Imagine the domino effect of a brimming email inbox — just a few more urgent requests than expected, and the rest of a day’s tasks needing to be set aside to put out the flames.
On the front line of client relationships, customer success managers know the pattern well, and can often find themselves in a cycle of reactive work. But the unpredictability of fitting work in around cascading client needs isn’t inevitable.
A proactive approach to work can help a CSM manage their time effectively, respond to needs more strategically and better support their customers.
According to 2022 reporting from McKinsey, customer care is a major opportunity for businesses to do right by both customers and colleagues. “Done well — through a combination of tech and human touch — it is an area where companies can drive loyalty through a more personalized customer journey while unlocking greater productivity, increased revenue, improved job satisfaction, and real-time customer insights,” the report states.
But, the report also warns: “Knowing where to focus or what to do first isn’t easy, and businesses need to move quickly.”
CSMs at Trustpilot and AdCellerant have set playbooks into action that empower their teams to take a proactive and data-driven approach to relationship management. Built In Colorado has an inside look at their habits and strategies.
What’s one personal habit you’ve adopted that’s helped you be more proactive as a CSM?
As a customer success manager, I strive to not only have consultative relationships with my customers but also personal relationships. Behind the screens and responsibilities of our day-to-day roles, we are still people with normal lives, and we want and desire connection as well as support. I try to adopt these strategies into building healthy relationships that are not only for the success of our partnership but also personally. I try to be as proactive as I can in listening to customer feedback and identifying patterns or trends on both a micro and macro level. This helps me identify common issues, concerns or roadblocks that customers are facing and take proactive steps to address them before they become larger problems.
What role does data play in helping you and your team be more proactive in your approach to customer success?
Data plays a crucial role in helping myself and our customer success team drive adoption to ensure success for both clients and our team. Data allows our team to gain insights into customer behavior, analyze customer return on investment and pain points. Personally, I’m enabled to develop a strategy for performance improvement and organizational goals to not only achieve, but exceed our metrics to increase revenue by identifying growth opportunities within our current customer base. Customers that are seeing success and have confidence in the ROI through the data we provide are always more willing to invest deeper in our partnership.
Data allows our team to gain insights into customer behavior, analyze customer return on investment and pain points.’’
As a team, what’s a system or strategy you’ve put in place to get ahead of potential issues before they arise?
Our team has implemented a well-defined onboarding strategy that helps both our customers and customer success team align on key goals and metrics where we, with the customer, define success in our partnership from the very beginning of our working relationship. This enables us to build strong lines of communication, support and identify opportunities of growth as well as obstacles that may become issues down the road. By doing so, we potentially alleviate most, if not all, of the common challenges we’ve encountered in previous partnerships to create a truly bespoke white-glove experience for each and every customer. Issues always arise. But with strong identification upfront, we know who to connect with externally and internally when something comes up for fast remediation.
What’s one personal habit you’ve adopted that’s helped you be more proactive as a CSM?
A simple step that’s often overlooked is taking the time to understand your customer’s goals. We must also understand how our products and services can help customers reach their goals. Most businesses will tell you their goal is sales — our job is to break that large rock into smaller rocks. Does their target audience know about their product or service? Are they looking to drive foot traffic? Is their business showing up when customers are searching for them? By taking the time to understand the business and what it’s trying to accomplish, we can develop strategic campaigns to set us up for success proactively.
By taking the time to understand the business, we can develop strategic campaigns to set us up for success proactively.’’
What role does data play in helping you and your team be more proactive in your approach to customer success?
Data plays a critical role in digital advertising. We leverage data from our campaigns along with first, second and third-party data to make real-time decisions and optimizations. As a team, we rely on this data to communicate results to our partners and determine the success of their campaigns. Our reporting dashboard gives partners access to real-time data, which helps them to guide renewal conversations and ultimately prevent churn.
As a team, what’s a system or strategy you’ve put in place to get ahead of potential issues before they arise?
One of the ways we maintain consistent communication with our partners is through biweekly calls. We utilize this scheduled time to discuss performance, questions and concerns and to mitigate issues from turning into more significant problems. This goes hand-in-hand with data, as we can review campaigns in real time on our calls.
