December 10, 2024 • 50 mins
Marley Wagner, a seasoned expert in marketing and customer success, joins the podcast to explore the intersection of digital customer success and cross-functional collaboration. She and Alex discuss strategies for leveraging automation, transforming QBRs, and reimagining customer engagement through data-driven digital programs, all while highlighting the critical link between marketing and CS in driving growth and retention.
Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
03:06 - From Minnesota to Colorado
03:39 - Marketing meets customer success
11:01 - Where digital CS fits within the org
12:40 - The secret to digital CS success: collaboration
16:05 - Building digital customer programs
20:14 - Digital as a strategy AND a segment
25:46 - Measuring digital CS programs effectively
29:54 - Fixing what's broken in digital motions
36:31 - B2C lessons for B2B automation
39:22 - Transforming QBRs with automation
44:57 - Reimagining executive and customer engagement
Enjoy! I know I sure did…
Marley's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marleywagner/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Marley Wagner (00:03):
This might be a bold statement, but I'm going to
say this there should never bea customer anywhere, ever, no
matter how big they are, thathas no automation, no digital
strategy.
Alex Turkovic (00:13):
Once again, welcome to the Digital Customer
Experience podcast with me, AlexTurkovich.
So glad you could join us heretoday and every week as we
explore how digital can helpenhance the customer and
employee experience.
My goal is to share what myguests and I have learned over
the years so that you can getthe insights that you need to
evolve your own digital programs.
If you'd like more info, needto get in touch or sign up for
(00:37):
the weekly companion newsletterthat has additional articles and
resources in it.
Go to digitalcustomersuccesscomFor now, let's get started and
resources in it go todigitalcustomersuccesscom For
now.
Let's get started.
Hello and welcome back to theDigital CX Podcast.
I'm Alex Terkovich.
It's so great to have you backthis week and every week as we
talk about all things digital inCX, it's December 10th when
(00:58):
this is dropping, so we'regetting a little bit closer to
the holiday, a lot of peopleprepping for some time off,
maybe some family visits andwhatnot.
We have one more guest comingnext week and then we're taking
a couple of week break, butwe'll still be publishing for
those two weeks.
Got a little bit of somethingspecial lined up for those two
weeks, so stay tuned for that.
(01:19):
But for today I am pleased toshare a conversation that I had
with Marlee Wagner, who joins uswith a massively rich marketing
background and a lot ofexperience in digital digital
automation, marketing automation, those kinds of things.
Now she leads her ownconsultancy, marlee Wagner
(01:42):
Consultancy and focuses ondigital CS.
I had the great pleasure ofhanging out with her a little
bit at Churn Zero's conference afew weeks ago, which was
awesome, and she was a speakerthere as well did an awesome job
.
But today we talk about some ofher work in digital CS and how
she advises some of her clientsaround that topic as well.
(02:03):
We talk about some of theinterplay between marketing and
CS, because there is a lot ofoverlap and a lot of folks have
a hard time navigating that.
So we definitely get into thatand I hope you enjoyed this
conversation with Marlee Wagner,because I sure did.
Marlee, I want to welcome you tothe show.
Thank you so much for takingthe time.
We've been talking about it fora bit, but I'm glad we made it
(02:24):
happen.
Yeah, and there's so manythings about kind of your
history and your background andwhat you do today that A makes
you an appropriate guest for theshow, but also is just
fascinating right Now.
Are you originally a Minnesotanor did you just go to school in
(02:47):
Minnesota?
Marley Wagner (02:48):
I grew up in Minnesota, school Vikings.
Oh yeah, I hope, when thiswarning comes out, they're still
undefeated.
Alex Turkovic (02:57):
Yeah, for sure.
Okay, so you did the Minnesotathing, and then, at what point
did that take you?
Did you head to Colorado?
Marley Wagner (03:06):
soda thing.
And then, at what point didthat take you?
Did you head to colorado?
Yeah, I've been here since 2017.
We came out here for my, myhusband's job.
At the time he he worked forzoom and, ironically, in 2017,
to work at zoom, you had tophysically be in their office so
so funny.
Yeah, here we are, but it'shome now.
I love it.
Alex Turkovic (03:26):
Yeah, now I remember us talking a little bit
about your husband's experiencewith Zoom pandemic.
All that kind of fun stuff Musthave been insane.
Marley Wagner (03:36):
It was a ride, for sure, for sure.
Alex Turkovic (03:40):
And so you know, you've kind of I guess I was
going to say woven in and out ofmarketing and customer and
marketing customer, but it'sreally just been.
I mean, you have a reallystrong foundation in marketing
and that naturally lends itselflike really really well to
(04:00):
especially digital customersuccess.
But customer operations andwhatnot.
Do you want to talk a littlebit about that journey?
Marley Wagner (04:06):
yeah, absolutely so.
You know, I, like you said, Iwas marketer for a long time.
I marketed to I won't even gointo the list, but a long list
of different audiences in a longlist of different industries,
well before I had ever evenheard of customer success, let
alone digital customer success.
And then, back in 2017, I foundmyself running marketing for a
(04:33):
company that did customersuccess as a service.
I liken them to a customersuccess agency, if you will.
And suddenly, yes, I'm doingmarketing right To a B2B
audience, to a tech audience, tocustomer success leaders.
And customer success is a worldand an industry that, once you
(04:56):
get exposed to it, I for onefound it really hard to not be
fascinated.
Number one Yep.
And found it really hard not tosort of connect those dots of
what I had been doing in themarketing world to the.
You know the needs and thechallenges of these customer
success leaders, our clients.
So very quickly, again, sort ofby accident, ended up living in
(05:21):
both worlds, still runningmarketing go-to-market digital
website, social media, ads,trade shows, blah, whatever
right but then also tryingthings with our clients saying,
hey, this really works in themarketing world, this really
works when you're acquiring newcustomers, let's think through
(05:43):
logically how we can tweak thosestrategies to make sense for
your existing customer base.
And got to do that with so manyreally amazing clients, amazing
people, really fascinatingcompanies, and really loved
living in that duality of doingboth.
Again what we call traditionaldigital marketing, if you will,
(06:03):
with acquisition of newcustomers, and then the digital
CS world.
And they're different, right,they have their differences, to
be sure, but as I'vetransitioned out of that role
and into my own consultancy andfractional space and freelance
space, I still do both right,and I think I shared with you
(06:24):
before I have certainly had myfair share of unsolicited advice
that I should pick one or theother, but for me the reality is
that Doing both, and sitting inboth worlds makes me better at
both.
Alex Turkovic (06:39):
Yes.
Marley Wagner (06:40):
Right, because they are so related, they're
different Again, nuance, forsure you got to your
communication style is differentwith prospects versus customers
.
But I also think so manycompanies really struggle to
connect those two organizationsmarketing and customer success
and the connection between themis so, so important to the.
(07:01):
You know the actual life cycleright?
Marketers like to call a lifecycle like a lead gen Of course
yeah, lead funnel.
And customer success.
People like to call a lifecycle.
You know what happens post-sale.
It's all of it together.
Alex Turkovic (07:12):
It is.
Marley Wagner (07:13):
It's so important and so many people like kind of
suck at it.
So that's why I'm still sittingone foot in each world and I
love it.
Alex Turkovic (07:22):
I love it and I think that makes you know what
you offer extremely valuable,because you know, it's no secret
that there's like this you knowCS kind of bubble, right when,
and it's very easy to just getstuck in the CS bubble.
But there's you.
But the marketing world is Away more experienced, longer
(07:45):
thread of kinds of things thatwe use in digital CS are pretty
much there for marketing as well.
And what marketing uses on adaily basis kind of we get our
(08:15):
blinders on so much that we missthe opportunities that our
friends in marketing have beenusing for ages and take, as you
know, for granted that thatwe're just like.
Oh, you can do that.
I'll give you one example andthen I'll let you talk.
I promise it is somebody theysuccessfully used linkedin
(08:36):
advertising as a method forengaging their existing customer
base and specific personas.
And it makes complete sensebecause you can, if you like
most of us are sitting on reallynot so great customer data
guess what?
Linkedin knows what people aredoing, what their roles are,
(08:58):
what their seniority level is,what all that kind of stuff is,
and you can really target peopleat your customer's company via
LinkedIn.
And I was just like it blew mymind, but then immediately I
went to like yeah, duh, whydidn't I think about that?
So I felt that was an aproposexample of stuff we might be
missing out on in CS.
(09:19):
Do you feel like you encounterthose kinds of things all the
time?
Marley Wagner (09:22):
Yes, totally, I think.
Number one I want to know wherethey got the idea, because,
kudos to them, did it just popinto their brain?
Do they have a background inmarketing?
Did they make friends withsomebody in marketing?
How did that come?
Alex Turkovic (09:34):
to them.
Marley Wagner (09:35):
And yes, there are things like that everywhere,
and in reverse, too, there arethings that are happening in
digital cs that marketers shouldbe using also.
Yep right, more human language,more like less salesy right
less like gross sales marketinglanguage.
All that kind of stuffmarketers can learn from cs too.
(09:56):
So it's not one directional byany means, but yeah there's.
There's like missedopportunities like that just
everywhere.
Alex Turkovic (10:05):
Yeah, for sure.
And and you know it's I findthat a lot of CS leaders, when
they start to really invest inand know get into the world of
digital, a lot of times they'remet with objection or friction
or whatnot from otherdepartments like product or
(10:27):
marketing or whoever, becauseyou know the initial, I think,
knee-jerk reaction is like well,that's what I do, like don't
don't do that that's what I do,but in reality don't don't do
that.
That's what I do, but in realityit's like we're trying to work
together and I think you paintedthe beautiful pictures like
marketers think of it as thefunnel and we think of it as a
lifecycle.
But it's all one timeline.
Why can't, you know, one orgkind of manage the front end of
(10:51):
it and the other org manage theback end of it?
Marley Wagner (10:54):
And the reality is sometimes it sits in lots of
different places.
Alex Turkovic (11:00):
Yes.
Marley Wagner (11:00):
Right, like.
You probably hear this questionall the time of like, where
should digital customer successlive?
Right, who should own it?
Yeah, my answer is actually Idon't care, right.
I don't care if it lives inmarketing, I don't care if it
lives in digital or if it livesin customer success.
What I care about is that thoseorgs, plus product, plus
(11:21):
whoever else needs to beinvolved, have come to a mutual
decision together yes aboutwhere it lives and who owns what
and where the lines are andwhere it starts and stop.
Yeah, to your point like right,maybe there's a handoff
digitally, just like in customersuccess.
We talk about handoffs all thetime, yeah, when we when we're
talking about one-on-one.
Okay, where are the digitalhandoffs?
Alex Turkovic (11:42):
Right, yeah, exactly, and you know, I think
that points to one of the thingsthat if you out there are
hiring for, I would say,especially a digital CS leader
or somebody to you know to headup digital or build a digital
program, something like that manI got to tell you.
I think the number one thingyou're looking for is somebody
(12:05):
who can collaborate like crazy,because there is there is really
no other role or function thatI can think of where that
collaboration is so key, becauseyou are taking ownership of the
customer experience, in essence, with you, know, but you're
(12:25):
going to have to do it inproduct and you're going to have
to do it with email marketingand you're going to have to do
it in all these different ways,that kind of potentially step on
other people's toes andwhatever.
So the coordination is realy'all it's huge.
Marley Wagner (12:40):
Yeah, I totally agree.
Even think about okay, you mayneed to do it like in somebody
else's system, right, there areplenty of digital cs leaders who
don't have a cs platform thatthey can run automations out of
right, so they're like all right, what does marketing use?
What does product use?
What can I borrow from them?
Literally, you rely on them,those other teams, those other
(13:03):
departments, to do your job.
So, yes, number onecollaboration, absolutely.
Alex Turkovic (13:11):
What's already there.
Not long ago I compared digitalCS people to the MacGyvers of
CS, just because a lot of timeswe're duct taping stuff together
to make it work.
Marley Wagner (13:25):
Also 100% of the time, if you're that new digital
CS leader coming in, or just aCS leader who's like, hey, I'm
going to start a new digitalprogram program.
Alex Turkovic (13:43):
100% of the time there is more going on going to
your customers already from lotsof random teams and people than
you think, yep, and it alllooks different.
It all has a different tone ofvoice.
The template's completelydifferent.
There's four different versionsof your logo Like it's real.
Marley Wagner (13:55):
It's scary.
Alex Turkovic (13:57):
For sure.
And then it becomes a questionof how do you wrangle all that
in, you know, and is itsomething where you offer to
take ownership of stuff, or isit something where you're just,
you know, collaborating onthings and you know other
questions like do you rely onyour marketing organization to
do that design for you, or doyou take it in-house?
And I mean, you know, thevariables just start to stack up
(14:21):
like super, super quick.
Marley Wagner (14:23):
Yeah, I've been using the word nuance a lot
lately when talking aboutdigital customer success.
There's just so much nuance.
Such little tiny differences inyour org structure or your
product or, you know, yourcustomer profile can make such a
huge difference in those littlethings that you need to do.
(14:45):
In those decisions you need tomake right, whether it's where
digital CS sits, who handleswhich tasks right, how much you
rely on marketing, how much yourely on product right.
Let's say you're using Pendo orsomething right the product was
already using like, how muchare you relying on them versus
how much are they granting youaccess to that system?
(15:07):
So much little, tiny nuance inthose decisions.
Alex Turkovic (15:10):
Right, yeah, and nuance extends into you know, I
would say you know there's.
There's emotional intelligencethat lives under all of it, or
should ideally, especially whenit comes to the nuance of which
persona are you speaking with?
Because the way that you'regoing to speak with your
executives and the way thatyou're going to speak with your
(15:31):
admins and your end users, youcan't be all the same.
It has to be different.
Marley Wagner (15:37):
Yeah yeah.
Yeah.
Alex Turkovic (15:39):
Okay, awesome rabbit holes we got down here.
But yeah, I mean, look one ofthe things that you're doing now
.
So you are, you've set up aconsultancy, you are essentially
a fractional CMO, but you'realso consulting a lot about
digital CS.
What kind of things are youworking on in the digital CS
(16:02):
front with clients?
Marley Wagner (16:05):
Yeah, that's actually where a bulk of my work
is.
In the digital customer successconsulting side of my business.
I'm a fractional CMO also, likeI said, keeps me on my toes,
keeps me better.
But most of my clients I'mworking with are in that digital
CS space, I think, because, Imean, you and I both know it's
like this thing that has beensort of a nice to have for a
(16:27):
long time and all of a suddenlike kind of you know, post less
than ideal economic scenarios,people are like, oh crap, like I
need this.
This is not a nice to haveanymore, it's absolutely a must
have.
But there are so few of us outthere who have ever built it or
(16:49):
done it or seen it orexperienced any of the pitfalls
that can help you avoid those.
I think a lot of companies arejust like, oh my God, what do I
do?
So a lot of companies are justlike, oh my god, like what do I
do?
Right?
So a lot of my time is spentwith with companies like that
who are like, hey, I need tobuild a thing.
We've never done it like brandnew.
(17:10):
My cs leader is freaking awesomeat one-to-one engagement, but
like they're just not like atechnical person in that way,
right, like that's totally cool,like that's okay, right,
there's nothing wrong with beinga customer success leader who's
like really focused on hightouch, right.
Then I get to come in and anddo really fun stuff and see
(17:33):
what's working really reallywell in those like more
enterprise white gloveinteractions and figure out,
okay, how do we automate that?
How do we, you know, how do weautomate it for lower tier
customers?
Right, if you will.
But also, how do we automatesome things for your CSMs so
(17:54):
that their lives are easier andthen they can have those more
strategic conversations withmore customers?
Yep, right, I think you know.
Another rabbit hole we could godown is like the whole like
digital is for small customersthing.
I'm just mad at the anti that.
Alex Turkovic (18:11):
So you know it's interesting about that.
I've I've this has occupiedprobably more brain space than
it should in my brain as ofrecent, because I don't have
much space up there right now.
Beside the point, the wholedigital CS is a strategy, not a
segment thing.
Yes, total strategy, not asegment, but it is a segment.
(18:38):
Like you know, it's so funnybecause we've kind of gone this
guardrail to guardrail typesituation, which we love doing
in CS and other orgs as well.
But like, yeah, it's a strategyand not a segment and I totally
agree.
It is a holistic strategy.
It needs to encompass bothcustomer facing stuff needs to
encompass internal automationsto help your csms be more
(19:00):
efficient, blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah.
But at the end of the day,there's a swath of your
customers who aren't gettingshit, so like, and the only
people there to cover it is yourdigital cs team.
So, yeah, you are covering asegment but that's part of this
strategy.
Marley Wagner (19:17):
I think you're spot on Right and I'm with you
Right, like I I am.
Yes, it is a strategy, not asegment, right?
I think what's missing is it'sa strategy, not just a segment.
Alex Turkovic (19:31):
Yeah.
Marley Wagner (19:32):
Right, it's an and proposition, not an or
proposition, you know, andwhether.
Whether it's like hey orproposition, you know, and
whether it's like hey, you'restarting with the proof of
concept with just your smallestcustomers, cool, would I
recommend a proof of concept,maybe in a different, with a
slightly different audience?
Yeah, I would, right.
I would probably recommend likehey, let's do an onboarding
(19:53):
proof of concept for all yourcustomers, right?
Rather than just your teenytiny SMB friends.
The reality in a lot ofbusinesses to your customers,
right, rather than just yourteeny tiny SMB friends.
The reality in a lot ofbusinesses, to your point, those
teeny tiny businesses likethat's all they're getting,
right.
So I like to think of it as likea, a sliding scale, right?
Yeah, it's like a teeter totter, just the balance is different
(20:16):
depending on what segment orwhat tier we're talking about.
And yeah, it's like fullyweighted digital with the
smallest of your customers andheavily weighted, not digital,
with your biggest customers.
But guess what?
There should be still somelevel of digital.
This might be a bold statement,but I'm going to say this there
(20:37):
should never be a customeranywhere, ever, no matter how
big they are, that has noautomation, no digital strategy.
Alex Turkovic (20:45):
Totally, totally.
I completely agree with that.
I mean, if you're notautomating something, then
you're missing the boat on a lotof you know a lot of goodness
that can be had and, quitefrankly, it's expected.
You know your customers sign upwith you.
They're expecting some kind ofautomated things to happen.
(21:06):
They're expecting a kickoffemail, they're expecting login,
you know whatever that is like.
They're expecting something andwhen they don't get that, then
that's problematic.
And I'll add to that and saythat I also feel like that every
digital motion should beaccompanied by the ability to
(21:30):
engage a human, if you need to.
Marley Wagner (21:33):
Yes, yes, that's all I'm going to say, gonna say
about it.
Yes, you're right, shows over,see you later folks no that's it
.
Alex Turkovic (21:44):
No, yes yeah, I mean, and it doesn't have to be
elaborate.
Like you know, a lot of timeswhat I like to do in an email is
include a booking link to tothe pool team's calendar or a
specific person or you know,office hour or you know,
whatever that is, it doesn'tmatter.
It can be any number of like 20different things, but your
(22:11):
customers shouldn't feel likethey're being pigeonholed into a
digital motion and that's allthey have.
They should feel like, okay,this is great information and
this is how you can engage theteam if you have other questions
.
Marley Wagner (22:24):
Right, Exactly.
Yeah, I think about this a lotand I talk about this a lot and
I'm actually I'm doing apresentation in a couple of
weeks.
It may have already happened bythe time this airs but, at
Trend Zero's conference.
Alex Turkovic (22:37):
Bob conference zero.
I'll see you there yes can'twait, or I saw you there I saw
you there.
Marley Wagner (22:45):
It already happened, right, what is time?
I don't know.
So bob london is a is alistening expert, right and
strategic conversation expert,and I'm automation expert.
Those things seem, on thesurface, like total opposites.
Alex Turkovic (23:01):
Not at all.
Marley Wagner (23:03):
We're going to talk about why they're not and
why you need both, and how touse automation to make more of
those strategic conversationshappen.
That's awesome.
That's the kind of connectionthat I'm really passionate about
in what we do, right?
It shouldn't feel like icky anddisconnected, right?
(23:25):
It should make you feel moreconnected.
It should make you feel moreengaged.
It should get you what you needfaster, whether that is, you
know, a self-service portalwhere you can answer your own
question, or access to a realperson.
Alex Turkovic (23:39):
Right, yeah, exactly, that's huge.
I'm looking forward to thattalk.
I mean I really enjoyed thattalk.
Marley Wagner (23:47):
Thanks.
Alex Turkovic (23:49):
Hey, I want to have a brief chat with you about
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that goes out every week atdigitalcustomersuccesscom.
Now back to the show.
So I want to shift gears here alittle bit, because one of the
(24:33):
things that I've talked a lotabout is measuring digital CS.
And this is something that a lotof people struggle with and I
actually, I mean I take a overlysimplistic approach to it,
maybe to my detriment, I don'tknow.
But fundamentally speaking,like you've got, on one side,
you've got traditional customersuccess metrics, your NRRs, your
(24:56):
GRs, your renewal rates, yourchurn rates, all that kind of
stuff.
On the other side, you havemarketing campaign metrics, open
rates, click-through rates,blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But I think the magic, in myopinion, really happens in that
attribution of we did thiscampaign in this cohort of
(25:16):
customers that engaged with it.
We saw a reduction in whateverit is you're trying to do.
Right If it's an increase inadoption of a specific feature,
or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,blah, blah.
But is that am I?
In your opinion, and in theconversations that you've had
with your own customers in yourconsultancy, are you advising
(25:40):
something similar?
Are you advising somethingdifferent in terms of how those
companies should measure theirprograms?
Marley Wagner (25:46):
Yeah, very much something similar, right?
I always like to remind peoplethat those more traditional CS
metrics we're talking aboutretention, churn, nrr, grr, blah
, blah, blah those are laggingmetrics, right?
So it's going to take a whilefor you to see an impact on
those things, whether you'retackling those with humans or
(26:08):
with automation, mind you.
But particularly we're talkingabout automation, like hi doing
an onboarding.
You know, automating youronboarding process is not going
to like magically fix your turnrate, because those customers
don't have the opportunity toturn for like a year, yep.
Alex Turkovic (26:24):
Right, right, exactly.
Marley Wagner (26:26):
So I think it can be really hard for people to
like be patient and wait to seethose results.
So the other thing, sort of inbetween the two, that I really
like to recommend is hey, whatare the sort of intermediate
metrics for your customers, yourbusiness?
A lot of times it's productusage, right.
(26:48):
That's a really important onebecause I think, to your point,
that attribution is pretty easyto follow of, like, hey, this
cohort of customers, just likeyou said, we sent them this
thing, they did this thing andnow, look, they're using XYZ
product feature way more thanthey did before, right.
Other metrics that are kind ofintermediary things, like time
to onboard or time to value, canbe really really valuable A lot
(27:11):
of times.
I recommend running a proof ofconcept with digital when it's
new, and those are the thingsthat I recommend you measure For
a proof of concept.
You're not going to be able towait to measure retention.
It's unrealistic wait to measureretention, right, it's
(27:32):
unrealistic, nope, right.
So, yes, measure opens, clicks,unsubscribes, etc.
And then product usage.
And then what like?
What other metrics can't numberone can you measure with your
systems and technology and thelike?
But what, like, what else isrelevant to your business and
what else have you alreadyfigured out correlates to higher
(27:52):
long-term metrics later downthe line, right?
We know typically, on average,things like quicker time to
onboard and quicker time valuecorrelate with higher retention
rates and higher growth ratesand all of that.
So what are those in the middlethings you're like you can
measure along the way, becauseit's just too damn hard to wait
(28:13):
a year.
Alex Turkovic (28:14):
It really is?
Yeah, for sure it is, it is,and even things like you know
NPS very kind of laggy and youknow you shouldn't wait six
months to get an update.
Blah, blah, blah, blah blah.
I'm fascinated at um you knowby how many digital motions I've
(28:35):
seen in place that really don'thave metrics on the back end of
it in other words.
They're not.
They're not really tracked,like a lot of them are just kind
of put in place.
Okay, done, move on to the nextone.
Right, which?
Okay, you know, if you'retrying, if you're trying to go
(28:55):
do a bunch of stuff, I totallyget it right and you're, you're
strapped, you're, maybe you know, maybe you're.
You are a csm and part-timedigital person at your company.
I get it.
You got to build and move on.
But if you have the means to gomeasure the efficacy of one of
(29:17):
your motions, ideally a reallysolid onboarding flow would
reduce your time to value overthose that didn't get it and
those kinds of things.
On the flip side also, you wantto know when stuff isn't
working so that you can fix it,because there's nothing worse
than having stuff out there thatis just ineffective and noise
and is just whatever um is there.
(29:38):
Is there um a process or kindof a methodology that you
recommend your clients follow,when things might not be working
correctly, to analyze whatneeds to be fixed and then do
another iteration?
Marley Wagner (29:53):
Yeah.
So first of all, I call thatscenario we're talking about
where it's like there are thingshappening but we're not
measuring.
I call that random acts ofmarketing.
Alex Turkovic (30:03):
Oh, I love this.
Marley Wagner (30:05):
And it's like you said, it's really common, right
.
It makes me kind of sad, but,to your point, sometimes that's
the reality.
Things should not be set it andforget it.
They shouldn't be one and done,but, like sometimes they are
right.
So if you're in that scenario,like I, I feel your pain, I see
you, but let's try and measureright.
(30:28):
Like let's try, and really evenmore than what we just talked
about of like yeah, provingthat's working.
Like yes, what can we fix, whatcan we make better?
Right, what's like maybe it'skind of working, but like we'd
like it to work better.
I don't know that I have like areally specific methodology that
I use in that regard.
(30:48):
I think you know the reality is, like you said, it's kind of
situational, like how much timeand effort you can spend there.
But number one I alwaysrecommend, like you said, just
measure everything right.
Whatever data is available toyou, keep track of it, right?
Maybe you're really onlylooking at it once a month or
(31:10):
even once a quarter.
I'd like to see it more but ifthat's the reality, like, okay,
that's fine, set aside that timeto do that.
And then not only do you wantto compare sort of one message
or one campaign or oneinitiative against another right
, but you also want to compareit to itself over time.
I think that's one that peoplereally tend to miss right, where
(31:32):
maybe they're measuring a lotin the beginning.
When they first build something, they're like, oh, it's working
, we're done now.
Alex Turkovic (31:39):
Yeah.
Marley Wagner (31:40):
Right, and the reality is that that's never
true right.
Your business is evolving, yourproduct is evolving, your
customers are evolving, yourcompetition is evolving and
therefore your messaging needsto evolve with those things
Right.
And that doesn't just mean like, oh, we need to change this
thing.
(32:00):
When we had a big like productrelease, yeah.
Again back to you know,everything is nuanced.
There are, there are smallershifts and changes and whatever
where you might want to revisitthe language of something or the
timing of something, or or thechannel you're using to send a
message, whatever it is right.
So I really really like toremind folks to just make sure
(32:22):
you're measuring over time,right, like something that
worked really well when youfirst launched it, six months
later, two years later, fiveyears later, guess what?
It might not work so wellanymore.
So what did those discrepanciesin those, like you know,
leading metrics engagementmetrics, opens, clicks, blah,
(32:43):
blah, blah.
Leading metrics, engagementmetrics, opens, clicks, blah,
blah, blah?
That's like your first clue,obviously.
Or you can do it in reverse,right, like, oh, shoot, are we
seeing like a really big, youknow, drop in NRR or a really
big spike in churn with thiscohort of customers in this time
period?
And then you can go likebackwards and be like, okay,
(33:05):
what was the process that theywent through and was there, you
know, was there a drop off inusage somewhere?
Was there a drop off in themengaging with our stuff
somewhere?
That's the other thing.
Like you don't just have tolook at it forward, I think
looking at it backwards can alsobe super, super helpful.
And then I'm all about testingtoo, right, when you're like,
well, I'm not sure, like okay,no, this isn't working.
(33:28):
But I'm not sure, like whatabout it isn't working Right.
Like, is it the channel, is itthe language, is it the subject
line?
Like whatever, it's okay tolike, be like okay, we're going
to see if a different subjectline changes over here with this
group, with this cohort, andwe're going to see if you know
different call to action or adifferent whatever.
(33:49):
Just like more human again,more human language.
Maybe that makes a difference,less formal, and we're going to
try that over here with thiscohort.
That's okay to be like I don'tknow what, what the like very
specific problem is, and to test, to see what it is and see
where you see improvement yep,it's all incredibly valid things
(34:12):
.
Alex Turkovic (34:12):
A couple things that kind of came to mind as you
were chatting about.
That is especially if you'redoing like email mark, you know
email campaigns and those kindsof things.
I guarantee you if you're doingsome email campaigns and you
have a system that does someemail campaigns for you, I
guarantee you it will have someanalytics available out of the
box, and if it doesn't, you needto change platforms because
(34:34):
it's like that's not cool.
Marley Wagner (34:38):
That's not even like real email campaigns if
it's not giving you metrics back.
Alex Turkovic (34:44):
Yeah, exactly.
Marley Wagner (34:45):
Like a mail merge , come on exactly so.
Alex Turkovic (34:47):
It's like there's almost like no excuse to at
least measure are peopleengaging with your content?
Are people looking at it?
And if they are looking at itbut not clicking into it, that
that means that something wrongwith the content.
And then the other piece.
That again is an example ofwhere marketing things haven't
quite carried over to CS as muchas I feel like they should.
(35:11):
Is this notion of AB testing.
I mean, that's what marketersdo constantly, especially on,
you know, landing pages andthings like that, but AB tests
some campaigns and see whatworks better and what you know
what doesn't, and tweak it overover time.
Marley Wagner (35:29):
And you're.
You know, whatever systemyou're using.
If you're using a CS platform,that capability may not be, you
know, natively built in.
Right, it's not hard toduplicate the campaign.
Tweak something over here,tweak something over here and
then customize the audience andexclude the other audience,
right.
Like okay, maybe it takes likean extra hour.
(35:49):
Like it's not that hard yeah.
Alex Turkovic (35:52):
You know, and not to get into the weeds, but you
know you, you you add a number,you know a field with a number
one to half of your customerbase and the number two to the
other half of your customer baseand go yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
super cool, super cool.
Are there digital motions thatyou have either been involved
(36:15):
with or that you've seen in thewild that you're like really
excited about because it'sunique and new, like I see stuff
in B2C all the time where I'mjust like wow, why aren't we
doing this in B2B?
Are there things like that foryou that that stick out?
Marley Wagner (36:32):
Oh, there are so many B2C examples, I think I
mean I'm going to tangent for asecond before.
Alex Turkovic (36:38):
I actually answer your question.
Marley Wagner (36:39):
Because you know we were talking earlier,
customer success can learn somuch from marketing, right.
B2 success can learn so muchfrom marketing, right b2b can
learn so much from b2c,especially when we're talking
about automation.
Right like I posted about thison linkedin recently, I had a
like consumer experience fromsouthwest airlines, but it's
(37:00):
actually not my airline ofchoice, right like I don't fly
them that often but I did.
And our wifi sucked on ourplane and I was pissed because I
was really trying to get workdone.
Alex Turkovic (37:12):
You knew you had that hour and a half flight and
you were banking on using thattime to like get this deck done
Exactly.
Marley Wagner (37:20):
Literally yes, and I paid the $8 for wifi or
whatever and it like it did notwork.
And I paid the $8 for Wi-Fi orwhatever and it did not work and
I was really irritated.
But an hour after I landed Igot an email from Southwest
being like we noticed that yourWi-Fi didn't work.
We're really sorry about that.
Here's your money back.
Alex Turkovic (37:37):
Super smart.
Marley Wagner (37:38):
Right and it wasn't anything complicated.
Their system told them that theWi-Fi didn't work.
Their system told them that Iwas on that flight and I bought
the wi-fi and it automaticallysent me a message, simple
message, like you know, coupleparagraphs, not even like very
short, short and sweet.
They didn't give me anythingextra, they just gave me my
(38:00):
money back, right for the thingthat I bought that didn't use,
sure, sure, but the like, thethoughtfulness of that, I'm like
that's massive.
Because guess what now, nexttime I fly, whether it's them or
another airline, really, howmuch more likely am I to like
try buying the internet again,even if it doesn't, might not
work?
Alex Turkovic (38:20):
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it's so fascinating becausethose kinds of things my brain
immediately goes to like okay,what was the person or the group
thinking that built thatautomation Guaranteed?
They were reacting to a highnumber of support tickets that
came in because people werecomplaining that the Wi-Fi
(38:41):
didn't work and wanted a refund.
I'm sure they get flooded withthose things on a daily basis.
Marley Wagner (38:45):
And so like, and the Wi-Fi really never works on
plans, let's do well.
Alex Turkovic (38:48):
Right, I know.
So that's like a prime exampleof where you know that is a
extremely effective ticketdeflection which helps your
teams, but it's also justextremely effective triaging and
being proactive about potentialissues and really monitoring
your business and getting yourbusiness.
That's awesome.
Marley Wagner (39:09):
Yeah, and just creating a positive experience
right.
They turn something negative,something crappy, into something
that I'm talking about rightnow On a podcast.
Alex Turkovic (39:19):
Yeah, on a podcast, there you go.
You're welcome Southwest.
Marley Wagner (39:22):
I do want to answer your actual question.
So the thing I'm seeing themost right now, that I'm, like,
the most excited about, isautomating qbrs because,
honestly, everyone hates qbrs.
Like correct vendors hate them,customers hate them, everybody
hates them.
No one wants to sit throughthat meeting and their freaking
(39:43):
time sucks for everybody.
So much prep that goes intothem from the vendor side, like
the CSM and their leadership andtheir team, and blah, blah,
blah.
Getting the deck in order andpresenting and whatever.
Getting everyone on a call Likethere's such a big time, huge,
yeah, huge.
I hate it, but they're alsolike an expectation, right.
(40:05):
Huge, I hate it, but they'realso like an expectation, right.
So I'm loving this new trend ofautomating.
Your qbrs cast app is the onethat I've seen the most.
I think there are one or twoothers that are starting to get
into the space as well, yep, butyou know it does require a
pretty high level of likeback-end data sophistication,
right, right, or at least access.
Alex Turkovic (40:26):
Totally.
Marley Wagner (40:27):
So I acknowledge that it's not necessarily like a
today possibility for everybody, but cleaning up your data
should be on everyone's to-dolist, so hopefully it's a future
possibility.
And you literally just likesend the customer the QBR and
it's a cute little like cartoonthat tells you what your CSM
(40:48):
would be telling you in themeeting.
And then you don't necessarilynot have the meeting, but you
can have a meeting to actuallytalk about helpful things.
Alex Turkovic (40:58):
Yeah, right.
Marley Wagner (41:00):
Yeah, right.
Or to your point, with thosesmaller customers, you don't
automatically schedule themeeting, but maybe if they have
questions, there's a link forthem to schedule time with
somebody.
Right, that's right.
And then you can talk aboutlike actual value and goals and
aligning the product and theirusage to those goals and like
(41:20):
just much more useful thingsthan like.
Alex Turkovic (41:23):
Yes.
Marley Wagner (41:24):
You said you wanted this number of users to
use this feature and we only gotto that Like Just way more
valuable stuff, right?
Not only?
Alex Turkovic (41:34):
that, but the QBR should not be used to talk
about support tickets, bugs,just that's completely.
Nor do your executive people,who probably don't want to be on
the call to begin with.
Care, you know, care, theydon't care.
(41:55):
They care.
Is the money I'm spending hereworth it and where are we
getting the returns that we needout of?
You know, this investment.
And then how can we optimizethe investment?
I don't care about bugs, youknow I don't care about.
Marley Wagner (42:08):
How does that align to like my bigger goals?
I feel like that's often thebiggest missed piece.
Right is like okay, yeah, likeis it worth it?
Like in this small white,whatever team is using the
product or whatever initiativeyou're using for, or whatever.
But then like, how does thatimpact company strategy?
(42:29):
How does that impactcompany-wide strategic
initiatives or mbo's, or likewhat you know, whatever your
company uses?
Yeah like, yeah, csm's use thetime and talk about that.
Don't like read stats at them.
Alex Turkovic (42:42):
No, have a cartoon, do that totally way
more fun, way more fun to engagewith.
Yeah, I mean, there's a couplethings that I really want to
play with that I haven't reallyfound the right opportunity to
do it, but, like again theexecutive persona, for instance,
I would love to just be able tosend them a text message every
(43:05):
quarter or so with like threelines.
It's like your team did thiswell.
We're on track here.
We need your help to push this,otherwise, blah, blah, blah.
Like three, four lines done.
You don't have to go to a qbr.
The qbr is reserved for youradministrators.
It's reserved for, you know,your champions.
(43:25):
It's reserved for maybe somepower users who actually have,
you know, are are in the weedsworking on the thing you know.
I just I don't know it.
There's so much room for us tolike reimagine what that is,
especially with technology, likeyou pointed out, like cast app
is awesome, barry is awesome,people are using matic really
(43:48):
well these days.
Like there's there's there's noshortage of things that can
help us do this stuff.
Marley Wagner (43:53):
It's just still kind of like this mystery black
box situation yeah, and I knowthere's a lot of controversy
over like using text message andslack, sure, in b2b, but I'm a
I'm a proponent.
I think it needs to be usedcarefully and selectively.
Alex Turkovic (44:09):
Right, you can't be blowing up your they need to
opt in absolutely or you know.
Give them the choice.
Would you rather hear from usthrough your email or sms or
whatever?
You know?
Give them the choice.
Would you rather hear from usthrough email or SMS, or
whatever?
Marley Wagner (44:19):
You know it's like yeah, yeah, I really like
Slack for that though too,because it is it feels like a
little less invasive for somepeople than text right SMS, but
it's still like a quickercommunication channel.
Alex Turkovic (44:32):
Yeah, totally, that's awesome.
We are woefully running out oftime and I'm sad because I feel
like we could keep going.
Um, we could keep going, but,um, that's right.
Well, we could.
We could meet up um at zero inand uh live from zero in chat
(44:53):
about each other's.
Marley Wagner (44:54):
We could criticize each other's sessions
kind of like when you have likea cat gpt destroy your that's
right profile or something wecould tear each other's sessions
up.
Alex Turkovic (45:06):
Yeah, a couple things I always love for my
guests to provide the audiencewith is, first off, what's in
your content diet?
What are you paying attentionto?
Marley Wagner (45:16):
yeah, so, um, I'm woefully behind the times in
reading the gainsight digitalcustomer success book.
I'm part of the way through itright now making my way through.
Next on my book shelf, um ismastering customer success by my
wonderful friend, peter armily.
Totally mar, I'm excited to getto that one because I just
(45:37):
think peter's freaking smart I.
What else do I love to listento?
I mean, I'm a little likeeverywhere, right.
I'm a little like what?
What looks interesting today?
I don't know that there's anylike newsletters or podcasts or
anything that I'm like.
I read every single thing orlisten totally, there's no way
(46:01):
yeah, there's no way.
But it's like hey, who's onalex's podcast today?
Hey, there's a new podcastcalled the customer growth
podcast.
What's happening over there?
Like the they said podcast,even though it's not necessarily
always customer success, theyhave some really interesting
stuff happening over there.
Sometimes I like to kind of poparound and just keep an eye on
(46:21):
what everybody's doing and takenote of who's interesting and
what topics are interesting.
And yeah, that's my strategy,because there's just too much.
Alex Turkovic (46:34):
One of my goals is to put a chatbot on the
website where it'll basicallyscrape the transcripts of these
shows.
And yeah, you see where I'mgoing.
Do you know this book, the NewAutomation Mindset?
Marley Wagner (46:52):
No, what is that?
Should I be reading that, alex?
Alex Turkovic (46:54):
No go get it.
It's really really, really,really, really really good.
Dan Ennis first put me onto it.
A bunch of people have beenreading it or whatever, but it's
really about the automationmindset that should exist
cross-functionally within acompany to survive basically
Love that.
Marley Wagner (47:22):
Any kudos or shout outs or anything that
you'd want to give?
Oh, I mean, dan, who youmentioned, is always doing
really cool stuff.
What was I just having a reallyinteresting?
Oh, I was just exchangingreally fascinating linkedin
comments and whatever with Kat,brigham and Carissa.
Parrish about digital campaignsfor your like gold star
(47:43):
customers.
Cool Right, we focus so much onlike who's struggling, who's
not on the right path, Like whatdo we do about those people who
were like, yay, how do?
we celebrate to them.
How do we celebrate them?
And they're both working oncampaigns in that regard that I
think are amazing, and you'vegot to have already done some
(48:04):
serious work to get to a placewhere you can tackle that.
So kudos to them for making itthere.
Alex Turkovic (48:10):
That's awesome.
I love that.
That's great.
That's great.
Yes, we've got to celebrate ourcustomers.
Where can people find you?
You know, give you a shout out,engage with you, all that kind
of stuff yeah, fine, man,linkedin I'm.
Marley Wagner (48:25):
I'm around, um, you can check out my website,
marleywagnercom.
Shoot me a message.
I always love to just I meanclearly, since we're like way
out of time, I love to talkabout this kind of stuff, so
would love to chat with anybodywho who is nerdy like us in this
.
Alex Turkovic (48:43):
Yes, digital CS nerds Sounds good.
Well, thanks for the time.
Thanks for joining me, thanksfor the laughs and the insights
and really looking forward togetting this one out there.
But thank you for your time.
Marley Wagner (48:57):
Thanks, alex, good to see you.
Alex Turkovic (49:02):
Thank you for joining me for this episode of
the Digital CX Podcast.
If you like what we're doing,consider leaving us a review on
your podcast platform of choice.
If you're watching on YouTube,leave a comment down below.
It really helps us to grow andprovide value to a broader
audience.
You can view the DigitalCustomer Success Definition
Wordmap and get more informationabout the show and some of the
(49:23):
other things that we're doing atdigitalcustomersuccesscom.
This episode was edited byLifetime Value Media, a media
production company founded byour good mutual friend, Dylan
Young.
Lifetime Value aims to servethe content, video, audio
production needs of the CS andpost-sale community.
They're offering services at asteep discount for a limited
(49:45):
time.
So navigate tolifetimevaluemediacom, go have a
chat with Dylan and make sureyou mention the Digital CX
podcast sent you.
I'm Alex Strickovich.
Thanks so much for listening.
We'll talk to you next week.
This might be a bold statement, but I'm going to
say this there should never bea customer anywhere, ever, no
matter how big they are, thathas no automation, no digital
strategy.
Alex Turkovic (00:13):
Once again, welcome to the Digital Customer
Experience podcast with me, AlexTurkovich.
So glad you could join us heretoday and every week as we
explore how digital can helpenhance the customer and
employee experience.
My goal is to share what myguests and I have learned over
the years so that you can getthe insights that you need to
evolve your own digital programs.
If you'd like more info, needto get in touch or sign up for
(00:37):
the weekly companion newsletterthat has additional articles and
resources in it.
Go to digitalcustomersuccesscomFor now, let's get started and
resources in it go todigitalcustomersuccesscom For
now.
Let's get started.
Hello and welcome back to theDigital CX Podcast.
I'm Alex Terkovich.
It's so great to have you backthis week and every week as we
talk about all things digital inCX, it's December 10th when
(00:58):
this is dropping, so we'regetting a little bit closer to
the holiday, a lot of peopleprepping for some time off,
maybe some family visits andwhatnot.
We have one more guest comingnext week and then we're taking
a couple of week break, butwe'll still be publishing for
those two weeks.
Got a little bit of somethingspecial lined up for those two
weeks, so stay tuned for that.
(01:19):
But for today I am pleased toshare a conversation that I had
with Marlee Wagner, who joins uswith a massively rich marketing
background and a lot ofexperience in digital digital
automation, marketing automation, those kinds of things.
Now she leads her ownconsultancy, marlee Wagner
(01:42):
Consultancy and focuses ondigital CS.
I had the great pleasure ofhanging out with her a little
bit at Churn Zero's conference afew weeks ago, which was
awesome, and she was a speakerthere as well did an awesome job
.
But today we talk about some ofher work in digital CS and how
she advises some of her clientsaround that topic as well.
(02:03):
We talk about some of theinterplay between marketing and
CS, because there is a lot ofoverlap and a lot of folks have
a hard time navigating that.
So we definitely get into thatand I hope you enjoyed this
conversation with Marlee Wagner,because I sure did.
Marlee, I want to welcome you tothe show.
Thank you so much for takingthe time.
We've been talking about it fora bit, but I'm glad we made it
(02:24):
happen.
Yeah, and there's so manythings about kind of your
history and your background andwhat you do today that A makes
you an appropriate guest for theshow, but also is just
fascinating right Now.
Are you originally a Minnesotanor did you just go to school in
(02:47):
Minnesota?
Marley Wagner (02:48):
I grew up in Minnesota, school Vikings.
Oh yeah, I hope, when thiswarning comes out, they're still
undefeated.
Alex Turkovic (02:57):
Yeah, for sure.
Okay, so you did the Minnesotathing, and then, at what point
did that take you?
Did you head to Colorado?
Marley Wagner (03:06):
soda thing.
And then, at what point didthat take you?
Did you head to colorado?
Yeah, I've been here since 2017.
We came out here for my, myhusband's job.
At the time he he worked forzoom and, ironically, in 2017,
to work at zoom, you had tophysically be in their office so
so funny.
Yeah, here we are, but it'shome now.
I love it.
Alex Turkovic (03:26):
Yeah, now I remember us talking a little bit
about your husband's experiencewith Zoom pandemic.
All that kind of fun stuff Musthave been insane.
Marley Wagner (03:36):
It was a ride, for sure, for sure.
Alex Turkovic (03:40):
And so you know, you've kind of I guess I was
going to say woven in and out ofmarketing and customer and
marketing customer, but it'sreally just been.
I mean, you have a reallystrong foundation in marketing
and that naturally lends itselflike really really well to
(04:00):
especially digital customersuccess.
But customer operations andwhatnot.
Do you want to talk a littlebit about that journey?
Marley Wagner (04:06):
yeah, absolutely so.
You know, I, like you said, Iwas marketer for a long time.
I marketed to I won't even gointo the list, but a long list
of different audiences in a longlist of different industries,
well before I had ever evenheard of customer success, let
alone digital customer success.
And then, back in 2017, I foundmyself running marketing for a
(04:33):
company that did customersuccess as a service.
I liken them to a customersuccess agency, if you will.
And suddenly, yes, I'm doingmarketing right To a B2B
audience, to a tech audience, tocustomer success leaders.
And customer success is a worldand an industry that, once you
(04:56):
get exposed to it, I for onefound it really hard to not be
fascinated.
Number one Yep.
And found it really hard not tosort of connect those dots of
what I had been doing in themarketing world to the.
You know the needs and thechallenges of these customer
success leaders, our clients.
So very quickly, again, sort ofby accident, ended up living in
(05:21):
both worlds, still runningmarketing go-to-market digital
website, social media, ads,trade shows, blah, whatever
right but then also tryingthings with our clients saying,
hey, this really works in themarketing world, this really
works when you're acquiring newcustomers, let's think through
(05:43):
logically how we can tweak thosestrategies to make sense for
your existing customer base.
And got to do that with so manyreally amazing clients, amazing
people, really fascinatingcompanies, and really loved
living in that duality of doingboth.
Again what we call traditionaldigital marketing, if you will,
(06:03):
with acquisition of newcustomers, and then the digital
CS world.
And they're different, right,they have their differences, to
be sure, but as I'vetransitioned out of that role
and into my own consultancy andfractional space and freelance
space, I still do both right,and I think I shared with you
(06:24):
before I have certainly had myfair share of unsolicited advice
that I should pick one or theother, but for me the reality is
that Doing both, and sitting inboth worlds makes me better at
both.
Alex Turkovic (06:39):
Yes.
Marley Wagner (06:40):
Right, because they are so related, they're
different Again, nuance, forsure you got to your
communication style is differentwith prospects versus customers
.
But I also think so manycompanies really struggle to
connect those two organizationsmarketing and customer success
and the connection between themis so, so important to the.
(07:01):
You know the actual life cycleright?
Marketers like to call a lifecycle like a lead gen Of course
yeah, lead funnel.
And customer success.
People like to call a lifecycle.
You know what happens post-sale.
It's all of it together.
Alex Turkovic (07:12):
It is.
Marley Wagner (07:13):
It's so important and so many people like kind of
suck at it.
So that's why I'm still sittingone foot in each world and I
love it.
Alex Turkovic (07:22):
I love it and I think that makes you know what
you offer extremely valuable,because you know, it's no secret
that there's like this you knowCS kind of bubble, right when,
and it's very easy to just getstuck in the CS bubble.
But there's you.
But the marketing world is Away more experienced, longer
(07:45):
thread of kinds of things thatwe use in digital CS are pretty
much there for marketing as well.
And what marketing uses on adaily basis kind of we get our
(08:15):
blinders on so much that we missthe opportunities that our
friends in marketing have beenusing for ages and take, as you
know, for granted that thatwe're just like.
Oh, you can do that.
I'll give you one example andthen I'll let you talk.
I promise it is somebody theysuccessfully used linkedin
(08:36):
advertising as a method forengaging their existing customer
base and specific personas.
And it makes complete sensebecause you can, if you like
most of us are sitting on reallynot so great customer data
guess what?
Linkedin knows what people aredoing, what their roles are,
(08:58):
what their seniority level is,what all that kind of stuff is,
and you can really target peopleat your customer's company via
LinkedIn.
And I was just like it blew mymind, but then immediately I
went to like yeah, duh, whydidn't I think about that?
So I felt that was an aproposexample of stuff we might be
missing out on in CS.
(09:19):
Do you feel like you encounterthose kinds of things all the
time?
Marley Wagner (09:22):
Yes, totally, I think.
Number one I want to know wherethey got the idea, because,
kudos to them, did it just popinto their brain?
Do they have a background inmarketing?
Did they make friends withsomebody in marketing?
How did that come?
Alex Turkovic (09:34):
to them.
Marley Wagner (09:35):
And yes, there are things like that everywhere,
and in reverse, too, there arethings that are happening in
digital cs that marketers shouldbe using also.
Yep right, more human language,more like less salesy right
less like gross sales marketinglanguage.
All that kind of stuffmarketers can learn from cs too.
(09:56):
So it's not one directional byany means, but yeah there's.
There's like missedopportunities like that just
everywhere.
Alex Turkovic (10:05):
Yeah, for sure.
And and you know it's I findthat a lot of CS leaders, when
they start to really invest inand know get into the world of
digital, a lot of times they'remet with objection or friction
or whatnot from otherdepartments like product or
(10:27):
marketing or whoever, becauseyou know the initial, I think,
knee-jerk reaction is like well,that's what I do, like don't
don't do that that's what I do,but in reality don't don't do
that.
That's what I do, but in realityit's like we're trying to work
together and I think you paintedthe beautiful pictures like
marketers think of it as thefunnel and we think of it as a
lifecycle.
But it's all one timeline.
Why can't, you know, one orgkind of manage the front end of
(10:51):
it and the other org manage theback end of it?
Marley Wagner (10:54):
And the reality is sometimes it sits in lots of
different places.
Alex Turkovic (11:00):
Yes.
Marley Wagner (11:00):
Right, like.
You probably hear this questionall the time of like, where
should digital customer successlive?
Right, who should own it?
Yeah, my answer is actually Idon't care, right.
I don't care if it lives inmarketing, I don't care if it
lives in digital or if it livesin customer success.
What I care about is that thoseorgs, plus product, plus
(11:21):
whoever else needs to beinvolved, have come to a mutual
decision together yes aboutwhere it lives and who owns what
and where the lines are andwhere it starts and stop.
Yeah, to your point like right,maybe there's a handoff
digitally, just like in customersuccess.
We talk about handoffs all thetime, yeah, when we when we're
talking about one-on-one.
Okay, where are the digitalhandoffs?
Alex Turkovic (11:42):
Right, yeah, exactly, and you know, I think
that points to one of the thingsthat if you out there are
hiring for, I would say,especially a digital CS leader
or somebody to you know to headup digital or build a digital
program, something like that manI got to tell you.
I think the number one thingyou're looking for is somebody
(12:05):
who can collaborate like crazy,because there is there is really
no other role or function thatI can think of where that
collaboration is so key, becauseyou are taking ownership of the
customer experience, in essence, with you, know, but you're
(12:25):
going to have to do it inproduct and you're going to have
to do it with email marketingand you're going to have to do
it in all these different ways,that kind of potentially step on
other people's toes andwhatever.
So the coordination is realy'all it's huge.
Marley Wagner (12:40):
Yeah, I totally agree.
Even think about okay, you mayneed to do it like in somebody
else's system, right, there areplenty of digital cs leaders who
don't have a cs platform thatthey can run automations out of
right, so they're like all right, what does marketing use?
What does product use?
What can I borrow from them?
Literally, you rely on them,those other teams, those other
(13:03):
departments, to do your job.
So, yes, number onecollaboration, absolutely.
Alex Turkovic (13:11):
What's already there.
Not long ago I compared digitalCS people to the MacGyvers of
CS, just because a lot of timeswe're duct taping stuff together
to make it work.
Marley Wagner (13:25):
Also 100% of the time, if you're that new digital
CS leader coming in, or just aCS leader who's like, hey, I'm
going to start a new digitalprogram program.
Alex Turkovic (13:43):
100% of the time there is more going on going to
your customers already from lotsof random teams and people than
you think, yep, and it alllooks different.
It all has a different tone ofvoice.
The template's completelydifferent.
There's four different versionsof your logo Like it's real.
Marley Wagner (13:55):
It's scary.
Alex Turkovic (13:57):
For sure.
And then it becomes a questionof how do you wrangle all that
in, you know, and is itsomething where you offer to
take ownership of stuff, or isit something where you're just,
you know, collaborating onthings and you know other
questions like do you rely onyour marketing organization to
do that design for you, or doyou take it in-house?
And I mean, you know, thevariables just start to stack up
(14:21):
like super, super quick.
Marley Wagner (14:23):
Yeah, I've been using the word nuance a lot
lately when talking aboutdigital customer success.
There's just so much nuance.
Such little tiny differences inyour org structure or your
product or, you know, yourcustomer profile can make such a
huge difference in those littlethings that you need to do.
(14:45):
In those decisions you need tomake right, whether it's where
digital CS sits, who handleswhich tasks right, how much you
rely on marketing, how much yourely on product right.
Let's say you're using Pendo orsomething right the product was
already using like, how muchare you relying on them versus
how much are they granting youaccess to that system?
(15:07):
So much little, tiny nuance inthose decisions.
Alex Turkovic (15:10):
Right, yeah, and nuance extends into you know, I
would say you know there's.
There's emotional intelligencethat lives under all of it, or
should ideally, especially whenit comes to the nuance of which
persona are you speaking with?
Because the way that you'regoing to speak with your
executives and the way thatyou're going to speak with your
(15:31):
admins and your end users, youcan't be all the same.
It has to be different.
Marley Wagner (15:37):
Yeah yeah.
Yeah.
Alex Turkovic (15:39):
Okay, awesome rabbit holes we got down here.
But yeah, I mean, look one ofthe things that you're doing now
.
So you are, you've set up aconsultancy, you are essentially
a fractional CMO, but you'realso consulting a lot about
digital CS.
What kind of things are youworking on in the digital CS
(16:02):
front with clients?
Marley Wagner (16:05):
Yeah, that's actually where a bulk of my work
is.
In the digital customer successconsulting side of my business.
I'm a fractional CMO also, likeI said, keeps me on my toes,
keeps me better.
But most of my clients I'mworking with are in that digital
CS space, I think, because, Imean, you and I both know it's
like this thing that has beensort of a nice to have for a
(16:27):
long time and all of a suddenlike kind of you know, post less
than ideal economic scenarios,people are like, oh crap, like I
need this.
This is not a nice to haveanymore, it's absolutely a must
have.
But there are so few of us outthere who have ever built it or
(16:49):
done it or seen it orexperienced any of the pitfalls
that can help you avoid those.
I think a lot of companies arejust like, oh my God, what do I
do?
So a lot of companies are justlike, oh my god, like what do I
do?
Right?
So a lot of my time is spentwith with companies like that
who are like, hey, I need tobuild a thing.
We've never done it like brandnew.
(17:10):
My cs leader is freaking awesomeat one-to-one engagement, but
like they're just not like atechnical person in that way,
right, like that's totally cool,like that's okay, right,
there's nothing wrong with beinga customer success leader who's
like really focused on hightouch, right.
Then I get to come in and anddo really fun stuff and see
(17:33):
what's working really reallywell in those like more
enterprise white gloveinteractions and figure out,
okay, how do we automate that?
How do we, you know, how do weautomate it for lower tier
customers?
Right, if you will.
But also, how do we automatesome things for your CSMs so
(17:54):
that their lives are easier andthen they can have those more
strategic conversations withmore customers?
Yep, right, I think you know.
Another rabbit hole we could godown is like the whole like
digital is for small customersthing.
I'm just mad at the anti that.
Alex Turkovic (18:11):
So you know it's interesting about that.
I've I've this has occupiedprobably more brain space than
it should in my brain as ofrecent, because I don't have
much space up there right now.
Beside the point, the wholedigital CS is a strategy, not a
segment thing.
Yes, total strategy, not asegment, but it is a segment.
(18:38):
Like you know, it's so funnybecause we've kind of gone this
guardrail to guardrail typesituation, which we love doing
in CS and other orgs as well.
But like, yeah, it's a strategyand not a segment and I totally
agree.
It is a holistic strategy.
It needs to encompass bothcustomer facing stuff needs to
encompass internal automationsto help your csms be more
(19:00):
efficient, blah, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah.
But at the end of the day,there's a swath of your
customers who aren't gettingshit, so like, and the only
people there to cover it is yourdigital cs team.
So, yeah, you are covering asegment but that's part of this
strategy.
Marley Wagner (19:17):
I think you're spot on Right and I'm with you
Right, like I I am.
Yes, it is a strategy, not asegment, right?
I think what's missing is it'sa strategy, not just a segment.
Alex Turkovic (19:31):
Yeah.
Marley Wagner (19:32):
Right, it's an and proposition, not an or
proposition, you know, andwhether.
Whether it's like hey orproposition, you know, and
whether it's like hey, you'restarting with the proof of
concept with just your smallestcustomers, cool, would I
recommend a proof of concept,maybe in a different, with a
slightly different audience?
Yeah, I would, right.
I would probably recommend likehey, let's do an onboarding
(19:53):
proof of concept for all yourcustomers, right?
Rather than just your teenytiny SMB friends.
The reality in a lot ofbusinesses to your customers,
right, rather than just yourteeny tiny SMB friends.
The reality in a lot ofbusinesses, to your point, those
teeny tiny businesses likethat's all they're getting,
right.
So I like to think of it as likea, a sliding scale, right?
Yeah, it's like a teeter totter, just the balance is different
(20:16):
depending on what segment orwhat tier we're talking about.
And yeah, it's like fullyweighted digital with the
smallest of your customers andheavily weighted, not digital,
with your biggest customers.
But guess what?
There should be still somelevel of digital.
This might be a bold statement,but I'm going to say this there
(20:37):
should never be a customeranywhere, ever, no matter how
big they are, that has noautomation, no digital strategy.
Alex Turkovic (20:45):
Totally, totally.
I completely agree with that.
I mean, if you're notautomating something, then
you're missing the boat on a lotof you know a lot of goodness
that can be had and, quitefrankly, it's expected.
You know your customers sign upwith you.
They're expecting some kind ofautomated things to happen.
(21:06):
They're expecting a kickoffemail, they're expecting login,
you know whatever that is like.
They're expecting something andwhen they don't get that, then
that's problematic.
And I'll add to that and saythat I also feel like that every
digital motion should beaccompanied by the ability to
(21:30):
engage a human, if you need to.
Marley Wagner (21:33):
Yes, yes, that's all I'm going to say, gonna say
about it.
Yes, you're right, shows over,see you later folks no that's it
.
Alex Turkovic (21:44):
No, yes yeah, I mean, and it doesn't have to be
elaborate.
Like you know, a lot of timeswhat I like to do in an email is
include a booking link to tothe pool team's calendar or a
specific person or you know,office hour or you know,
whatever that is, it doesn'tmatter.
It can be any number of like 20different things, but your
(22:11):
customers shouldn't feel likethey're being pigeonholed into a
digital motion and that's allthey have.
They should feel like, okay,this is great information and
this is how you can engage theteam if you have other questions
.
Marley Wagner (22:24):
Right, Exactly.
Yeah, I think about this a lotand I talk about this a lot and
I'm actually I'm doing apresentation in a couple of
weeks.
It may have already happened bythe time this airs but, at
Trend Zero's conference.
Alex Turkovic (22:37):
Bob conference zero.
I'll see you there yes can'twait, or I saw you there I saw
you there.
Marley Wagner (22:45):
It already happened, right, what is time?
I don't know.
So bob london is a is alistening expert, right and
strategic conversation expert,and I'm automation expert.
Those things seem, on thesurface, like total opposites.
Alex Turkovic (23:01):
Not at all.
Marley Wagner (23:03):
We're going to talk about why they're not and
why you need both, and how touse automation to make more of
those strategic conversationshappen.
That's awesome.
That's the kind of connectionthat I'm really passionate about
in what we do, right?
It shouldn't feel like icky anddisconnected, right?
(23:25):
It should make you feel moreconnected.
It should make you feel moreengaged.
It should get you what you needfaster, whether that is, you
know, a self-service portalwhere you can answer your own
question, or access to a realperson.
Alex Turkovic (23:39):
Right, yeah, exactly, that's huge.
I'm looking forward to thattalk.
I mean I really enjoyed thattalk.
Marley Wagner (23:47):
Thanks.
Alex Turkovic (23:49):
Hey, I want to have a brief chat with you about
this show.
Did you know that roughly 60%of listeners aren't actually
subscribed to the show, onwhatever platform they're
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(24:11):
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that goes out every week atdigitalcustomersuccesscom.
Now back to the show.
So I want to shift gears here alittle bit, because one of the
(24:33):
things that I've talked a lotabout is measuring digital CS.
And this is something that a lotof people struggle with and I
actually, I mean I take a overlysimplistic approach to it,
maybe to my detriment, I don'tknow.
But fundamentally speaking,like you've got, on one side,
you've got traditional customersuccess metrics, your NRRs, your
(24:56):
GRs, your renewal rates, yourchurn rates, all that kind of
stuff.
On the other side, you havemarketing campaign metrics, open
rates, click-through rates,blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But I think the magic, in myopinion, really happens in that
attribution of we did thiscampaign in this cohort of
(25:16):
customers that engaged with it.
We saw a reduction in whateverit is you're trying to do.
Right If it's an increase inadoption of a specific feature,
or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,blah, blah.
But is that am I?
In your opinion, and in theconversations that you've had
with your own customers in yourconsultancy, are you advising
(25:40):
something similar?
Are you advising somethingdifferent in terms of how those
companies should measure theirprograms?
Marley Wagner (25:46):
Yeah, very much something similar, right?
I always like to remind peoplethat those more traditional CS
metrics we're talking aboutretention, churn, nrr, grr, blah
, blah, blah those are laggingmetrics, right?
So it's going to take a whilefor you to see an impact on
those things, whether you'retackling those with humans or
(26:08):
with automation, mind you.
But particularly we're talkingabout automation, like hi doing
an onboarding.
You know, automating youronboarding process is not going
to like magically fix your turnrate, because those customers
don't have the opportunity toturn for like a year, yep.
Alex Turkovic (26:24):
Right, right, exactly.
Marley Wagner (26:26):
So I think it can be really hard for people to
like be patient and wait to seethose results.
So the other thing, sort of inbetween the two, that I really
like to recommend is hey, whatare the sort of intermediate
metrics for your customers, yourbusiness?
A lot of times it's productusage, right.
(26:48):
That's a really important onebecause I think, to your point,
that attribution is pretty easyto follow of, like, hey, this
cohort of customers, just likeyou said, we sent them this
thing, they did this thing andnow, look, they're using XYZ
product feature way more thanthey did before, right.
Other metrics that are kind ofintermediary things, like time
to onboard or time to value, canbe really really valuable A lot
(27:11):
of times.
I recommend running a proof ofconcept with digital when it's
new, and those are the thingsthat I recommend you measure For
a proof of concept.
You're not going to be able towait to measure retention.
It's unrealistic wait to measureretention, right, it's
(27:32):
unrealistic, nope, right.
So, yes, measure opens, clicks,unsubscribes, etc.
And then product usage.
And then what like?
What other metrics can't numberone can you measure with your
systems and technology and thelike?
But what, like, what else isrelevant to your business and
what else have you alreadyfigured out correlates to higher
(27:52):
long-term metrics later downthe line, right?
We know typically, on average,things like quicker time to
onboard and quicker time valuecorrelate with higher retention
rates and higher growth ratesand all of that.
So what are those in the middlethings you're like you can
measure along the way, becauseit's just too damn hard to wait
(28:13):
a year.
Alex Turkovic (28:14):
It really is?
Yeah, for sure it is, it is,and even things like you know
NPS very kind of laggy and youknow you shouldn't wait six
months to get an update.
Blah, blah, blah, blah blah.
I'm fascinated at um you knowby how many digital motions I've
(28:35):
seen in place that really don'thave metrics on the back end of
it in other words.
They're not.
They're not really tracked,like a lot of them are just kind
of put in place.
Okay, done, move on to the nextone.
Right, which?
Okay, you know, if you'retrying, if you're trying to go
(28:55):
do a bunch of stuff, I totallyget it right and you're, you're
strapped, you're, maybe you know, maybe you're.
You are a csm and part-timedigital person at your company.
I get it.
You got to build and move on.
But if you have the means to gomeasure the efficacy of one of
(29:17):
your motions, ideally a reallysolid onboarding flow would
reduce your time to value overthose that didn't get it and
those kinds of things.
On the flip side also, you wantto know when stuff isn't
working so that you can fix it,because there's nothing worse
than having stuff out there thatis just ineffective and noise
and is just whatever um is there.
(29:38):
Is there um a process or kindof a methodology that you
recommend your clients follow,when things might not be working
correctly, to analyze whatneeds to be fixed and then do
another iteration?
Marley Wagner (29:53):
Yeah.
So first of all, I call thatscenario we're talking about
where it's like there are thingshappening but we're not
measuring.
I call that random acts ofmarketing.
Alex Turkovic (30:03):
Oh, I love this.
Marley Wagner (30:05):
And it's like you said, it's really common, right
.
It makes me kind of sad, but,to your point, sometimes that's
the reality.
Things should not be set it andforget it.
They shouldn't be one and done,but, like sometimes they are
right.
So if you're in that scenario,like I, I feel your pain, I see
you, but let's try and measureright.
(30:28):
Like let's try, and really evenmore than what we just talked
about of like yeah, provingthat's working.
Like yes, what can we fix, whatcan we make better?
Right, what's like maybe it'skind of working, but like we'd
like it to work better.
I don't know that I have like areally specific methodology that
I use in that regard.
(30:48):
I think you know the reality is, like you said, it's kind of
situational, like how much timeand effort you can spend there.
But number one I alwaysrecommend, like you said, just
measure everything right.
Whatever data is available toyou, keep track of it, right?
Maybe you're really onlylooking at it once a month or
(31:10):
even once a quarter.
I'd like to see it more but ifthat's the reality, like, okay,
that's fine, set aside that timeto do that.
And then not only do you wantto compare sort of one message
or one campaign or oneinitiative against another right
, but you also want to compareit to itself over time.
I think that's one that peoplereally tend to miss right, where
(31:32):
maybe they're measuring a lotin the beginning.
When they first build something, they're like, oh, it's working
, we're done now.
Alex Turkovic (31:39):
Yeah.
Marley Wagner (31:40):
Right, and the reality is that that's never
true right.
Your business is evolving, yourproduct is evolving, your
customers are evolving, yourcompetition is evolving and
therefore your messaging needsto evolve with those things
Right.
And that doesn't just mean like, oh, we need to change this
thing.
(32:00):
When we had a big like productrelease, yeah.
Again back to you know,everything is nuanced.
There are, there are smallershifts and changes and whatever
where you might want to revisitthe language of something or the
timing of something, or or thechannel you're using to send a
message, whatever it is right.
So I really really like toremind folks to just make sure
(32:22):
you're measuring over time,right, like something that
worked really well when youfirst launched it, six months
later, two years later, fiveyears later, guess what?
It might not work so wellanymore.
So what did those discrepanciesin those, like you know,
leading metrics engagementmetrics, opens, clicks, blah,
(32:43):
blah, blah.
Leading metrics, engagementmetrics, opens, clicks, blah,
blah, blah?
That's like your first clue,obviously.
Or you can do it in reverse,right, like, oh, shoot, are we
seeing like a really big, youknow, drop in NRR or a really
big spike in churn with thiscohort of customers in this time
period?
And then you can go likebackwards and be like, okay,
(33:05):
what was the process that theywent through and was there, you
know, was there a drop off inusage somewhere?
Was there a drop off in themengaging with our stuff
somewhere?
That's the other thing.
Like you don't just have tolook at it forward, I think
looking at it backwards can alsobe super, super helpful.
And then I'm all about testingtoo, right, when you're like,
well, I'm not sure, like okay,no, this isn't working.
(33:28):
But I'm not sure, like whatabout it isn't working Right.
Like, is it the channel, is itthe language, is it the subject
line?
Like whatever, it's okay tolike, be like okay, we're going
to see if a different subjectline changes over here with this
group, with this cohort, andwe're going to see if you know
different call to action or adifferent whatever.
(33:49):
Just like more human again,more human language.
Maybe that makes a difference,less formal, and we're going to
try that over here with thiscohort.
That's okay to be like I don'tknow what, what the like very
specific problem is, and to test, to see what it is and see
where you see improvement yep,it's all incredibly valid things
(34:12):
.
Alex Turkovic (34:12):
A couple things that kind of came to mind as you
were chatting about.
That is especially if you'redoing like email mark, you know
email campaigns and those kindsof things.
I guarantee you if you're doingsome email campaigns and you
have a system that does someemail campaigns for you, I
guarantee you it will have someanalytics available out of the
box, and if it doesn't, you needto change platforms because
(34:34):
it's like that's not cool.
Marley Wagner (34:38):
That's not even like real email campaigns if
it's not giving you metrics back.
Alex Turkovic (34:44):
Yeah, exactly.
Marley Wagner (34:45):
Like a mail merge , come on exactly so.
Alex Turkovic (34:47):
It's like there's almost like no excuse to at
least measure are peopleengaging with your content?
Are people looking at it?
And if they are looking at itbut not clicking into it, that
that means that something wrongwith the content.
And then the other piece.
That again is an example ofwhere marketing things haven't
quite carried over to CS as muchas I feel like they should.
(35:11):
Is this notion of AB testing.
I mean, that's what marketersdo constantly, especially on,
you know, landing pages andthings like that, but AB tests
some campaigns and see whatworks better and what you know
what doesn't, and tweak it overover time.
Marley Wagner (35:29):
And you're.
You know, whatever systemyou're using.
If you're using a CS platform,that capability may not be, you
know, natively built in.
Right, it's not hard toduplicate the campaign.
Tweak something over here,tweak something over here and
then customize the audience andexclude the other audience,
right.
Like okay, maybe it takes likean extra hour.
(35:49):
Like it's not that hard yeah.
Alex Turkovic (35:52):
You know, and not to get into the weeds, but you
know you, you you add a number,you know a field with a number
one to half of your customerbase and the number two to the
other half of your customer baseand go yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
super cool, super cool.
Are there digital motions thatyou have either been involved
(36:15):
with or that you've seen in thewild that you're like really
excited about because it'sunique and new, like I see stuff
in B2C all the time where I'mjust like wow, why aren't we
doing this in B2B?
Are there things like that foryou that that stick out?
Marley Wagner (36:32):
Oh, there are so many B2C examples, I think I
mean I'm going to tangent for asecond before.
Alex Turkovic (36:38):
I actually answer your question.
Marley Wagner (36:39):
Because you know we were talking earlier,
customer success can learn somuch from marketing, right.
B2 success can learn so muchfrom marketing, right b2b can
learn so much from b2c,especially when we're talking
about automation.
Right like I posted about thison linkedin recently, I had a
like consumer experience fromsouthwest airlines, but it's
(37:00):
actually not my airline ofchoice, right like I don't fly
them that often but I did.
And our wifi sucked on ourplane and I was pissed because I
was really trying to get workdone.
Alex Turkovic (37:12):
You knew you had that hour and a half flight and
you were banking on using thattime to like get this deck done
Exactly.
Marley Wagner (37:20):
Literally yes, and I paid the $8 for wifi or
whatever and it like it did notwork.
And I paid the $8 for Wi-Fi orwhatever and it did not work and
I was really irritated.
But an hour after I landed Igot an email from Southwest
being like we noticed that yourWi-Fi didn't work.
We're really sorry about that.
Here's your money back.
Alex Turkovic (37:37):
Super smart.
Marley Wagner (37:38):
Right and it wasn't anything complicated.
Their system told them that theWi-Fi didn't work.
Their system told them that Iwas on that flight and I bought
the wi-fi and it automaticallysent me a message, simple
message, like you know, coupleparagraphs, not even like very
short, short and sweet.
They didn't give me anythingextra, they just gave me my
(38:00):
money back, right for the thingthat I bought that didn't use,
sure, sure, but the like, thethoughtfulness of that, I'm like
that's massive.
Because guess what now, nexttime I fly, whether it's them or
another airline, really, howmuch more likely am I to like
try buying the internet again,even if it doesn't, might not
work?
Alex Turkovic (38:20):
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it's so fascinating becausethose kinds of things my brain
immediately goes to like okay,what was the person or the group
thinking that built thatautomation Guaranteed?
They were reacting to a highnumber of support tickets that
came in because people werecomplaining that the Wi-Fi
(38:41):
didn't work and wanted a refund.
I'm sure they get flooded withthose things on a daily basis.
Marley Wagner (38:45):
And so like, and the Wi-Fi really never works on
plans, let's do well.
Alex Turkovic (38:48):
Right, I know.
So that's like a prime exampleof where you know that is a
extremely effective ticketdeflection which helps your
teams, but it's also justextremely effective triaging and
being proactive about potentialissues and really monitoring
your business and getting yourbusiness.
That's awesome.
Marley Wagner (39:09):
Yeah, and just creating a positive experience
right.
They turn something negative,something crappy, into something
that I'm talking about rightnow On a podcast.
Alex Turkovic (39:19):
Yeah, on a podcast, there you go.
You're welcome Southwest.
Marley Wagner (39:22):
I do want to answer your actual question.
So the thing I'm seeing themost right now, that I'm, like,
the most excited about, isautomating qbrs because,
honestly, everyone hates qbrs.
Like correct vendors hate them,customers hate them, everybody
hates them.
No one wants to sit throughthat meeting and their freaking
(39:43):
time sucks for everybody.
So much prep that goes intothem from the vendor side, like
the CSM and their leadership andtheir team, and blah, blah,
blah.
Getting the deck in order andpresenting and whatever.
Getting everyone on a call Likethere's such a big time, huge,
yeah, huge.
I hate it, but they're alsolike an expectation, right.
(40:05):
Huge, I hate it, but they'realso like an expectation, right.
So I'm loving this new trend ofautomating.
Your qbrs cast app is the onethat I've seen the most.
I think there are one or twoothers that are starting to get
into the space as well, yep, butyou know it does require a
pretty high level of likeback-end data sophistication,
right, right, or at least access.
Alex Turkovic (40:26):
Totally.
Marley Wagner (40:27):
So I acknowledge that it's not necessarily like a
today possibility for everybody, but cleaning up your data
should be on everyone's to-dolist, so hopefully it's a future
possibility.
And you literally just likesend the customer the QBR and
it's a cute little like cartoonthat tells you what your CSM
(40:48):
would be telling you in themeeting.
And then you don't necessarilynot have the meeting, but you
can have a meeting to actuallytalk about helpful things.
Alex Turkovic (40:58):
Yeah, right.
Marley Wagner (41:00):
Yeah, right.
Or to your point, with thosesmaller customers, you don't
automatically schedule themeeting, but maybe if they have
questions, there's a link forthem to schedule time with
somebody.
Right, that's right.
And then you can talk aboutlike actual value and goals and
aligning the product and theirusage to those goals and like
(41:20):
just much more useful thingsthan like.
Alex Turkovic (41:23):
Yes.
Marley Wagner (41:24):
You said you wanted this number of users to
use this feature and we only gotto that Like Just way more
valuable stuff, right?
Not only?
Alex Turkovic (41:34):
that, but the QBR should not be used to talk
about support tickets, bugs,just that's completely.
Nor do your executive people,who probably don't want to be on
the call to begin with.
Care, you know, care, theydon't care.
(41:55):
They care.
Is the money I'm spending hereworth it and where are we
getting the returns that we needout of?
You know, this investment.
And then how can we optimizethe investment?
I don't care about bugs, youknow I don't care about.
Marley Wagner (42:08):
How does that align to like my bigger goals?
I feel like that's often thebiggest missed piece.
Right is like okay, yeah, likeis it worth it?
Like in this small white,whatever team is using the
product or whatever initiativeyou're using for, or whatever.
But then like, how does thatimpact company strategy?
(42:29):
How does that impactcompany-wide strategic
initiatives or mbo's, or likewhat you know, whatever your
company uses?
Yeah like, yeah, csm's use thetime and talk about that.
Don't like read stats at them.
Alex Turkovic (42:42):
No, have a cartoon, do that totally way
more fun, way more fun to engagewith.
Yeah, I mean, there's a couplethings that I really want to
play with that I haven't reallyfound the right opportunity to
do it, but, like again theexecutive persona, for instance,
I would love to just be able tosend them a text message every
(43:05):
quarter or so with like threelines.
It's like your team did thiswell.
We're on track here.
We need your help to push this,otherwise, blah, blah, blah.
Like three, four lines done.
You don't have to go to a qbr.
The qbr is reserved for youradministrators.
It's reserved for, you know,your champions.
(43:25):
It's reserved for maybe somepower users who actually have,
you know, are are in the weedsworking on the thing you know.
I just I don't know it.
There's so much room for us tolike reimagine what that is,
especially with technology, likeyou pointed out, like cast app
is awesome, barry is awesome,people are using matic really
(43:48):
well these days.
Like there's there's there's noshortage of things that can
help us do this stuff.
Marley Wagner (43:53):
It's just still kind of like this mystery black
box situation yeah, and I knowthere's a lot of controversy
over like using text message andslack, sure, in b2b, but I'm a
I'm a proponent.
I think it needs to be usedcarefully and selectively.
Alex Turkovic (44:09):
Right, you can't be blowing up your they need to
opt in absolutely or you know.
Give them the choice.
Would you rather hear from usthrough your email or sms or
whatever?
You know?
Give them the choice.
Would you rather hear from usthrough email or SMS, or
whatever?
Marley Wagner (44:19):
You know it's like yeah, yeah, I really like
Slack for that though too,because it is it feels like a
little less invasive for somepeople than text right SMS, but
it's still like a quickercommunication channel.
Alex Turkovic (44:32):
Yeah, totally, that's awesome.
We are woefully running out oftime and I'm sad because I feel
like we could keep going.
Um, we could keep going, but,um, that's right.
Well, we could.
We could meet up um at zero inand uh live from zero in chat
(44:53):
about each other's.
Marley Wagner (44:54):
We could criticize each other's sessions
kind of like when you have likea cat gpt destroy your that's
right profile or something wecould tear each other's sessions
up.
Alex Turkovic (45:06):
Yeah, a couple things I always love for my
guests to provide the audiencewith is, first off, what's in
your content diet?
What are you paying attentionto?
Marley Wagner (45:16):
yeah, so, um, I'm woefully behind the times in
reading the gainsight digitalcustomer success book.
I'm part of the way through itright now making my way through.
Next on my book shelf, um ismastering customer success by my
wonderful friend, peter armily.
Totally mar, I'm excited to getto that one because I just
(45:37):
think peter's freaking smart I.
What else do I love to listento?
I mean, I'm a little likeeverywhere, right.
I'm a little like what?
What looks interesting today?
I don't know that there's anylike newsletters or podcasts or
anything that I'm like.
I read every single thing orlisten totally, there's no way
(46:01):
yeah, there's no way.
But it's like hey, who's onalex's podcast today?
Hey, there's a new podcastcalled the customer growth
podcast.
What's happening over there?
Like the they said podcast,even though it's not necessarily
always customer success, theyhave some really interesting
stuff happening over there.
Sometimes I like to kind of poparound and just keep an eye on
(46:21):
what everybody's doing and takenote of who's interesting and
what topics are interesting.
And yeah, that's my strategy,because there's just too much.
Alex Turkovic (46:34):
One of my goals is to put a chatbot on the
website where it'll basicallyscrape the transcripts of these
shows.
And yeah, you see where I'mgoing.
Do you know this book, the NewAutomation Mindset?
Marley Wagner (46:52):
No, what is that?
Should I be reading that, alex?
Alex Turkovic (46:54):
No go get it.
It's really really, really,really, really really good.
Dan Ennis first put me onto it.
A bunch of people have beenreading it or whatever, but it's
really about the automationmindset that should exist
cross-functionally within acompany to survive basically
Love that.
Marley Wagner (47:22):
Any kudos or shout outs or anything that
you'd want to give?
Oh, I mean, dan, who youmentioned, is always doing
really cool stuff.
What was I just having a reallyinteresting?
Oh, I was just exchangingreally fascinating linkedin
comments and whatever with Kat,brigham and Carissa.
Parrish about digital campaignsfor your like gold star
(47:43):
customers.
Cool Right, we focus so much onlike who's struggling, who's
not on the right path, Like whatdo we do about those people who
were like, yay, how do?
we celebrate to them.
How do we celebrate them?
And they're both working oncampaigns in that regard that I
think are amazing, and you'vegot to have already done some
(48:04):
serious work to get to a placewhere you can tackle that.
So kudos to them for making itthere.
Alex Turkovic (48:10):
That's awesome.
I love that.
That's great.
That's great.
Yes, we've got to celebrate ourcustomers.
Where can people find you?
You know, give you a shout out,engage with you, all that kind
of stuff yeah, fine, man,linkedin I'm.
Marley Wagner (48:25):
I'm around, um, you can check out my website,
marleywagnercom.
Shoot me a message.
I always love to just I meanclearly, since we're like way
out of time, I love to talkabout this kind of stuff, so
would love to chat with anybodywho who is nerdy like us in this
.
Alex Turkovic (48:43):
Yes, digital CS nerds Sounds good.
Well, thanks for the time.
Thanks for joining me, thanksfor the laughs and the insights
and really looking forward togetting this one out there.
But thank you for your time.
Marley Wagner (48:57):
Thanks, alex, good to see you.
Alex Turkovic (49:02):
Thank you for joining me for this episode of
the Digital CX Podcast.
If you like what we're doing,consider leaving us a review on
your podcast platform of choice.
If you're watching on YouTube,leave a comment down below.
It really helps us to grow andprovide value to a broader
audience.
You can view the DigitalCustomer Success Definition
Wordmap and get more informationabout the show and some of the
(49:23):
other things that we're doing atdigitalcustomersuccesscom.
This episode was edited byLifetime Value Media, a media
production company founded byour good mutual friend, Dylan
Young.
Lifetime Value aims to servethe content, video, audio
production needs of the CS andpost-sale community.
They're offering services at asteep discount for a limited
(49:45):
time.
So navigate tolifetimevaluemediacom, go have a
chat with Dylan and make sureyou mention the Digital CX
podcast sent you.
I'm Alex Strickovich.
Thanks so much for listening.
We'll talk to you next week.
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