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The Customer Success Professional's Handbook
How to Thrive in One of the World's Fastest Growing Careers--While Driving Growth For Your Company
Ashvin Vaidyanathan (Author), Ruben Rabago (Author)
9781119624615, Wiley
Hardback, published 19 March 2020
288 pages
23.1 x 15.5 x 3.3 cm, 0.476 kg
The definitive “Customer Success Manager How-To-Guide” for the CSM profession from Gainsight, who brought you the market-leading Customer Success The Customer Success Manager has become a critical asset to organizations across the business landscape. As the subscription model has spread from the cloud and SaaS to more sectors of the economy, that pivotal role will only grow in importance. That’s because if you want to compete and thrive in this new environment, you need to put the customer at the center of your strategy. You need to recognize you’re no longer selling just a product. You’re selling an outcome. Customer Success Managers (CSM) are committed to capturing and delivering those outcomes by listening to their customers, understanding their needs, and adapting products and services to drive success. Although several existing resources address the customer success imperative, there is no authoritative instruction manual for the CSM profession—until now. The Customer Success Professional’s Handbook is the definitive reference book for CSMs and similar roles in the field. This practical, first-of-its-kind manual fills a significant gap in professional customer success literature, providing the knowledge every CSM needs to succeed—from the practitioner level all the way to senior leadership. The authors—acknowledged experts in building, training, and managing Customer Success teams—offer real-world guidance and practical advice for aspiring and experienced CSMs alike. The handbook is written by practioners for practioners. An indispensable resource for front-line Customer Success Managers, this much-needed book: Currently, with over 70,000 open positions, Customer Success Manager in one of the fastest-growing jobs in the world. The Customer Success Professional’s Handbook: How to Thrive in One of the World's Fastest Growing Careers—While Driving Growth For Your Company will prove to be your go-to manual throughout every stage of your CSM career.
Contributors xvi Foreword xvii Part I What is Customer Success and Why is it a Great Career? 1 Chapter 1 Customer Success Management: The Birth of a New Profession 3 The Age of the Customer 9 The Critical Missing Function 12 The Birth of the Customer Success Manager 15 Endnotes 18 Chapter 2 Defining the Customer Success Manager Role 21 Goals: Increase Retention, Reduce Churn, Drive Growth 21 The Consumption Gap 23 The Customer Success Equation 24 What Customer Success Management is Not 27 A Career or a Springboard to a Real Profession? 29 Endnotes 33 Part II The Core Skills of a Great CSM 35 Chapter 3 A Day in the Life of a Customer Success Manager 37 Putting Customer Success into Practice 37 Being a Customer Success Manager – A Personal Testimonial 44 The Three Core CSM Competencies 46 Chapter 4 The CSM Skills Required in an Ever-Evolving Business World 51 How to Develop Your Industry and Category Knowledge 52 Network with Mentors and Industry Experts 54 Product Expertise is Your Ticket to Greatness 57 Endnote 60 Chapter 5 Learn How to Empathize and Build Relationships with Customers 61 1. Be Introspective and Self-Aware 63 2. Communicate with Intent, Precision, and Persuasion: Be a Trusted Advisor 66 3. Consistently Follow-Up to Create and Grow Trust 68 4. How to Respond When You Don’t Know the Answer 69 5. Stay Focused and Positive When Situations are Difficult; Learn From Them 70 6. Read People In-Depth and With a #HumanFirst Lens of Compassion 71 7. Genuinely Connect with Customers: it is Personal and it is Your Business 73 Endnotes 76 Part III Operationalizing Customer Success 77 Chapter 6 Preparing for Your Engagements and Asking Questions Like a Problem-Solving Consultant 79 The Need for a 360o View of the Customer 80 Do Your Homework: Prepare for Every Customer Engagement 83 The Art of Discovery: Asking the Right Questions to Get to the Heart of the Customer’s Problem 87 Endnotes 94 Chapter 7 Defining the Journey to Customer Outcomes 95 Customer Lifecycle, Journey Map, Customer Journey 96 Segment Your Customers 104 Endnotes 110 Chapter 8 Operationalize Your Customer Journey with Moments of Truth 111 Identifying Your Moments of Truth 112 Sales-to-Onboarding Handoff 114 Welcome the Customer and Onboarding Kickoff 115 Launch or Go-Live 116 New Customer Executive or Champion 116 Business Reviews: For the Executive and More 117 Renewals 122 Endnotes 124 Chapter 9 Using Customer Health Scores to Manage Your Customers 127 Health Scores: How to Know If Your Customers are Doing Well 127 Designing Your Outcomes Health Score 129 Designing Your Experience Health Score 133 Setting the Right Thresholds 135 Other Frameworks to Design Your Health Score 136 Putting Health Scores to Work for You 139 The Future and Human-Element of Customer Health Scorecards 142 Endnotes 146 Chapter 10 Voice of the Customer and Your Tech-Touch Strategy 147 How to Get Meaningful Customer Feedback 147 The Hidden Value of Customer Feedback 151 Tech Touch: The Secrets of Low-Touch Customer Success 154 Onboarding Tech-Touch Workflow 155 Renewals Management Tech-Touch Workflow 158 Risk Management Tech-Touch Workflow 158 Advocacy Management Tech-Touch Workflow 161 Endnote 163 Chapter 11 Help Customers Achieve Their Business Goals 165 Adoption Management: How to Proactively Manage Product Use and Adoption 166 Success Planning: Make Sure the Customer Gets the Long-Term Results They Expect 172 Identify Business Objectives 173 Strategy Session 173 Document the Plan 175 Track Value 175 Product Experience – Improving Your Product is Your #1 Priority 176 Endnote 180 Chapter 12 Drive Revenue Growth Through Engagement, Proactive Risk Management, Churn Analysis, Expansion, and Advocacy 181 Stakeholder Alignment: How to Manage Executive Sponsors and Other Customer Stakeholders 182 Risk Management: What to Do When a Customer is Trending Toward Cancelling: How to Proactively Escalate Risk and Save the Customer 185 Reduce Churn with a Deep Understanding of Why Your Customers Have Left 190 Expansion Management: Understanding White Space in Your Customer Base to Upsell and Cross-sell Your Products and Services 199 Advocacy Management: How to Turn Your Best Customers into Evangelists 202 Endnote 205 Part IV Retaining and Developing the Best CSMs 207 Chapter 13 Managing a Customer Success Team 209 Segmentation and Aligning a Customer Success Manager to the Right Customer 209 Determining the Best Customer Success Manager-to-Customer Ratio and CSM Profiles 214 Compensating Your Customer Success Managers 219 Dashboards to Manage the Customer Success Team 222 Chapter 14 Creating Career Paths for Your Customer Success Managers 229 Designing CSM as a Career 229 Creating Career Paths within the CS Function 230 Conducting a Comprehensive Talent Review Process 238 Creating Career Paths Between Functions 240 Conclusion 243 Acknowledgments 245 About the Authors 251 Index 253
Subject Areas: Business & management [KJ]
