I am delighted to have received the fantastic news from the recent CS100 Summit of having been awarded the status of one of the Top 25 Customer Success Influencers for 2022!  First and foremost, I want to extend my gratitude to the ClientSuccess CS100 Summit for putting this event together and recognizing everyone’s efforts in the Customer Success profession. This type of event helps to continue cultivating talents and bringing forth growth in this promising and exciting field. To those who voted for me, I thank you sincerely for your trust and support, and I will work hard to

How to improve working relationships between colleagues? Thanksgiving Special Edition  Thanksgiving is the time for appreciating the people around us. Commonly spent with our families and friends, it's become a holiday that everyone looks forward to and finally spends time with the people we love. However, we commonly overlook our coworkers whom we spend most of our time with. Improving our relationship with the people we work with definitely helps in the quick completion of projects, participation in multiple Customer Success Management strategies, identifying churn red flags, and a lot more. After all, Customer Success Management is a department

Built to Last Creating customer relationships that will survive business downturns. Recessions mean hard times for most businesses Since the end of the Second World War, it is generally accepted that there have been four global recessions, and another may be on the horizon. Recessions mean challenging times for most businesses, and a reduction in sales and revenue leads to expenses being slashed. So, whether you are a CEO or CFO examining your budgets and looking to reduce expenditure, a division head being asked to review your costs or a financial consultant tasked with producing

How to Support Change in Your Organization Doing nothing is not an Option Strictly speaking, the subtitle for this article is not entirely accurate since doing nothing is an option; it's just not likely to be a very good one for almost all situations where change is occurring. Indeed I am sure most of you will have heard a variation of 'Standing still is really going backwards', the point being of course that whilst you are standing still, all your competitors are continuing to move forwards. Why is change so significant, and what conditions do we need to create

Three (3) Problems That May Affect Adoption Implementation  What hinders CSMs from effectively implementing adoption plans?  A Customer Success Manager takes a lot of time and effort to identify the best approach for an organization to achieve value with its products and services. Depending on users’ ability, the stakeholders’ plan, and much more, the process of preparation, commitment, and onboarding can take months before a CSM can move forward to adoption implementation. However, with all these hours set aside to ensure smooth value realization, there are challenges in each stage that a CSM must successfully manage. One of the

The Role of AI in Transforming Customer Success  AI in Customer Success: How Data Science is Improving CS Teams  As technological advancements continue to shape our world, businesses increasingly turn to artificial intelligence (AI) to streamline operations and improve their bottom line. But what about Customer Success? Can AI help Customer Success Managers (CSMs) do their jobs better?  Customer Success is the proactive approach taken by a company to help its customers achieve their desired outcomes. The focus is on providing the necessary resources and support that customers need to be successful. Customer Success Managers (CSMs) are responsible for

Digital Customer Success: What is it, and why should you care?  Customer Success ensures that customers have found value in their purchase and will continue using the product or service. It also encompasses the steps needed for a company’s product or service to be used by customers as intended.  With many efforts on scaling Customer Success, this business function now takes over opportunity management, upsells, and cross-sells, driving more revenue growth for organizations. From the focus on Adoption, Expansion, and Retention in Customer Success for the past few years, the challenges and difficulties drove Customer Success leaders to consider

What to expect being the 1st Customer Success Manager of an organization?5 things to keep in mind when beginning a Customer Success functionCustomer success has become an increasingly important function in organizations. It’s more than just helping customers set up their accounts and offering a couple of FAQs when they need them. In order to retain users and drive loyalty, it’s critical to understand what your users need and how they’re using your product so that you can tailor new features accordingly and help them reach their desired outcome faster. What this means is that being the first CSM (Customer

From Applicant To Hired: 5 Tips When Writing Your First Customer Success Manager Resumé Writing your first Customer Success Management Resumé Becoming a Customer Success Manager isn’t easy. It takes time, effort, and dedication to get there. However, once you do, you’ll get to work proving the value is attainable and growth isn’t too far-fetched. A CSM should be able to quickly identify frequent churners and take corrective actions; monitor marketing campaigns' effectiveness; understand the sources of friction among users; seek emerging patterns in user behavior; analyze user feedback; create user personas; develop retention strategies; and a lot more.

Scaling Customer Success Teams The challenges and solutions in scaling CS Teams Customer Success Teams are crucial to many companies. They help you to build and maintain relationships with your customers, solve complex problems, and ensure customers receive the value they expect to achieve. They are the driving force behind customer engagement, retention, and revenue growth. Scaling your CS Team upwards can increase the level of customer engagement activities, leading to higher retention rates for an organization. However, there are challenges in scaling a Customer Success Team. In this article, we will discuss the issue of Finite Assets VS Diminishing

Deploying Customer Success using a Framework A framework is a bridge that crosses the gap between failing efforts and success. It’s a structure that keeps Customer Success strategies in the right place and time to maximize its benefits for customers to attain value. With the help of the right framework, Customer Success teams can become more efficient and productive in their work. Frameworks can provide rapid improvements by identifying knowledge gaps to better support customers relative to their expected outcomes. In a recent interview, the Practical CSM Framework was thoroughly discussed by Rick Adams and Peter Armaly: 7 Key Responsibilities of CSMs There

Automation in Customer SuccessCustomer Success Managers must meet their customers to communicate, identify goals, and continuously assist in their journey towards value attainment. However, Customer Success Managers commonly find themselves rushing and lacking time as they handle multiple customers with varying concerns that push them to lessen customer interactions. It indicates that automation might be necessary to improve your overall Customer Success implementation. Automation saves time, reduces effort, decreases costs, and perhaps most importantly, frees up your customer-facing time for Customer Success Managers. These are to develop meaningful trust relationships with your customers' key stakeholders. This improved customer interaction lets you build rapport,

How to manage a remote Customer Success Team? Eight (8) tips to effectively manage your Customer Success team remotely.  Customer Success Management is a vital part of modern businesses. Its job is to help customers to generate the most from your products or services, which can mean anything from onboarding to providing relevant training resources and to value realization analysis and presentation. A business needs a strong Customer Success team to handle this work effectively. With the current situation, specifically the pandemic, we are forced to face the possibility of remote working. Remote teams have their unique challenges, but they

How to Prevent Churn and Drive Customer Growth? Five (5) ways for Customer Success Managers to keep and grow their customers. According to the study Why Return: Using Behavioural Research to Win Back Lost Customers, 80% of companies reported that winning customers back is as challenging- if not more difficult- as acquiring new customers. This shows that the role of a Customer Success Manager to retain customers and prevent the worst-case scenario- losing customers, is an essential part of the company to continue growing.  However, there are times that we weren’t able to mitigate the issue that drove the

How to Prevent Churn and Drive Customer Growth?Five (5) ways for Customer Success Managers to keep and grow their customers.Even if you’re the best Customer Success Manager globally, it’s normal for your company’s clients to leave at a certain point. There may no longer be a need for your product or service, but there could well be many other issues that are causing the customer to consider not renewing that as a CSM, you should be able to handle effectively.  There are many things you can do to keep customers around longer. Here are some of our top tips for getting