In this episode, our host Anika Zubair chats with Jennifer Yorke, Chief Customer Officer at Omertria about how to ensure the success of your CS department during a recession.
With the recession looming, there are many things a CS leader has to consider in order to ensure that the customer success department is still thriving. For example, how are you able to keep your team focused on the success of their customers during such turbulent times? And how can you do more with potentially less resources?
Podcast enquiries: sofia@planhat.com
In this episode, our host Anika Zubair chats with Jennifer Yorke, Chief Customer Officer at Omertria about how to ensure the success of your CS department during a recession.
With the recession looming, there are many things a CS leader has to consider in order to ensure that the customer success department is still thriving. For example, how are you able to keep your team focused on the success of their customers during such turbulent times? And how can you do more with potentially less resources?
Podcast enquiries: sofia@planhat.com
Hello everyone, I'm your host, Anika Zub 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 a c s organization. Today I am chatting with Jennifer York, a true powerhouse leader in customer success. She has a passion for scaling high growth tech businesses with a focus on international markets and the post sales environment. She is an experienced leader driving revenue growth through sales, customer engagement, and business development. She has served as a leader and a CS professional at companies like HubSpot, Hootsuite Box and Bazaar Boys, and is currently the Chief Customer Officer at Ametria, where she leads the post sales organization. Ametria has seen tremendous growth and success in the post pandemic world that we find ourselves in. But with the recession looming, there are many things a CS leader has to consider in order to ensure customer success is truly recession proof. Today we will be chatting with Jen about how to ensure the success of your customer success department during a recession. Let's chat with Jen. Welcome Jen, to the podcast. I am so, so very excited to have you here with us. I know you really, really well. But for our listeners, can you please tell them a little bit more about yourself, your career so far, and what you've been doing in customer success?
Speaker 2:Yeah, happy to and very excited to be here. As you said, I'm Jen York. I am currently Chief Customer Officer at ametria, which is a customer data experience platform. That sounds like a whole load of jargon, but for people that are interested, uh, what we do is we basically power the communications that you would get from retailers. So if you've ever shocked with the likes of Hotel Shakka Lot or Steve Madden or Brooklinen or a variety of other different retailers and you've ever gotten a message, an email, sms, push on social at the right time, we're the company that helps power that. So you wouldn't know us, but you would know of us through those retailers. So background for me, I was born and raised in Canada, did all my schooling there, and then started my customer success journey, uh, actually in the States. So I ended up being the first C S M for HubSpot way, way back in the day because I am now an old, uh, experience person.<laugh>,
Speaker 1:We could let you run with that
Speaker 2:<laugh>. Then after a couple of years, uh, my now husband and I decided we wanted to have, uh, an experience abroad and so we moved over to the UK parted ways with HubSpot, very amicably. They, they weren't yet, uh, internationally located and I didn't wanna work remotely at that time and help launched Hootsuite, which is Social Media Enterprise software, their uh, first international office and grow out the International CS organization. Then had the opportunity to move over to Box, which is enterprise content management and was responsible for their enterprise clientele. And when I talk enterprise, I mean one of our clients had 120,000 user globally, you know, multimillion dollar contracts with the likes of AstraZeneca and then got to take on the long tails. So we went from 400 incredibly complex clients to having 11,000 clients that we needed to provide great experience for. And so you had multimillion dollar contracts down to Hey, you're paying us a thousand dollars a year. Then had the chance to move to Bazaar Voice to run their entire European, uh, customer success organization and took back on the uh, revenue component because at Box it was separate and that was a ton of fun. And that sort of started my retail career. And then I moved to ametria, which is an organization that I'd known of for years. I'd met the C E O back when I was working at Box, they were seven gentlemen working in a basement. I thought they had a really cool idea and I just the vibe. Uh, and we stayed in touch and eventually one of the founders who was doing the CS role was looking to do something different. He always described himself as a ship builder, not a ship sailor. And so he didn't feel like sailing. He wanted to do some building and did it in another area of the business. And so the role opened up. We kept in touch, I interviewed and got it and here I am<laugh>.
Speaker 1:<laugh>. That's amazing. Oh my gosh. So many tidbits that we're gonna jump into more in our conversation around that. But you've been at some great logos, like you said, HubSpot Box, Hootsuite all early days by the sounds of it. But still we're able to really grow out customer success at all those organizations. And now you are cheap customer officer at ametria, like you mentioned. It's a coveted title that I think a lot of CS leaders want to have. And I think not every business has C C O yet or is mm-hmm<affirmative> something that I, like I said CS leaders are aspiring to be. What would you say contributed to you landing the C C O title and role And any tips for any of our leaders that are listening?
Speaker 2:Some of it truthfully is just the luck of being in the right place at the right time. So when I started in cs, CSM wasn't really a huge title. It was sort of Salesforce that had it. And part of the reason why HubSpot brought it in was actually because the founder really appreciated the work that Salesforce was doing. And so chief customer officer, it wasn't a role. Everything sort of rolled up to sales or it was rolling up to some sort of operation role at the time. Um, you may have found a a few CCOs, but it wasn't something that everyone would talk about it. It was sort of a, ooh, this is very different. So I say that only to let people who are interested in C C O keep in mind that actually if they have another 10, 15, 20 years ahead of them from a career perspective, and there might be roles actually that don't exist yet or in very early days that they might be interested in. And two, not feel down if you're not heading in a certain direction because not everything is set in stone, which doesn't answer your question. But something that I wanted to highlight, uh, to answer your actual question,<laugh>, my intention was to have a more of a, a voice and seat at the table. Uh, I wanted to be able to influence the strategy and things that I as an individual contributor or first line manager was implementing. And so it was looking at well of those leaders, what skillset did they have? And so it was okay, they need to have an understanding of the financial metrics of a business. They need to be able to understand how you create, you know, appropriate messaging to highlight the value that you're bringing to customers. Some people may call it go to market, you know, whatever phrasing works for you, you need to understand how to actually deliver to customers, et cetera, et cetera. So it was looking at all the components and then basically saying, well who can I learn from at this business in order to try to actually be able to do the role either at my own, the business I'm at or if there isn't gonna be that opportunity, see if I can get it somewhere else. That was how I was thinking about fast tracking it. It was more if I can get the role at the business I'm at, great cuz it's easier than trying to learn a new place. But if it's not gonna be available, for example at Box it was three years out Hmm. If everything worked correctly cuz we, in order to have the right amount of people there and so I wasn't actively looking but if something came in that matched what I was looking for, I would interview for it. And my boss and I were very open about that. I kept him informed. That's how I got the bazaar voice role. It was one of those ones that sort of came up. So the chief customer office role really came about because I, over time just to get the seat at the table was picking up those little components at each place I was going. And when I was interested in joining Meria, the C E o and I had a conversation, I said, look, philosophically I think having one outlook from a customer perspective, having somebody who has a scene on the table who is championing these things and helping to direct the the product, the experience also positively impacts net new business. Even if you don't hire me, I think you should evolve the role in this way. Hmm. And he agreed. And so I chose a place that agreed with that philosophy and then it was up to me to earn that role. Yeah. But at least I knew we were in agreement about that being the end goal. Who knew what the timeframe was gonna be. It was open-ended. Yeah. Yeah. But that's amazing. That's
Speaker 1:A lot of experience that you're just sharing and that's really helpful to a lot of people that are looking for what's next in their career. But especially like that CCO title, it's not always available at the organization that you're at currently. Like you said, the scope of the actual role might be very different depending on the size and location of where you are or where the business is at. But it was amazing that your um, CEO was open to that conversation and that you were able to articulate, Hey I want a seat at the table and this is why I want it because I wanna influence change and I wanna make sure the customer is the center of everything we are doing. Which is again super critical. Especially now more than ever. I know I say that but before we get into today's topic, which I know is gonna be very topical, I wanna touch on a little bit more around your experience in North America versus here in Europe and the uk. Um, you said you are Canadian but you worked in the US and now you're working here in the UK and London. Can you give us a little bit of a uh, I guess snapshot of the differences of what you experienced in North America versus the UK when it comes to the startup world or the CS world that you've been in?
Speaker 2:I should clarify that when I was working in the States, I was an individual contributor. I was not at a management level. And so I do think my abil like the lens that I'm looking at is slightly different because I've only been a manager in the UK cause I've been here for a long time. And one thing I actually really love about America is that they dream big and they think big and it's really more of a we wanna do this big thing and less questioning about the operational aspects of well how do you actually do it? It's like eh, we'll figure that out as we go. Like this is a big thing we wanna do. And I think that's part of what creates the draw to America for a lot of people. It's like, oh there's just this great sort of aura and mentality of dream big, figure out the rest later and somehow you'll end up in a good place.<laugh>. And the part of Canada that I'm from is relatively pragmatic. And so that was something when I became a customer success manager in the States, I had to learn to modulate that a little bit because I tend to be more of okay that's a great idea but here's what's realistic. So like let's talk about that and I got a lot of friction. Yeah. So I, I think with respect to working with the states, one thing I've always kept in mind is saying, these ideas are amazing. Here's what we need to do to make that possible versus a oh that isn't possible and here's why. Mm. Because you get a lot more buy-in if you talk about it from the other perspect. The other perspective of like, okay, let's aim for that. Here's what we need, how do we get that? Yeah. And then uh, with respect to Europe, I mean I think it is different after the pandemic because before the pandemic there was a much more of an emphasis on in-person Yeah. Than there is now. And so I still think we're figuring out a little bit more of how we drive customer value and get time at the right stakeholders in a world where there isn't this drive to be an office. And that's something that I think is really interesting from a post pandemic perspective And with Europeans, I do think you need to focus more on the pragmatic elements of we're gonna do these things and here's the how and let's talk it through and get the buy-in in that way because they wanna be on board with the idea and to be on board with the idea they wanna ensure that you've thought it through. And that means you need to think about some of the details. And that's typically how I find you get a lot of buy-in for things. If you say what do we wanna do together? Let's talk about like where the challenges will be and recognize that it's not a negative thing, it's actually them wanting to be on board.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. Definitely. I think you've highlighted so many things that I wanna talk more about, but like being American myself, I was just hearing some of the things you were saying and you're like, I was like yeah, that's so true. Yep, that's definitely true. And I completely agree that like being American or working in the US ends up being larger risks are taken or you're much more optimistic. Yeah. And now being in England and the British mentality is opposite, it's almost pessimistic, not optimistic. And so it's really interesting to see how contrasting, you know, startup or CS experiences is on those two different levels. But funny that you mentioned a lot of the things that you're used to as a Canadian, cuz I think that relates back to European way of doing business as well. The pragmatic way, like you said, in almost planning things out rather than just taking the leap of faith, which is very much how American startups or CS world ends up taking large leaps of faith and just doing things and hoping for the best rather than planning things out. Both have great reason behind me. We won't go into the the theory and and the deep thought behind those things, but I do find it quite interesting the the startup CS experiences, especially to other expats out there that are experiencing the different contrasting ways of doing business across the pond. So yeah, very, very interesting to highlight upon that. But before we get into the topic, I do wanna touch a little bit more about Ametria and what it is the business is doing and what you've seen as growth as well. You came in as a, a VP of Cs now customer officer, you've seen tons of growth, which is awesome And I'm now thinking in my head all the notifications on my phone is Ometria<laugh>, um, at least in the, in the retail space. But what do you think contributed to your growth but also the customer success teams growth? Cuz I know we talked about this before as well, right now January, 2023, there are some economic hardships, there's some things that businesses are going through, but you guys continue to grow, you continue to see successes, small or large. What do you think is contributing to that?
Speaker 2:The organization itself? So for context, when we started it was uh, UK focus, so UK CS UK client base, uh, UK support hours. And now our predominant markets are UK English, speaking Europe and the US we actually have a, a team that's based out of New York Al although I say quote unquote based but you know people can be anywhere in the states. And we now offer US-based support to our US-based clients. We have uh, US-based court hours as well as European-based support hours. So from uh, business perspective we're now overseas and that has been one of the fun things for us. We also have clients in other geographic jurisdictions, but I will say it's not a strategic focus for us. It's more if a great customer comes to us and they like our value proposition, we will, you know, of course partner with them but it's not a deliberate intention to move into the region. Example would be Australia, we have a couple of clients there, but it wasn't because we specifically went out, it's just they came to us and we told them what was available and they said great. And now they've been with us for a bunch of years, which is very exciting. So growth wise, what has happened? Well, I mean the pandemic for us was actually hugely beneficial because it brought digital commerce to the forefront. We are doing customer experience but from a digital perspective it put us in the conversation much more. And so we saw a significant amount of growth once the economy from the pandemic came back during the, the initial pandemic, everyone was sort of like, we won't do anything cause we wanna see what will happen. And then when they realized the world wasn't going to end, they all decided to buy and that's when we, we had a great experience. And so I'm sort of noticing similar patterns right now and so why have things been all right for us? I think as a business and from a senior management team perspective, we're pretty prudent with our money because we wanna have the flexibility to put fuel to the fire and really invest in sales when things are strong but be able to also pull back should there be some sort of something, be a pandemic or recession or whatever it is, and not have to dramatically change our internal structure. Cuz that comes with a lot of disruption to customers and also to your sales motion as well, even if your sales aren't happening to a big degree. So with my own organization, I've always looked at it from the perspective of what is the value that we're bringing to the business from a financial standpoint and how do I maximize that without impacting the actual humans that are working on my team? So doing it in a way where I am looking at it from a actual reasonable workweek and then saying like how do we maximize the value that we're driving to clients? And as you said, it's like looking at, you know, digital cs, thinking about prioritization of your customer base. If you need to be more efficient, you can't keep doing the same things. So how do you try to maximize the value overall from your customer base, which usually means how do you drive more revenue for the business. In our case we look at net retention and then looking at how that impacts the service you offer to each of your segments of customers. And so that is what has helped us grow and not have change that can be more challenging where it can impact morale. There is a reason why businesses do restructuring, pause hiring, things of that nature, but it does impact morale to a certain degree and it's been nice that I haven't had to do that within my organization. Yeah,
Speaker 1:That's uh, a great point that you've just brought up because we are talking about customer success during a recession or during tough times and how CS can be resilient, which you bring up an interesting point about how to make sure the morale of your team stays up, which is really, really important. But the SAS slash CS industry is going through so much at the moment. Like you mentioned pandemic, we had the great resignation or what it was coined gained in 2021 and now in 2022 we just saw a lot of restructuring happening and a lot of companies letting go of people, lots of people on the market, lots of funding being pulled as well. So it's a, it's a tough time out there and that's what we're here to talk about on today's podcast. But how have you been able to keep your team focused on customer success or the success of their customers essentially during such turbulent times?
Speaker 2:So I, I think it's two things. One, as a a member of the senior management team, it was partnering with that organization to say, well we're going into another challenging period of time. What is going to help us come out the other side of this stronger? And we all were in agreement that investing in our customers was going to allow us to come out the other side of are we calling it a recession yet this recession, this, you know, downward economic period.
Speaker 1:I think if you ask an economist, I think it's officially a recession.
Speaker 2:Okay. So out of this recession positively it, it's gonna come from our customers being with us and being ready to grow with us and those customers being willing to talk to prospects who were in a buying motion so that they'll buy from us. And there was agreement across the S M T, this was the C, the cfo, F C T O, et cetera. And so that meant that when we were looking at where we needed to be efficient from a budgetary perspective, it was okay, we wanna make sure that we're continuing to invest in r and d cuz that benefits our customers, inevitably our prospects, but we also need to ensure that we're delivering to our customer base if we, you know, reduce the team by a certain size, that's gonna negatively impact our customer base. And the reason that this worked was because we were showing the value of what we did during an up period. Mm. So there was agreement of it's efficient already, it's delivering a lot, don't mess up a good thing. So that was sort of number one of like getting agreement with the people that hold the purse strings as to where we're gonna drive value and there was agreement that value would be driven by investing in our customers. And so from the team itself stepping away from the s and t component, it was working with my management team, the, you know, my VP of Cs, my director of projects, my director of support, et cetera, and listened to them as to what their teams needed to feel supported during this time because I'm not on the ground, I'm not talking to them every day. And so I wanted to make sure to get the cover to say like look this is the group we're still hiring where it's necessary. I am hiring if anyone is looking for a role, we have a couple open<laugh>
Speaker 1:Plug but I'm okay with
Speaker 2:That. I mean I, I'll take great candidates anywhere I can find them and listening to them as to what is needed. And so, you know, one of the things that we did look at was our compensation because we know over the course of the last couple years there have been shifts in compensation and we wanted to make sure that the great people we had, because they are great, weren't gonna be wooed away because they were going to get paid compensation that's different elsewhere. And so we actually were able to do compensation changes for every single member of the customer team because we had agreement from the s and t that we wanted to invest in customers listen to my leaders that that was a re that was a necessary thing and then brought the request to the CFO F and she was like, okay, like<laugh>, this is what's needed to drive this net retention like done. So I think you need both sides because without either side it wouldn't have worked.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I completely agree. And like you said, proving value when things are good is something we should always be focused. I know a lot of people are scrambling right now probably thinking how am I gonna prove value when you know companies are going outta business or my customers are cutting costs or you know, we're not getting the funding we need to hire more people. And I think a lot of times people are trying to do more with less at the wrong time. And like you said, you made sure during the uptick you were proving value, which is extremely important. And you already mentioned that you're a revenue leader as well. You carry a revenue number that your uh, team is responsible for and that the financial team or the C F O let's say really knows about that and knows what value you're proving out. And it was almost an easy yes but I think a lot of companies right now are going to be from their C F O, Hey you've gotta do more with less. I think that is a theme of 2023, which is, you know it, I don't think it's too different from 2020, like you were saying, what happened in the early days, the pandemic, we were also forced to do more with less. And I think that it'll continue to be a theme this year, but it's the first time CS has probably been very strongly tasked with this because we're now revenue holding, we're now growing and building valuable relationships with our customers. But how are you doing more with less right now with your team and um, you didn't do any restructuring or anything but you did give a compensation bump which is great to hear, but I'm sure there's a lot more things you guys are looking at internally to be I guess prepared for what, what the turbulent times ahead might bring. What are you guys doing to prepare for that?
Speaker 2:We've definitely made changes in how we are are directly servicing. So from a a CS perspective, we have made changes specifically to our segmentation. We've always had segments and there has been slight differentiation in how we service those segments but nothing dramatic. And so, uh, one of the things that we've been very deliberate about and I wanna give all credit to my VP C s and uh, his manager because I basically said look, we need to be able to do, you know, drive the sort amount retention guidepost, guideposts. And they came up with an awesome idea and and have implemented it. Uh, we have what we call our ideal customer profile where if we were going to go out, cuz we've been in business for 10, almost 11 years, if we were gonna go out today and get a customer, here's where we best fit, here's where we see the most success, here's where we see the most longevity, here's where we know we can drive the maximum amount of value. And so of our customer base, we wanna make sure that we are giving them the best experience possible because we know that growth is driven by those individuals and future growth is gonna be driven by those individuals. And it was basically, hey team, we need to be structured in a way to be able to service these people more and here's what that looks like. And then we had uh, what we consider our growth segment and this is a group of individuals who I call our I CCP of yesterday year who are fantastic customers. They get good growth from us, it's just not as big as our uh, what we call our ideal customer profile. And it was let's keep servicing them the same way today as we did yesterday and what that looks like. And then it was okay here's a group of individuals who, you know, when we started 11 years ago, we were a perfect fit. We've all evolved since then. And so if they were going to look for someone today, the likelihood is they shouldn't pick us and that's not a bad thing because we have changed. Um, but we wanna make sure that they are supported for as long as they wanna stay with us. And we looked at more of a digital led and one to many support team-based support for that organization so that they could get the support that they need. But it's a little more customer led as opposed to us driving it because we know that growth doesn't come from them. But we also don't want them all to leave today.<laugh>.
Speaker 1:Yeah definitely
Speaker 2:<laugh> cause that's not helpful to anyone either. And so that is something that we've done and there was not a restructure but a change in sort of portfolios and associated uh, approach for the CS team in and of itself. And the leaders across my organization in the professional services and also our support organization have also ensured that they have an understanding of the different segmentation so that if something comes in from one of our preeminent customers it gets priority and that also carries through to our engineering organization and our product organization.
Speaker 1:Amazing, amazing. I think segmentation is super critical, especially in any, in any case but especially now segmentation really helps us understand which customers to prioritize. Especially when you're either strapped for resource or you're really looking at doing more with less or you're trying to figure out how do you service all these customers when you might not be hiring as much as you would hope to in in certain economic climates. Um, you mentioned three different segments, which I think is pretty typical. Probably the, what we know is enterprise mid-market and the SMB or long tail. How did you guys go about prioritizing which customers fell into each one of those segments that you just mentioned
Speaker 2:As an organization? Since I started from actually a holistic S M T perspective, so our go-to-market organization plus also the customer org, we've reviewed yearly all the data we have on growth over the years cuz again we're 11 so we have a lot of data to be able to pull from. And so we've been able to have one of the members of our our data science organization look through it and actually identify where the best segments are and and what the actual parameters were for those customer bases. And so we then use that inter go to market strategy to do targeted marketing and vice versa. We looked at that from a retention standpoint and we made a few augmentations to the customer side of things, but we're pretty closely aligned and that's been a whole company initiative.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes complete sense And I think the data looking cross-functionally as well as critical when you're looking at segmentation you have to hear out what like the whole go-to market sales, marketing CS has to say, but I also think it's important to have product in there as well cuz product might be building for your enterprise or your mid-market more than your s and b or the other way around. A lot of co product teams build for self-service as well. And I think you have to have a holistic view across multiple departments to understand where your I C P really lies as well. But uh, I I do love that you guys took so much data cause I think that's critical and not everyone has that data, but it's important that you guys tapped into that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's whatever data you have, everybody has something unless you are literally starting from pure scratch and you're the first person<laugh>, like everyone has data
Speaker 1:<laugh> definitely. And I think it's a matter of getting into the data that you need, which can be a whole nother podcast. We can talk about CS data for sure for probably days. But<laugh>, I think during a recession a lot of businesses, or especially now probably cs because I think revenue should live in customer success as well, but a lot of businesses are looking for new avenues of revenue and I think that's something you have to be extremely creative with when you are in customer success and especially during a downturn. What are your thoughts for either paid for CS or have you done any sort of pricing increase or pricing change for your customers? How are you kind of thinking about that when it comes to new revenue within your existing customer base?
Speaker 2:So this is another one of, there's multiple answers to it and actually it's great timing to talk about because from an organization perspective, and I mean all of Ametria, we've gone through pricing and packaging over the course of Q4 and in q1 we're now looking at how do we operationalize that as a part of it. We are actually looking at additives to the product that we have. One of the additives is from a purely product perspective and we're going to be looking at, you know, what we have come up with, how does that actually play in the market? Are people interested? Do we need to make tweaks and then we're going to go and build that and that will be a potential revenue stream. And then the other one actually is, uh, more services led. So something within the, the influence of my own organization and hearing from a lot of our customers over the course of last year, you know, I'm being asked to do more with less, I have less people I need to do these things. Traditionally the answer is go to an agency or hire someone. They don't have the ability to hire somebody because you know, roles are being paused and going to an agency is just a lot of effort. They're already working with us. So we're looking at, we've put together a package that we think will be of interest because of the feedback we've gotten in EBRs and client calls and our client dinners. And again, over the course of q1, what we're basically going to do is bring that to our customers and say any interest. And so if they do buy that, then what we have from a, we'll be able to budget it associated with, okay, we need this many clients to do it, that's a headcount sold, there's a certain amount of margin on it. So that's something that will be interesting to see what the outcome is over the course of this quarter, how much we need to tweak because I do suspect there will be tweaking. There always is when you have an idea and then you bring it back for feedback. So time will tell with respect to the product as it is today, we haven't raised the pricing on it. What we have looked at is how can we be more efficient from an infrastructure standpoint. And so this is where as a leader, I think there's benefit to talking to your C T o understanding where the costs from an infrastructure standpoint to deliver the product you have to customers where there are a lot of costs and where actually you could cut costs without a negative impact. Uh, an example of our customer base is that we have customers that actually store, you know, we've had customers since the beginning, so 11 years worth of data. Well if somebody is doing customer marketing, they look back maybe two or three years. So why are we storing 10 years worth of data? It literally just costs us a lot of money and there's no benefit to anyone. And so with our new customers coming in, we're saying to them, you know, we store X amount of years of data. If you want more, no problem, you can can pay for it. But that is helping to stem some of the infrastructure costs. So that's another thing that you can do if you have good partnership with your C T O.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's amazing. I think that finding those little avenues or creative ways of generating revenue, whether it's, you know, working with your C T O or infrastructure team to fi figure out ways to charge for, you know, overhead costs basically. Or if it's, again, reevaluating your segments and charging for customer success depending on the level of service your customer is experiencing or wants to experience. I think those are great ways to kind of test it out. I know there's a lot of different people who are trialing paid for cs, pat Felan at GoCardless, I had him on the podcast, he's, he's doing similar things as well. But I think it's something that I think CS leaders have to be considerate of. I think we have to be the revenue leaders that we so want to be, and having that seat at the table, meaning you're looking at the overall business financials and you definitely need to be considerate of the fact that your customer base can generate more revenue for your business if done correctly and thoughtfully and mindfully and making sure you have those strong partnerships in place. But I, I do think it's, it's critical for us to start thinking along those lines.
Speaker 2:I think it's an interesting one because I remember when I was a CSM and people would say, oh, paying for cs, I was like, ugh, never. I will never do that. I
Speaker 1:Know I be back to, I would, I would never, I'd be like, oh my gosh, it needs to be in cost of goods sold. Like, but I think the major organizations always do it anyways.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm in a court controversy. I still think I hold the same philosophy and I don't think that this is charging for cs because we offer, as a part of, you know, the overall cost of goods sold, uh, commissioner amount of Cs that will ensure that the typical ICP customer, in our case, the ideal customer profile will, will get a beneficial outcome. They'll, they'll drive enough value that they will grow with us. There are customers who just want more stuff. They don't need it<laugh>, but they want more stuff and that's fine and we can provide that. But to me that's sort of like an additive service. It isn't the customer success part because you don't need it to be, to be successful. You, you just want it. Yeah, it's sort of the same of like you're on a plane and you have an economy seat. Well that gets you from point A to point B, but some people want business class. Yeah,
Speaker 1:No, I completely agree. I think I would, I I agree with you on that a hundred percent yes. Yes. Shouldn't be like charged for a flatout. I think you need to provide customer success in order to see success with the product, the longevity of client relationships and, and building out that advocacy that you want outta your client base. But I agree, customers sometimes want way more than what we factor in to cost of goods sold. And that's really hard to service when you have 10 CSMs that are trying to handle all these things, but then suddenly there's like these one customer that's like, but I want all your time all week instead of, you know, servicing all the customers. So I completely agree on that, that if you want more, you, you should be willing to pay for it. And if you are, then great, we can provide that for you. Add additive service. I completely agree.
Speaker 2:I think it also gives your, your CSMs your frontline protection. Like it's incredibly difficult if you think about it like CSMs are typically 3, 5, 7 years into their career experience. Doesn't mean all I know, I know career CSMs, but traditionally it's, it's those that don't have, you know, double digits of experience. And we're asking them to set expectations with a client who is challenged being hounded to get their numbers and all they can say is, well, I can't service you more. Or we're asking the CSMs to work evenings and weekends if we give them the opportunity to say, Hey look, this is what we're able to do. I know you want this, we can do it. There's a value associated. At least it sort of gives them something to say, you know, you want these things, it's more than you should be getting So that the other person perhaps gets a bit of perspective definitely as to why they're being told. No, I think also helps protect the CSMs to a certain degree as well, which in turn hopefully keeps them with you for longer.<laugh>
Speaker 1:For sure. I think you have to give your CSMs the tools to make them successful. And I don't mean the software, I don't mean the data. I mean like the practical tools and levers like you just mentioned of hey, if you have a difficult customer, here are the ways that you can help them understand or give them more services. But it comes at a cost or it comes at this and sometimes, like you said, A C S M early in their career or someone who hasn't been in cs, who's transitioned into cs, they might not necessarily know, Hey, this is the way of the world and this is what we have to do because you're taught in customer success. What was client services, what was customer support? What was, you know, in that way, service your client the best you can and sometimes the best is is too much for, for one particular client.
Speaker 2:It is. And as leaders we should also, there will be times when your C S M has done the best that they can that you also need to help deflect some of it. And I will say I've taken a customer for cake and told them that their expectations were far too high.<laugh><laugh>,
Speaker 1:That's a great way of putting it. Let's have some cake. But also fyi, you're a little bit difficult<laugh>,
Speaker 2:You're not gonna like what I say, but here's some sugar<laugh>.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that. Okay, before we get way too off topic here about cake and taking customers out, I wanna talk a little bit more about proving value of customer success in tough times. We are obviously experiencing a recession like we talked about and we already talked about proving value when times are good, which is the ideal, it's the perfect scenario and I think we should always aim for that. But people listening today might have other, you know, tough times ahead of them and they're probably proving value internally to their customers, to their board, to their investors. What are some of your tips or you know, what are some of your experiences around proving value when CS isn't having the best of times?
Speaker 2:First off, good on you for proving value. Doesn't matter when you start great. That you start just whatever you do, don't stop<laugh>, keep doing it. Cause things will get good and you'll be like, oh, things are fine. Uh, don't stop at that point. So good that you're starting. I think with anything related to this, it always comes back to prioritization. That's like the, the magic phrase in, uh, customer land. You can't do everything you want to do. Hmm. If you try, your results will be mediocre. As a leader, you're going to have to be really brave and put your money where your mouth is and basically take an educated guess on where you think you can drive value and where you're just gonna take a potential churn risk. Hmm. And if you are brave enough to do that, you can prove out the value. Because you can say we have put our resources in bucket A and B and C, we are still supporting, but in a lower way, here's the retention or the growth. Look at the retention and growth in A and B and the amount of resources, dollars, pounds that you've put towards it. We need to do more of that. Here's what we need to do in order to, to drive it even more. I will say it's scary because if you make the wrong call, which is always possible, there's a potential that you might not be at the organization long term, but if you go for trying to service everyone, your results are gonna be mediocre. So the likelihood is that you end up having a similar result anyway. Mm-hmm. So I think there's actually more value in being brave, making a call, putting a stake in the ground, delivering where you believe you can deliver, and using that as a basis for proving out the value.
Speaker 1:Amazing prioritization is key I think. And I think it especially is a customer success leader. We are told to do more and more and more and take more and more under our remit. But you've gotta really prove value and you've gotta show where your strengths lie. And at your organization that might be on the renewals, that might be on, you know, product adoption, that might be on customer advocacy, whatever that is. There's CS is a long game and there's a lot of time that we need to to spend on things. But prioritizing tasks, projects, what your customers need is, is critical. Are there any other tactical tips that you have for customer success? Um, in order to be, I guess recession proof or get into this recession on the right foot,
Speaker 2:We ask our customer facing people to set expectations and you as a leader need to set expectations with your own leadership team. That means like if you call it your exec team, senior management team, whatever you call it, of what you will and won't be able to provide, your comment of CS is always being asked to do more. Unfortunately, your role as leader is to basically say, well we can do that, but here's what the result is going to be and it's probably gonna be bad and push back. Uh, if you're not doing that, how dare you ask your frontline to do it because they have less experience than you probably from a, you know, year's perspective. So now that I've harped on that other tactical tips to be reception proof, this is your time to be creative. So look at, uh, what you can deliver from a digital perspective versus using people. People are smart. Use them for things that actually require their brain so that you're getting maximum value from your your individuals. And that's probably more interesting to your individuals too, rather than doing something that can be automated. I also think that there's an opportunity to look at things you don't need to deliver to your customers. What are you doing that has just been done year after year after year doesn't actually drive value that you can just cut out<laugh>. Um, there might be one or two clients that have a feeling about that, but if they are not in your ideal customer profile fit, it's okay.<laugh>. We, we will listen to them, consider it and then just not do it anyway.<laugh>,<laugh>
Speaker 1:Amazing, amazing. So many tips, so many tricks. I loved our conversation. I think we could keep talking about how to be I guess a tactical or a leader of today in, in today's situation that we find ourselves. I don't even know what to say. Like you said recession. I, I'm not used to saying it. It's, it's weird to say. But we keep going on and on. Thank you Jen for sharing your, your insights. But before we wrap up today, I'm going to go into our quickfire questions where I challenge every single one of my guests to try to answer the next questions in a sentence or less. Not very many have succeeded, but we'll see how you do. Are you ready for quickfire questions?
Speaker 2:I think I am. Let's give it a go.
Speaker 1:Let's do it. First question is, what do you think is next for the CS industry
Speaker 2:Other than an emphasis on digital cs? I don't know.
Speaker 1:<laugh>. Well I like that too. I do like the the unknown. Um, the next question is, what is your favorite app that you cannot live without either on your phone or your
Speaker 2:Laptop? Google Photos.
Speaker 1:That's the first time I've heard
Speaker 2:That. I just don't have an affinity for social media and I live abroad, so I wanted to be able to share the experience with family and friends. Google Photos allows me to do that without necessarily needing to share things with the broader community. And I also realize I have a son and he's almost four 8,000 photos of him. So that just tells you how many photos I take of not just him, but like life in general. Everything
Speaker 1:<laugh>. I feel like I should take snippets of this podcast and send it to the apps or products we talk about because I feel like they're great client success stories. Cause I think some people are so passionate about the app they cannot live without. So I love that answer.
Speaker 2:I mean, Google got me a paid for extra storage.<laugh>
Speaker 1:<laugh>. Awesome. And what is your favorite SAS tool as a c s professional?
Speaker 2:I should probably say our CRM system, but I'm going to say Slack<laugh>.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. And next question is, what sort of compensation should a CSM get? Should it be a base salary or a base salary with a commission variable?
Speaker 2:Anyone who tells you it should should be one or the other is incorrect. It depends on your business and the stage you're at and how you need to maximize that retention. Then you should choose the one that's most appropriate for your business and reevaluate it every couple of years.
Speaker 1:I love that answer as well. And the final question before we wrap up for today is, what is your favorite part of customer success or being a C S
Speaker 2:M that you get to dabble in little bits of everything. I love the fact that I get to do contract negotiations and talk to the product and lobby for the roadmap and talk to the CTO about the fact that we need to look at infrastructure costs and talk to the C F O about where we can tweak the budget and talk to sales about what prospects they want and how they can close that deal faster. I just, I love the fact that we get to do little bits of everything. It's super fun.
Speaker 1:Amazing. Amazing. Thank you so much, Jen, for all your insights, all your input. I know that there's so many pieces of this podcast I'm taking away, but if there are any other questions from our listeners, where's the best place to find you?
Speaker 2:LinkedIn, the one social app I really use.<laugh><laugh>.
Speaker 1:I love it. Well, thank you so much Shannon, really appreciate your
Speaker 2:Time. Oh, this is wonderful. Thank you so much Anika.
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.