This podcast episode marks a special moment as Anika Zubair wraps up her four-year hosting journey on the Customer Success Channel podcast.
The exciting news is that we're welcoming our very own, Malin Skoglund, VP of Customer Success Americas, who will be stepping in as the new host.
Listen to the full episode now and learn more about the future of our podcast.
Podcast enquiries: sofia@planhat.com
This podcast episode marks a special moment as Anika Zubair wraps up her four-year hosting journey on the Customer Success Channel podcast.
The exciting news is that we're welcoming our very own, Malin Skoglund, VP of Customer Success Americas, who will be stepping in as the new host.
Listen to the full episode now and learn more about the future of our podcast.
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.
Speaker 3:Today
Speaker 2:Is a special episode because today is the last time I will be hosting the Customer Success Channel podcast. It has been an amazing four years of hosting this podcast, but all good things must come to an end. But the good news is that there will be a new host of this podcast moving forward. I am very excited to introduce Molin Scottland , who is a seasoned executive with 15 years of leadership experience in B2B SaaS. She is our guest today and I'm really excited to dive into her experience and showcase her as our next guest. And as my last guest on this podcast, she has worked in sales and in customer success, leading teams ranging from 10 to over hundreds of members, managing revenue growth worth tens of millions of dollars with deep experience in various market segments, including SMB Mid-Market and Enterprise. Mullin's leadership style is results driven and focused on operational excellence, proudly born and raised in Sweden. She now resides in New York City with her husband and two daughters, and she is going to be our next host. So I am excited to dive in today's podcast and interview my last guest for this podcast. Hi Malin , welcome to the podcast. I'm so very excited to have you on this very special episode today and talk to you a little bit more. But before we jump into our topic and get more deep into this podcast, it would be great for you to tell us a little bit more about who you're, and let our listeners know who it's you're.
Speaker 3:Yes, hi Annika. Thank you so much. I'm very, very excited to be here. My name is Marlin , uh, but after , uh, spending the last 13 years in the US I respond to basically anything that starts with an MI take no offense in any mispronunciations. I'm based in New York City and I've spent my whole career 15 years basically in commercial roles in in B2B SaaS. And I started as a sales rep. It wasn't called anything as fancy as, you know, account executive back then. And then I kind of have worked my way up from there. I've been in leadership roles for a long time now. I've run teams from, you know, five to 10 people, up to over a hundred people responsible for, you know , tens of millions of , of dollars of a RR . And I'm really a true operator. I'm very passionate about tech and sas. I love sales and I love cs . Then yeah, I work at Plant Hats , <laugh> .
Speaker 2:Amazing. Thank you so much for giving us a brief insight into who you're and what you've been up to . I love always asking CS Leaders trajectory into where they find themselves today, because no one has any similar route . Everyone has a very, very unique route . And I also come from a sales background, so I love speaking to other revenue leaders on the podcast, but I know you weren't quite cross-functionally as well within Plan Hat . I think in general Plan Hat being a startup and Scale Up , there's a lot of different teams, a lot of different people, a lot of different processes that you guys are building and doing, and because of that you work quite cross-functionally. How does this work currently at Plan Hat ? How do you work with different teams? How does CS kind of mix and move between the different teams at Plan Hat ?
Speaker 3:It's such an interesting question because this is something that we spend a lot of time at Plan Head thinking about and and , and talking about too, honestly, and at plan really, you know, all functions are focused on how to get, grow and retain customers in the best way. We try not to think about CS as too much of a department or a function. We think that everyone is doing cs because I think sometimes, you know, putting all responsibility of your customer and all information about your customer in one department is maybe sometimes, you know, the best way to make sure that there's not too much cross-functional ownership of the customer or that the organization is truly customer focused . And I think if you wanna be customer focused , which you know, everyone says that, that they do, right? It's extremely important to see us . And all the data that you have about your customers is not siloed. It's important. I think that, you know, the whole organization has insight into everything that's going on with your customers and that the ownership and you know, sadly, sometimes that also means the blame when something goes wrong doesn't sit squarely with the CS team. So we really like to think of CS as, you know, more than just a function. We think. We like to think of it as something that, you know, everyone has responsibility for the customer and everyone is involved with the customer, you know, from product to sales and marketing, you name it.
Speaker 2:I love that. I also think that is a great philosophy to have within business in general. And I think that customer success is really the beating heart of every organization and everyone should be contributing to making sure that heart keeps beating in a healthy and happy way. So yeah, I think that's great that you guys use ownership and share ownership across all departments. Like you said, sometimes the blame can end up with the customer team, but really it's up to everyone to make sure that the customer is successful. So it's really awesome that you guys are living and breathing that philosophy across multiple teams, like you already mentioned. I think a lot of people today, especially in this economy , are very concerned around how customer success fits into the wider org , but if it should also be either a revenue generating function now coming from sales, and I'm thinking you also coming from sales probably heavily agree with this, but do you think CS should be a revenue generating function? Like how would you factor in customer success metrics into wider business metrics?
Speaker 3:This has been a , you know, kind of a big discussion in cs I think lately. And I think it really depends , uh, right, because I think CS is kind of a different thing almost at every company. And what it needs to be, I think differs a lot because of things like the product or product market fit stickiness, a whole range of your bus business specific things. And I think that that's a bit of a problem in and of itself , uh, that, you know , all other departments or most other departments are very clearly defined, but CS is a little bit new and people have done kind of different things with it in different organizations. And I think that's actually what the CS identity crisis is coming from because I think it, it is very hard to say in general, okay, this is exactly how CS should be done. You know, for example, if you need a ton of, you know, product delivery support, more like ProServe type services and that's the bulk of, you know, what your CS organization is doing for the business , uh, you know, to retain and grow customers, then, you know, maybe it should be a COGS or whatnot. But I'm, you know, leaning more towards what you were saying too, Annika , like with nine outta 10 products, probably you also need someone to help your customers stay and grow with everything that that entails. Stakeholder relationships, renewing and upselling customers. And in some organizations, you know, sales are doing that and some organizations that's cs, some call account management, renewals teams, you , you name it, right? And my thought is, is , uh, you know, pretty aligned with yours. And again, my thought is very colored by my background and, and how I've run my CS organizations and maybe, you know, me as a person who loves sales as well, but I think that CS should own, you know , all post sales revenue. I think it becomes very aimless if the work that CS does is to ensure that the customer stays and grows, but they don't have much or any at all really insight into what that number even is. I also don't like CS people saying that it hurts the relationship to talk about money or renewals or upsells or CSMs are scared to be viewed as, you know, too commercial because I think, you know, this is , this is business. The whole thing is about someone paying money for your software. So I'm a bit allergic to , to some of those arguments. And to me, similar to you, Annika , like CS is the heroes of the organizations. They're, they're the lifeblood , they're the people who drive and own the NRR, which as you know, is one of the most important metrics in SaaS. CSMs work relentlessly to deliver business outcomes to their customers. They keep it real with their customers. They call out bs they realize it's not about, you know, NPS or customers even necessarily being happy or having nice relationships. It's, it's about monetizable customers who, who really stick around, right? And I think it's about CSMs who ask for the business, and , uh, in my mind they're by far the best people to, you know, own , uh, all the revenue as well and upsell and renew the customer.
Speaker 2:Definitely. And I love that you said that customer success ends up being the post sales revenue part of the, and so, so rightfully so. I think a lot of people say CS is in sales , or like you said, Hey, I don't wanna talk money , or it's uncomfortable talking about revenue or any sort of money with customers , but like you said, no one's here for free. We're , we're not working for free. So that definitely means that our customers aren't expecting our product for free. So we do have to have those conversations. Now , do they have to be the sleazy sales conversations that everyone thinks is part of, of an upsell? No, not at all. I don't think that's, that's anything to do with it. I think customer success ends up forming a bridge between delivering customer outcomes, but then ensuring that those outcomes directly relate back to revenue generation for the business that you're working at. And I think that as long as customer success is around those, the two hats that you're always gonna have to wear, you're gonna have to make sure your customers are receiving value and outcomes of using your software. But ultimately it does come down to the bottom line of revenue for your business and the business that's paying your paycheck at the end of the day. So I love that you said you're allergic to people saying those things . That has to be the funniest thing a guest has said on this podcast yet. Um , so I love hearing that, but sometimes it's not easy. Tying it back to business metrics, like you said, NRR seems to be a north star metric. It seems to be the understood SaaS metric that a lot of leaders look to go towards, but sometimes that can be quite lagging or not a leading indicator. What do you think is around or the future business metric that makes sense for customer success to really be focusing on if revenue is such a critical part of customer success?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's, it's a great question and I think, you know, again, it's not one thing probably there's a lot of, you know, leading indicators in, in general that are usually tied to, you know, usage and, and things like that. I think in general what we'll see more of in the future is, you know, really hyperfocused, post-sales teams that are really, really data driven . I think we will see a lot more use of technology and AI to help people be more efficient and get that help in managing maybe simple tasks or maybe even, you know, managing some, some smaller customers. We've seen a lot of that in the last year. Uh, people are being more interested in building out a kind of a scale model or a tech touch function or whatnot. And I think we will also see a lot less of kind of breaking out the revenue ownership. Uh, we will see less , uh, you know, excuse my French bs, no health scores, you know, going around in circles doing no one any good. You know, I think overall the pressure to perform from the past year has been a bit good, honestly and needed for cs, because I think when, when funding dries up, no one can afford not to impact the bottom line anymore. And I think that's a really good thing. It pushes people not to do stuff that, you know, doesn't have any real impact . I also think that we will see more of CS not being seen as a department and more as a , you know, company-wide initiative. I think we'll see more of everyone being invested in maintaining and growing your customer from the CEO product sales team. I think in the NRR economy, not many companies will be able to afford to silo customer focus in , into a single department anymore. So I , I think that, you know, that's a shift that we'll see as
Speaker 2:Well. Yeah, I think it's all very exciting. Change is tough. Change is gonna be not easy, but like you said, this last year really did not leave any room for wiggle or error or choice. Like everyone is being hyper-focused on the bottom line and everyone is super aware that retaining and growing customers is the key skill that you need to make sure you have in your business. And that does not mean one person or one department. It means the whole business and it means how the business is gonna be shaped is very dependent on how your customers end up seeing value from your product. And it all ties back down to revenue or the bottom line and how you're growing as a business and how your customers are growing will ultimately affect again, how you look outwardly and, and what your future projections look like within business as well. But yes, it all sounds very exciting. Also challenging. I'm not gonna say that that sounds easy at all, but I think it's a good challenge. I think customer success is always up for a good challenge and the future of CS is gonna be a bright one, but a challenging one. Anything more that you would say would change ? You mentioned a few things, but anything that you would say would be the ultimate future of CS if you were to have a, a magic ball and look into it and say, this is what CS is gonna be, what would, what would your bet be on, you
Speaker 3:Know, to summarize every , everything I feel like that I've just said, but you know, more data driven and more using data and technology to be more efficient and I think revenue sitting with the post-sales team, I think we'll see more of and more of, you know, everyone at the company doing cs. I think , uh, those are the three themes that I think and, you know, hope that , that we will see more of in the future.
Speaker 2:Amazing. I think in speaking of the future, I agree with those three points, but there's also a future for this podcast and this episode is a very special one because we are transitioning and this will be a new era of customer success channel podcast. I would love to know, and I'm sure the listeners as well, what is next for the podcast and what can our listeners expect moving forward?
Speaker 3:Yes, I think that we can expect interesting thought provoking subjects and guests. We will be digging deeper into different businesses and open , uh, the pod up a little bit more to business as a whole, but still with a very clear focus on customer management. And it'll be filmed right here in New York City. The first episode will come out in March, so yeah , stay stay tuned for that. Alright , Annika, so now that the handover is , uh, officially done, I think the listeners are really interested in, in what's next for you. Um , and having been the host for so long, I think everyone is really curious to know the Annika behind the podcast a little bit more. So, so who is that? Who is Annika Behind Behind being a , a podcast host? Yeah,
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for that. It's strange to be on this side of the podcast of , uh, this podcast, but as a host for the last four years, I've also been a customer success leader for the last 12 years. And I've sat in a number of different organizations, different SaaS startups and scale ups . I have seen from zero to acquisition when it comes to the revenue piece . I have have been in an SDR role before I was an account manager, and so I have held a number of different seats and different places at within organizations, but it's always been in a customer focused or customer success role. And outside of the podcast, I'm a proud dog mom. I am based in London, England, although the accent is misleading. I think a lot of people think I'm based in the us that accent is going isn't gonna change. I always say I'm Californian, but with a British passport now. And I have enjoyed doing the podcast, but I'm so much more than that and I'm very excited to share that on today's episode.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And yeah, you you started a new Rob job recently, didn't you ? Anika tell us , um, a little bit more about that. Where are you now and and and what are you doing now since recent?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. I have started a new role. It has been a whole three months, but in startup world that could be three years. But I'm currently head of customer success at Griffin, which is a banking as a service platform. And it's a whole new space and sector for me. I have always been in B2B SaaS. I have always been focused on like SaaS products and working with other SAS customers, but for me this is the first time venturing into working at a bank and working in the FinTech space. So it's both exciting and challenging and tough and exhilarating all at once. And , uh, I'm fairly new in the role, but the company, the team is really amazing. And coming back to what you said earlier, Malin customer success or the customer is actually at the heart of everything we do. So much so that our commercial team doesn't even call it prospects. We call everyone a customer. Um, we work in the way that our product team is on all customer calls. The customer success team actually is part of the product organization, so it is a , uh, very much customer says at the heart of everything we do. And, and I love being a part of that early build and really structuring that and what that's gonna mean for the future of Griffin.
Speaker 3:Wow, that's amazing. Practicing what , uh, I ire <laugh> , I preach at least that's sounds super exciting and like a great fit for you. So what does your team look like there? And I, I know you're still, you know , fairly new. What are your , do you have any kind of big goals for 2024 or anything else that you're, you've set out to do here fairly ear early on in , in the role?
Speaker 2:It's super exciting. I am first in customer success at Griffin. They wanted to bring in a leader to make sure that they had someone that's gonna structure what the future of the customer journey and customer success and the full customer experience would look like. I'm hiring , uh, the first CSM at the moment, so that is also happening, which is super exciting. But we are early in our journey when it comes to launch and, and customers. We have only a select few customers that we have in a beta launch that's going live in a , in a few weeks here. So for us, we are just very early days, early stage startup . We are , uh, we have very aggressive goals for 2024 and, you know, are , are on that rocket ship journey and trajectory and making sure that we not only acquire and, and sign the right customers, but they see success with us for years to come because we are actually building a product alongside of them. So it's, it's truly exciting to be that early stage at the moment and, and building that with the product and wider organization for our customers.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah. You get to really be part of shaping something new. That sounds so exciting and it seems like you're looking for CSM also, so this could be a plug if anyone is looking to , uh, work with Annika . Good things to come from there. It sounds like, and you mentioned this a little bit, that it was a very, you know, customer-focused organization, but where does cs uh , you know, sit at Griffin and, and in the organization it seems to be very, you know, cross-functional and it seems to be a big focus for the organization as a whole, but anything else there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely it's , uh, it's cross-functionally. Uh , when I came in, I was part of the operations organization, but as even in the three months I've been there, as the company evolves, as our product evolves, as we grow as a business, it's become heavily evident that the customer feedback needs to be directly in line with the product managers, the product organization, but also how we shape and build our product should be directly around what our customers are giving feedback on. So the customer team success and support all sit under product and that is what we will see for the foreseeable because we wanna build a product and a company that our customers truly love and see value from from day one. And, and we as an organization see that that is critical and customer success, again, is at the heart of everything we do. It's a part of the executive team, it's a part of day to day what we are building and doing every single day. And I, I already alluded to this a little bit earlier, but I truly love that anyone from the sales team to our product team refers to everyone as a customer, sometimes it gets very confusing, but everyone is considered a customer. So it's, it's really great that everyone is that involved and again, everyone is so willing to jump on a customer call or have almost like chat on the side about a customer issue or a customer problem. Everyone is is very, very bought into the fact that if our customers are successful, we will ultimately be successful. So it's really, really great to be at an organization that sees this so early on because I have been at organizations before where it's only realized after things have broken that how important making the customer the center of everything you do. So for me, it's just really nice that early on in the journey of, of how we're building a bank and how we're building a product is very much, it's embedded that us delivering value for customers from day one is just almost like a default state rather than a nice to have .
Speaker 3:Uh , that's, that's amazing. I feel like, wow , this is gonna be a , a , a , a huge success it sounds like. I
Speaker 2:Hope so. <laugh>.
Speaker 3:Yeah, <laugh> . Exactly. Uh , no , it sounds like you're, you're doing things right for sure. And I'm really curious to, to ask you something because you have spent , uh, you know, so many years running this podcast, you know, and talking to so many CS professionals and what are the things that you think most of them agree on versus the things that are maybe done differently in different organizations from, you know, your experience and , and the people that you've been been , uh, speaking to on the podcast?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that this is gonna be probably the most common answer I have gotten on the podcast and in any conversation that I've had with any CS professional is that it depends, and funnily you just said that earlier in , in this very recording, and I think that most people that I've ever talked to on this podcast have always said, well, it depends if , uh, you know , we should have onboarding in 30 days or it depends if NPS is important or it depends if we have revenue or if sales has revenue. It's just, I think the number one thing I've heard over the years as it depends because customer success is not cookie cutter and it's not done the same at any organization. Um, I've been at a number now and I couldn't say that the way I've done customer success five years ago is the way I'm doing it today. I think there's broadly some fundamentals, some metrics, some things that we track and that we're intrigued by or that we are are very important within customer success. But I'd have to say most times it totally depends on the maturity of your product, the maturity of your customer base, and really the maturity of your organization and how like far along you are in your journey. Do you have CSMs? Do you just have support? Like all of that totally depends. So to come back and answer your question, it totally depends on who you want me to talk about. But every single person I've talked to has basically told me that customer success depends on X or y <laugh>.
Speaker 3:So funny just what I said too. Yeah. Since you started the podcast, I'm really curious, have you seen any shifts or have you seen any, any way that CS has kind of changed since, since you started the podcast? Are people talking about different things now versus, you know, a few years ago? Is there anything like that that you've could reflect over? Yeah,
Speaker 2:I know it's been four years and I'm just like trying to recall all the different conversations I've had over the years. <laugh>, I feel in the pandemic, we were really, really aware of how important, what it was to retain customers and it's better to have a customer that actually stays with you and grows with you and renews rather than, than going out to market and trying to acquire new customers. I think before the pandemic there was probably a lot more immaturity within customer success, meaning like a lot of people were just, not that we always said we were the happiness department, but it was more seen that, hey, the CS team is there to make our customers happy, but it wasn't truly understood that customer success is there to drive business outcomes for our customer. And that ties back to revenue. And I think that that's the most recent chapter of customer success is I feel like previous chapters were all about the infancy or the development of customer success within organizations and that organizations fully understood what the heck customer teams were doing or , and what value they brought within the business. And then in the pandemic, it kind of accelerated that timeline because people were like, oh dang, we really have to care about our customers because we can't always go and spend endless money. And, and money didn't , wasn't as cheap anymore. So you had to actually focus on what you had rather than trying to spend all your money on acquisition costs. And then I think in the last few years, again, due to the, you know, macroeconomics of the world, fundraising what it is and, and cash not being cheap, it's really, really doubled down on customer success being part of the wider business and ensuring that it ties back to the bottom line as we were talking about earlier. So I would say that for me personally, I think I've seen the evolution of being more of an immature organization or trying to figure it out and then suddenly the organizations start to see value in customer success. And now I think it's not just the organization, it's internally and externally that people are truly trying and understanding what, what the value customer success brings. Yeah,
Speaker 3:That's, that's so, so interesting to hear I think. And uh, you know, leaving the past behind, what do you think is the future? Like how do you think CS will kind of continue to evolve?
Speaker 2:I think I had this conversation just a few months ago, I can't remember who it was with , but I said that customer success managers are essentially business analysts or like business strategists. And I think that a lot of what customer success does, if you think of, you know, big consulting firms and how they have management consultants that go into companies and really assess how they're looking, what they're doing, et cetera. I feel like customer success is in-house consulting and you are there to be a business analyst. You are there to really understand what it is that your customer needs and wants and the outcomes they're looking for. And I think that is the future of customer success. I think it always has been there, but I think it's finally, as we just spoke about, the evolution of customer success has really come to its fruition where we're not just seen as happiness, we're not just upselling or cross selling , we are driving business outcomes for our customers that ultimately result in revenue growth for our company. And I think CSMs really embracing the fact that you are there to be a business analyst, you're there to go into your customers almost like a representative at their organization and showing them not just, okay, this is how my product does this. It's why should you care? What return on investment is this gonna give our business and how is it gonna help our business, meaning the customer's business really excel or accelerate faster to their goals? And I think that that's the language that we'll see customer success shift to .
Speaker 3:I agree with that as well. I think that, and it is something I always look for when hiring CSMs as well, like business acumen and really, you know, being able to quickly understand what's, you know, important for the person on the other side of the table or whatnot . So yeah, I , I , I agree with that and thanks for sharing that. I know you have asked these questions many times to many guests, so I figured it only makes sense for you to get to answer them yourself as well. Uh, Anika , it's time for the quick fire round. Are you ready? Oh ,
Speaker 2:I am so nervous. Malin , <laugh> . I couldn't even tell you. I'm like, I'm like sweating. I'm like so nervous because I challenge people. So now I have to try to answer these in a sentence or less that I think I'm gonna fail, but I'll try.
Speaker 3:Okay. So I'll , I'll try to be nice. So first one, what is next in , uh, customer success? Customer
Speaker 2:Success managers becoming business analyst, as I said earlier,
Speaker 3:Already answered kind of. Yep . Uh, which SaaS product can you not live without
Speaker 2:Notion? I personally use it and I professionally use it.
Speaker 3:Oh , okay. Notion. I use it too. Okay. What is your favorite CS resource podcast?
Speaker 2:Love it . I could , I could list a lot, but I'm gonna say this one along with a few others that I listen to almost every day.
Speaker 3:And who should we invite next to the , this podcast?
Speaker 2:I'm going to say Jason Limp , who's part of Saster , and I think he's a great person to have on and I think he has some really great future predictions of customer success . Controversial, but great predictions. So I think he would be really fun on this podcast.
Speaker 3:That's a great idea. Wow, you didn't , you did well , uh, Annika on the quick fire round , didn't seem, didn't seem nervous at all.
Speaker 2:<laugh>. I was really worried and I really was channeling all my previous guests and how they've had a tough time with this . I was like, no, Nika, you have to stick to one sentence. You have to stick to one sentence.
Speaker 3:Yeah , you nailed it. Wow . I'm impressed Annika from me and everyone at Plan Hat , thank you for being an absolutely incredible podcast host. This podcast has really come to life under your guidance and leadership, and you know, all of us, we think you've done an absolutely incredible job with it. I wouldn't be surprised if you pop up again as a ho host , uh, some sometime in the future, but until then, where can the listeners find , find you?
Speaker 2:The easiest way to find me is on LinkedIn. Feel free to connect with me or reach out or message. I always message back to everyone, so please do reach out. I love getting everyone's messages. And again , thank you for having me as on this podcast . It been an amazing four . So thank you. I'm excited to hear what the future hopes for the podcast. Thank you Annika . 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.