Auctor purus, aliquet risus tincidunt erat nulla sed quam blandit mattis id gravida elementum, amet id libero nibh urna nisi sit sed. Velit enim at purus arcu sed ac. Viverra maecenas id netus euismod phasellus et tempus rutrum tellus nisi, amet porttitor facilisis aenean faucibus eu nec pellentesque id. Volutpat, pellentesque cursus sit at ut a imperdiet duis turpis duis ultrices gravida at aenean amet mattis sed aliquam augue nisl cras suscipit.
At elit elementum consectetur interdum venenatis et id vestibulum id imperdiet elit urna sed vulputate bibendum aliquam. Tristique lectus tellus amet, mauris lorem venenatis vulputate morbi condimentum felis et lobortis urna amet odio leo tincidunt semper sed bibendum metus, malesuada scelerisque laoreet risus duis.
Ullamcorper pellentesque a ultrices maecenas fermentum neque eget. Habitant cum esat ornare sed. Tristique semper est diam mattis elit. Viverra adipiscing vulputate nibh neque at. Adipiscing tempus id sed arcu accumsan ullamcorper dignissim pulvinar ullamcorper urna, habitasse. Lectus scelerisque euismod risus tristique nullam elementum diam libero sit sed diam rhoncus, accumsan proin amet eu nunc vel turpis eu orci sit fames.
“Sit enim porttitor vehicula consequat urna, eleifend tincidunt vulputate turpis, dignissim pulvinar ullamcorper”
Nisi in sem ipsum fermentum massa quisque cursus risus sociis sit massa suspendisse. Neque vulputate sed purus, dui sit diam praesent ullamcorper at in non dignissim iaculis velit nibh eu vitae. Bibendum euismod ipsum euismod urna vestibulum ut ligula. In faucibus egestas dui integer tempor feugiat lorem venenatis sollicitudin quis ultrices cras feugiat iaculis eget.
Id ac imperdiet est eget justo viverra nunc faucibus tempus tempus porttitor commodo sodales sed tellus eu donec enim. Lectus eu viverra ullamcorper ultricies et lacinia nisl ut at aliquet lacus blandit dui arcu at in id amet orci egestas commodo sagittis in. Vel risus magna nibh elementum pellentesque feugiat netus sit donec tellus nunc gravida feugiat nullam dignissim rutrum lacus felis morbi nisi interdum tincidunt. Vestibulum pellentesque cursus magna pulvinar est at quis nisi nam et sed in hac quis vulputate vitae in et sit. Interdum etiam nulla lorem lorem feugiat cursus etiam massa facilisi ut.
For those just joining my blog series CSM from the Trenches, welcome. In this series I discuss trends, best practices, and advice for frontline customer success managers.
Being on the CSM frontline allows me to directly influence the success of my clients. I love that; as my clients are successful, I’m successful. Each day I learn from the trenches what it takes to make clients happy and successful. Let’s move forward with this week's blog post!
The responsibilities of customer success vs. customer support are often intertwined. After all, both focus on serving the customer to ensure they find success with your product or service, right? Though the answer is “yes”, it’s important for the CSM to remember their distinct role in the customer relationship.
Customer success is proactive. It’s as simple as that; CSMs build relationships with existing customers, have an in-depth understanding of their client’s goals, and help their customers meet those goals through each touch and engagement.
Even with a clearly defined role, it’s still possible to fall victim to the trap of reactiveness. This means that even though you may know your responsibilities as a CSM, there comes a point where things simply slow down and you start to rely on your customers reaching out out to become engaged. Have you ever found yourself in a similar situation and wondered what your next steps should be?
In order to make each day meaningful and to avoid falling into the trap of reactiveness, there are 5 habits I’ve tried to form as a customer success manager:
Consumed with busy schedules, time is our most valuable resource because it forces us to assess and evaluate our priorities. Take 15 minutes at the beginning of each day to create a calendar gameplan. This will help you remain focused as you prepare for and move between meetings, calls, or other activities. As simple as it seems, this habit will improve your organizational and time-management skills, as well as ensure your priorities are where they’re supposed to be.
Once organized, the next thing I look to do is understand the health of my clients...particularly those who I am meeting with that day, are “at risk”, or coming up for renewal. Are my customers happy or are they not? Pretty simple; if they are not satisfied, a game plan is created to improve their health and overall success.
Based on what I discover during my first two habits, specific action items are created in order to help me accomplish what needs to be done. Whether I need to prepare an agenda for an upcoming call or respond to a client inquiry, action items foster urgency for and guide my work.
Even when swamped with work, I always strive to be quick to respond to my clients. I look to make their priorities my own. From experience, I’ve learned that quick response time is one of the best things a customer success manager can do to build trust. When I don’t know the exact answer or am busy with another engagement, I at least try to respond and let them know I’m on it and have heard their question. I’ll even occasionally set them up with a co-worker to get resolve the issue, if necessary.
For a CSM, nothing is worse than not knowing what’s coming next or missing out on something to which you are already committed. I’ve learned that - in this case - a good defense is the best offense; before I head home for the evening, I review what’s coming the next day. I don’t get too specific, but I want to know what’s coming.
These 5 habits will help you become a proactive customer success manager. I look forward to sharing more best practices, advice, and learning from the CSM trenches.
If you missed last week’s CSM from the Trenches, you can read it below:
Three Keys to Understand Customer Health
Check out our eBooks below for more customer success best practices and advice:
Customer Success as a Culture: Marketing Leaders Edition
Customer Success as a Culture: Sales Leaders Edition
Learn more about how ClientSuccess can help your company develop a strong customer success methodology and strategy with easy-to-use customer success software by requesting a 30-minute demo.
