Exploring the role of Customer Success
Like many people who work in tech, Anna Knight took an interesting path before landing her current role as a Customer Success Manager (CSM) at Athennian, a tech startup based in Calgary.
After graduating from university with a specialization in Recreation, Sport and Tourism, she spent several years working with Explore Edmonton. She loved her job and then…the pandemic hit.
Post-pandemic, she took a role as a program coordinator with Startup Edmonton. She was “totally green” to the tech industry and admits she had no idea how big tech was in Alberta.
Once she got a taste of working with founders and entrepreneurs and learning about bootstrapping and venture capital, she knew she wanted to dive right in.
As it turns out, her previous roles provided her with some valuable transferable skills that helped her not only land, but excel, in a customer success role.
“I like working with people, I’m good at building relationships, I like problem-solving and enjoy being the main point of contact for people. So, it was a natural next step for me,” says Knight, who’s been a CSM at Athenian for almost two years.
According to Michael Beedie, OnRamp program manager, it’s common for customer success specialists to come from a variety of different backgrounds. He says personality traits are more important than factual knowledge as most of the tactical aspects of customer success can be learned either on the job or in a short-form program like the new Customer Success program developed jointly by InceptionU and OnRamp.
“I’ve spoken to many people in customer success roles and they all come from completely different and surprising backgrounds. But what always comes through are the core values of the people; they love helping people and feel great when the customer ‘wins,’” he says.
The new offering is a 20-week virtual and part time course, which means participants can still work while taking the program.
Many different aspects to Customer Success
Customer success through the lens of tech is usually about adoption - having customers understand and buy into the solution you’re providing to their problem. According to Anna, these are the three key areas of a CSM role:
Adoption - buying your solution
Retention - developing long-term relationships
Expansion - finding more users or offering new features to existing customers
At smaller companies, customer success managers will cover the whole customer journey, from onboarding right through to renewals and expansion. At larger companies, like Athennian for example, you may just focus on one area of the customer journey. “I’d say my role is medium touch. I’m very client-based, so you can’t just love them and leave them,” she chuckles.
Anna says CSM roles at B2B businesses tend to be high touch, where you spend a lot of time getting to know your clients and nurturing the relationships. These are often large contracts, with high revenue potential, so they need to be treated as such.
B2C companies tend to be more “low touch”, where one CSM may be dealing with 200 accounts.
The difference between Customer Success and Customer Support
Many people confuse the two roles and think they’re the same. However, it’s important to realize that they’re quite different.
OnRamp’s Michael Beedie says the core difference is that customer success is proactive and the CSM is charged with deeply understanding the customer to solve their problems as they happen or, ideally, before they happen.
Customer support, on the other hand, tends to be more reactive as customers come to the support person with an urgent problem that needs to be solved at the moment. Some other key differences are noted in the graphic below.
Image courtesy of Zendesk.
What does she love about her job?
Anna says she loves interacting with her customers - she gets energy from those interactions and feels personally fulfilled when she helps them with a challenge they are facing.
As the eyes and ears of the customer, she also has an important role in communicating that information to other departments and team members.
“I will often report back to the team and say, listen, here’s what I’m hearing from customers, this is what they’re saying, this is valuable feedback.”
Direct impact on company revenue
Customer success plays a very integral role to tech companies, according to Anna. As the person who is responsible for renewals and upsells, add-ons and upgrades, you can have a very direct impact on the company’s revenue.
That can also make it a lucrative role, as most CSMs receive some kind of variable pay for their performance on top of their base salary.
While it can be different at every company, it’s something people new to the role should be inquiring about. Unlike a sales commission which is tied to closing individual deals, customer success commissions are usually tied to hitting annual targets or metrics.
Salaries can vary, but a recent North American survey about CS reported:
Only 37% of Customer Success Managers earn less than $75,000 annually, while 34.21% of CSM earn between $75,000 to $99,999.
So, is Customer Success right for you?
Anna says there are a few key ingredients in her secret sauce to being a great customer success manager. Think about these personality traits to assess whether it may be a fit for you. Here are her key considerations:
Discovery - Asking questions and getting to know the customers, such as: what was their road to get to where things are at today, and what are their current challenges? Getting to know them on a personal level helps to build trust and allows them to be more willing to talk to you about problems they may be having.
Be Curious - Always be engaging in discovery, whether it’s the first time or the 20th time you’re talking to them. Curiosity is a huge thing. Never assume everything is going fine. Things change, relationships change, and there may be competitive aspects or new pieces of legislation that are now impacting their job. How can you help them?
Active Listening - It’s a real skill to digest what they’re saying and be authentic and interested, and it takes practice.
Problem Solving - Take what they’re saying and try your best to solve their problem - sometimes the answer is simple, and other times requires some outside-of-the-box thinking, and that is what keeps it fun!
The Customer Success program at InceptionU begins in February. If you’re interested in learning more, attend our next Teck Trek event. Ready to apply? You can fill out your application here.
