A tale of Customer Success Management. Chapter I: the origins
One thing struck me during the many interviews I held in the last 2 years : most of the candidates ignored what is a CSM. When recruiting, it’s difficult to attract candidates if they have no idea about the position you’re offering. So here is my 2 cents on the the world of Customer Success, starting today by a quick introduction. In the coming weeks, I’ll explore the daily life of a CSM and its challenges.
First time I heard about CSM, I thought “ok, another bullshit, sorry, I mean fancy name to talk about customer care”. And most of the time, it’s unfortunately the case. But when it’s done properly, it’s the best job in the world and definitely not bullshit!
In the 90’s, more than 10 years before the birth of AWS and the boom of cloud based industry (Yep SaaS folks, talking about you), business models of software companies were slightly different. They’d charge you a hefty amount of money for licences and would make sure to charge you even more if you needed extra support or if they realized you had more users than you should which of course would always happen because it was almost impossible to keep track of your installed base. Software procurement departments would get the shivers each time they would receive a letter from their ERP providers…
Around 1995, Vantive, a CRM company (now part of Oracle)got their Eureka moment: a satisfied customer is the best possible reference and a reference is the best marketing material you can imagine. Ow and also, failed implementations are extremely expensive in terms of support and are ruining your after-sales potential.
The first Customer Success team was set-up, to ensure Vantive’s customers were successful in using the solution. Then, it got embraced and developed by companies like Sales Force or Gainsight. Nevertheless, 25 years later, all CSM in the world are still waking-up with the same objective.
But concretely, what does it mean?
The classic (cliché?) OKR of a CSM team is simple:
- Objective: Ensure Customer Success
- Key Result 1: Increase Retention (I hate the word “churn”)
- Key Result 2: Increase Expansion
- Key Result 3: Increase Product usage
My opinion is that CSM shouldn’t focus on Retention or Expansion, it’s a byproduct of an increased product usage. So the job is quite simple, we just have to make sure you (1)install/implement our solution, (2) use it as much as possible and, last but not least (3) see the benefits of it. Point #3 is the tipping point here. CSM is mostly a subscription based job, meaning that if one of your customer doesn’t see the benefit of a feature, (s)he will cancel the feature or the full contract.
In your personal life, you face CSM everyday: the waiter bringing extra bread or water before you ask (only in France, sorry), the concierge of a 5 star hotel welcoming you with a box of your favorite chocolate and the TV already on to watch tonight’s game, without forgetting, your hairdresser asking about this new job you mentioned last time, your fitness coach motivating you to add an extra set of squats to run faster for your next half-marathon… They all provide you with something more, without extra charges, to make sure you’ll come back.
And of course, the best CSM in the world are dogs: they are always there for you, cheering you up when you need, bringing you something new to play with, and also acknowledging when they did something wrong (I know this were your favorite shoes but they tasted so good). And they just expect one thing: your forever love and some treats!
