Customer Success is about Implementation, but not yours

Part of what I am doing is transitioning from what I've done for the last decade, working with non-profits with high amounts of touchpoints, to a largely distant and impersonal space in SaaS.

Many companies are doing a really great job, those are the companies I am applying to. However, many of the companies that I have encountered (a lot of shopping and being disappointed) don't do this well, or, at all.

Looking in; Customer Success Focal Points

I've stuck my neck on the line for some products, the success or failure with them was mine to bear. It's not a comfortable decision for a medium-sized nonprofit to be purchasing at CRM platforms that cost 5% of our yearly revenue. CRMs are particularly bad. We all know the tremendous upside in using them but that is all we hear about in the 'Wooing' process.

When the sale is made, now your customer has bosses, stakeholders, and themselves watching intently on the horizon; where is this upside? Jobs are quite literally on the line in how well people use your software, especially if the promises are monumental.

Bringing Customer Success means Understanding Change Leadership from the Outside

The most frustrating thing with SaaS is when you have this Ferrari but you don't know where to put the key. And once you get that, you don't know how to fill the thing up.

Customer Success is a unique position where a representative is actually a coach. The job STARTS at onboarding the customer and making sure they know their way around the interface but continues on making sure that the decision-maker isn't in trouble for making the purchase.

But really, it is more than that. We've created these products that we truly believe in. "If people really get this, their businesses will change!", a common refrain of founders.

Change Leadership is the ability to manage a transition from point A to point B but also to inspire all about the benefits so that they willfully take part in the change. As a dramatic point, Customer Success Managers and Specialists need to have a dead serious scope of what their job is. Their job is to help change entire businesses who are using their products. That is a tall order.

Successful Customer Success Reps will at least have this urgency in the back of their minds. This is a weird place to be. You can't over-promise anything but instead, you need to figure out the points of friction (both in the Software and in the implementation) that are hindering the usefulness of the product.

The hardest part of this is convincing the customer to invest in the product to the degree that it would be successful. That is also another reality, not every customer is 'all-in' on your product. Maybe their boss had a wild hair this morning and purchased a subscription before staff meeting.

This takes nuance and clarity when working with our customers. They may hate the product but they aren't in charge; we have to even connect these people to the product and find success for them.

Conclusion

Customer Success is about getting to the bottom of what is creating a lack of results. Sometimes that is training in how-to-use the Software. Other times is is training on how to communicate the value of it to other implementors in the organization. Other times it is connecting the success of this product in their business with their job; they may get a promotion if this goes well and transforms everything.

It is in this way that we are coaches. We need to find out why they aren't scoring in the games. Are they a team player? Can they dribble long enough to make it inside the 3 point line? Do they know the rules of the game?

It's our role to figure out and get them to the next stage. Again and again.

Thanks for reading this. I am open to Remote positions in SaaS customer success. I would love to explore your opportunities to see if they are a match.