In this episode, our host Anika Zubair chats with Sue Nabeth Moore, Co-Founder of Success Chain about the future of customer success.
As we approach the end of the year, it's crucial to begin strategizing for customer success in 2024. Despite the hurdles we've encountered recently, we must now pave the way for a successful year ahead. So, what should be the key focus areas for customer success in 2024? And how can we strike the perfect balance between customer ROI and fostering business growth?
Podcast enquiries: sofia@planhat.com
In this episode, our host Anika Zubair chats with Sue Nabeth Moore, Co-Founder of Success Chain about the future of customer success.
As we approach the end of the year, it's crucial to begin strategizing for customer success in 2024. Despite the hurdles we've encountered recently, we must now pave the way for a successful year ahead. So, what should be the key focus areas for customer success in 2024? And how can we strike the perfect balance between customer ROI and fostering business growth?
Podcast enquiries: sofia@planhat.com
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Speaker 2:Hello everyone. I'm your host, Anika Bert , 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 CS organization. Today I'm speaking to Sue Namath Moore , who is a community builder, entrepreneur, and consultant. She's passionate about helping companies sees leaders and teams evolve in the customer success process. She's the co-founder of Success Chain , a customer success enablement consultancy. Today, we will be looking back and speaking about the future of customer success. As we wrap up 2023, it's time to plan our next year of growth and strategy within customer success. The last few years have been a bumpy ride in customer success, but as we look forward and plan for 2024, there is growth and opportunity ahead. Let's chat to Sue about her thoughts around customer success planning for 2024. Sue, welcome to the podcast. I'm so very excited to have you here with us today. Before we jump into our topic for today, can you please tell our listeners a little bit more about yourself and how you started in customer success and how you've ended up where you are today?
Speaker 3:Yes. Well, first of all , thanks Ika for your invitation, and I can't wait to see you again in person on the CSS circuit as we're just talking about. So for those that dunno me, I'm called Sue Abbit more . I'm a passionate evangelist of customer success here in Europe. As you can gather, I'm British. I'm originally from a place called Darby, which is in the middle of, of the uk, but I've been living in Paris now for, I don't say over 30 years, <laugh> , where I'm married with my French husband. I have three French sons, and I'm only the misfit in all that I think I, I speak fluent French and a lot of people say still with a very funny accent, <laugh>
Speaker 2:<laugh> .
Speaker 3:So anyway, they say it's farming, so I'm just gonna continue to do that. And the co-founder of Success Chain , which is , which is a company which helps , um, companies either to put into place or to fine tune their customer success strategies and operations. So I'm the co-founder along with Jason Whitehead and Kelly Lucas. I'm like Hugh Akai . I'm passionate about bringing together the community. So I've been organizing for the last seven years , uh, customer Success Meetup in Paris, and it's there where we hold regular meetups, which are now hosted by different companies. I also lived in Lisbon for a couple of years , uh, just before Covid hit , and was organizing regular meetups there as, as well for, for a couple of years. I'm also the co-founder of Engage Paris, which is a French speaking customer success summit. I think it's one of the rare customer success summits in the world, which is not in English that takes place every year. So we're organizing our fifth , uh, edition for next June. And I also, I used to love , uh, contributing to events and podcasts like this , uh, where I can share my passion, share my learnings, because I think we're all learning all the time in customer success. Uh, it's never ending . It's a wonderful profession. And just on a personal note, yeah, I just love spending time with my friends, having drinks and cooking and , uh, being with my three sons. And I love traveling and going to visit historic places and castles and just eating great food and drinking excellent wine , making
Speaker 2:Amazing. I also love the expat story, Sue, as an expat myself, I haven't been in the UK as long as you've been in Paris, but it is something that I always think about with the accent. It confuses everyone that I'm here and then I have an American accent, but they're like, you're in London, why do you have that accent ? And I'm sure that has never gone away for you living in Paris, and still you have an English accent, although I wouldn't say it's that strong, but I guess everyone there definitely hears the English more than the French, so I hear that
Speaker 3:<laugh>. That's right. You know, and it's, it's , it's, it's weird actually, because, you know, some people find it , uh, surprising. I've been living here so long and still do have this lousy English accent when I'm speaking French <laugh> <laugh> . But, but I , I , you know, I think it's a question of how old you are. You know, if had I come here as a kid, I probably would've lost my lousy English accents. I think it's, you know, it's , it's all in your mind. And, and probably in the gymnastics of growing up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. I would say the same. Yeah,
Speaker 3:That's my way of consoling myself. So <laugh>,
Speaker 2:<laugh> , no, I say the same. I'm like, I lived the majority of my life in the US but also I grew up there and that's what I knew when learning language, how to speak. So that is the way it'll probably stick no matter how long I stay in England. <laugh> . Um , but a little bit more into the customer success side of things. I know you're super passionate about everything in customer success. From the events, from co-founding your own business, from bringing the community together, as you already stated, what actually inspired you to start work in customer success? I speak to so many leaders and professionals in css, and I think we all have such unique journeys, and I absolutely love that about our profession. And I would love to hear your unique story of what inspired you in customer success. Yeah,
Speaker 3:I agree with you Annika, and I was really inspired to do customer success even before I'd heard the term. In fact, just to tell the story, I've been in software now since the very first CRM started in Europe. So that's going back like the turn of the millennium, you know, which, which makes me sound really anxious . <laugh>, we , we first started to see Salesforce arrive in France around 20 years ago. And at that time I, I was a project manager for, for Salesforce. And I just observed back then the massive non adoption of Salesforce. Um , I probably think it's still probably the case even now, 20 years later, to be honest. And , and that's when I first started to become interested in change management. And so I pivoted my career at that time to become a change management consultant, mainly for CRMs. And it was at that time when I was also working for a French integrator and we were implementing and integrating lots of different kinds of software. Not just CRMs, but business intelligence tools, MDMs, intranets, HR Systems. And back then our , our company was pivoting and they, they had a new logo and a new baseline called Driving Distinction at that time. And it was then that I proposed to my CEO , I said, look, you know, if we really want to drive in distinction and walk the talk of , of this new baseline, then we really must put something into place to make sure that we actually are doing something different from our competitors. So that's why I suggested to him to put into place a whole new offer, which was on top of the integration offers where we could actually focus on going beyond the go live for our customers and start to really talk about tangible results and outcomes as a result of their investment. So this is where the CEO , he gave me his blessing. He said, go ahead, Sue, go and do it. So I became an intrapreneur at that integrator, and I, I put into place a whole new transversal offer for the company, which really did differentiate us because, you know, I was, I was putting in this offer, which was a combination, it was a blended offer between change management and customer success. And which had the aim of getting our customers once they'd done their integrated go live to go beyond that. So we actually had a team of 10 people, which, which I , um, hired to, to do that. So at the time, <laugh> , I remember it was a real struggle to try and think of a name because, you know, that was back, that was 13 years ago. And we'd never heard of customer success then, particularly in France, you know, so at the time, I , I called this offer, it's funny, actually, I called it the BBC <laugh>
Speaker 2:<laugh> . I'm guessing it isn't the British Broadcasting Company. And it has a different neat meaning
Speaker 3:<laugh> , you are right, <laugh> . So it absolutely has nothing to do with top gear , nothing to do with match of the Day. And it was an acronym, you're right, Anika , it meant boosting business change. That was the B, B , C . And you know, in hindsight , um, <laugh> , when you think, you know, when you're trying to tell people what you do as a profession, you say, I'm in customer success. And you see the reaction of people saying, oh, you know, that sounds interesting. I think it would be much better if we said, <laugh>, I'm a business booster. I think that translates <laugh> .
Speaker 2:Oh, that is an even better name than customer happiness. 'cause I feel like I get that all the time when you say, oh, I'm in customer success. So you're in customer happiness, but business booster also sounds like a great way to put it.
Speaker 3:I think. So I think it translate nicely what we're trying to say in a very long kind , usually a longwinded explanation of what we're doing in customer success.
Speaker 2:No, but what you just said around change management, I think that happens every day in customer success. And I think it's very underrated. And like you said, with the evolution of Salesforce, but all the, also the evolution of us moving from on-premise to SaaS businesses, there was so much change management that happened there, and it was understood because we were actually physically changing from being on-prem to Cloud-based. But we do that every single day in customer success. Change management is something we're doing internally, externally with key stakeholders. You name it. I just feel like we do it all the time. And your fun way of saying we're B, B , C or boosting business change that is so accurate. I think that that's a great way of putting it. And I know that you have quite a few other things to share around our topic today, which at the time of us recording this, it is coming to the end of 2023, and we are moving into 2024. So I definitely wanna talk to you about what your thoughts are as we move into the new year. But before we actually talk about the future, we've had a lot of change in the last few years in customer success. And the last few years have been a rocky road in customer success as well. I don't ever think CSS has been easy, but the last few years have definitely tested a lot of businesses, a lot of CSS leaders. Um, what is your take on what's happened in customer success over the last few years?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that , that's spot on Anika , and I think , uh, you know , we've been through a real rollercoaster ride, I think o over the last few years. And we've certainly seen that, you know, from the different events that we, we've taken part in , uh, especially on the London scene as well. For me, that the biggest break I think was back in 2020. You know, we're right in the midst of covid, and although Covid, it was a catastrophe for, for the world, I think that Covid actually puts customer success on the map. Definitely.
Speaker 2:I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I , I mean, we , we speak to a lot of , uh, CSS leaders on a regular basis, and a lot of them told me, you look, you know, since Covid, they, they've been seen and perceived internally at their company as being strategic and no longer just a fifth wheel of the wagon, right? So it really helped 'em to put 'em on a pedestal. So I think that, you know, going through tough times, like, like Covid companies really had to pivot, you know, obviously it was very difficult to gain new customers, particularly in certain impacted markets like hospitality and travel. So covid, you know, it , it helped us to really focus on, you know, how to retain and probably even to expand by offering different services during those, those covid times. I also think another result of covid was the heavy investments in SaaS generally. Um , so there were huge investments made as a , as a result of covid just to keep us all connected, you know, and keep us all collaborating and working together, you know, working from home with working solutions, remote education solutions for, for children and , and students. So as a result of that, you know, with this increase in SaaS, there was also an increase in the profession of customer success going back in 2020 as we're coming outta Covid, we're seeing this increase in, in the CSS roles across the globe, you know, and if I just compare with last year and you saw the job market, you know, the job market this time last year was exploding. And it's something which I look at regularly because I, I regularly communicate at this, at the different meetups and events. However, what we've seen in the past year 2023 is sad, you know, because we've seen all these massive layoffs, particularly in customer success, where we've seen lots of CSS leaders and even practitioners and even whole teams have been laid off. And I think this is a result of the recession in , in the us you know, we see particularly us that's been impacted by, by these layoffs, but this has had a kind of snowboard effect, particularly in the uk, which is a bit like the 53rd state of United States <laugh> , so <laugh>. So they've had that kind of ricochet effect. Uh, we haven't seen that so much here in France because of the protection laws, you know, for, for the job markets . Yeah. So with all these layoffs, you know, just in the tech sector alone, I was reading an article, they're saying like something like just , just this year, 168,000 people have been laid off just in tech. You know, obviously not all that . That's crazy. That's crazy,
Speaker 2:Right? That is such , that's such a heartbreaking number. And like you said, the CSS world has yo yoed so much over the last three years. It was at the highest high when we got a seat at the table because everyone was realizing in the pandemic that it's better and cheaper to keep a customer rather than acquire a new one. And then the cash influx from the VC or the capital world resulted in, you know, higher at all cost . And CSS was seen as, like you said, up on a pedestal and they were just so important. And it was great to see that, but now there was such a crash and it's so heartbreaking to see the layoffs continue to happen. And I think it's something that we have to take into consideration as we plan for 2024 and as CSS leaders that are currently thinking about their budgeting or their planning, or maybe coming to the end of it and thinking of what should we focus on going into the new year, knowing what we know for the last three years. I think it's a tough question to answer and I think it's something that we're figuring out, but I know you have some really strong feelings about what the future of CSS is, and I'd love to hear from you what you think as a CSS leader, someone should be focusing on knowing what we know, but also looking forward. Yeah,
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And , and I think within this context and, and this historical kind of lead up to, to where we are now, we've just been talking about Annika , I think that we are really facing a dilemma in customer success. And I still think we're struggling to position the role of customer success as a growth engine. So I would say, you know, view to this rollercoaster experience we've had over the , over the last three years, is the time that we should really be focusing on how to position customer success as a growth engine. So how do we prove value of customer success internally to our companies, thanks to driving value to the customer. So I really think, you know, in , in the hindsight of all these layoffs, you know, we're still, as you just said, ed , we're still going through , uh, very difficult times. And I think that customer success in these difficult times is still perceived as nice to have. It's still perceived at this cost center, which we can easily dismiss. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative> . Mm-Hmm <affirmative> . So this is what we should be changing. And I think, you know, I'm always using this term where we need to really focus customer success as being a earn booster. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> and no longer this legacy of being a churn buster.
Speaker 2:Ooh , another play on words. I'm loving all these things, Sue earn booster rather than churn buster. Yeah , <laugh>
Speaker 3:And of the time, you know, when , when I'm saying companies putting customer success into place, it's a reactionary measure to bust churn . And
Speaker 2:I think that's a historical fact. If you think about it. I mean, customer success is an evolution in SaaS, but if you take it well back, we fall into customer service or support or in the way of something's wrong, let's fix it. And that's usually at the cost to a company rather than thinking of a profitable part of the business. So it is coming back to what you said about change management. A very big thing a CSS leader has to focus on is not only how do you position yourself as a growth engine, but how are you going to influence other business leaders within your business to really understand how customer success is actually that growth lever rather than the cost center like you just said. And it is a tough time, and for anyone who's listening that's going through any layoffs or thinking about how I'm gonna go into 2024, my personal view is that CSS always comes back stronger no matter what we've been put through. I, I feel like looking historically, we, we tend to come back stronger. And we do do that because I think we're a very resilient bunch and we are constantly thrown everything. 'cause CSMs have to do everything under the sun sometimes, and because of that we are very resilient. But being this growth engine is, is something that I think is not new, but it's something that is hard to put into practice as you've just, you know, said we're , we're known as churn busters rather than the revenue piece. So if I was a CSS leader, thinking about going into growth into 2024, what are some of the KPIs I should focus on? What are some of the, I guess, change management I should be doing to change that wording around from, from being a churn buster into the, into the revenue piece? Yeah,
Speaker 3:I , I think as, as a customer success leader, I think what what's really important is, is to know how to tell compelling stories to the rest of the company. So the other leaders that you just mentioned, but also your, your C-suite and how to join the tops between the activities which you and your team are doing in customer success and how this impacts the revenue and the margins of your company. You know, sales leaders, they've been doing this with their eyes closed for, for years, you know, <laugh> , it's probably <laugh> , it's probably easy for salespeople because, you know, they have relatively simple KPIs, you know, their KPIs, okay. They have a quota to, to go and sell. So it's very simple. When you look at cs, you know, we have a whole plethora of different KPIs. There are many different ones that we could be using. But for me, what's really important is, is for a CSS leader to really tell the story with, for me, there were four sets of KPIs which a CSS leader should be using, right? And I think in order to do the storytelling with those four sets of KPIs, it's necessary to join the dots. So what are those four sets of KPIs? I think ideally in, in a SaaS company at least, you know, everybody's talking about the NRR, right ? As , as , as a main indicator for me, I think the NRR is is not a css, KPI, this should be a company-wide, KPI, to which everybody contributes in the company . All functional roles, including the CSS role, of course, right? So CSS leaders, they should have KPIs that prove that they are actually contributing to the NRR they and their teams. So what are these four KPIs? I've put them into four buckets. The first set of KPIs are all around customer outcomes. That's the first one for me. This is by far the most important leading indicators which customer success leaders should be using to prove that they are contributing to net revenue retention. And we'll be looking at some of those later on . The second set are , are the , the vendor business KPIs that prove that the CSS team is actually contributing to the bottom line and to the NR . The third are KPIs around adoption and health scoring. And the fourth are team performance KPIs. But I'd like to focus on the first two really more than anything , uh, because I think that's what's gonna make the difference about becoming this growth engine. So for me, the first one is , is the time to time to value, the first time to value what constitutes the first aha moment of gain and progress , uh, for the customer. Some companies are measuring the first time to value, others are still struggling. But beyond the first time to value, we also need to put into place KPIs which measure incremental value after that first time to value.
Speaker 2:Yes. Oh, I so agree on that. I, I'm nodding my head viciously. I know no one can see me, but I feel like we focus so long , much on time to launch, or time to live, or time to first value, like you said, but it is so much more than that. It is the full lifetime of the customer being with you and making sure they see value at incremental moments like you've just said. So, completely agree.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And because that is quite difficult to do, you know, it's not an easy task. So, so I think, you know , as a consequence of that , uh, in custom success, we've, we've been ignoring that , uh, because it's difficult. So any , anything that's difficult, you tend to put your head in the sand. And I think that's where we are now, and we , that's what we need to change in , that we need to put into place frameworks, data, and you know, we , we have facility for that now with artificial intelligence, and I'll come to that a little bit later, but it's really important that we start to come out of our shell about that and really start to put stuff into place, which makes it easy for your customers to measure tangible results. Right,
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 3:Another one is the detection of promoters. I mean , I know that, you know, every, every time we talk about NPS in customer success, it's, it's like the more might effect, you either hate it or you love it. <laugh>
Speaker 2:<laugh> , it's the most controversial topic in customer success. <laugh> .
Speaker 3:It's , I mean , we could do a whole podcast on that, but
Speaker 2:No, I , I think we could write an entire thesis on it. Like I think the , the amount of controversy that one KPI can cause in customer success, we could go on for years about the topic of NPS.
Speaker 3:Exactly. But what I think is really important is that in , in customer success, though , we're actually actioning, you know , the, the detection of promoters. So any promoters that we're detecting through NPS, you know, this is something which we can be really leveraging and making sure that this is one of the KPIs. You know, we detected so many promoters that then become advocates and detecting advocates and actually doing stuff with ad advocates, you know, making them advocate on your behalf, making referrals, et cetera, et cetera . We can measure that. And that's a great KPI, which we should be measuring. I think at Success Chain , which is my company, we've also started to implement other very customer centric KPIs, which are now customer success leaders, but also their teams to measure customer outcomes from the perspective of the different types of customer contacts, which you are having conversations with. So, you know, you're , a lot of the times CS we're having conversations with stakeholders, the decision makers . So we put into place a whole KPI, which measures, okay, what is the value perception score as a result of their investment? So asking stakeholders, it's a bit like the NPS, but it's, it's what we call VPSA value perception score, which measures, okay, are you getting value as a result of your investment for the users? We're , we're implementing , uh, a similar thing. We call it the G, the GPS job perception score, which, which this time , uh, evaluates whether the actual end users are getting value and whether it's actually helping them do their jobs better. Mm-Hmm .
Speaker 2:Which is, again, the value piece is so critical, I think, in everything we do in customer success. And a lot of times, I, I believe NPS doesn't measure that value piece and that's really hard to track. But like you just said, the value perception score is how much value are you getting out of this product? This call, this interaction, whatever it is, is so, so important. And I think these are all great KPIs and I think as a leader, there's lots of things you can focus on going into 2024, and I think there's a lot of levers that can be pulled to focus on growth, but you do have to make that connection between how am I driving value for my customers while driving revenue for my business? I think that's a very big bridging gap that as leaders we have to tactfully and regularly tackle when it comes to our role in 2024 as CSS growth engine. So I love a lot of what you've shared there on what we can do. On the flip side though, if I'm A CSM, a lot of times a cs M'S mindset is being proactive or trying to be proactive, but our actions end up being quite reactive. So what are some of the ways that A CSM can move away from being churn focused and more customer value and outcomes focused ? 'cause we are always firefighting. It's a natural, it's a natural thought in a CSMs head. Yeah,
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And , and I think that's it. You know, we're like a , a hamstring, a wheel of trying to <laugh> trying to, to solve problems all the time . So I think the first thing for A-A-C-S-M to become more proactive and , and to be more focused on values and outcomes as, as opposed to being this churn buster I is to really try and have conversations with the customers which are focused on value and outcomes. Now, that's not always easy because, you know, the customer a lot of the times tends to orientate the conversation towards things , uh, which he can see the tangible things which he can see in the tool. So he is talking about features and bells and whistles. 'cause that's the emerged parts of the iceberg, which everybody can see. So it becomes like a comfort zone, you know, to be talking about bells and whistles and features and functionalities because that's the shared part of the emerged iceberg, which everybody sees, right? So I think one of the responsibilities of the CSM to become more proactive is to try and orientate the conversation to start talking about matters and, and , and themes which are in the submerged part of the iceberg. So the submerged part of the iceberg, what we're talking about is the intangible aspects such as human behavior routines, change management processes, which maybe have to be changed as a consequence of , um, implementing your tool. You know, you never, you never implement a tool and it's a standalone thing where you're just pressing buttons. A tool is al also part of a context, and that context is the business context. So customer success managers need to proactively better understand that business context and to see how the tool is actually camouflaged within that context. Um, so that's, that's one thing. And obviously elevating the conversation. Another thing that we, we have put into place so that CSMs can become more proactive at success chain is our framework. So we have a framework which we call A MPM , which, which literally translators, yeah, morning and afternoon of course <laugh>. And by the laws of nature, you can never go to the afternoon if you haven't gone through the morning. And A MPM means activity measurements, performance measurements. And what we're doing with this framework is mapping out based on the different performance measurements, so meaning the customer outcomes, what would the, the different users and even stakeholders need to do in terms of activity and how can they measure that activity . So there's a correlation between activity measurement and there can be several different activities and in order to get to a performance measurement, so just to rize this, this framework, I always use the analogy of a coach, a gym coach. So just to give you an example of this, A MPM framework, just to, to give you analogy of the gym coach, imagine , uh, that you are a persona who wants to lose 10 kilos. Well, this is not, imagine this is real life for me, losing my 10 kilos, right? <laugh>, that's the performance goal that we should be measuring as whether or not we're gonna be losing these 10 kilos and order to get there. We have activity measurements, which we're also going to be measuring. So the activity measurement for losing these 10 kilos will be to run six kilometers three times a week. It could be to consume no more than 2000 calories per day. It could be to work in a gym twice a week and sleep at least seven hours per night, for example, to make sure we're losing those, those 10 kilos. So the same applies for B2B world. You know, obviously if you are a BDR persona for example, and you are using a lead generation tool, then your performance could be, okay, how to increase my conversion rate by 2%. So then you would decline that performance objective into different activities, which you as a , a proactive CSM are then recommending your customer, your end user to do in order to attain that 2% conversion rate . And that's something which you can measure within the tool. If we're talking about tool adoption, obviously you have that data already, but it's also something which you can raise mutual expectations about with your customer so that they become transparent and, and that they are motivated to share that information with you when it's something which is not obvious within the tool, for example.
Speaker 2:That makes complete sense. And I think that having those drivers that connect what your customer's values are to the business revenue part is so, so important. And I think a lot of times it's not spelled out for customer success managers. And as leaders, I would encourage you to spell it out, just like you've done with the gym analogy. It's okay, here is NRR is our North star metric. Amazing. We're gonna make sure we're increasing revenue and reducing churn. Okay, but how are we getting there? Where are the key indicators or what are the key actions that I would need to take as a customer success manager to do those steps? It needs to be broken down as simply as what you just said with the gym analogy, which I think we sometimes forget. We get so caught up in the business or business as usual topics of, yes, we need to increase revenue or yes, we need to reduce churn, but how, what is the step by step guide on how you do it? Which is another question I do have for you is how do you drive value or ROI for your customers and make sure you connect it back to business growth. Because I think in CSS it's considered a dirty word that we're upselling, but I don't think that has to happen in a specific call. I think we drive value in all the calls we do. So how are you taking everything we just talked about frameworks and outlining that internally and then making sure as a CSM you're having those rightful conversations with your customer that's giving them their outcomes, but driving growth for your business.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it , it is and I think it , it becomes a bit of a taboo subject. You know , we're talking about upsell, it's still a taboo subject, but no, I think we, we need to have those very open and transparent , uh, conversations right up front with our customers. So the customers, you know, you know that we're, we're here to help you make business as a customer and as a consequence, this will also help us to grow our business, not just from a financial point of view, but also from a point of view of perfecting the offers that we are actually going to be proposing to you as a customer. So it really is this kind of , uh, viral spiral of, of win-win growth where instead of us being two entities, you know, the customer and the vendor, it's almost as if we're becoming one, you know, because we're helping each other. I scratch you back your back, you scratch my back. It's this kind of viral spiral of health and wealth. And I think to, to join the dots between the ROI and the value of the customer and how this is growing your business, I think you really need to put into place those indicators, which we've just been talking about, and make sure that you have dashboards which can actually connect the dots between the customer outcomes and ROI and how that is becoming a leading indicator, which is actually forecasting the future growth of your business. So you should be putting those dashboards into place to show that correlation and to show, you know, we're talking about leading and lagging indicators. And for me at the moment, I think in the world of customer success, we are still using leading indicators, which are very vendor centric, very negative, you know, using churn a lots , which is in , in itself a lagging indicators , not even leading indicator. So I think we need to revise the whole set of leading indicators that we're using to make that correlation with the bottom line. And I think, and the best call for that is to start putting into place leading indicators around customer outcomes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I totally agree. 'cause there is a lot of lagging indicators in customer success, especially even NRRI know it is our north star metric, but it is a lagging indicator because you have to look back in order to predict it. And we should be able to look forward to predict our revenue, our outcomes, and our customer value . So it is something to go back to the drawing board and think as leaders and see as professionals of how this looks moving into 2024 so we can position ourselves correctly as that growth part of the business. Now Sue, we've talked a lot about different things, different levers, different ways that you can position yourself to be that growth engine going into 2024, but I think some of our listeners would want to know some of your learnings or tactical takeaways of anything you've learned when walking the fine line between customer ROI and business growth. Because again, it's almost a dirty word to say, Hey, we need to focus on the revenue and the sales or the profit because we're, we're customer relationship people. But I would love to know what are some of your learnings around walking that fine line between ROI and business growth.
Speaker 3:Maybe we even need to redefine, you know, what, what we mean by business growth. Because if we're still having this as, as you say , this kind of association of this being kind of a , a taboo subject because you know, we're talking about finance, we're talking about money, then I think we need to redefine, you know , what we're doing in customer success . Because I , I think it's really important to understand that customer success is about business. It's not just about relationship building. Relationship building is a means to an end, but the end is, is to make business and business is not necessarily a dirty thing. You know, <laugh> business is , is the way that the world has always , uh, ticked. And so we can just can continue to do that, but in a way which is, let's say holistically beneficial for both the vendor and the customers. It's probably the first time in business that we've had this privilege of working together, right? So that's the first thing, the learnings that I've had, because it's not easy to do. Everything we're talking about of course is not easy, but the learnings that I've had in , in putting all this into place is that vendors should really make the effort to propose this mapping of tangible KPIs for the customer and the vendor to measure. And I think, you know, because up until now we've been finding it difficult, so it's a bit of burying the head in the sand. Um, so what we need to do is we need to really put into place this whole framework , uh, by rolling up our sleeves. So we need to do a lot of work beforehand. Like, you know, I mentioned the A MPM . That is something which takes time. You know, you really need to do a lot of research about your customers, whether it's interviewing them, whether it's doing research, you know, about market research, about, you know, what are the pain points for your tick particular personas. And then when you've done that, that work and it is, it is a heavy lifting to do that, that then becomes easy for you to, every time you have a new customer that you are onboarding, it's very easy because, you know, if you ask the question to your customer, okay, what does success look like? They probably won't be able to answer. And a lot of the times they dunno how to articulate that, right? It's probably not the right person even that you're speaking to. So if you can be proactive and have this framework say, look, you know, customers like you in the same vertical as you, they're , they're already doing this and this is what they're measuring and after three months of doing this, that, and the other, this is where they get to in terms of outcome, right? So you can do that and and, and make sure that it's something which is easy and tangible and take it in bite-sized steps so that, you know, as we said earlier, you know, you have your first time to value, but then because of this framework you can know that after the first six months you can attain another value, which, which is even more impactful than the first time to value. And so you go on along the customer journey. I
Speaker 2:Love all those pieces. I think they're so, so important to remember that it's about the first step, but it's also building on the frameworks that you've just built. And I think that that's a big part of what we have to do moving into 2024 and planning for 2024 is looking at the frameworks that we do have, but readjusting and making sure that we take step by step progress on building out that growth engine based on what we have. We don't have to start from scratch, like you said, you , we already have very strong frameworks, but it's about positioning, it's about making sure you have growth levers and leading indicators rather than lagging indicators. And I think all of that is what we have to build on to make sure 24 starts with success.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And I think, you know, 'cause the, the indicators, the leading and lagging indicators that we've spoken about is really important. But I think as well that , that I think there's another kind of taboo subject in the world of customer success and I think that's being vocal about what you are doing and the impact that you're having on your company. I , I've seen so many CS leaders, I dunno if it's , um, due to modesty perhaps, but I think we should shout really loudly about the impact that we're having, you know, so every time you have a wonderful customer testimonial or customer that said, you know, they're getting value or whatever it is , then that's something we should communicate about internally regularly .
Speaker 2:I, I do agree. I think it's something we don't shout about enough and we definitely should do more. So if that's on anyone's to-do list for 2024, make sure you highlight what you as a leader, but also what your department is doing, what your individual contributors are doing, just what you are doing to move the needle forward in customer success within your business. I love that. I do love that. Sue, thank you so much for sharing all of your insights with us today. There are so many notes I've taken, I love all your play on words. They are the best <laugh> . I would love to wrap up our session today with our quickfire questions, which is typical where I ask a few questions and I'm going to challenge you to try to answer them in one sentence or less . Are you ready?
Speaker 3:Had to be hard <laugh> .
Speaker 2:Alright , my first question for you is, what do you think is next for the customer success industry
Speaker 3:For the future? I think we really need to anchor this positioning as a , an earned booster and no longer as a churn buster.
Speaker 2:I love it and I completely agree. And the next question is, which SaaS product can you not live without as a CSS professional? Zoom,
Speaker 3:<laugh>.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true. <laugh> very, very critical part of our day. And the next one is, what is your favorite CSS learning resource
Speaker 3:That's gonna be difficult in one sentence, <laugh> <laugh> , there are many out there, you know, the different forms, the Slack channels, the , the Customer Success Association. But I have to say, I think say one of the best resources is if you go to the meetups and the events, for me, that's the greatest source of learning because you can have long conversations and understanding and, you know, different , uh, meetings and networking. And I think that's, that's the, the best kind of interaction that we can have
Speaker 2:Agreed. I think the online digital interactions, whether they're calls, whether they're group interactions, whether they're just forums, they're all great. But I think you really find your people that are going through similar either learning curve with you or they're going through growing pains within their business, within customer success and you have similar growing pains, you usually get those type of interactions when you are meeting in person. So I think it's so important to, to be at those events too. Absolutely. Amazing. And my last question for you today is, who is inspiring you in customer success or whom should we have as our next podcast guest ?
Speaker 3:Well, the obvious answer is you Anika for that <laugh> .
Speaker 2:That is so sweet . Thanks Sue . I would love to be the guest , uh, and the host of my own podcast. We could switch
Speaker 3:Roles . We could switch roles, Monika, that would be great. Yeah , <laugh>.
Speaker 2:Aw , thank you Sue. That is so kind. And if any of our listeners have any other questions or wanna follow up with you or speak to you directly about some of the topics that we talked about today, what is the best way to get ahold of you? Right.
Speaker 3:So you, you can follow me on LinkedIn. I'm a, I'm a regular user of LinkedIn, so please connect with me on LinkedIn. You can follow also success chain . We have a a LinkedIn success chain page and I'll be happy to, to meet you, have a little chat. I'm always pleased to , to chat with like-minded CSM, so that'd be great.
Speaker 2:Amazing. Thank you again, Sue, for your time.
Speaker 3:Thank you Anika. It's been a wonderful and see you soon on the CSS circuit. Yes.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to the Customer Success Channel podcast today. We hope you learn 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.