Strategic Partnership in Customer Success, an Insider's Masterclass

0:00

(upbeat music)

0:01

- My name is Jess Servion,

0:03

and I'm super excited to bring you my new podcast,

0:05

The Juice With Jess.

0:07

This podcast is gonna be about everything

0:09

in your customer's journey.

0:10

We're talking acquisition, awareness,

0:13

making that purchase, retaining that customer,

0:16

bringing them back around, and everything in between.

0:19

This is gonna be all about delivering dope brand experiences

0:23

and talking to some really amazing people

0:26

who are in the customer experience space,

0:27

the marketing space, and everything in between.

0:30

(upbeat music)

0:32

Welcome back to another episode of The Juice With Jess.

0:39

I am your host, Jess Servion.

0:42

This is a podcast where we're gonna talk about everything

0:44

from customer journey in acquisition,

0:47

to retention, to everything in between.

0:50

This week, I'm really excited to bring on my guest,

0:53

Corey Walker.

0:55

Corey, do you wanna introduce yourself?

0:57

- Hello, I am Corey.

0:59

Last time's Walker, if you didn't notice.

1:02

My role is strategic enterprise customer success manager.

1:06

Currently, I am working with Inboarder,

1:08

and what Inboarder is, is a human connection platform.

1:12

Essentially, that sends out communications

1:15

to your employees at every moment that matters,

1:18

specializing with the onboarding strategy,

1:20

but hitting on transitions.

1:22

Regreted louvers, LND, so a lot of different items.

1:25

So really just every moment of the employee journey.

1:29

- I am super excited to have Corey on.

1:31

Corey is a baddie customer success manager.

1:35

I have personally worked with them

1:37

at three different companies in the past,

1:39

across the last 10 years.

1:41

So I'm super excited for this episode,

1:43

because this episode, we're gonna talk about

1:45

the customer journey, but we're really gonna talk about

1:47

the intersections of customer support and customer success,

1:50

and what that means, both in B2B or in B2C.

1:54

So let's get started.

1:56

'Cause Corey, in normal words,

1:58

I know you just told me what Inboarder is,

2:01

but can you break it down a little bit for us,

2:05

and tell us the one sentence.

2:08

- Yeah, so essentially, if you wanted to drill us down

2:12

to the very bottom of what we do,

2:13

is we send communications to your employee.

2:18

So it could be via text, email, Slack, teams, WhatsApp,

2:23

so omni-channel, something I learned this week.

2:26

So we're very fluent with how we send these communications,

2:30

but in the day, we're a communication platform.

2:33

- Awesome, thank you.

2:34

So let's dive into customer success.

2:37

Like, what made you excited to get into customer success,

2:41

specifically on the B2B side?

2:42

- Yeah, so when it comes to my background,

2:45

I did start in retail.

2:47

I was a retail manager with Express Clothing.

2:50

I went over to apartment leasing,

2:52

and then I ran a medical office.

2:56

So throughout my entire adult journey,

2:59

I was working in customer facing roles.

3:02

And for me, I'm very customer-obsessed,

3:04

and I wanna make sure that I go above and beyond

3:07

to drive value, not only for the business,

3:09

but for the customer to drive that repeat business.

3:12

So no matter what role I was in,

3:14

I was making sure I was always on on-point,

3:17

and making sure that the customer was satisfied,

3:19

and if they weren't, what could I do to ensure that

3:22

we're able to retain them and drive satisfaction moving forward?

3:26

- Yeah, amazing.

3:28

I am so excited to talk more about customer success.

3:31

So this question is a little bit about Emborter,

3:34

but I think I wanna dive into this.

3:37

So when we talk about customer success,

3:39

when we talk about customer support,

3:41

we're really talking about the customer experience, right?

3:44

Like the overall customer experience for your customer,

3:46

and like whatever capacity that is.

3:48

But one of the things specifically that Emborter does

3:52

is it's, you know, HR people experience

3:56

communications platform, right?

3:58

And that's something that like I'm really obsessed over

4:01

is like what is that internal experience

4:03

that you're having within the company

4:05

to help you create culture?

4:07

And in your words, like not on the Emborter piece,

4:11

like just someone use, what is your thoughts

4:14

on how to create a really good experience

4:17

that starts with it, like how do you create a good culture

4:21

to deliver a dope customer experience?

4:23

- Yeah, I think, so for those of you who don't know,

4:26

I do work with North America's largest logos.

4:29

So there are customers like Bayer,

4:31

I work with two telecoms that are based out of the US.

4:35

I work with McDonald's as well.

4:38

So at the end of the day, what we're doing is we're making sure

4:42

that the employee experience is above and beyond

4:44

to ensure the longevity of that employee

4:47

of the customers within their business.

4:49

So we're building out different journeys,

4:51

different what we call workflows

4:53

that will send out these different communications

4:55

at each point that matters for the employee.

4:57

So a lot of them have built out this pre-boarding strategy

5:01

of saying, hey, before they start at day one,

5:03

before they arrive at day one,

5:05

we wanna drive this experience, showing them our culture,

5:08

showing them who we are, showing them how we really dive

5:11

into the business here.

5:13

But at the same time, not sending them those task oriented

5:15

items of, hey, here's your I-9, I need you to do this.

5:18

Hey, here's this, I need you to complete this prior to day one.

5:21

So we're really trying to avoid these items of saying,

5:24

hey, here's all these tasks that you have to complete.

5:26

And more or less, drive the culture,

5:28

drive that experience and saying,

5:30

hey, here's the reason why you need to show up for day one.

5:33

And here's why you're gonna stay past day one,

5:35

stay past day 90.

5:37

So really just, you know, an aspect of customers says,

5:41

I'm looking at driving attention to our customers,

5:43

they're looking at driving retention of their employees.

5:45

And that's what I'm at the end of the day, helping them do.

5:47

- Yeah, I think employee retention is something

5:51

that is very underrated in the experience of like people,

5:56

not just like, I call it the external customer

6:00

as well as the internal customer.

6:01

So it's like, in order for an internal customer

6:06

to deliver really great experience to the external customer,

6:09

like they have to be really well taken care of.

6:11

They have to have the equipment that they need.

6:14

They have to be able to, you know, do their job,

6:17

but also from like a people experience perspective,

6:20

like they have to be engulfed in the culture

6:22

and like be a part of it, right?

6:24

And like do it easily, right?

6:26

- And for CS, like we are, each customer is tied to an ARR.

6:30

So making sure that, you know, there's a dollar.

6:31

- What's an ARR?

6:32

- Annual recurring revenue, sorry.

6:37

So we tie it to an ARR.

6:39

So your contract value is based on 100K.

6:43

So if the customer is spending 100K with us,

6:45

we wanna ensure that that revenue is retained at the year,

6:48

at the renewal at that contract.

6:50

So when it comes down to the employee experience,

6:53

there is a value associated with them as well.

6:55

So onboarding them, the manpower that it takes to

6:59

have them brought on to search for these candidates.

7:02

So at the end of the day, it could be 20, 30,000

7:05

associated to each employee, it could be 10,000.

7:07

But if you're not retaining your employees,

7:09

like if you're not retaining your customers,

7:11

the other day all you're doing is burning out

7:14

and you're burning out current employees.

7:15

And at the same time, you're just losing money,

7:17

losing revenue.

7:18

- Yeah, yeah.

7:20

Again, over and over, in order to deliver a good

7:23

customer experience in whatever capacity,

7:25

whether B2B or B2C, you have to take care

7:28

of your internal customer, which is your people first.

7:32

Switching gears a little bit, you actually mentioned this.

7:34

I would love to kind of explain to the audience.

7:37

I think there's like a lot of,

7:40

I wouldn't say misconceptions, but I think that people

7:43

are a little bit confused about what customer

7:45

success is sometimes.

7:47

I think that, you know, I call it a part of like

7:50

the customer experience journey, but I think that

7:53

customer success is also attached to revenue goals, right?

7:56

Like in a lot of companies, right?

7:58

I'd love to hear from you of like,

8:00

how does customer success play into the role

8:04

of earning revenue in a B2B company?

8:06

- Yeah, so in my role itself, what I'm currently

8:09

doing is actually, I'm tied to my KPRs

8:14

that are based on renewals, but at the end of the day,

8:17

I don't own the renewal process.

8:19

So I've worked at four different SaaS companies

8:22

in the customer success role.

8:23

Each one has been fairly different when it comes down

8:26

to what CS actually owns.

8:28

This one is the most different out of all of them

8:30

because at the end of the day, I'm not associated

8:33

with the dollar value.

8:34

I'm not associated with having those money conversations

8:37

with our customers.

8:38

I'm saying, "Hey, how about we start this contract

8:41

"and you're gonna spend 100,000 again this year?"

8:44

So I'm not tied to talking to the money.

8:47

And the reason why we did this at Enborter

8:49

is to separate that mentality that a customer has

8:53

with that dollar value of, "Okay, well, you're only retaining me

8:57

"or you're only being nice to me

8:58

"because there's a dollar value associated with my name."

9:01

Or you become that headhunter who's trying to debt collect

9:04

or trying to really push, push, push

9:07

when there may not be that value there

9:09

for them at this point in time.

9:10

So you become less of a strategic advisor

9:13

and more of a, I'm gonna say, pusher in this mentality

9:16

of, "Hey, I need you to spend more,"

9:18

but you're not strategically advising them

9:20

how to spend more or why it would benefit them to spend more.

9:23

But yes, I'm still tied to some type of upsell value

9:28

or we'll go into the renewal value or even a cross-sell value.

9:33

So upsells being a current customer

9:36

who we go into and say, "Hey, we identified other use cases

9:39

"within the same department or within your business

9:42

"that we can add value to."

9:44

So we upsell to those.

9:45

Cross-sell could be, "Hey, it could be we work with Cisco,

9:49

"but we're not working with Thousand Eyes or Cisco Moraki

9:52

"and we're going to cross-sell to another part of their business."

9:55

And then the renewal aspect is just that year-on-year renewal.

9:58

So yes, we're tied to all of it

10:00

and we're always usually structured to be near

10:02

or associated with the sales revenue

10:04

or with the sales org as well.

10:07

So two jobs ago at Travel Bank,

10:09

I reported directly to the CRO,

10:11

so the chief revenue officer.

10:12

So there I was in charge of upsells or new rules

10:16

and pretty much we were converting a lot of our old users

10:21

who were free users to paid users.

10:23

So I own that value as well.

10:25

So there was just a lot that was going into it

10:28

and I didn't have as much time

10:29

to really strategically focus on the customers

10:32

where I could add value to their org

10:35

to building upon what we've already created there.

10:39

But at Inboarder, I do have that ability

10:40

as I've kind of further explored with Cisco

10:43

as we continue to expand into different departments there.

10:46

- Yeah, I think what's really important

10:48

in the distinguishing between revenue

10:51

and strategic advisor is that the best customer success programs

10:55

or best customer experience programs

10:57

is when you are that strategic advisor.

11:00

I've seen companies do it really well,

11:02

like just in specifically e-commerce enablement companies,

11:06

PostScript, they're an SMS marketing platform

11:09

and their CSM program is like,

11:12

it's cold customer experience for a reason.

11:16

And their customer success managers are,

11:20

yes, I'm sure like internally tied to numbers,

11:22

tied to all of these things, they're a book of business,

11:25

but they are strategic partners with you

11:28

as you're creating SMS flows, marketing campaigns,

11:33

and I think that that's what makes a really dope

11:37

customer experience in a customer success program

11:39

is when your customer success manager

11:42

has the ability to be a strategic partner

11:45

to that account that they're withholding,

11:48

or holding, not withholding.

11:50

And I think that's really important.

11:51

I mean, what's your thoughts on it?

11:53

Like going further into the strategic advisement,

11:56

like what would you think?

11:57

Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day,

11:59

if I do my job right as a strategic advisor,

12:01

I'm already ensuring a renewal

12:03

because they see the value that I'm driving there.

12:05

I'm also already ensuring an upsell as well.

12:08

So I am easily starting the layup

12:10

for our account directors to come in

12:15

and actually close the deal.

12:17

So I'm doing all the legwork behind the scenes,

12:20

talking strategy, implementing items,

12:22

implementing new product features,

12:24

and at the end of the day,

12:25

it should just come in to the renewal process

12:27

and it should be a very seamless process.

12:29

So I'm still driving revenue,

12:31

but I'm not talking dollars.

12:32

I'm talking strategy.

12:34

Right.

12:34

And I think that that's the important lesson in that,

12:37

actually, is that in whether you're B2B

12:39

or whether you're B2C,

12:40

when you're talking about your customer's journey,

12:42

making your customer not feel like

12:45

they are being sold to all the time,

12:48

making it feel like it's a relationship.

12:49

So like that's specifically what you do,

12:52

like when it comes to SaaS companies, right?

12:54

And like larger logos is like,

12:56

you're building those relationships,

12:57

but even if you like flip that to B2C company,

13:00

it's also about in their customer journey

13:03

to make it feel like they're in a relationship

13:06

with your brand.

13:06

Like as a consumer, we go and purchase things

13:09

when we feel attached to that brand.

13:11

I agree.

13:12

And that's the biggest thing to say.

13:13

It's like, we know at the end of the day

13:15

there is a contract value associated

13:17

with every single customer we speak to,

13:19

but the customers should not fill a dollar sign associated.

13:22

So it's coming to them and approaching them

13:24

as a human and really humanizing your approach with them.

13:27

And then you're associating on the back in a dollar sign.

13:30

It shouldn't be, hey, customer,

13:32

you spend 100,000 with us.

13:34

That's how much effort I'm putting into this.

13:36

Or, hey, customer, you spend a million.

13:38

That's how much effort I'm putting into this.

13:40

Every customer should receive the same amount of effort

13:43

that you're able to put into every strategy.

13:47

And then that's just gonna increase the dollar value

13:49

or ensure you're renewal with them.

13:51

- Yeah, absolutely.

13:53

You know, in your opinion,

13:55

so we've obviously have worked together at companies

13:57

where I've done the product support side

14:00

and you were part of the CSM side of things.

14:03

And our teams have always collaborated,

14:06

but in your opinion, what is your,

14:08

looking at the overall grand scheme

14:11

of a customer's relationship with a company, right?

14:14

And you have the customer success piece of it

14:16

and then there's still the customer support piece of it.

14:18

What do you think the best collaboration is

14:22

between support and success, like for a good program?

14:25

- Yeah, I think still because CS is,

14:29

we'll say newer to a lot of the world,

14:32

CS is still looked at as a support side of things.

14:36

Whether it's internally as your company,

14:39

they may look at you and say,

14:40

well, you're also gonna support your customers

14:42

if they reach out to you.

14:43

You also have customers who look at you and say,

14:45

hey, well, you're just my dedicated support agent.

14:48

We're at the end of the day, again,

14:49

based off of what we were just saying,

14:51

it's we're strategic advisors.

14:52

We're not there to support you in aspect of,

14:55

hey, there's a product issue, there's a bug,

14:58

or hey, there's a flaw going on in the system.

15:00

Can you take a look at it?

15:02

Where we partner great with support is being able to say,

15:05

hey, look, I had this transition of knowledge.

15:08

We talked through, hey,

15:10

this is what we'll say McDonald's is going through.

15:13

And you know what, if they reach out to you,

15:15

it's gonna be because of X, Y, or Z.

15:17

And this is how you can support them.

15:19

This is their character.

15:20

This is how they communicate.

15:22

And then you have a better knowledge going into it

15:24

to support them in that aspect.

15:26

Sometimes when they reach out,

15:28

I'll also copy and support and say,

15:29

hey, I'm jumping into meetings.

15:31

There's a way to really train your customers

15:34

without saying I'm not here to support you.

15:36

So again, you want to make sure that they're human as well.

15:38

They are flawed just like you are.

15:40

So if they're reaching out to you and maybe,

15:42

hey, I forgot that you're not my support agent,

15:44

I can reach out to support.

15:45

So it's just a better way of training them.

15:48

But I do think that we partner

15:50

and then falling under the CX umbrella

15:52

because we both will and we both do in most companies

15:55

is making sure that there's really that transfer of knowledge

15:58

and making sure that you both understand the needs

16:01

of every single customer going into it.

16:03

- Yeah, absolutely.

16:04

I think where I've seen the best customer programs

16:08

is actually the support and success

16:11

being under the same umbrella.

16:13

I've worked in other organizations

16:15

where support was a part of business operations.

16:19

And then success was a part of sales.

16:22

So then it, like,

16:23

and I think that different leaders

16:25

have different directions for sure.

16:27

But I think that at the end of the day,

16:28

when we're talking about customer experience

16:30

and you're talking about the success

16:31

and the support side of it,

16:33

it's all about relationship building

16:34

and that strategic partnership.

16:36

So having those teams,

16:37

it'll at least be highly collaborating together

16:40

and or under the same roof,

16:43

feels like it's going to be better

16:46

for your customer's journey.

16:47

And maybe not every company is that way,

16:49

but this is like my opinion.

16:50

- I would agree though.

16:53

Like I found the best collaboration internally

16:57

is whenever they both sit under the same umbrella,

16:59

because it allows you to be able to actually

17:02

have those meetings with them

17:03

and then collaborate and work on projects together

17:06

that also enhance the customer.

17:08

So whether it's, you know, supporting them

17:10

or, you know, working on beta features

17:12

that are going to be released to the public,

17:14

bringing in the support team

17:15

to actually collaborate with the CS,

17:17

allows them to understand the product,

17:19

allows us to understand the product

17:21

and then also both to understand

17:22

what frustrates the other.

17:24

So if my customers are reaching out

17:25

and not giving them what they need,

17:27

what can I better coach my customer on

17:29

to give them that effort upfront

17:31

that now when they reach out to support,

17:33

they give them everything they need in one email.

17:36

- Yeah.

17:36

And I think that's a really good point too.

17:38

And like a question that I have for you

17:40

as like a customer success like leader is

17:43

what is in a perfect world,

17:46

what would be the best feedback loop

17:49

between customer support to customer success?

17:51

Like customer support gets a lot of tickets,

17:54

they tag them, they like have a lot of information

17:56

about your customer.

17:57

But what do you think that the good feedback loop

18:00

back to the customer success department would be

18:03

to ensure that you like know everything

18:05

'cause sometimes some people are in sales force

18:08

and some people are in intercom, you know?

18:10

- So internally we use plan hat for our CRM

18:13

for the customer success team.

18:15

We also leverage intercom for our chat support

18:18

and our email support as well.

18:19

So when it comes down to what is the one best way

18:23

yet to figure that out at this time,

18:25

I think that's one that, you know, everyone's working on,

18:28

okay, what does this work for this product?

18:29

How does this collaboration work for this product?

18:32

What I have found is kind of laying out what I need.

18:35

So it's like, hey, for my top strategic accounts,

18:39

maybe a monthly recap of how many outreach

18:41

as you had, what was the issue that was going on?

18:44

And then what was their sentiment?

18:45

Did they leave the call filling frustrated

18:47

or did they leave the chat filling frustrated?

18:50

Or could you tell based on the verbiage

18:52

that they were using that way?

18:54

I know I can approach certain conversations

18:56

and then alleviate some of that stress.

18:58

So I know that a lot of us, we do NPS scoring

19:01

at the end of a chat to say, or a CSAT scoring to say,

19:05

"Hey, how was your chat?

19:06

"How was your support?"

19:07

Not everyone uses it.

19:08

If they're highly frustrated,

19:10

of course they're gonna use it.

19:11

But if they're mildly frustrated

19:13

or if they're mad at something else

19:14

and they just close out of it

19:15

because they just got an answer,

19:17

they're not gonna tell you how they truly feel.

19:19

So a lot of the sentiment I do ask for a recap.

19:21

I also again, ask for how many support tickets

19:23

were submitted during a quarter, but within a month.

19:26

That way I know that if my customer's reaching out

19:29

to somebody 10, 15 times a month,

19:31

there's not only a problem with our product,

19:33

but there's a problem that maybe the customer

19:35

doesn't understand our product.

19:37

So maybe it's me stepping in

19:38

and giving more transfer of knowledge of,

19:40

hey, how to use the product.

19:42

Here's what you're reaching out for.

19:43

So how can I help solve it?

19:45

So again, it's just coming down to,

19:47

okay, what is your product offering?

19:49

And what do you foresee being the most complicated issue

19:52

for y'all to really collaborate on?

19:55

And every CS is different.

19:57

I may wanna know more than the next CS person.

19:59

A lot of times I'm like,

20:00

please don't tag me in on any intercom chat

20:03

unless it's like escalation

20:04

and I need to step in and deescalate.

20:06

- Right.

20:07

Well, I think that that also helps you empower

20:09

the support staff to be able to problem

20:12

solve and not always go to the customer success manager

20:15

to it kind of just establishes that boundary,

20:19

like both internally and externally

20:21

'cause it's like you don't want as the customer,

20:24

if I support, if I'm have a support ticket

20:26

and there's some sort of escalation in it,

20:28

I don't wanna constantly tag in the CSM that's on that account

20:32

because one, I wanna be able to show that like,

20:34

I can handle this, but two, I don't wanna show

20:37

to the customer that like, oh, every problem you have,

20:40

you have to go to your CSM.

20:41

Like you should be able to solve it

20:43

with other people on your staff, you know?

20:45

So switching gears, I mean,

20:50

well, really talking about retention.

20:51

I mean, you individually under your portfolio in border

20:56

and like the people you've worked with,

20:58

you manage some of the America's like biggest customer logos

21:03

and you have a 96% retention rate.

21:06

How do you think that the customer success team

21:11

contributes and it contributes to the overall

21:16

like customer retention efforts?

21:17

So I don't mean like individually,

21:18

I mean like how does customer success in border

21:23

and you contribute to those retention efforts?

21:28

- I would say it's percentage wise, probably 90%,

21:32

10% product because if there is a product issue,

21:36

a lot of times with a feedback loop,

21:38

you can do it all internal, get something figured out

21:40

and either offer a workaround or offer an enhancement

21:44

that will correct that issue.

21:45

So having those conversations being very transparent

21:49

with your customer and them being very transparent

21:51

with you allows you to get to the nitty gritty

21:54

of everything that they need,

21:55

they want that will help their longevity

21:58

with your product.

21:59

Similar to when you worked at your last company,

22:02

it's just like, how does the customer feedback loop happen

22:06

when it comes to you and then how do you take that internally?

22:09

So quality, packaging, whatever it may be.

22:12

So this is what I do on day to day.

22:14

So I go into a lot of companies,

22:16

I meet with weekly, biweekly,

22:18

just depending on their needs.

22:19

And I go into the meeting announcing product enhancements,

22:22

what we released the past two weeks.

22:25

So we do a two week product release every two weeks

22:28

for you to release something or bug fixes.

22:31

So I always notate what I'm going into the call to mention.

22:34

So is it something new, a new feature that we're releasing

22:37

that we need to start working on implementing with them?

22:39

So starting guiding them,

22:41

starting having them think about how we can use this

22:43

in their workflows of saying,

22:45

hey, now we can drive the employee experience

22:47

in a different manner or in this additional way.

22:50

If it's a bug release, it's okay,

22:53

are we heavily released it, have we fixed it?

22:55

If we haven't, what is the ETA that can provide them?

22:58

If there's no ETA, then what workaround can I offer

23:01

or what can I do to further assist them

23:03

until we're able to get that on to the roadmap to be fixed?

23:06

- Yeah, well, you actually bring up a really good point

23:09

about something that else I wanted to ask you.

23:10

So we talk a lot about feedback loops from support to success

23:14

and sentiment and all of these other things,

23:16

but what do you think that the best programs are

23:21

for customer success to get things actually

23:24

onto the roadmap?

23:25

'Cause I think in B2B, it's really hard.

23:27

Sometimes you get a lot of feedback from your clients

23:30

and then maybe you have this large client

23:32

who's like, I want this feature,

23:34

but you can't just make the engineers move

23:37

at the speed of light.

23:38

How do you actually balance getting things

23:43

onto the roadmap, but also balancing the relationship

23:46

with your customer as well?

23:48

- So I start internally.

23:49

So a lot of times I'll tell the customer,

23:51

be very transparent, like, hey, our roadmap's already

23:54

mapped out for the quarter of the year,

23:56

but let me see what I can do.

23:57

Let me talk to our team internally,

23:59

but also gauging with them, be like,

24:01

hey, how big of a priority is this for you?

24:03

And a lot of times they'll tell you, they'll be like,

24:05

hey, this is a deal breaker,

24:06

like I'm done with you guys if you can't fix this.

24:08

Sometimes they're like, oh, it's just a nice to have.

24:11

And at that point in time, you can actually buy

24:13

your company more time because they're like,

24:14

oh, it's a nice to have.

24:16

It's not something we can ignore long-term,

24:19

but it is something that we can postpone for a bit

24:21

because it's more like a, hey, that would be good

24:24

if you could fix this, but it's not like, hey, it's critical.

24:27

This is like stopping me in the flow of work.

24:29

I'm not able to do anything today.

24:31

So it's first starting with a customer,

24:34

engaging them on, hey, how important is this?

24:37

Once you get that importance from them,

24:38

I do have like an email template that I've created

24:40

for myself.

24:41

So I go to my manager first and I loop him and say,

24:44

hey, McDonald's is upset about X, Y, and Z.

24:47

If we don't fix this, this could be a churned account.

24:50

This could mean that they're gonna be done with us

24:52

at the end of contract.

24:54

And then based on his response of,

24:55

hey, I will take this or Corey, can you take this above?

24:59

Then I'll start looping in the heads of each department.

25:01

So I'll go to the head of product

25:04

because what I work for a startup,

25:05

the CEO likes to be tied into all strategic accounts.

25:08

I'll copy in the CEO as well,

25:10

the head of customer success and my manager.

25:12

So I'll go through and type in the ARR and say,

25:15

hey, this is the dollar value associated with this customer.

25:17

This is what the customer needs with examples

25:20

and what problem it will solve for them.

25:22

A lot of times if you can tie more customers to it,

25:26

the dollar value associated with that product release

25:28

or that product enhancement,

25:30

we'll push it along a lot further.

25:32

So not only do I look at this customer,

25:33

I look at other customers who have made requests at it

25:36

and I'll also ping other CS members and be like,

25:38

hey guys, have you had a customer ask for this?

25:40

And if so, who was it?

25:42

That way, not only do I have my customer associated with it,

25:44

I start tying other ARR to it,

25:46

which will increase the product enhancement

25:48

and also show that, hey, we're not building a product

25:50

for one company, we're building it for multiple users.

25:54

- Yeah, yeah, I think that that's,

25:58

I think it's a really good feedback loop way.

26:00

I think it's really hard, like I said,

26:02

I think it's really hard and especially in B2B

26:05

or B2C about whether it's a feature

26:08

or if it's like a particular thing about your brand's product,

26:13

like it's really hard like incorporating

26:15

and getting those things on the roadmap,

26:16

but I think it's advocating internally,

26:19

avocation.

26:21

- There you go, exactly.

26:22

And I think that's the biggest thing is like,

26:24

and then keeping up with your team,

26:26

you need to also follow up with the RIT,

26:27

yeah, we're gonna do it.

26:29

Okay, well, let's continue to have these meetings,

26:31

whether it's a biweekly cadence,

26:33

depending on the importance of it,

26:34

but 100% is advocating for your customer,

26:37

and then also to your customer,

26:39

you gotta advocate for your own company as well.

26:41

So as much as you want to be on their side,

26:43

at the end of the day, you work for X company

26:46

and you need to make sure that you put your best foot forward

26:48

for them and you're able to speak fluently

26:52

and very educational around why they may not be doing it.

26:56

So if you go the route of, hey, we're not doing it,

26:58

you need to be able to speak to why

27:00

and be prepared for an upset customer,

27:02

but also what I always try to do is find a workaround.

27:05

So if we can't do this, what can I offer them

27:08

that could almost be similar, but maybe not?

27:11

So it's like, you're not just coming to them with a no,

27:13

you're coming them with a no, but a solution.

27:16

- Yeah, absolutely.

27:17

Yeah, I think that's exactly what it is.

27:19

It's like sometimes you can't always just say no,

27:22

like you have to come to with a solution,

27:25

just like you do in any other relationship,

27:27

customer success and customer experience

27:29

is very much about relationship building.

27:31

- Completely switching gears.

27:34

I want to talk about the hot topic of AI

27:38

and I'm really curious, like I know on the support side

27:41

of things, AI has played like a very rapid role

27:45

in helping agents like be able to take tickets

27:49

or like give information faster to like the customer.

27:52

I'm curious to hear in like your opinion,

27:54

like AI for customer success.

27:57

Like where have you seen trends?

27:59

Where do you see it evolving?

28:00

Like how has AI helped you in any aspect of like your job?

28:05

- When it comes down to replacing CS,

28:08

I don't think that will ever happen.

28:10

I think there's aspects of it like chat GBT

28:13

that CS will leverage and do leverage.

28:16

So helping you figure out a way

28:18

to better communicate with your customers.

28:20

Okay, well, if I say this,

28:22

is it gonna rub the person along the way?

28:24

So using it to better educate yourself around,

28:27

changing that sentence structure around,

28:29

using it to better your communication with your customer.

28:34

There's other ways of how can I plan out my day?

28:37

Where should I really focus?

28:38

So really leveraging it and more of your day to day of,

28:41

hey, how can I just better myself

28:44

to work alongside these customers?

28:47

I haven't explored AI on the CS side of things as much.

28:51

Our company's really exploring it on the support side right now

28:55

with chatbots very similar to those communication items

28:59

of, hey, if they chat and asking about this,

29:01

it's gonna go through read our help articles

29:03

and be able to give them that solution immediately.

29:06

For some of the customers I've been speaking to

29:08

about the AI that they're looking to implement alongside us,

29:11

during the onboarding, there are,

29:14

it could be a hundred to a thousand employees

29:17

of having that chatbot assistant.

29:18

So if they're looking for information on Slack channels,

29:22

then they're gonna have this internal AI bot

29:25

that they're able to chat through

29:26

and is able to send them to the right department

29:29

or send them to the right location of,

29:32

hey, this is what I'm looking for.

29:33

So being able to help them versus them going

29:36

to the recruiting coordinators at the TA to say,

29:38

hey, guys, I have questions.

29:40

They're solving it with more automation right now as well.

29:43

- Yeah, I think what would be an interesting evolution,

29:46

and this is just like my opinion,

29:48

is so where I see, where I've utilized AI a lot,

29:52

like at previous e-commerce brands,

29:55

and even in B2B is like content creation

29:59

or sentiment analysis,

30:03

so like two different aspects, right?

30:04

Like content marketing, content creation,

30:06

but then also in sentiment analysis,

30:09

feedback looping, right?

30:10

And that's very like support.

30:12

But what I think would be really interesting

30:14

for a success department in seeing AI is,

30:18

in reporting analytics, of course,

30:20

like kind of determining LTV

30:23

and like the value of the clients,

30:26

but also specifically some sort of like sentiment analysis.

30:31

So like sentiment analysis in like a phone call, right?

30:34

Or like if you're going through like your QBR,

30:37

your quarterly business review,

30:39

see, I even question myself on that,

30:41

on that afternoon, just now.

30:43

But like, you know, if I have a client

30:45

who's like sitting through their quarterly business review,

30:49

and like they're not really paying attention,

30:51

or, you know, they're asking me a lot of questions,

30:53

like I would like to see like some sort of like AI sentiment

30:55

analysis of like, was this a good call?

30:57

Was this a bad call?

30:58

Also, you know, again, it's going to the content creation,

31:03

but like being able to like proactively send out check

31:07

and emails, right?

31:08

I think what a lot of like customer success is today

31:11

is like that relationship building,

31:12

but then how do you like move faster

31:15

and be able to sit across multiple accounts,

31:18

multiple like people within those organizations?

31:21

So I would love to see some sort of like AI generation

31:24

and like create helping you create content

31:26

as a success manager, you know?

31:28

- And I think a lot of the automation around the emails,

31:31

yes, we do a lot of that already,

31:32

but to your point of face analysis,

31:34

like we used to work with a coworker

31:36

who's actually going into that field,

31:38

and we use gong.

31:39

So gong does a lot of our recording,

31:41

does the AI of, hey, these were your bullet points,

31:44

here's your takeaways, this is what you do.

31:46

So we do leverage AI when it comes down

31:47

to these other facets as well.

31:49

The sentiment, I usually, I'm usually watching,

31:52

so it would be great to start investing into that.

31:55

Because 100%, like when people are bored,

31:58

if they're disinterested, that means that there is a chance

32:01

that they just don't care because they are looking to churn,

32:03

or maybe the information's irrelevant

32:05

and you're pitching to them a 30 minute

32:07

or an hour phone call, that is irrelevant information.

32:10

So 1000% would agree with the sentiment analysis part.

32:14

- Yeah, yeah, I think that would be really interesting

32:17

to see, I think we're gonna see a lot of innovations

32:20

with AI, not just on the support aspect of it.

32:23

I mean, customer, this podcast is powered by customer,

32:26

and what customer does a really good job about,

32:30

of doing in the support analysis is

32:32

helping service the customer,

32:36

but also sentiment analysis for the agent

32:40

to know on the backend.

32:41

And I would love to see some sort of that

32:44

into the CRM world and the customer success world too.

32:47

(water splashing)

32:49

Completely switching gears now.

32:51

I wanna ask the hot takes about you personally,

32:53

because anybody that's listening to this episode

32:56

who's interested in a career in customer success

32:59

or customer experience, I think it's really important

33:01

to hear from you, 'cause you've been in this world

33:04

for so long, one, what do you love about customer success?

33:10

Like, it's not just the relationship building,

33:12

like, why have you chosen this to be your continuous career?

33:16

- I love people as much as I love my downtime

33:19

and being solo after work.

33:22

During work, I thrive the most whenever I'm interacting

33:24

with people.

33:25

I also look at it as a challenge to win people over.

33:28

So for me, the customer success aspect of meeting

33:31

with different people back to back to back,

33:34

you transition personalities, you change,

33:36

and you really evolve each one.

33:39

And then as you take your learnings from this customer

33:41

and you apply it to the next customer.

33:43

So it's just, at the end of the day,

33:44

it's always challenging no matter what's going on.

33:46

And it's just like being the people person,

33:48

being the personality, being the face of a company.

33:51

I love it because, I mean, what's not good to look at here?

33:54

(laughing)

33:56

But overall, it is, I love the customer journey.

33:59

I love being able to own it from the close of selves

34:02

to renewal.

34:03

And just, again, it's just a challenging aspect of,

34:06

okay, I'm mad about this feature.

34:08

Well, what can I do to fix it?

34:09

So it's just problem solving day to day.

34:11

And I love that aspect of it.

34:12

Yeah, yeah.

34:14

I mean, I think on the opposite end,

34:16

this is actually why I'm in customer experience

34:18

'cause I love people too.

34:19

What would you have said to yourself

34:22

on the first day of your job?

34:25

Like your first job in success?

34:27

What did I say to myself or what would I tell myself?

34:31

I'll like earn overthinkers, so.

34:33

(laughing)

34:34

What I told myself is, oh my gosh, I'm not cut out for this.

34:37

What am I doing here?

34:38

But that's always the self-doubt in people.

34:40

It's just knowing that, hey, I'm good at what I do,

34:43

but always saying I'm not good enough.

34:46

So I would go back and tell myself that,

34:47

you know what, you will not only prove yourself

34:50

in the industry, but you're gonna prove yourself to yourself.

34:53

So that's what I would say is like be prepared for it

34:56

and don't let it hold you back.

34:57

Yeah, yeah, I think the other thing,

35:02

and not for you individually,

35:03

but like anybody who's looking to like get

35:05

into customer success or like his

35:06

on this world, I think the other thing is too,

35:09

is like when you're dealing with relationships with people,

35:12

it's not to take it personally,

35:14

because like there are customers

35:16

who are gonna be like, kind of rude.

35:19

I've been yelled at and said it's all my fault

35:21

when it's just a product bug that happened.

35:25

I would 100% agree it's not your fault,

35:27

don't take it personal.

35:29

I would say use your voice, but be constructive with it.

35:32

Don't be just yelling to yell,

35:35

and that was something that I've learned

35:37

is you don't just speak to speak,

35:39

but speak when you know that you have the right to speak.

35:43

And what I mean by that is use your voice as you need to,

35:47

and speak up for yourself,

35:50

but don't just speak in a room like I'm doing right now

35:52

just to speak to it.

35:54

So yes, use your voice, but use it

35:56

to really build upon things.

35:58

This is gonna be a hot take, I'm gonna be honest with you,

36:01

but what do you think the worst type

36:05

of customer success manager is?

36:07

- I would say it's the ones who are very dismissive,

36:14

the ones who show up just to show up

36:17

because the call was there,

36:18

who come into it with zero strategy,

36:20

who just say, you know what,

36:22

I know this customer is gonna renew

36:24

because they love the product,

36:25

but I'm not gonna put any effort into it.

36:28

So it's just like those who show up to do bare minimum,

36:31

and not those who actually show up to challenge themselves

36:34

and challenge the customer.

36:35

- Yeah, challenge the customer.

36:38

Customers are always right.

36:39

- They're not.

36:40

- Yeah.

36:41

- They rarely are.

36:43

- Sometimes you just gotta like coddle them a little bit.

36:45

You know?

36:46

What do you think that,

36:50

what do you wish that more people understood

36:53

about customer success managers,

36:55

like as like the individuals in an organization?

36:58

- Yeah, I would go back to the support versus success.

37:02

I wish more people would understand

37:04

what value we bring to a company

37:06

and what value we bring to the customer

37:08

versus what support brings.

37:09

We both bring the same amount of value,

37:12

but they're both in different aspects.

37:13

Again, I'm not support, I'm success.

37:15

So I'm just talking strategy,

37:17

I'm talking long-term,

37:18

I'm talking enhancing the portfolio

37:21

and driving more like, driving more revenue,

37:23

where support is very reactive, you know, you guys,

37:26

and you can speak to it better than I can.

37:28

You guys are there to support them

37:30

in anything that has gone wrong.

37:32

We're there to predict what could go wrong

37:34

and help implement something prior to.

37:36

- Yeah, well, exactly, exactly my point,

37:39

like when you look at like B2B organizations

37:41

and you like see the separation between customer success

37:44

and customer support,

37:45

I think that they should live under one house

37:47

or have a very tight collaboration amongst each other

37:50

because you're still dealing with the relationships

37:52

of that customer, but one is proactive

37:54

and one is reactive, right?

37:56

And you can do all these tools

37:57

and put all these things together

37:59

to make a proactive customer support,

38:01

but at the end of the day, like,

38:03

if somebody's coming into support,

38:05

they're coming in because their problem isn't solved

38:07

and a customer success team is to be that pro activity

38:11

and see like across down the line of like what's happening.

38:15

- And what we do well at Inboarder

38:16

is a lot of times before we release features,

38:19

what we do is we have an internal meeting saying,

38:21

"Hey, these are the product releases that we're going on.

38:24

"Here's we're gonna turn it on in your test environment,

38:26

"go through, test anything that you may think

38:28

"is how your customer is using it."

38:30

That way, if there is a bug, if there is an issue,

38:32

we can fix it before release

38:34

or if it's too late to fix it before release,

38:36

we can proactively go out to that customer and be like,

38:39

"Hey, we're about to release something.

38:40

"We're gonna have a quick follow.

38:42

"Just know that this may affect this portion

38:44

"of the product for you."

38:46

So being able to really QA test it ourselves

38:48

even though we do have QA people, quality assurance.

38:52

So sorry for everyone out there,

38:54

but just making sure at the end of the day

38:56

that we're very proactive, we're thinking long-term

38:59

about how this is going to affect or help our customers.

39:02

- Yeah, absolutely.

39:04

I know we're coming up on time,

39:06

but I wanna get your hot take on one, one, one, one more thing.

39:10

What do you think about beta programs in B2B?

39:13

- I have a love-hate relationship with them

39:18

just because the hate is the aspect

39:21

that they always go after the same customers.

39:23

It's really hard to get additional customers to buy

39:26

into the beta testing program

39:28

from a strategic perspective

39:29

because I deal with these large customers.

39:32

A lot of times they don't wanna be part of beta testing

39:34

because there are so many issues

39:37

and that will create more issues and frustration for them.

39:41

The caveat to that is because they're the largest customers,

39:44

if they did beta tests, we could find those issues out quicker

39:48

than after release when it goes to that customer.

39:50

They're like, "Hey, by the way,

39:51

"I'm running into all these issues."

39:53

It's because these smaller SMB mid-market,

39:55

they don't have the full usage that a strategic customer

39:59

or maybe not as complex as a strategic customer.

40:02

So it's that love-hate of if I put them in there,

40:05

it could create frustration,

40:07

but if I don't put them in there,

40:09

it will probably create frustration.

40:11

So it's just like, what, it's damned if you do damned

40:13

if you don't in that scenario.

40:14

- Absolutely, absolutely.

40:16

I think it's like the, it's a good thing to have

40:20

because you need to find the problems

40:22

and you want the bigger accounts to be a part

40:25

of those beta programs and understand the features,

40:28

but at the same time, it's like, can be a headache.

40:31

I really appreciate you coming on

40:36

and sharing the juice of customer success

40:38

as it plays into the overall customer experience.

40:42

Tell the audience where they can find you.

40:45

- So I'm not on Twitter yet,

40:47

but you can find me on LinkedIn.

40:49

I think it's forward slash Walker Co.

40:52

You could also find me on Instagram under Walker.co.

40:56

So feel free to hit me up.

40:58

You also will put the links right into the--

41:00

- In the show now.

41:01

- There we go.

41:02

That way is easier.

41:03

You'll have to remember it.

41:04

You can just listen to it.

41:05

Take notes on this call today.

41:06

- I appreciate you, Corey.

41:09

And thank you to everyone tuning in.

41:11

We'll see you next week where we break down

41:14

more juicy hot takes.

41:18

- Hey, wow.

41:19

You made it to the end of the episode.

41:21

That means that you like me and I like you,

41:23

which also means you should subscribe to this show.

41:27

(upbeat music)

41:29

(upbeat music)

41:32

(water splashing)

41:36

(boing)