, youknow, pick their name out in
like I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I,I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I,
I, I, I.
You know, I think that, butthen if everybody did, then if
you didn't do it, then you wouldstand out right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Just a um, just a glorified attention seeker, I
knew.
I thought to myself well if, ifI have to pay for it and other
social media platforms just usea winging?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
That's right.
Yeah, Find a way, Absolutely so.
You know I was excited to haveyou on because, um, obviously
you have a crazed success.
I think you were Oracle forlike five decades, which is
actually six, seven years,something like that.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah, something like that.
Um done a lot of cool things.
Now you're a founder of RiverConsultancy Group, which is
awesome.
We'll definitely get into thatUm, you know.
But but I was curious if youcould just kind of give a quick
whistle stop tour of whereyou've been, what you're doing
now, um, and and you know whatyour plans are for the future.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Yeah, sure.
Um, when you said where have Ibeen, it always makes me feel
slightly guilty, like I'm namequestioning.
What have I been?
Speaker 2 (04:35):
What have you done?
What have you done?
What have you done?
What have you done?
Yeah, inflection is inflectionis very important.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yeah, and it can be dark, but I won't make this dark
.
So um, I, um.
So, basically, I, I, I've donecustom success most of my
working career and I started asa CSM you could say, but kind of
still in the leadership post,um little company.
Well, it wasn't a littlecompany Because Tileo was the
(05:06):
original place where, you know,I learned, learned the trade um
acquired by Oracle.
I tried to leave Oracle severaltimes and, like the death star,
kept sucking me in.
So I kind of went over.
I just give in to the force andand stay, um, stay in Oracle and
um.
I think, um.
(05:26):
Whenever I say to people I'vebeen in customer success my
whole career, it's just becauseit's been in various guises.
You know, there's been thebusiness development role of it,
there's been the very supportheavy role of it, the techie
side of it, um, uh, the I'll beyour friend's customer for
always side of it.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
So there's a.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
I've been in that various guises of it my whole
career and I think that everytime you're in a company and
you're doing customer success,you always feel like that you
know everything about it like a14 year old kid going through
that time in the life where youthink, well, I know everything,
nobody can tell you what to do.
And then, as soon as you stepinto your next role, you realize
(06:06):
that you don't.
And um and certainly veryrecently, when I stepped out of
the recent company I was in, umDeTara.
I stepped out thinking I'm anexpert and the truth of it is to
this day, looking back, you arenever an expert.
You know, and it's the same asI compare it to when I first saw
(06:30):
my daughter being born.
You know, coming into thisworld, you know, when she was
born, kicking and screaming, itwas the worst day of her life,
right?
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
She was warm and safe and all that.
And then she's coming out andthen I realized I had this fast
forward flash of hang on, likenow.
Right now, everything is goingto be new to her.
Every, every experience is new.
She she hadn't had our first.
You know, just like discussionthere's air, she has to breathe.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
There's stuff, there's a divorce, there's
whatever you know, there's allthose things she has to
experience.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
It's all new and it's no different in CS.
And it's no different in mostjobs, but in CS I think it's
quite as a profession.
It's more prolific that youexperience something for the
first time over and over again.
So whenever I hear someone say,oh yeah, I've done this, I
always think I don't think youhave.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Yeah, you bring up a very interesting point because
it relates to something thatI've said a few times on the
podcast with relation to digitalcustomer success.
But I think CS in general isaware I feel like the the most
amount of variability liveswithin like a single function
from org to org to org to org,because the CS role in one place
(07:46):
is going to be completelydifferent than a CS role in
another place or even withinlike segments.
You know, in the, in the, inthat that variability, whereas
in you know, you know I don'tknow, an account executive at
one SaaS firm, an accountexecutive as another SaaS firm,
is going to be, I think,relatively kind of the same
(08:10):
right.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yeah, there's some commonalities there isn't there.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Yeah, and, and and also I.
I am if you, if you think aboutany product outside of SaaS,
like where are the?
Speaker 2 (08:29):
CSMs yeah, why is that, if you?
Speaker 1 (08:34):
just think of it in a really basic, generic way.
Why is there customer successin just software?
Now, I would expect if I was ina bigger room people will go
well, yeah, there are customersuccesses in other product
customer success managers.
There's a group in LinkedIn andit proved my point on this
(08:55):
because I wanted to just go andexplore that theory.
When I looked in there, 80percent of the CS professionals
in there were to do withsoftware, but there were a good
chunk within the 25,000 thatwere in this particular group
that were customer successmanagers in other product lines.
Sure, but when you look at whatthey do, you suddenly realize,
(09:16):
oh wait, this is why there'sambiguity around the role.
This is why it's difficult topin them down.
This is why there's variability.
But also, I looked at it andthought do you know what?
It doesn't matter that.
I think we don't need to pin itdown because I think it's all
to do with working back from thecustomer to what's needed.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
If it's not a.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
CSM, then what's needed.
This is why, today, I very muchstand by and this is probably
the hill that I'll die on in thehigh stand by the fact that
customer success is a companycapability rather than a
function or a department.
That doesn't mean to say that Idon't think there should be
CSMs, because they absolutelyshould.
(10:00):
I just mean that it needs to bespearheaded by that as a task
force.
So that's where I seespecifically data backing up
that point.
For example, the leading paysetters in SaaS, the data bricks
, etc.
That are miles away from anyoneelse in customer acquisition
(10:21):
costs.
They have that down.
Now, you could argue, but theproduct's different, it's
simpler, it's a bit more.
But regardless of all that, youcannot walk away from the fact
that those guys have got thatdown because they have started
to treat customer success as anorg capability.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Yeah, I think you're among a number of people that
are thinking that way, because Ithink to your point.
I think the CSM will alwayshave a home, because there's
always a need to have somebodyfocused on the executive
relationship and drivingspecific outcomes and things
like that.
But when it comes to thecustomer journey, it's not just
(11:02):
in CSM land.
Everybody has a hand in it.
Even the finance has a hand init, even, obviously, sellers and
support and professionalservices and whatnot.
I think a healthy organizationshould be aware of, interact
with and contribute to thecustomer journey.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Yeah, absolutely, I think as well.
The interesting thing I thinkhappens commonly is that there
is a lot of firms fall asleep atthe wheel a little bit with
what the initial promise was,and I go back to that example I
made about there being why isthere only CS in software or
(11:48):
SaaS?
And I caveat that with and afew other organizations.
But I go back to this thing ofwhen the initial sale happens.
If you're leading withsomething like, for example,
mckinsey would say in the SOW,they say something like this we
(12:12):
will engage with you on themutual agreement that the value
that's being provided to you isless than the money you pay.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Sorry, it's more than the money you pay.
Okay, I was going to say You'realways going to pay us more
than we think we're worth.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Which is actually probably the cold hard truth.
But yeah, you're getting morevalue and you're paying less for
that value.
And once you enter thatagreement.
The interesting thing is thatit's and this is why I think
CSNs live more in SaaS is thatit's a subscription, so you are
(12:57):
the customer is always asking,would I buy again today?
At every interaction, and sothey're subscribing to that
agreement and the solution thatI'm going to see value.
So, because they're subscribing, there needs to be a pulse on
that, and that can come fromanywhere and that's where CSNs
(13:18):
should be primarily focused onthe value element of it.
I think for most startuporganizations, getting there is
obviously not a straight lineand that's where we need CS
professionals to help.
But I think that's where I seepass in my journey, where the
(13:39):
wheels come off or people fallasleep at the wheel because
they're going without thatinitial piece.
You can do your total cost ofownership of the department.
You can do your return ofinvestment on the CS function.
You can do all of that totalcost of ownership stuff.
But actually the game is whatdid you promise?
(13:59):
What did you say Right?
What did you say before I?
Speaker 2 (14:04):
signed on the dotted line versus what's actually
happening.
Yeah, yeah, for sure, it's theage old problem.
So and I think this dovetailsnicely into this a little bit
because one of the things that Iask all of my guests is kind of
what their elevator pitchstandard definition of digital
(14:25):
customer success is.
And I'm curious to get yourtake, because you do have some
unique takes on CS in generaland lots of experience there.
But if you had to explain inlayman terms what DCS is.
What would you say?
Speaker 1 (14:40):
In layman terms, let's say, the digital CS
element is providing value atscale with the illusion of it
being personable.
Yeah, and I put illusion inthere purely because in the
(15:00):
digital world of websites anddomains and your AWS group, et
cetera, I've been a part of thepersonalization element of it is
captivating.
Right and you can achieve thatthrough engaging with customers
too, because that's the way theydo it.
So if you're buying a pair ofNike's and it comes up with your
(15:26):
specific size and a style thatyou like maybe it's Jordan's
then you go hey, they know me,they recognize.
Now you know that there'ssomething behind there, because
people are smart.
Kids are smart.
They know I think I'm me.
That's why kids aren't lookingat their phones and going, oh my
God, they're listening.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
That's all the oldies , all the old people are going.
Yeah, exactly, so how did itknow that I'm looking at?
I didn't even know.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
No, yeah how did they know the young kids are like?
Of course it does, and that isright there where I think that
digital customer success isgoing to go to, because it's
about being relatable andrelevant and it doesn't
necessarily unpersonable thewhole fact that it isn't a
(16:08):
person.
Fine, it's okay to say Ibelieve that there was still any
people.
But the convenience of that isjust so beneficial to both the
customer and the organization.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah, I love your definition and you're right,
personalization is kind of likethe gold standard, I think, in a
good digital program, whereyou're not just filling in the
name.
Right, it's like dear Booleanor whatever it is or dear token,
but it's like you know who theperson is by name, you know what
(16:48):
their general role is withinthe organization, and so you're
kind of tailoring the content alittle bit.
But I think to your point, Ithink it's important to also
almost play with the fact thatit's fake personalization.
You've got to kind of own it alittle bit in your digital
motions, but also make sure thatthe customer knows that there's
(17:13):
always a human somewhere thatis available.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Yeah, exactly, and I like the idea.
I saw something play out not solong ago with a client where
their approach to the wholething was we want the customer
to have no surprises unless theyare good.
Yeah, sure, which I lovedbecause it was like course you
(17:41):
don't want to see any surprises,because you don't want to have
risk of any or just appear, butyou want them to get good
product advice.
So I was like, yeah, of coursethat makes perfect sense.
And where they carried that asactually a core value of their
company, which is reallyinteresting.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
No, surprises, I said good, which I loved.
That's really cool and I thinkit plays to the fact that also
we don't have a habit ofcelebrating things in CES and
especially in digital.
Digital is all about at leastmost programs are all about
alerting and proactiveengagement at certain points in
(18:22):
the journey and things like that.
But I think that should includecelebrating your champion's
wins, of accomplishing XYZ.
Or if a user just uploaded themwidgets into the Hoosie, what's
it's, then there should be someconfetti that appears and all
that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
What do you see Like?
Do you see, how do you see thatbeing done at the moment with
the celebrating success thing?
Because I think it's sometimesjust overlooked a lot, you know.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yeah, I don't think it's done a lot.
Where I've seen it done well iswhere it's obvious that
whoever's behind the digitalmotion has clearly identified
those key moments in the journeythat need to be celebrated in
order to, like, keep the game ofthings going.
(19:16):
You know, Gainsight is actuallya company that does this quite
well.
Yeah, you know they success inplatform that and they.
You know they reward certifiedand stuff like that.
Like you know it's, it's true,like I think it's.
(19:43):
I think it's those companiesthat have a really good handle
on on the user persona, not justthe you know, not just the
journey of the entire you knowcustomer, but the journey of the
individual persona and and andbeing able to track milestones
along there.
I think that's really the key.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense and I'm
finding that the, the, the, the.
Just from an axiom view, I lookat things and go, you know,
when we see some of thesuccesses but also some of the
challenges.
Yeah, it worries me what thelearns are taken, what learns
(20:24):
are taken from it, and I saythat is because there has to
always be this return to adiscovery of having a process,
etc.
Because I've noticed in thisindustry and LinkedIn is very
guilty of this there's a lot ofthis is how you should do stuff.
There's a lot of negativity.
(20:44):
Actually, csm are not doingthis, do this.
And I think there is you have tohave a responsibility of the
messaging you're putting outthere, in that that when you
take something, when you look atyour audience and they're
taking something from that, what?
Yeah, remember that that mightnot work and they'll come back
to you.
They'll think of you andthey'll come back.
(21:05):
So, you know, I always thinkthe success thing is is a better
way to play it, because you,the success leaves clues, yeah,
and the saying to people youshouldn't be doing this might
not necessarily be right.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
You know we we have a saying in our family and it's
it's quite simple.
It's like you know, youshouldn't, don't should yourself
, like if you say, oh, I shouldhave done X, y, z, don't should
yourself.
You know, it's all good, but Ithink, I think that carries over
(21:41):
to, I think, one of the thingsthat Greg Danes on recently and
he was talking about the kind ofthe magic words and CS, which
is, I think, a way that you cankind of toe the line a little
bit, like I think it's roughlyakin to other customers in your
(22:01):
space are doing X, y, z, likeyou know, you take what others
are doing and you're not goinglike, well, you're not doing
this, you suck.
But, you're saying that.
Okay, you know your peers aredoing this.
Yeah, just so you know.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Yeah, exactly yeah, and he's totally right, like
it's how you articulate thingsis is key, and it it blows my
mind, like I do still feel likethere are influencers parading,
as you know, cs experts who havebeen out of touch, who are not
articulating value with impact,and I think that rolls along.
(22:35):
And so a lot of it, a lot ofthe best training that is
offered these days, that there'sa good friend of mine called
Maurice Hellermans.
He does some trainingspecifically on presentation
skills and they're very specificaround delivering value with
impact.
So, and CSMs that are able todo that need to learn off
(22:58):
influencers and credible sourcesto who can say look, approach
it like this, say it like this,because then you are, then
you're consultative, you don'tjust know stuff, you can apply
your knowledge, and that makes agreat CSM.
Anyone can apply theirknowledge you know relevantly
(23:18):
and articulating it the rightway.
I think it's a bit of an art andI think it is sort of drifting
away a little bit.
But I think those CSMs thathave knowledge, commerce going
forward, you know, are in aconsultative mode and have some
expertise and niche behind themand can articulate value with
impact, I think those are theguys that are the future.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
And I think that's where the that's, that's the
real value in a CSM right andand I've talked about this
relatively frequently but it'sthis, this, you know, that's the
goal, the sweet spot for themix between a digital motion and
a human, because the human isthere to provide, you know,
(24:02):
value and insights and and andextreme personalization and kind
of the relationship element ofthings, but it's not, you know,
having them pull down data anddo the you know, analysis and
create insights and send 50, 50emails to the same person, like
(24:22):
that's not where a CSM's valueis, and so I was curious to kind
of get your take on that on, onwhere that sweet spot is with
the interaction between, like,digital and human.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Yeah, so I, I'm, I've so, and this isn't my view.
This is just what I've seen work, so from a customer point of
view, stories, how you tell astory, the expressions you use
behind the story, which whichcome off the back of data points
or anything digital, areincredible.
(24:56):
Like they, they just elevateeverything and almost and almost
tell your customer that you areof high value, you're a high
value contact to have and theylove having people like that.
People like having people and,in fact, when they're in the M
and a world, they're the peoplethat are gold.
(25:16):
Oh, we keep, that's not a costover there, that's person right
there.
We can't lose them.
It's not because they'reindisposable.
It's just because of what theycan deliver and how they deliver
it and the stories they tell.
Yeah, so most of the stories Ihave are terrible and rubbish
and ridiculous, but but oh, no,I know something.
Oh, they're just ridiculous.
But I mean, the thing is thatthe reason I still tell them is
(25:42):
because I'm I'm finding a way ofdescribing something that isn't
very exciting, right.
So I always tell the story ofyou know, when I spoke earlier
about surprises and no surprises, I always tell the story of
once being on a train and therewas this.
This actually happened to meand it was just the most
strangest thing to ever happenin my whole life.
(26:02):
I was on a train and there wasa woman sat next to me and I'm a
little guy, so I was kind ofshoved in the corner of the
train and she very casuallyopened her bag and took out a
banana and she ate the bananaand I just thought, okay, I'm
just having a snack.
And then she took the bananapeel and just put it neatly on
my lap and I didn't know her,just almost like you know, like
(26:24):
Mario Kart, where they sort ofupside down and it's just on the
floor and just that was it, andI didn't know what to do and so
I just sort of I didn't sayanything.
I'm too polite.
I picked up and put it to oneside, but you, just you cannot
with with anything like.
You cannot like.
That was a surprise.
You can't predict that.
(26:46):
Can you predict churn to adegree?
But stuff happened Like that.
You cannot get away from thefact that people are weird and
unpredictable.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
You won't be able to change that.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
But what you can do is you can tell stories engaged
from that person.
Where do they sit on thespectrum?
Are they in unpredictablecontact?
Is this person worthy ofdigital interaction?
Because if they're not, youwant to be there.
Whereas there might be someonewe go hey, this guy, this guy,
(27:18):
he might need me, but actuallyhe needs more digital
interaction.
Do you see what I mean?
Yeah, I'm still stuck on thebanana peel.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Like what I.
What I want to know is was shejust eccentric and maybe on the
spectrum and didn't reallyrealize it, or was she trying to
create a moment I was?
She created a moment when I wasout?
Speaker 1 (27:45):
of doubt, but was she trying to?
She looked like she looked likesomeone who you'd get to host
very posh dinner party.
You know, she was really.
Yeah, she was one of them.
You know, like, like she, shewould make a really good hotel
manager.
And I looked at the time Ilooked like someone who was
helping a brother move house.
(28:08):
I looked like a scruff, somaybe she just thought I was.
You were the help?
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Yeah, I was the help.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
I was only good for one thing, and that was propping
up a banana.
Yeah, but yeah, it's justamazing.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
It's just one of those things when I think about,
when I think about customersand customer success and digital
.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
I just think you know .
You know you know yourself as aperson and as a customer of
other, of other vendors andthings that you know yourself,
if you think carefully, that youare unpredictable and you will
make choices.
You change your car every twoyears.
You will do X, y and Z.
So, introspectively, we shouldconsider the fact that it's
(28:57):
great having all these methodsand frameworks and playbooks,
but actually what should weshould do is have a conversation
and make an educated decisionwhether and we're not going to
do that, a scout, of course, butof course we can we can make
our way through that andunderstand where digital applies
and where it doesn't.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
So, yeah, I mean, I think you hit on something very,
very important though, andsomething you know, when I asked
you your definition of digital.
One of the elements that a lotof people wind into their
definition is essentiallymeeting the customer where they
want to be met right, and as ahuman, that can be relatively
(29:38):
simple.
I mean, if you've ever takenkind of like a I don't know
customer service or kind ofphone etiquette or kind of phone
skills, soft skills typecourses, One of the first things
they always teach you is likeOK, mirror your customer, mirror
their tone, mirror their pace,do all that kind of stuff.
But then it's also like youhave that human interaction
(29:59):
where you can literally ask yourcustomer like, do you prefer
email, do you prefer SMS?
Like what's that?
What's that all about?
And I think I think theopportunity that we have in
digital and that a lot of peopleare starting to do is ask those
questions digitally.
Maybe somebody wants an email,maybe somebody wants an in-app
notification, maybe they don'twant both.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Do they have a preference one or the other, and
letting you individual userskind of identify how they want
to be communicated with the waysthat you can design your
digital emotions to serve theoutcome, but then also, you know
, help preserve some sanity.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Yeah, exactly, I think that's a really difficult
task as well, just because it is, I think, like if you delve
into personas and job roles.
Now, I'm not quite sure if thetypical methods I think the
principles remain the same, butI think the methods of
interacting may not necessarilybe what you think Right.
(31:02):
So, as an example, I generallywould have thought people in
perhaps the manufacturing space,you know, would prefer a light
touch because they're busy, butI don't know that for sure.
So there's, I always feel likethere's, the persona, and then
perhaps there's the disc profile.
There's more around that whichneeds to be shaped, which makes
(31:26):
it quite tricky.
But I have seen it I don't knowif you have, I have seen it
where it is completely overthought about and you should
really meet the customer or tryattempts to meet the customer
and then adjust the sales fromthere, rather than try and
create a perfect fit, that makessense.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Yeah, yeah, and I mean knowing what the habits are
, you know, of a persona.
I mean the most obvious one andthe one that's you know pretty
plain is your executive buyer islikely not going to spend a lot
of time in product messaging toan executive is probably not
going to be effective versus theadmin is going to live in there
(32:09):
and so yeah go to town Exactly.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Yeah, a lot of executives say to me.
In fact, there's one that saidsomething to me recently.
He was from, he was from Spain.
In fact he still is.
Anyway, he said to me.
He said to me listen, james,that you know.
Can I just tell you that, interms of our value creation plan
(32:33):
and our vision and what we'retrying to achieve, success for
us isn't achieving that.
Success for us is is nurturingthe right habits to to reach
that goal.
That success is the day to day.
And then what he said is if wecan get that day to day bit
right in terms of how weinteract with you, with our
(32:54):
partners, with our customers,then we've nailed it, and I know
that's not going to happenovernight.
And he said that was success,which is a you know.
He said a lot of executives arenow thinking like that, because
, whether you're trying to sella company or you're trying to,
you know, increase, you know,accelerate EBITDA or whatever
you're trying to do, andwhatever initiatives you have,
(33:18):
functional or financial,ultimately it comes down to the
what, what.
What do we need to exemplifyinternally?
And how can you, as a CS person, help us exemplify that?
And and I think there is maybeyou see this too, but I think
there are the CSMs that lead thecustomer to that, and then I
(33:39):
think there are CSMs that letthat hit them in waves and
therefore become more of avictim of what the customer is
saying.
It's true.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Yeah, well, it's true , because you know, I think more
times than not, your customerdoesn't know what they don't
know.
Yeah, you know, and they don't.
Really they don't have a fullvision for what the journey the
next year kind of looks like interms of success, whereas you
know you get a SM hey, guesswhat?
(34:11):
You have full three or fourmost common outcomes that your
customers are driving for andyou have kind of an idea for
what, what kind of steps alongthat journey you need to drive.
And so I think you're right, agood CSM and a good digital
program provides kind of that,the bits of bread on the way
(34:36):
back.
I don't know I was trying to doa red writing hood analogy there
, but it was a trail ofbreadcrumbs to lead her back to
civilization.
Yeah, yeah, red writing.
You know what Simpsons calledthat red writing hood is she she
the what she eats.
The grandma, right yeah, thewolf eats the grandma, yeah, and
(35:01):
then gets in, but then he gotin our clothes, so he must have
had to get the grandma naked tothen put on the clothes.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Sorry to believe that on your podcast, but that's,
that's the truth.
Let's just put it out there.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
It's cause.
It's cause and effect.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
I mean, it's like Casper.
It's like Casper.
People forget that's a dead kid, right.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
That's going to be the show promo.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
I think that the other interesting thing is that
with the digital side and isthat is the reflection or the
optics of having digital CS withthe product that must sort of
echo its simplicity.
So I hear this over and overagain, especially on the
executive side.
I keep getting told, james, wewill, we will always choose
(35:57):
simplicity over innovation.
So when we buy it's not in,it's no longer about price.
And I was like, of course it'sabout price.
No, no, no, it's not.
Actually, if it's simple enoughfor procurement to buy, for us
to execute, for our internalpeople to use, you win every
time.
And that's why people buy.
(36:18):
You know big, you know the bigpackages, because it is to them
in their mind it's simple.
But if you have a digital CSprogram that exemplifies that
simplicity, then great.
But having a digital CS programfor something that's maybe a
complex product is almost theoptics of that kind of strange,
(36:38):
aren't they?
And I think there's more to itthan that.
I don't know if you agree withthat or not.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
I don't know, I totally agree.
I mean it's a lot simpler tobuild a simple digital program
for something that's, you know,kind of single-minded and does
one or two things and whatever.
But you know, if you have acomplex product set or there's
multiple products that are tiedinto one thing, at that point it
becomes crazy convoluted,because then all of a sudden
(37:04):
you've gone from one customerchampion to like four.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, and also, I guess, depth of
adoption, which is the key.
Like people like to measurebreadth and I'm like, no, no, no
, no, you need depth, you needthe workflow, Like with a
digital program that's moresimple.
Then you're gonna get thatdepth of adoption.
So that's easier to then planta story around and go.
(37:27):
It's obviously going great thanhave a huge tool with multiple
workflows.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
Exactly.
One of the things that wetouched on a little bit earlier
was this notion of, you know,really getting the entire
company kind of through andaround the customer journey and
kind of owning the CS fromvarious facets, and I was
curious to get your take on.
You know what that looks likedigitally, Cause I think so many
of the digital programs thatare out there are starting to
(37:57):
embrace internal workflows andefficiency.
Do you have a sense for whereit is in that, in the internal
kind of collaboration around thejourney?
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Yeah.
So I mean, I see it in kind ofthree channels really.
So the first channel I see itin is how internal teams
collaborate to own own actionsas a result of customer
sentiment, if that makes sense.
(38:30):
So if you're doing a survey inwhatever way.
I believe I have strong beliefsthat if I'm responding to a
survey and let's face it,everybody hates surveys but if
I'm responding to it, thenatural instinct in me is I'll
say I'm British, so I'm gonna belike this, I'm gonna go,
(38:52):
they're never gonna do anythingabout it, right so?
But what is such an amazingthing and I know lots of firms
are doing this is they'rejumping on that sentiment and
going we hear you and no, we'renever gonna do that, and that is
fantastic to hear.
But also equally fantastic saywe hear you, let's talk about
(39:13):
how we might be able to achievethat.
Now, from that point on, whathappens internally needs to
almost be some form ofintervention in which we're
tracking those trends and themesand things that we should take
advantage of and apply a cost tothat decision.
So, digitally it's making itsway to a centralized location
(39:38):
whereby we can make some reallyintelligent decisions which can
then feed digital marketing, canfeed to digital CS.
And I saw this incredible thingand I think it was done by the
guys at IBM where they weresending out feelers based on
sentiment so we get ourcustomers feel this right, and
(40:01):
then they'd send these thingsout and they were going.
It was conjecture right, butthe thing was nobody was.
They got deals from it.
Because just because things arein the press, they're in
LinkedIn or on social, doesn'tmean that's what's happening
necessarily.
It's undercurrents of impactshappening to these businesses
that require solutions and sothat internal digital come
(40:22):
together thing it can beleveraged for a substantial gain
, right, and that's justchannels.
The other thing I've seen workreally well is via Slack or
Teams, internal channels, thatteam strategy.
I had no idea how beneficial itwould be to really improve
(40:45):
operational efficiencies butalso drive down costs.
It blows my mind actually, ifyou get that right.
And one of those things was, Ithink it's known as a success
desk in some places, a heal deskin others whereby you have the
CSM in a call, whereby you haveall the key stakeholders and you
have submitted something to thedesk which is a blocker to a
(41:07):
deal, a blocker to a renewal, oryou smell smoke.
So in other words, it's notlike a risk register.
You're just saying thiscustomer hasn't spoken to me and
I normally do, I'm gonna callit out, I'm gonna wait for a
flag.
Can someone own this or tell meif they might know why?
And just having that awarenessand that flag raised in a open
(41:30):
forum and in a place where it'srecorded is again hugely
powerful, because you can trackwhat's been saved, what has been
put on the line, what we'vebeen suspicious because putting
a cost on those things isbeautiful and also understanding
where your ICP might be going,because the other thing and this
(41:50):
is the third channel is thatthe internal, the ICP, as a
digital representation of theICP, in which I believe
everybody should fullyunderstand.
I believe it shifts and changesover time, Like I think there
are things that change within it, like it morphs slightly, and
(42:15):
if you're a product person andyou're using something like a
layer cake to dictate whereyou're hedging your bets in
terms of where the product'sgoing, I believe you need to
keep an eye on that ICP bygetting feedback into it and
closing the loop as to from theCustom Success Team or whoever
you have custom facing to saywe're hearing this, is this a
(42:35):
thing?
Well, let's check is it a?
thing.
Does it need to alter our ICP?
Should we be removing theproduct on that?
The difficulty with that is, ifyou're running customer
advisory boards, is that amajority of SaaS firms and this
is a difference between theleading pay setters and the
others, which is veryinteresting the leading SaaS
(42:55):
firms do calves for their topcustomers right.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Right.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Now until the last six months I've been like of
course that's the right way todo it.
Now I'm looking at going.
You're falling into a trap,because what's actually more
important is all of the inputsfrom your long tail.
They should be educating yourenterprise customers right.
They're noisy as hell.
Obviously, your enterprisecustomers will have quite niche
requirements.
(43:20):
They often think they know bestpractice, but the best practice
lives with the majority who arescaling up right.
Exactly, exactly, and that'swhere if you feed that into the
ICP, you can start to use thedigital aspects of it to.
I love that To get a compass onit.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Yeah, and that long tail customer, like your
smallest customer, is the onesof AIDF, because they've been
forced to be innovative becauseof whatever constraints they're
facing and those kinds of things.
And so I think that'sfascinating.
And yeah, like how many timeshave we responded to survey,
knowing full well we weren'tgonna hear back?
(44:00):
And so to your first point likejust responding puts you like
ahead of a lot of surveys outthere and a lot of companies out
there that just you know, youknow it's going into a black
hole somewhere.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
So yeah, exactly yeah .
And I do think surveys I do,they're a necessary evil.
I get it.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
And I do.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
It's lovely, it's a love hate, but also I sort of
feel like maybe if we changedthe word or I don't know, I feel
I also feel I find it's reallyinteresting that when you plug
surveys in product and not viaemail, that you start to get a
better response rate, and thattells me more about how the
(44:46):
surveys delivered are over andabove the other.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
I should call them I think we should call them
quandaries instead of surveys.
Quandaries, yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
Yeah, that way, that yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, tick me,
tick me yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
That's right, I'm conscious of time and,
unfortunately, you and I havelabored away basically an hour,
which is amazing, because everytime I'm surprised by the time,
it means it's been a goodconversation, it's been good but
.
But, but, as as we kind ofclose things out, I do have a
couple of other standardquestions for you.
(45:24):
The first one is kind of youknow your content, diet, what
are you paying attention to?
Speaker 1 (45:32):
God, you panned to me a little bit there where you
said diet because it's not good,but uh, cheese, mainly my
content.
Diet is so, and so I like toread the thing called the daily
stoic.
Are you aware of the dailystoic?
Speaker 2 (45:52):
No.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
I am not Ryan holiday , it's a, it's a philosophy.
Every day there's a differentstoicism, quote and um, and it's
every day.
I read one page.
I've done it for like fouryears.
It sets my day up and um it it.
It just helps me almost framemy day like bookends my day or,
(46:13):
ironically um the baby is great.
And if you're a CSM, uh, most ofthe CSNs I know I tend to send
them a copy because it's such atough job and it is, and it's
emotionally tough, moreemotionally tough than I think
anyone realises.
Um, it's definitely the hardestjob in the company, without a
question doubt.
But nobody quite gets thepsychological impact it can have
(46:36):
on you and the stage stoicshelped, helped me and many
others through that by thinkingmore clearly.
So that's one that's great, Ijust subscribed.
Oh yeah, excellent.
Yeah, it's great.
I hope you like it.
And um, deep work is a greatbook.
There are many other books.
I'm currently reading this workagain because I'm a terrible
victim of doing trying to domany things at once, um and um,
(46:59):
there are many other books thatare really, really good, but I,
very I, on terms of podcasts andchannels, um, I tend to, uh,
every guest that you've had on Ifollow, so you know I'd follow
all those guests.
Mike is fancy, in fact, I'd saythat you know the likes of Dave
Jackson and Mike have been.
(47:19):
They have shaped the way I've.
I've thought a lot about thingsLike, if someone gets you to
question things, they're aperson to follow, whereas if you
, if someone gets you to go,that's neat, probably just you
know, that's great, fine, youknow it's like throwing an onion
, you know, okay, fine, but yeah, that's super smart.
(47:43):
Um, yeah, I think that.
I think that's it really.
Um yeah that's great.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Is there anyone in digital CS that you would want
to give a shout out to or somekudos to them that is doing some
cool things?
Speaker 1 (47:59):
Yeah, but it's very embarrassing because I can't
remember his surname, but he was.
He's the guy.
He's the AI guy, mickey Powell.
That's him, mickey Powell.
Yep, I'm a massive fan.
He doesn't know me.
I don't know him.
I'm kind of his secret stalker.
Um, um, he.
I've been using a lot of AItools recently, um, and I've
(48:24):
been trying to find uh and I'vebeen leveraging them into
strategic success plans as meansof accelerating accelerating it
like uh outcomes, right.
And he has been absolutelyfundamental in um just going in
clarity about what, what, whatmatters most in that.
Speaker 2 (48:45):
Yeah, um, yeah, and so yeah, big up.
Mickey's amazing.
He was episode one.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
Episode one really.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
Episode one Um, who's are you paying attention to?
Speaker 1 (49:00):
Uh well, Marcus wrench is an obvious one, Marcus
, Um, you know, everyone knowsMarcus wrench Um yeah.
And uh, I.
So here's the weird thing aboutme is when I, when I first left
the corporate world, I veryrarely pay attention to SaaS
vendors.
Now, I know that's completelybananas, but the first thing I
(49:23):
did was I went and spoke to aton of SaaS vendors customers.
So I pay a lot of attention tocustomers of SaaS vendors
because actually the customer'scustomer is the real customer.
Now, if I don't know about them, what do I know about customer
success?
There's a, there's a thingflying around at the moment
(49:45):
which is is gone kind of viralamongst forums of of of Curit
parts, and they call it thecustomer success bubble, cause
they're saying these customersuccess guys, they don't quite
realize that we're vendors andwe can see what they're posting,
Like some of them are saying.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
I don't know what they're doing, and these guys do
know what they're doing.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
This whole thing, and so I tend to follow all the big
brand names, uh, but mainly thetop spenders in in SaaS, Cause
I just, I want to know you know,that's, that's the real
audience, you know.
So, um, I do, I do a bit ofthat and I like to see, uh, I
just quite like all their uh,the initiatives that they have
(50:26):
and what they're focusing on,because if those initiatives are
things where CS can help, Ifeel like CS has got a really
good place as these digital CS.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
you know there's um where can people find you pay
attention to, engage with you,uh, chat with you, all of that
kind of stuff?
Where can Mickey Powell stalkyou?
Speaker 1 (50:44):
Where can Mickey Powell stalk me?
Oh, wow, yeah, um, so you canfind me.
Uh, so my website is, uh, riverconsultancy groupcouk, because
the dot com was far tooexpensive, and, um, you can find
me.
I'm on LinkedIn as, uh, jamesLawson.
You'll find the uh Wingdingstick to make me stand out more
than um, whatever, my shit.
(51:06):
Um and uh, I'm based in the UK,but I work all hours Um and uh,
so you can reach me on LinkedInand I'm always happy to have a
conversation with anyone,whether it be CSM, you know
whoever um and um, and hopefullythey'll find me on this podcast
as well.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
Yeah, absolutely yeah .
Well, like I said, it's been apleasure.
I've super um appreciated thisconversation and your time and,
uh, it's been good.
Can't wait to share it.
Speaker 1 (51:35):
Me too, thanks.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
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 Turkovich.
(51:59):
Thanks again for joining andwe'll see you next time.
You can do all of that total cost of ownership
stuff, but actually the game iswhat did you promise?
Yeah.
What did you say back there?
Yeah, you know Right.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
What did you say before I signed on the dotted
line versus what's?
Speaker 1 (00:18):
actually happening.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah, and once again, welcome to the Digital Customer
Success Podcast with me, AlexTrokovich.
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
with me for the ride so that youget the insights that you need
(00:40):
to build and evolve your owndigital CS program.
If you'd like more info, wantto get in touch or sign up for
the latest updates, go todigitalcustomersuccesscom.
For now, let's get started.
Hello and welcome to theDigital Customer Success Podcast
.
This is episode 39.
It's so great to have you backeach and every week where we
(01:03):
talk about all things customersuccess and, specifically,
digital CS.
Before we get started today, Ido want to give a quick shout
out to the Customer SuccessCollective for putting on an
amazing event last week.
The Customer Success Festivalin Austin was on Tuesday and
Wednesday, and not only was I,you know, part of the event and
(01:23):
had a great time at the eventmet lots of really great people.
Special shout out to Sophie forall your coordination work as
part of the event, andespecially Janelle Friday who
was the MC kind of chairpersonof the event as well, gave a
great keynote on emotionalintelligence, so it was just
great all around and it wasgreat meeting some of you there
(01:46):
as well.
Today we're speaking with JamesLawson.
He's a UK based CS leader, hasbeen in the game for a long time
, currently runs RiverConsultancy Group, where he
helps leaders just excel interms of scaling CS and growing
their CS orgs and doing it theright way.
He has a lot of really uniqueinsights, I would say, into
(02:08):
what's what a modern CS orglooks like and specifically how
you know you can leverage crosscollaboration and company wide
inputs into the customer journey.
So we talk a lot about that.
We talk a lot aboutstorytelling and personalization
of content and how, you know,some of these digital emotions
(02:30):
lead into that kind of companywide collaboration around the
customer journey.
And he's just a good guy.
Very funny there's.
There's a couple of prettyfunny points in the conversation
as well.
So I hope you enjoyed thisconversation with James Lawson,
because I sure did.
Well, you ready to go now thatwe're going already?
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Yeah, this guy, this James.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
James Lawson.
The way that I can always tellit's you on LinkedIn is not
obviously your name, but thenyou've got that big, big check
mark right by your name.
That's how I always know.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Oh yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
James, that's awesome , but I wanted to welcome you to
the show.
Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Thank you.
Thank you, that's just a tick,by the way, a winging.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
It's good.
Yeah, there's, there's a coupleof people that use things like
that and you can always, youknow, pick their name out in
like I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I,I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I,
I, I, I.
You know, I think that, butthen if everybody did, then if
you didn't do it, then you wouldstand out right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Just a um, just a glorified attention seeker, I
knew.
I thought to myself well if, ifI have to pay for it and other
social media platforms just usea winging?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
That's right.
Yeah, Find a way, Absolutely so.
You know I was excited to haveyou on because, um, obviously
you have a crazed success.
I think you were Oracle forlike five decades, which is
actually six, seven years,something like that.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah, something like that.
Um done a lot of cool things.
Now you're a founder of RiverConsultancy Group, which is
awesome.
We'll definitely get into thatUm, you know.
But but I was curious if youcould just kind of give a quick
whistle stop tour of whereyou've been, what you're doing
now, um, and and you know whatyour plans are for the future.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Yeah, sure.
Um, when you said where have Ibeen, it always makes me feel
slightly guilty, like I'm namequestioning.
What have I been?
Speaker 2 (04:35):
What have you done?
What have you done?
What have you done?
What have you done?
Yeah, inflection is inflectionis very important.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yeah, and it can be dark, but I won't make this dark
.
So um, I, um.
So, basically, I, I, I've donecustom success most of my
working career and I started asa CSM you could say, but kind of
still in the leadership post,um little company.
Well, it wasn't a littlecompany Because Tileo was the
(05:06):
original place where, you know,I learned, learned the trade um
acquired by Oracle.
I tried to leave Oracle severaltimes and, like the death star,
kept sucking me in.
So I kind of went over.
I just give in to the force andand stay, um, stay in Oracle and
um.
I think, um.
(05:26):
Whenever I say to people I'vebeen in customer success my
whole career, it's just becauseit's been in various guises.
You know, there's been thebusiness development role of it,
there's been the very supportheavy role of it, the techie
side of it, um, uh, the I'll beyour friend's customer for
always side of it.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
So there's a.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
I've been in that various guises of it my whole
career and I think that everytime you're in a company and
you're doing customer success,you always feel like that you
know everything about it like a14 year old kid going through
that time in the life where youthink, well, I know everything,
nobody can tell you what to do.
And then, as soon as you stepinto your next role, you realize
(06:06):
that you don't.
And um and certainly veryrecently, when I stepped out of
the recent company I was in, umDeTara.
I stepped out thinking I'm anexpert and the truth of it is to
this day, looking back, you arenever an expert.
You know, and it's the same asI compare it to when I first saw
(06:30):
my daughter being born.
You know, coming into thisworld, you know, when she was
born, kicking and screaming, itwas the worst day of her life,
right?
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
She was warm and safe and all that.
And then she's coming out andthen I realized I had this fast
forward flash of hang on, likenow.
Right now, everything is goingto be new to her.
Every, every experience is new.
She she hadn't had our first.
You know, just like discussionthere's air, she has to breathe.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
There's stuff, there's a divorce, there's
whatever you know, there's allthose things she has to
experience.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
It's all new and it's no different in CS.
And it's no different in mostjobs, but in CS I think it's
quite as a profession.
It's more prolific that youexperience something for the
first time over and over again.
So whenever I hear someone say,oh yeah, I've done this, I
always think I don't think youhave.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Yeah, you bring up a very interesting point because
it relates to something thatI've said a few times on the
podcast with relation to digitalcustomer success.
But I think CS in general isaware I feel like the the most
amount of variability liveswithin like a single function
from org to org to org to org,because the CS role in one place
(07:46):
is going to be completelydifferent than a CS role in
another place or even withinlike segments.
You know, in the, in the, inthat that variability, whereas
in you know, you know I don'tknow, an account executive at
one SaaS firm, an accountexecutive as another SaaS firm,
is going to be, I think,relatively kind of the same
(08:10):
right.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yeah, there's some commonalities there isn't there.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Yeah, and, and and also I.
I am if you, if you think aboutany product outside of SaaS,
like where are the?
Speaker 2 (08:29):
CSMs yeah, why is that, if you?
Speaker 1 (08:34):
just think of it in a really basic, generic way.
Why is there customer successin just software?
Now, I would expect if I was ina bigger room people will go
well, yeah, there are customersuccesses in other product
customer success managers.
There's a group in LinkedIn andit proved my point on this
(08:55):
because I wanted to just go andexplore that theory.
When I looked in there, 80percent of the CS professionals
in there were to do withsoftware, but there were a good
chunk within the 25,000 thatwere in this particular group
that were customer successmanagers in other product lines.
Sure, but when you look at whatthey do, you suddenly realize,
(09:16):
oh wait, this is why there'sambiguity around the role.
This is why it's difficult topin them down.
This is why there's variability.
But also, I looked at it andthought do you know what?
It doesn't matter that.
I think we don't need to pin itdown because I think it's all
to do with working back from thecustomer to what's needed.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
If it's not a.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
CSM, then what's needed.
This is why, today, I very muchstand by and this is probably
the hill that I'll die on in thehigh stand by the fact that
customer success is a companycapability rather than a
function or a department.
That doesn't mean to say that Idon't think there should be
CSMs, because they absolutelyshould.
(10:00):
I just mean that it needs to bespearheaded by that as a task
force.
So that's where I seespecifically data backing up
that point.
For example, the leading paysetters in SaaS, the data bricks
, etc.
That are miles away from anyoneelse in customer acquisition
(10:21):
costs.
They have that down.
Now, you could argue, but theproduct's different, it's
simpler, it's a bit more.
But regardless of all that, youcannot walk away from the fact
that those guys have got thatdown because they have started
to treat customer success as anorg capability.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Yeah, I think you're among a number of people that
are thinking that way, because Ithink to your point.
I think the CSM will alwayshave a home, because there's
always a need to have somebodyfocused on the executive
relationship and drivingspecific outcomes and things
like that.
But when it comes to thecustomer journey, it's not just
(11:02):
in CSM land.
Everybody has a hand in it.
Even the finance has a hand init, even, obviously, sellers and
support and professionalservices and whatnot.
I think a healthy organizationshould be aware of, interact
with and contribute to thecustomer journey.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Yeah, absolutely, I think as well.
The interesting thing I thinkhappens commonly is that there
is a lot of firms fall asleep atthe wheel a little bit with
what the initial promise was,and I go back to that example I
made about there being why isthere only CS in software or
(11:48):
SaaS?
And I caveat that with and afew other organizations.
But I go back to this thing ofwhen the initial sale happens.
If you're leading withsomething like, for example,
mckinsey would say in the SOW,they say something like this we
(12:12):
will engage with you on themutual agreement that the value
that's being provided to you isless than the money you pay.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Sorry, it's more than the money you pay.
Okay, I was going to say You'realways going to pay us more
than we think we're worth.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Which is actually probably the cold hard truth.
But yeah, you're getting morevalue and you're paying less for
that value.
And once you enter thatagreement.
The interesting thing is thatit's and this is why I think
CSNs live more in SaaS is thatit's a subscription, so you are
(12:57):
the customer is always asking,would I buy again today?
At every interaction, and sothey're subscribing to that
agreement and the solution thatI'm going to see value.
So, because they're subscribing, there needs to be a pulse on
that, and that can come fromanywhere and that's where CSNs
(13:18):
should be primarily focused onthe value element of it.
I think for most startuporganizations, getting there is
obviously not a straight lineand that's where we need CS
professionals to help.
But I think that's where I seepass in my journey, where the
(13:39):
wheels come off or people fallasleep at the wheel because
they're going without thatinitial piece.
You can do your total cost ofownership of the department.
You can do your return ofinvestment on the CS function.
You can do all of that totalcost of ownership stuff.
But actually the game is whatdid you promise?
(13:59):
What did you say Right?
What did you say before I?
Speaker 2 (14:04):
signed on the dotted line versus what's actually
happening.
Yeah, yeah, for sure, it's theage old problem.
So and I think this dovetailsnicely into this a little bit
because one of the things that Iask all of my guests is kind of
what their elevator pitchstandard definition of digital
(14:25):
customer success is.
And I'm curious to get yourtake, because you do have some
unique takes on CS in generaland lots of experience there.
But if you had to explain inlayman terms what DCS is.
What would you say?
Speaker 1 (14:40):
In layman terms, let's say, the digital CS
element is providing value atscale with the illusion of it
being personable.
Yeah, and I put illusion inthere purely because in the
(15:00):
digital world of websites anddomains and your AWS group, et
cetera, I've been a part of thepersonalization element of it is
captivating.
Right and you can achieve thatthrough engaging with customers
too, because that's the way theydo it.
So if you're buying a pair ofNike's and it comes up with your
(15:26):
specific size and a style thatyou like maybe it's Jordan's
then you go hey, they know me,they recognize.
Now you know that there'ssomething behind there, because
people are smart.
Kids are smart.
They know I think I'm me.
That's why kids aren't lookingat their phones and going, oh my
God, they're listening.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
That's all the oldies , all the old people are going.
Yeah, exactly, so how did itknow that I'm looking at?
I didn't even know.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
No, yeah how did they know the young kids are like?
Of course it does, and that isright there where I think that
digital customer success isgoing to go to, because it's
about being relatable andrelevant and it doesn't
necessarily unpersonable thewhole fact that it isn't a
(16:08):
person.
Fine, it's okay to say Ibelieve that there was still any
people.
But the convenience of that isjust so beneficial to both the
customer and the organization.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah, I love your definition and you're right,
personalization is kind of likethe gold standard, I think, in a
good digital program, whereyou're not just filling in the
name.
Right, it's like dear Booleanor whatever it is or dear token,
but it's like you know who theperson is by name, you know what
(16:48):
their general role is withinthe organization, and so you're
kind of tailoring the content alittle bit.
But I think to your point, Ithink it's important to also
almost play with the fact thatit's fake personalization.
You've got to kind of own it alittle bit in your digital
motions, but also make sure thatthe customer knows that there's
(17:13):
always a human somewhere thatis available.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Yeah, exactly, and I like the idea.
I saw something play out not solong ago with a client where
their approach to the wholething was we want the customer
to have no surprises unless theyare good.
Yeah, sure, which I lovedbecause it was like course you
(17:41):
don't want to see any surprises,because you don't want to have
risk of any or just appear, butyou want them to get good
product advice.
So I was like, yeah, of coursethat makes perfect sense.
And where they carried that asactually a core value of their
company, which is reallyinteresting.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
No, surprises, I said good, which I loved.
That's really cool and I thinkit plays to the fact that also
we don't have a habit ofcelebrating things in CES and
especially in digital.
Digital is all about at leastmost programs are all about
alerting and proactiveengagement at certain points in
(18:22):
the journey and things like that.
But I think that should includecelebrating your champion's
wins, of accomplishing XYZ.
Or if a user just uploaded themwidgets into the Hoosie, what's
it's, then there should be someconfetti that appears and all
that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
What do you see Like?
Do you see, how do you see thatbeing done at the moment with
the celebrating success thing?
Because I think it's sometimesjust overlooked a lot, you know.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yeah, I don't think it's done a lot.
Where I've seen it done well iswhere it's obvious that
whoever's behind the digitalmotion has clearly identified
those key moments in the journeythat need to be celebrated in
order to, like, keep the game ofthings going.
(19:16):
You know, Gainsight is actuallya company that does this quite
well.
Yeah, you know they success inplatform that and they.
You know they reward certifiedand stuff like that.
Like you know it's, it's true,like I think it's.
(19:43):
I think it's those companiesthat have a really good handle
on on the user persona, not justthe you know, not just the
journey of the entire you knowcustomer, but the journey of the
individual persona and and andbeing able to track milestones
along there.
I think that's really the key.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense and I'm
finding that the, the, the, the.
Just from an axiom view, I lookat things and go, you know,
when we see some of thesuccesses but also some of the
challenges.
Yeah, it worries me what thelearns are taken, what learns
(20:24):
are taken from it, and I saythat is because there has to
always be this return to adiscovery of having a process,
etc.
Because I've noticed in thisindustry and LinkedIn is very
guilty of this there's a lot ofthis is how you should do stuff.
There's a lot of negativity.
(20:44):
Actually, csm are not doingthis, do this.
And I think there is you have tohave a responsibility of the
messaging you're putting outthere, in that that when you
take something, when you look atyour audience and they're
taking something from that, what?
Yeah, remember that that mightnot work and they'll come back
to you.
They'll think of you andthey'll come back.
(21:05):
So, you know, I always thinkthe success thing is is a better
way to play it, because you,the success leaves clues, yeah,
and the saying to people youshouldn't be doing this might
not necessarily be right.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
You know we we have a saying in our family and it's
it's quite simple.
It's like you know, youshouldn't, don't should yourself
, like if you say, oh, I shouldhave done X, y, z, don't should
yourself.
You know, it's all good, but Ithink, I think that carries over
(21:41):
to, I think, one of the thingsthat Greg Danes on recently and
he was talking about the kind ofthe magic words and CS, which
is, I think, a way that you cankind of toe the line a little
bit, like I think it's roughlyakin to other customers in your
(22:01):
space are doing X, y, z, likeyou know, you take what others
are doing and you're not goinglike, well, you're not doing
this, you suck.
But, you're saying that.
Okay, you know your peers aredoing this.
Yeah, just so you know.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Yeah, exactly yeah, and he's totally right, like
it's how you articulate thingsis is key, and it it blows my
mind, like I do still feel likethere are influencers parading,
as you know, cs experts who havebeen out of touch, who are not
articulating value with impact,and I think that rolls along.
(22:35):
And so a lot of it, a lot ofthe best training that is
offered these days, that there'sa good friend of mine called
Maurice Hellermans.
He does some trainingspecifically on presentation
skills and they're very specificaround delivering value with
impact.
So, and CSMs that are able todo that need to learn off
(22:58):
influencers and credible sourcesto who can say look, approach
it like this, say it like this,because then you are, then
you're consultative, you don'tjust know stuff, you can apply
your knowledge, and that makes agreat CSM.
Anyone can apply theirknowledge you know relevantly
(23:18):
and articulating it the rightway.
I think it's a bit of an art andI think it is sort of drifting
away a little bit.
But I think those CSMs thathave knowledge, commerce going
forward, you know, are in aconsultative mode and have some
expertise and niche behind themand can articulate value with
impact, I think those are theguys that are the future.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
And I think that's where the that's, that's the
real value in a CSM right andand I've talked about this
relatively frequently but it'sthis, this, you know, that's the
goal, the sweet spot for themix between a digital motion and
a human, because the human isthere to provide, you know,
(24:02):
value and insights and and andextreme personalization and kind
of the relationship element ofthings, but it's not, you know,
having them pull down data anddo the you know, analysis and
create insights and send 50, 50emails to the same person, like
(24:22):
that's not where a CSM's valueis, and so I was curious to kind
of get your take on that on, onwhere that sweet spot is with
the interaction between, like,digital and human.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Yeah, so I, I'm, I've so, and this isn't my view.
This is just what I've seen work, so from a customer point of
view, stories, how you tell astory, the expressions you use
behind the story, which whichcome off the back of data points
or anything digital, areincredible.
(24:56):
Like they, they just elevateeverything and almost and almost
tell your customer that you areof high value, you're a high
value contact to have and theylove having people like that.
People like having people and,in fact, when they're in the M
and a world, they're the peoplethat are gold.
(25:16):
Oh, we keep, that's not a costover there, that's person right
there.
We can't lose them.
It's not because they'reindisposable.
It's just because of what theycan deliver and how they deliver
it and the stories they tell.
Yeah, so most of the stories Ihave are terrible and rubbish
and ridiculous, but but oh, no,I know something.
Oh, they're just ridiculous.
But I mean, the thing is thatthe reason I still tell them is
(25:42):
because I'm I'm finding a way ofdescribing something that isn't
very exciting, right.
So I always tell the story ofyou know, when I spoke earlier
about surprises and no surprises, I always tell the story of
once being on a train and therewas this.
This actually happened to meand it was just the most
strangest thing to ever happenin my whole life.
(26:02):
I was on a train and there wasa woman sat next to me and I'm a
little guy, so I was kind ofshoved in the corner of the
train and she very casuallyopened her bag and took out a
banana and she ate the bananaand I just thought, okay, I'm
just having a snack.
And then she took the bananapeel and just put it neatly on
my lap and I didn't know her,just almost like you know, like
(26:24):
Mario Kart, where they sort ofupside down and it's just on the
floor and just that was it, andI didn't know what to do and so
I just sort of I didn't sayanything.
I'm too polite.
I picked up and put it to oneside, but you, just you cannot
with with anything like.
You cannot like.
That was a surprise.
You can't predict that.
(26:46):
Can you predict churn to adegree?
But stuff happened Like that.
You cannot get away from thefact that people are weird and
unpredictable.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
You won't be able to change that.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
But what you can do is you can tell stories engaged
from that person.
Where do they sit on thespectrum?
Are they in unpredictablecontact?
Is this person worthy ofdigital interaction?
Because if they're not, youwant to be there.
Whereas there might be someonewe go hey, this guy, this guy,
(27:18):
he might need me, but actuallyhe needs more digital
interaction.
Do you see what I mean?
Yeah, I'm still stuck on thebanana peel.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Like what I.
What I want to know is was shejust eccentric and maybe on the
spectrum and didn't reallyrealize it, or was she trying to
create a moment I was?
She created a moment when I wasout?
Speaker 1 (27:45):
of doubt, but was she trying to?
She looked like she looked likesomeone who you'd get to host
very posh dinner party.
You know, she was really.
Yeah, she was one of them.
You know, like, like she, shewould make a really good hotel
manager.
And I looked at the time Ilooked like someone who was
helping a brother move house.
(28:08):
I looked like a scruff, somaybe she just thought I was.
You were the help?
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Yeah, I was the help.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
I was only good for one thing, and that was propping
up a banana.
Yeah, but yeah, it's justamazing.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
It's just one of those things when I think about,
when I think about customersand customer success and digital
.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
I just think you know .
You know you know yourself as aperson and as a customer of
other, of other vendors andthings that you know yourself,
if you think carefully, that youare unpredictable and you will
make choices.
You change your car every twoyears.
You will do X, y and Z.
So, introspectively, we shouldconsider the fact that it's
(28:57):
great having all these methodsand frameworks and playbooks,
but actually what should weshould do is have a conversation
and make an educated decisionwhether and we're not going to
do that, a scout, of course, butof course we can we can make
our way through that andunderstand where digital applies
and where it doesn't.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
So, yeah, I mean, I think you hit on something very,
very important though, andsomething you know, when I asked
you your definition of digital.
One of the elements that a lotof people wind into their
definition is essentiallymeeting the customer where they
want to be met right, and as ahuman, that can be relatively
(29:38):
simple.
I mean, if you've ever takenkind of like a I don't know
customer service or kind ofphone etiquette or kind of phone
skills, soft skills typecourses, One of the first things
they always teach you is likeOK, mirror your customer, mirror
their tone, mirror their pace,do all that kind of stuff.
But then it's also like youhave that human interaction
(29:59):
where you can literally ask yourcustomer like, do you prefer
email, do you prefer SMS?
Like what's that?
What's that all about?
And I think I think theopportunity that we have in
digital and that a lot of peopleare starting to do is ask those
questions digitally.
Maybe somebody wants an email,maybe somebody wants an in-app
notification, maybe they don'twant both.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Do they have a preference one or the other, and
letting you individual userskind of identify how they want
to be communicated with the waysthat you can design your
digital emotions to serve theoutcome, but then also, you know
, help preserve some sanity.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Yeah, exactly, I think that's a really difficult
task as well, just because it is, I think, like if you delve
into personas and job roles.
Now, I'm not quite sure if thetypical methods I think the
principles remain the same, butI think the methods of
interacting may not necessarilybe what you think Right.
(31:02):
So, as an example, I generallywould have thought people in
perhaps the manufacturing space,you know, would prefer a light
touch because they're busy, butI don't know that for sure.
So there's, I always feel likethere's, the persona, and then
perhaps there's the disc profile.
There's more around that whichneeds to be shaped, which makes
(31:26):
it quite tricky.
But I have seen it I don't knowif you have, I have seen it
where it is completely overthought about and you should
really meet the customer or tryattempts to meet the customer
and then adjust the sales fromthere, rather than try and
create a perfect fit, that makessense.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Yeah, yeah, and I mean knowing what the habits are
, you know, of a persona.
I mean the most obvious one andthe one that's you know pretty
plain is your executive buyer islikely not going to spend a lot
of time in product messaging toan executive is probably not
going to be effective versus theadmin is going to live in there
(32:09):
and so yeah go to town Exactly.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Yeah, a lot of executives say to me.
In fact, there's one that saidsomething to me recently.
He was from, he was from Spain.
In fact he still is.
Anyway, he said to me.
He said to me listen, james,that you know.
Can I just tell you that, interms of our value creation plan
(32:33):
and our vision and what we'retrying to achieve, success for
us isn't achieving that.
Success for us is is nurturingthe right habits to to reach
that goal.
That success is the day to day.
And then what he said is if wecan get that day to day bit
right in terms of how weinteract with you, with our
(32:54):
partners, with our customers,then we've nailed it, and I know
that's not going to happenovernight.
And he said that was success,which is a you know.
He said a lot of executives arenow thinking like that, because
, whether you're trying to sella company or you're trying to,
you know, increase, you know,accelerate EBITDA or whatever
you're trying to do, andwhatever initiatives you have,
(33:18):
functional or financial,ultimately it comes down to the
what, what.
What do we need to exemplifyinternally?
And how can you, as a CS person, help us exemplify that?
And and I think there is maybeyou see this too, but I think
there are the CSMs that lead thecustomer to that, and then I
(33:39):
think there are CSMs that letthat hit them in waves and
therefore become more of avictim of what the customer is
saying.
It's true.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Yeah, well, it's true , because you know, I think more
times than not, your customerdoesn't know what they don't
know.
Yeah, you know, and they don't.
Really they don't have a fullvision for what the journey the
next year kind of looks like interms of success, whereas you
know you get a SM hey, guesswhat?
(34:11):
You have full three or fourmost common outcomes that your
customers are driving for andyou have kind of an idea for
what, what kind of steps alongthat journey you need to drive.
And so I think you're right, agood CSM and a good digital
program provides kind of that,the bits of bread on the way
(34:36):
back.
I don't know I was trying to doa red writing hood analogy there
, but it was a trail ofbreadcrumbs to lead her back to
civilization.
Yeah, yeah, red writing.
You know what Simpsons calledthat red writing hood is she she
the what she eats.
The grandma, right yeah, thewolf eats the grandma, yeah, and
(35:01):
then gets in, but then he gotin our clothes, so he must have
had to get the grandma naked tothen put on the clothes.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Sorry to believe that on your podcast, but that's,
that's the truth.
Let's just put it out there.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
It's cause.
It's cause and effect.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
I mean, it's like Casper.
It's like Casper.
People forget that's a dead kid, right.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
That's going to be the show promo.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
I think that the other interesting thing is that
with the digital side and isthat is the reflection or the
optics of having digital CS withthe product that must sort of
echo its simplicity.
So I hear this over and overagain, especially on the
executive side.
I keep getting told, james, wewill, we will always choose
(35:57):
simplicity over innovation.
So when we buy it's not in,it's no longer about price.
And I was like, of course it'sabout price.
No, no, no, it's not.
Actually, if it's simple enoughfor procurement to buy, for us
to execute, for our internalpeople to use, you win every
time.
And that's why people buy.
(36:18):
You know big, you know the bigpackages, because it is to them
in their mind it's simple.
But if you have a digital CSprogram that exemplifies that
simplicity, then great.
But having a digital CS programfor something that's maybe a
complex product is almost theoptics of that kind of strange,
(36:38):
aren't they?
And I think there's more to itthan that.
I don't know if you agree withthat or not.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
I don't know, I totally agree.
I mean it's a lot simpler tobuild a simple digital program
for something that's, you know,kind of single-minded and does
one or two things and whatever.
But you know, if you have acomplex product set or there's
multiple products that are tiedinto one thing, at that point it
becomes crazy convoluted,because then all of a sudden
(37:04):
you've gone from one customerchampion to like four.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, and also, I guess, depth of
adoption, which is the key.
Like people like to measurebreadth and I'm like, no, no, no
, no, you need depth, you needthe workflow, Like with a
digital program that's moresimple.
Then you're gonna get thatdepth of adoption.
So that's easier to then planta story around and go.
(37:27):
It's obviously going great thanhave a huge tool with multiple
workflows.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
Exactly.
One of the things that wetouched on a little bit earlier
was this notion of, you know,really getting the entire
company kind of through andaround the customer journey and
kind of owning the CS fromvarious facets, and I was
curious to get your take on.
You know what that looks likedigitally, Cause I think so many
of the digital programs thatare out there are starting to
(37:57):
embrace internal workflows andefficiency.
Do you have a sense for whereit is in that, in the internal
kind of collaboration around thejourney?
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Yeah.
So I mean, I see it in kind ofthree channels really.
So the first channel I see itin is how internal teams
collaborate to own own actionsas a result of customer
sentiment, if that makes sense.
(38:30):
So if you're doing a survey inwhatever way.
I believe I have strong beliefsthat if I'm responding to a
survey and let's face it,everybody hates surveys but if
I'm responding to it, thenatural instinct in me is I'll
say I'm British, so I'm gonna belike this, I'm gonna go,
(38:52):
they're never gonna do anythingabout it, right so?
But what is such an amazingthing and I know lots of firms
are doing this is they'rejumping on that sentiment and
going we hear you and no, we'renever gonna do that, and that is
fantastic to hear.
But also equally fantastic saywe hear you, let's talk about
(39:13):
how we might be able to achievethat.
Now, from that point on, whathappens internally needs to
almost be some form ofintervention in which we're
tracking those trends and themesand things that we should take
advantage of and apply a cost tothat decision.
So, digitally it's making itsway to a centralized location
(39:38):
whereby we can make some reallyintelligent decisions which can
then feed digital marketing, canfeed to digital CS.
And I saw this incredible thingand I think it was done by the
guys at IBM where they weresending out feelers based on
sentiment so we get ourcustomers feel this right, and
(40:01):
then they'd send these thingsout and they were going.
It was conjecture right, butthe thing was nobody was.
They got deals from it.
Because just because things arein the press, they're in
LinkedIn or on social, doesn'tmean that's what's happening
necessarily.
It's undercurrents of impactshappening to these businesses
that require solutions and sothat internal digital come
(40:22):
together thing it can beleveraged for a substantial gain
, right, and that's justchannels.
The other thing I've seen workreally well is via Slack or
Teams, internal channels, thatteam strategy.
I had no idea how beneficial itwould be to really improve
(40:45):
operational efficiencies butalso drive down costs.
It blows my mind actually, ifyou get that right.
And one of those things was, Ithink it's known as a success
desk in some places, a heal deskin others whereby you have the
CSM in a call, whereby you haveall the key stakeholders and you
have submitted something to thedesk which is a blocker to a
(41:07):
deal, a blocker to a renewal, oryou smell smoke.
So in other words, it's notlike a risk register.
You're just saying thiscustomer hasn't spoken to me and
I normally do, I'm gonna callit out, I'm gonna wait for a
flag.
Can someone own this or tell meif they might know why?
And just having that awarenessand that flag raised in a open
(41:30):
forum and in a place where it'srecorded is again hugely
powerful, because you can trackwhat's been saved, what has been
put on the line, what we'vebeen suspicious because putting
a cost on those things isbeautiful and also understanding
where your ICP might be going,because the other thing and this
(41:50):
is the third channel is thatthe internal, the ICP, as a
digital representation of theICP, in which I believe
everybody should fullyunderstand.
I believe it shifts and changesover time, Like I think there
are things that change within it, like it morphs slightly, and
(42:15):
if you're a product person andyou're using something like a
layer cake to dictate whereyou're hedging your bets in
terms of where the product'sgoing, I believe you need to
keep an eye on that ICP bygetting feedback into it and
closing the loop as to from theCustom Success Team or whoever
you have custom facing to saywe're hearing this, is this a
(42:35):
thing?
Well, let's check is it a?
thing.
Does it need to alter our ICP?
Should we be removing theproduct on that?
The difficulty with that is, ifyou're running customer
advisory boards, is that amajority of SaaS firms and this
is a difference between theleading pay setters and the
others, which is veryinteresting the leading SaaS
(42:55):
firms do calves for their topcustomers right.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Right.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Now until the last six months I've been like of
course that's the right way todo it.
Now I'm looking at going.
You're falling into a trap,because what's actually more
important is all of the inputsfrom your long tail.
They should be educating yourenterprise customers right.
They're noisy as hell.
Obviously, your enterprisecustomers will have quite niche
requirements.
(43:20):
They often think they know bestpractice, but the best practice
lives with the majority who arescaling up right.
Exactly, exactly, and that'swhere if you feed that into the
ICP, you can start to use thedigital aspects of it to.
I love that To get a compass onit.
Speaker 2 (43:40):
Yeah, and that long tail customer, like your
smallest customer, is the onesof AIDF, because they've been
forced to be innovative becauseof whatever constraints they're
facing and those kinds of things.
And so I think that'sfascinating.
And yeah, like how many timeshave we responded to survey,
knowing full well we weren'tgonna hear back?
(44:00):
And so to your first point likejust responding puts you like
ahead of a lot of surveys outthere and a lot of companies out
there that just you know, youknow it's going into a black
hole somewhere.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
So yeah, exactly yeah .
And I do think surveys I do,they're a necessary evil.
I get it.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
And I do.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
It's lovely, it's a love hate, but also I sort of
feel like maybe if we changedthe word or I don't know, I feel
I also feel I find it's reallyinteresting that when you plug
surveys in product and not viaemail, that you start to get a
better response rate, and thattells me more about how the
(44:46):
surveys delivered are over andabove the other.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
I should call them I think we should call them
quandaries instead of surveys.
Quandaries, yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
Yeah, that way, that yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, tick me,
tick me yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
That's right, I'm conscious of time and,
unfortunately, you and I havelabored away basically an hour,
which is amazing, because everytime I'm surprised by the time,
it means it's been a goodconversation, it's been good but
.
But, but, as as we kind ofclose things out, I do have a
couple of other standardquestions for you.
(45:24):
The first one is kind of youknow your content, diet, what
are you paying attention to?
Speaker 1 (45:32):
God, you panned to me a little bit there where you
said diet because it's not good,but uh, cheese, mainly my
content.
Diet is so, and so I like toread the thing called the daily
stoic.
Are you aware of the dailystoic?
Speaker 2 (45:52):
No.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
I am not Ryan holiday , it's a, it's a philosophy.
Every day there's a differentstoicism, quote and um, and it's
every day.
I read one page.
I've done it for like fouryears.
It sets my day up and um it it.
It just helps me almost framemy day like bookends my day or,
(46:13):
ironically um the baby is great.
And if you're a CSM, uh, most ofthe CSNs I know I tend to send
them a copy because it's such atough job and it is, and it's
emotionally tough, moreemotionally tough than I think
anyone realises.
Um, it's definitely the hardestjob in the company, without a
question doubt.
But nobody quite gets thepsychological impact it can have
(46:36):
on you and the stage stoicshelped, helped me and many
others through that by thinkingmore clearly.
So that's one that's great, Ijust subscribed.
Oh yeah, excellent.
Yeah, it's great.
I hope you like it.
And um, deep work is a greatbook.
There are many other books.
I'm currently reading this workagain because I'm a terrible
victim of doing trying to domany things at once, um and um,
(46:59):
there are many other books thatare really, really good, but I,
very I, on terms of podcasts andchannels, um, I tend to, uh,
every guest that you've had on Ifollow, so you know I'd follow
all those guests.
Mike is fancy, in fact, I'd saythat you know the likes of Dave
Jackson and Mike have been.
(47:19):
They have shaped the way I've.
I've thought a lot about thingsLike, if someone gets you to
question things, they're aperson to follow, whereas if you
, if someone gets you to go,that's neat, probably just you
know, that's great, fine, youknow it's like throwing an onion
, you know, okay, fine, but yeah, that's super smart.
(47:43):
Um, yeah, I think that.
I think that's it really.
Um yeah that's great.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Is there anyone in digital CS that you would want
to give a shout out to or somekudos to them that is doing some
cool things?
Speaker 1 (47:59):
Yeah, but it's very embarrassing because I can't
remember his surname, but he was.
He's the guy.
He's the AI guy, mickey Powell.
That's him, mickey Powell.
Yep, I'm a massive fan.
He doesn't know me.
I don't know him.
I'm kind of his secret stalker.
Um, um, he.
I've been using a lot of AItools recently, um, and I've
(48:24):
been trying to find uh and I'vebeen leveraging them into
strategic success plans as meansof accelerating accelerating it
like uh outcomes, right.
And he has been absolutelyfundamental in um just going in
clarity about what, what, whatmatters most in that.
Speaker 2 (48:45):
Yeah, um, yeah, and so yeah, big up.
Mickey's amazing.
He was episode one.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
Episode one really.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
Episode one Um, who's are you paying attention to?
Speaker 1 (49:00):
Uh well, Marcus wrench is an obvious one, Marcus
, Um, you know, everyone knowsMarcus wrench Um yeah.
And uh, I.
So here's the weird thing aboutme is when I, when I first left
the corporate world, I veryrarely pay attention to SaaS
vendors.
Now, I know that's completelybananas, but the first thing I
(49:23):
did was I went and spoke to aton of SaaS vendors customers.
So I pay a lot of attention tocustomers of SaaS vendors
because actually the customer'scustomer is the real customer.
Now, if I don't know about them, what do I know about customer
success?
There's a, there's a thingflying around at the moment
(49:45):
which is is gone kind of viralamongst forums of of of Curit
parts, and they call it thecustomer success bubble, cause
they're saying these customersuccess guys, they don't quite
realize that we're vendors andwe can see what they're posting,
Like some of them are saying.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
I don't know what they're doing, and these guys do
know what they're doing.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
This whole thing, and so I tend to follow all the big
brand names, uh, but mainly thetop spenders in in SaaS, Cause
I just, I want to know you know,that's, that's the real
audience, you know.
So, um, I do, I do a bit ofthat and I like to see, uh, I
just quite like all their uh,the initiatives that they have
(50:26):
and what they're focusing on,because if those initiatives are
things where CS can help, Ifeel like CS has got a really
good place as these digital CS.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
you know there's um where can people find you pay
attention to, engage with you,uh, chat with you, all of that
kind of stuff?
Where can Mickey Powell stalkyou?
Speaker 1 (50:44):
Where can Mickey Powell stalk me?
Oh, wow, yeah, um, so you canfind me.
Uh, so my website is, uh, riverconsultancy groupcouk, because
the dot com was far tooexpensive, and, um, you can find
me.
I'm on LinkedIn as, uh, jamesLawson.
You'll find the uh Wingdingstick to make me stand out more
than um, whatever, my shit.
(51:06):
Um and uh, I'm based in the UK,but I work all hours Um and uh,
so you can reach me on LinkedInand I'm always happy to have a
conversation with anyone,whether it be CSM, you know
whoever um and um, and hopefullythey'll find me on this podcast
as well.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
Yeah, absolutely yeah .
Well, like I said, it's been apleasure.
I've super um appreciated thisconversation and your time and,
uh, it's been good.
Can't wait to share it.
Speaker 1 (51:35):
Me too, thanks.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
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 Turkovich.
(51:59):
Thanks again for joining andwe'll see you next time.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.