In this episode, our host Anika Zubair chats with Irit Eizips, Chief Customer Officer & CEO at CSM Practice about how to close a renewal with an upsell.
While gaining new customers is exciting, retaining them is where your SaaS will generate revenue. So, how does your company build the best renewal process? How do you gauge the sentiment of the customer for the renewal? And how should a CSM be compensated?
Podcast enquiries: sofia@planhat.com
In this episode, our host Anika Zubair chats with Irit Eizips, Chief Customer Officer & CEO at CSM Practice about how to close a renewal with an upsell.
While gaining new customers is exciting, retaining them is where your SaaS will generate revenue. So, how does your company build the best renewal process? How do you gauge the sentiment of the customer for the renewal? And how should a CSM be compensated?
Podcast enquiries: sofia@planhat.com
Hello everyone. I'm your host, Anika zer. And welcome back to the next episode of the customer success channel podcast brought to you by plan hat, the modern customer platform. This podcast is created for anyone working in or interested in the customer success field. On this podcast, we will speak to leaders in the industry about their experiences and their definitions of customer success and get their advice and best practices on how to run ACS organization. Today. We are speaking with ear at zips chief customer officer and CEO at CSM practice. She is an world renowned expert in customer retention and upsell strategies. She was nominated for top customer success, strategists and influencer of the year ever since 2013, for her contributions in shaping CS methodologies. And in early 20, 22 year, it was named one of the top 50 customer success influencers and top 25 most innovative leaders in CX E is a big part of the customer success community. As she shares her trends and innovative customer strategies on her YouTube channel blogs and podcast episodes. Today, we will be leaning into I's experience as a CS consultant and speaking to her about the renewal process and how not only to secure a successful renewal early, but to do it with an upsell as well. Let's chat to Eart about her methodologies in renewals. Hi, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you here today. I am really excited to get into today's topic, but before we do for those few people who are listening, who might not know who you are, can you please give our listeners a little bit of a background into who you are, what your role is currently and what you're doing at CSM practice?
Speaker 2:Well, CSM practice is a firm. I started about eight years ago, uh, July, 2014, to be exact, uh, started it because I had a project with one company to help them set up the customer success program. Just like, think about the vision, the strategy, the roadmap. And I would say not much has changed since then.<laugh> basically what I do. I have. Um, maybe instead of just having one project at a time, I, I might have multiple ones at the same time, maybe like 2, 3, 4 the most. And then in addition to that, I actually manage the company. So, uh, we do a lot of thought leadership in this space, uh, because we, you know, I'm very passionate about promoting the methodology and seeing it grow and mature of our time. So I have my YouTube channel. I have a team that supports me in that. Um, and we produce a lot of infographics and blogs and do surveys. So that's all in support of the customer success, uh, strategy development throughout the, the times, if you will.
Speaker 1:<laugh>, I'm pretty sure anyone listening today probably knows who you are and who CSM practice is. Cuz you guys are sharing so much with the community, which is amazing. And like you said, you are running the business as much as you are also the chief customer officer from your title as well. And I know a lot of our listeners aspire to be what is a chief customer officer these days. I remember when I first started in CS, it wasn't a thing, but it is now. And I love it. So can you give us a little bit of background as to how you ended up in the current position and what led to your trajectory to where you are today?
Speaker 2:Well, when you own the company, you can slap whatever title you want to yourself.
Speaker 1:<laugh> aside from that era, you've done a lot in the space<laugh>
Speaker 2:Well, um, honestly when I started the company, I put on a different title, it was a practice director. And um, over time I just felt that the title really gives you a focus. And so when your focus is on the practice, you're really focused on managing your business. Whereas when you put yourself in the chief customer officer title, then my intent in my daily work is different. Now I have to be synonym and be the peer of my clients. And I need to walk the walk and talk. I can't just talk the talk. So that propelled me in and of itself to be in a position to own that the recommendations I give my clients, I actually do it on my own as well and experience the same things they experience. So when I manage, I don't manage projects, I manage the success of my customer, um, my, my clients. And, uh, I, I try to infuse as many customer success methodologies in my day to day work with them as we go through the project.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I love that. I love that you're being a CSM at a CSM practice. That sounds great. And I know you had a career prior to, uh, the last few at CSM practice where you were in software SAS as well. Um, what actually made you decide customer success, consultancy. I think you guys were like one of the first, I I'm just trying to think back of the times. And there probably were very few when you launched CSM practice, there were probably very few CSM consultancy businesses out there. What made you take that jump?
Speaker 2:Right? So we were actually the first consulting firm to just focus on customer success. I think before that you might have had, you know, um, Michael Blazedale with a customer success association that did, you know, every now and then might have consulted folks on how to do this and that, but really just sit down with folks and help them create a full strategy and then implement that strategy. I don't think that that existed before I started my firm and even to, to this day, there's, uh, few consulting firms that can actually do that. I think now it's much more popular, can pinpoint at least two or three other ones that have taken that route. Uh, and I'm very happy for it because, um, I think there is a need and certainly I can't fulfill everything. My entire career was in consulting actually I've only happened to work for, uh, maybe three SAS companies, my entire career. And two of them were owned by the same guy, the guy that, uh, founded gain side. He was also the founder of a previous, uh, software company I worked for. And so that's how I got into customer success. It's through this personal connection through Jim Lin. And so I remember I called him out of the blue and I said, uh, I was in between sort of like, you know, I was working for this startup company and I happened to talk about him over the phone with someone. And I, we, we were both like really impressed with him when we used to work for him at the previous company. And I knew he wasn't there anymore. And he started his, a new, a new gig, a new startup. I was just like, give him a call, tell him all the beautiful things we just said about him. I knew I was, uh, back to working with him again. And this time it was, um, a company called J Barra that later on became gain site. And so why customer success consulting? Um, well when I left gain site, I knew I either wanted to do consulting or something that, you know, connected with something that I do well, but I don't know that I had the vision that this is what I wanted to do. I just knew I didn't really fit in very well in a software company. And, uh, I was just gonna take a sabbatical for a year and see what the universe sense to me. And I was very committed to create a life that works for me, my strong suits and also my imperfections. I
Speaker 1:Love that. I love building a life and a career around the life you wanna
Speaker 2:Lead the life you wanna lead. And I think I, I got a real clearance working at gain side that I have some, uh, limitations around what I can and cannot do. And instead of fighting those limitations and trying to change myself, I decided there must be a way to use all of my talents in a framework that can accommodate for these, um, yeah. For these, for these imperfections. And I, I call them imperfections, but it's actually PTSD. And I think it's sort of like a social PTSD of some sort, like when I get to the office, I would get really stressed out because there was like a lot of people. And if I saw somebody go to lunch, maybe I would get stressed out about it if they didn't call me and like all my social anxiety that you wouldn't expect, someone like me to have, they were happening on a daily basis. So I thought maybe there's a way to just, uh, not pick on that nerve so much. Maybe there's a way that I can be brilliant at what I do and I can be very successful, but I can construct a framework that works for me. And so having doing consulting actually really works for my PTSD. Um, it doesn't get aggravated as much and I can still celebrate the things that work really well. For me, my ability to articulate complex terminologies in a very simple way to help people successfully articulate their vision and create a roadmap for them and come up with playbooks and processes and help them document it and really mature their organization. That's what I think I do best.
Speaker 1:It's evident you do that. Well, your reputation precedes you. And I think that all your experience that you've had, like you said in the SAS world, but more recently with the different businesses you do work with, you probably know best what all these businesses are doing are not doing as well. And I think that's gonna apply so much to the topic we are talking about today, which is really renewals and ensuring that a renewal has an upsell or growth attached to it, which is what I wanna get into. And before we kind of get into the meaty part of the actual conversation, I would love to know your opinion on if a CSM should be working with the commercials or should they be passing it back to a salesperson because I know a lot of SA businesses do it two ways and I'd love to know what Eric's opinion is or what you've seen work the best.
Speaker 2:I think that, uh, it really depends in some cases it makes total sense for the CSM to own it. And I'll give you an example. Let's say a customer wants to, uh, I don't know, upgrade for a few more seats. The whole thing shouldn't take more than a few minutes or like maybe an hour to, to complete. And we had this elaborate structure where any upsell has to go to sales. Now I need to, as a CSM, go to my AE, um, and my account executive and say, Hey, I have this upsell, I need another five seats. Well, this guy has bigger Fri fish to fry cuz his quota is never gonna be met. If all he dealt with is these extra five seats for your account. So now he pushes, pushes it back, you know, for a few more weeks until he gets a chance to get around to it finally. And that's not a great customer experience. So what we wanna think about is when it makes sense from a customer centricity standpoint, the CSM should own it. And in certain situation, uh, where it calls for deep expertise in developing relationships, fast, additional relationships to create an upsell or cross selling to other business units or simply put the transaction is highly complex. That makes sense where we need to have a salesperson, uh, own the transaction, whether it's renewal or upsell so that the CSM doesn't get bogged down and, uh, get distracted with this elaborate sales transaction, uh, re like I said, regardless if it's absolute
Speaker 1:Reading. Yeah. I, I totally agree. I think that like, like you said, think of the customer journey. Think of how the customers, Hey, I wanna spend more money with you. Okay. Please wait while I connect you with four other people and a sales order and a doc you sign and whatever else you have to do, it should be simple. Yeah, of course. Let me take care of it for you. Sign here. Five new seats. That should be the case, but not all CSMs think commercially minded. I know I've had members on my team that aren't commercial minded and how do you kind of hire then what's the skillset you would need to have as a CSM to make sure you can, you can success when you handle a renewal and upsells.
Speaker 2:I don't know that that's the right question, honestly. Anika. I think it's, um, a matter of how many, uh, folks with sales experience do you have on your team? And can you set it up in a way that there's a knowledge transfer between those who know how to do that, that can teach best practices. Hopefully everybody on your team is super smart and can learn new things. And if they're given a path, they can walk through it. I don't know that you need everybody on the team to, to have that kind of skillset. And honestly, I don't need, I don't know that you need all the transactions to be owned by the CSM. Uh, like I said, I think it's where it makes sense the CSM should own it. And when it doesn't, um, potentially sales should own it.
Speaker 1:Ooh, we might dive a little bit deeper into that in a second, but coming again, back to your experience. And I know a lot of our listeners today are probably thinking, how do I get, you know, my renewals secured with an upsell. Let's talk about just the renewal process really quickly in your experience, kind of what does the renewal process look like? Or when a success leader is building that out, what could, what should they be considering and what works really for a successful renewal?
Speaker 2:Uh, that's a really good question. So first and foremost, we need to think about the motions within the renewal process itself. And we've done a market research back in March, 2022. We had 450 respondents in that survey. And what we found is there's, there's a few things that can really, if you tweak them in the renewal process can really lead to better results. One simple thing without even changing the process much is just to start it a little earlier. What we found is that a large percentage of customer success teams started about 90 days before the renewal date. And what we found is that when you started 120 days before the renewal date, all of a sudden, most of your renewals are actually being completed ahead of time. So they are finished early and there's a higher probability for net retention like this to, to be completed with an upsell. Now, why is that? I spoke to the head of the customer success practice at an organization called T S I, a TSA does a lot of research as well in, in this domain and other domains as well. And what they found is that it takes approximately guess what? 90 days to fix a technical issue or a major technical issue, even. So imagine you have a customer that's in the red, and if on average it takes us 90 days to fix something. You don't really have enough time if there is an issue. And there is a risk to the renewal to actually fix it before the renewal date. So either end up with a late renewal
Speaker 1:Or frustration, possibly turn, if they're saying, Hey, if you, like you said, 90 days to fix something and they're like, fix it, or we're not gonna renew our contract. That's also a possibility as well.
Speaker 2:And you end up with a loss. You either need to extend the contract for free for a few months until you fix it. But certainly you're not in a position. Now imagine a world where you started the renewal process, a little earlier, 120 days, 180 days. Um, and it doesn't mean like the, you know, there's just like additional activities that you do at the 180 days or 120 days just to assess if there's a risk to come up with a, a safe plan to, you know, socialize. What is the sentiment? All of a sudden when you get to the 90 day, mark, you're much more prepared to handle anything that comes your way. And you're in a much higher probability of closing their renewal, let alone the upsell as well. So that's just like one simple thing that companies should definitely start thinking about changing. When do they start their renewal process?
Speaker 1:Okay, fair. I totally agree. I think renewals actually start in onboarding, but that's a different conversation. I think that the way you onboard a customer, the way you continue to service a customer ends up at a, you know, no nonsense renewal because you've treated them in such a way or serviced them in such a way that it ends up being a non-renewal. Um, essentially because of that. And so we're talking about 100 2180 days, like you said, which is, which is great. Let's start the renewal process earlier. You get a little bit more time, like you said, but what are some of the key indicators then for a CSM to understand or look for at that 1 21 80 mark, you also, you mentioned, you know, technical issue. So if they're in the red, but what are some of the other things, if I was a CSM and I was 188 days out for my renewal, what should I be doing at that point?
Speaker 2:That's a really good question. So we actually, uh, asked those who filled out the survey to say, you know, what is, how many customers do you typically close with an upsell? And we found that most customer success managers closed anywhere between 11 to 20% of their renewals with an upsell. So then we asked them, well, you know, and then there were some actually, and not a, a, a small amount, but there were some that were like in a 50 to 75% with an upsell that's quite significant, even 30, 60, 50% with an upsell. So I was like, OK, are there some things that those customer success managers doing, um, to get from 20% to 50%, uh, upsell, uh, yeah,
Speaker 1:What's the secret sauce. What's the,
Speaker 2:So then I ask them, okay, what are the type of activities that you are actually doing during the renewal process that is, you know, that is different. Um, so we asked all of them to say, what are they doing in general? And what we found that customer success managers who included, uh, these four steps that I'm gonna share with you actually close above 51% of their renewal contracts with an upsell. So, um, the first thing that we found is that they actually have a product, um, roadmap call with those customers. And that can be done either in an agile way, you know, using a solution that, uh, shares those, uh, insights via video email, or they actually have a discussion with them, or they share it with them using the advocacy board, if that customer happens to be on their, uh, advisory board. Sorry. So either way, the customer has an understanding of what the roadmap is. The second thing that they do, they have either a customer goal based call and think about the lower cohort. You won't have, uh, a QBR done a business review done with a customer, but you'll actually maybe just call them and say, you know, how can we help? What are your goals? What are your priorities for the year? How can we help with that? So that's that kind of conversation that is around outcome, uh, with outcomes with customers. And then if they are larger, they're actually doing a quarterly business review with them. By the way, I love how quarterly business review is not really done quarterly ever,
Speaker 1:Ever.<laugh>. If anyone's listening, who's actually doing quarterly business reviews every quarter, please feel free to email me, cuz I have no idea how you fit that into your schedule.
Speaker 2:<laugh> and clients don't want it quarterly,
Speaker 1:Who has time for that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no. Anyway, so that's, that's something, but they do either QBR or customer, uh, goal based calls. And so it could either be a quick call. It could be an executive business review, but some sort of a call where we align on their business goals and kind of share how we can, um, help with our solutions, whether it's services, products, or software. And then all of them included a success plan. I wanna emphasize that in my experience, when you create a success plan it's, and especially at this phase of the customer journey, meaning a few months before the renewals, the success plan should not be for the next month or two. It should include your vision for what the customer, uh, can do to maximize value in the next 12 months. That means that the plan goes way beyond the renewal date. Now I'm creating a long term vision.
Speaker 1:Yep. I completely agree. Super passionate about success plans, but also I think in general success plans should be a 12 month rolling. So even if you start a success plan, let's say when they kick off, right when they start there onboarding 12 month rolling, cuz you're taking it to the renewal when you're doing a QBR EBR, whatever it is still success plan, let's say that's at the six month mark, 12 month rolling puts you past the renewal. And like you just said, if you're doing a success plan 90, 120 days out before renewal, that puts you well into past the renewal.
Speaker 2:And how many times have I seen success plans for three months? Way too many times.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I always think of that kind of success plan as a quick fix. Like you said, like where you have maybe something wrong with, uh, technically that you have to redo something or get your technical account management to, to set something up differently in their account or whatever. That's a quick fix. That's fine. That's a very reactive look at a success plan. If you really want to build a good, strong relationship with your client and really help them out in the long term and help them drive towards their outcomes, you need to look at longer than three months.
Speaker 2:Correct. So we don't have any evidence about what kind of success plans these guys included, but they all had one and hopefully it was<laugh> I'm just
Speaker 1:Got it. Got it. OK. And the fourth one,
Speaker 2:The fourth one is they actually had a commercial call with the customer. And I'm assuming that that means that, you know, they set up a time to review the renewal contract. So if there's any downgrades or upsell opportunities now sometimes right? The, so let's say they have 90% of their seats already, uh, filled out and they're about to go overage or they already went over their assigned seats and the percent of utilization is above their plan. And they're just paying way more versus if they went to a different package, this is a great way to just true up the cut the contract and save them some, some dollars.
Speaker 1:I wanna dive into four cuz we were talking commercials again. And we came back earlier where we were saying like, CSMs might not have that commercial mindset, but even if they don't, how is a CSM gonna gauge the sentiment of a customer for the renewal? Like what are they looking for here? You just mentioned like seat usage utilization, but what signs maybe they're, you know, in conversations with a customer, how can a CSM really be able to read between the lines of the renewal process gonna be a success with this customer? Or maybe it's going the other way? How, how can a CSM best gauge that?
Speaker 2:Well, I like how you said it, that the renewal process starts from onboarding. Uh<laugh> I actually had one client that had the opportunity for the renewals in their CRM system open as soon as the, uh, first contract was closed one. And then ever since every time the renewal is closed and new one starts and they have two fields there. One is to say, what is your sentiment around, you know, whether the renewal is gonna happen. And if so, what is the expected renewal amount? And is it different than the amount that we're projecting based on last year? And so just keeping a dial on that and help, you know, holding the customer success managers accountable to find that out throughout the year. I think that's an important step because we don't wanna start guessing three months prior that's one. Secondly, I had another client, they did something really smart, uh, because they had so many customers, they actually sent out a survey to the customer. And in that survey, you know how we send like the NPS survey or a customer survey, maybe once a quarter or once every six months, one of the questions was hypothetically, if you could renew now, would you?
Speaker 1:I love that question by the way. It's something I tell every CSM on any of my teams, don't be afraid to ask that question because you have to, that's like asking the ultimate question of is everything okay or not. And if it's not, you have time to, to, to fix the problem or to address what the concern is. But if you're not asking, like I think a lot of people get really scared to ask that direct of a question. And I would say, don't be because it's actually giving you time back. It's giving you time as a CSM to correct. Maybe what's going wrong with this account.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Maybe just ask that verbally when you are with someone you're very comfortable with within the customer's organization and you're having a moment<laugh> or you're kinda sensing, maybe something is going differently. Maybe they're a little bit more silent. Maybe they're exporting a lot of data out. Something is off. Uh, they mentioned a competitor in a discussion, uh, a CSAT survey came off wrong.<laugh> on the wrong side of the score. All of those call out to ask that question. And if nothing really registers, including that question in your customer survey could, uh, be a really good move to just help the customer success manager gauge whether or not the renewal is actually going to happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. For sure. I agree on all of the above, but yeah, I think not being afraid to ask that question will only help you not hurt you in my opinion. I just think that it never, it never hurts you. It gives you time back. It gives you time to really understand if there is a problem or they're looking at competitors or, I mean the, the best case scenario, it can just be that they say, yeah, of course I'm gonna renew. I love everything that's been going on then. Great. Like, you know, whew, you know, you can relax there, but on the other side it really does give you insights and then open dialogue with your customer of, Hey, what is it that it's gonna, that I'm gonna have to do to get us to that renewal point? And it's, uh, gives, gives the CSM again, a roadmap of what they should be doing. Um, so I totally love that question. It's a, it's, it's a must ask in my opinion, but asking a little bit more around renewals and compensation. So we were talking about how CSMs are, are responsible for the renewal or in most organizations. It, it should be the case, cuz it's easier that way, but upsells renewals, these, these start thinking of compensation, I, I start thinking of a salesperson more than a CSM. Should we be compensating CSMs like sales people or, or what do you think?
Speaker 2:Okay. So that's, that's a loaded question. And I think, um, let's separate like the different components of what does it mean to be compensated like a salesperson? So a salesperson, first of all, has a variable component. Second of all, the variable component is very, very high it's significant portion of their salary. So, um, a typical salesperson might have 70% base with 30% variable component and it will be attached to the quota and that quota can change every, every quota I do. I think that that's an appropriate way to compensate customer success managers. Absolutely not. Uh, it's dangerous even because it calls out for some, uh, ethical dilemmas around for the CSM around meeting their quotas and being able to feed their family versus, you know, overselling or versus really taking care of the customer and making sure that the customer gets value, which is their primary goal. However, that being said, uh, what we found is that companies that do have their customer success managers, having a variable component in their salary tend to achieve over 100% net retention rate. So it is effective. The question is how do we do that? And we can't do that exactly. Like a salesperson might have it. Um, so I kind of ask, you know, uh<laugh> what, what should it look like? So just so you know, most of the, uh, folks that answered the survey and achieved higher than, uh, high NRR results, their, um, customer success managers variable component is between 16 to 20%. And so, but the most part it's definitely under 20%, that's, that's one, uh, it's never over, uh, 30%, there were about 6% that were over 30% and about 15% that were over 20%. So the majority was under 20% in an overwhelming, secondly, the variable component, wasn't a commission like a salesperson would have, for the most part, it was quarterly bonuses and, or a combination of, uh NBO, which is kinda like a, a bonus that's driven based on performance, um, of specific activities that help the overall strategy, not necessarily quantitative revenue related goals. People don't have quarterly bonuses typically and they certainly don't have MBOs.
Speaker 1:So I'm guessing most, most businesses based on what you said of the survey and how it's like an 80, 20 split. I, I hear that quite often of the 80 20, and then the 20 is driven by outcomes more than just the number, because that's how sales looks at it is the number. And, and like you said, if you're just driving numbers towards that variable, you're gonna end up with bad behavior rather than outcome based behavior as well. So I completely agree on that one, but kind of wrapping up the topic of renewals and best practices around it. Like, what is your ultimate renewal playbook that any SAS business can adopt? You mentioned the four steps that was really key, but is there, is there anything else looking back at your experience that you would say is a best practice to incorporate in a renewal playbook?
Speaker 2:First of all, I, I think it's really important that we start the renewal process at the beginning at the beginning. Like as soon as the contract is signed and then every year, as soon as another renewal contract is signed, I think it's very important to include a forecasting component. Uh, I would say one of the top three challenges that most companies had, uh, during that, sorry, the three top challenges that most companies had, uh, in accordance with that survey were no visibility to forecasting or inaccurate forecasting around renewals. So that could really take care of that and having a customer sentiment survey, uh, as part of that process could help accelerated quite a bit. And, uh, the rest we kind of talked about, you know, like really having, uh, a prescheduled conversation with a customer, aligning internally with other teams, all of those things can really help a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I love it. I love it. I also love the fact that when you start earlier, you end up closing up cells within the renewal as well, because you're just becoming more and more prepared and that's, it makes so much logical sense when you think of it that way. But sometimes when we're in the day to day of being busy as a CSM, we forget about those, those little things that we can do to really help secure not only an upsell, but the renewal and the upsell tie it all into one. So that's awesome to hear. So I wanna jump into our quickfire questions. I challenge every single one of our guests to try to answer these questions in one sentence or less. Are you ready?<laugh>
Speaker 2:Hopefully.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool. My first question is what do you think is next for the CS industry?
Speaker 2:Well, most likely we're going to see a lot more tools specializing in specific areas of the customer journey. I love seeing, you know, softwares like, uh, cast app and, uh, involved do AI and, uh, rocket lane that start really taking every step in the customer journey to the next level. And I think that's gonna be something that we're gonna see in the, in the market,
Speaker 1:For sure. I think the tech stack for CS is insane now and I'd love it though, because 10 years ago, I couldn't find a tool to help us out. It was always like, yeah, here you go. You can use Salesforce or you can use the CRM or whatever other tool sales or marketing is using. So I love that there's more specialized tools for CS and I completely agree. Um, next question is, what is your favorite app on your phone or laptop that you can't live without?
Speaker 2:Honestly, for me, it's an app on my iPhone. That's, uh, called timer and I have customers from various parts of the world. My team is in a different time zone and just, I could go nuts without it. Uh, so anytime I need to set up a meeting with someone that's outside my time zone. And especially if I have them right in front of me in an online meeting, in a live session, it's so much easier when I just pull timer and I can see exactly, you know, the time differences. And it's so much easier to coordinate RX call that way.
Speaker 1:I love that I have one that's on my Google Chrome, but I'm just thinking my phone might be easier cuz it's just in front of you and then you're just adding it on. But that's, that's awesome. And yes, I'm still waiting for a global time zone by the way. That is what I'm waiting for is we all work on one time zone<laugh>
Speaker 2:I wake up at 8:00 PM and you wake up at the 10:00 AM.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, exactly. So we could make it work. Um, cool. I think I know the answer to this next question. Cause we talked about it earlier, but the next question is what sort of compensation do you think a CSM should get? Should it be just base salary or base salary plus commission.
Speaker 2:So definitely base salary in a variable and to be specific, I think what works best is a base salary, a quarterly bonus, partially tied to, um, an MBO or a spiff to encourage the right behavior and an annual bonus for, you know, whatever it is that the however it is that the company is actually performed.
Speaker 1:Mm, wow. I like that. I like that. A lot of people usually do one or the other, but that's cool. And then my final question for you today is what is your favorite part of customer success or being a CSM?
Speaker 2:Well, obviously it's the community.<laugh>, that's the best part. I think I'm very fortunate. Every time I have a client, they're so nice. They totally get it. And we are sort of like customer successing, each other.<laugh>
Speaker 1:I love that customer successing each other coined by ear. We can, we can say that that's that's E's thing.<laugh> amazing. Well, thank you so much, Eric, for being with us today and sharing all your insights on renewals and making sure they're secured with an upsell. If any of our listeners today, have any other questions or wanna get in touch, what's the best place to find you?
Speaker 2:Well, I would love everybody that listens to this podcast, at least check out my YouTube channel.
Speaker 1:Yep. And we'll link it down in the, in the description of this podcast as well,
Speaker 2:Subscribe and like as many videos as you can<laugh> and then, um, obviously if you wanna connect around, you know, potentially like a project or help you with your customer success strategy optimization or set up a customer success department for your company, then you can reach me on my, uh, website, CSM practice.com.
Speaker 1:Amazing. Thank you so much, Eric, for your time. Really love this chat and I'm sure we'll be talking to you again soon.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Thank you so much, Ann. I you're absolutely wonderful.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the customer success channel podcast today. We hope you learned something new to take back to your team and your company. If you found value in our podcast, please make sure to give us a positive review and make sure you subscribe to our channel as we release new podcasts every month. Also, if you have any topics that you would like me to discuss in the future, or you would like to be a guest on the podcast, please feel free to reach out all my contact details are in the show notes. Thanks again for listening and tune in next time for more on customer success.