Luke is Head of the Global Customer Success Team, one of the fastest growing CS Teams out there. In the full episode (on our channel) - We dug into a lot of practical topics for CS & CS Leaders...
🟢 Innovative approaches to incentivising CS
🟢 The maturity stages of CS Teams
🟢 How to set expectations with customers
🟢 How to drive product adoption
🟢 Developing your CS Career
🟢 and more!
But one of the best parts of the discussion was left for Customer Success Managers looking to develop their careers and go (further) into management.
In this clip, Luke brings great clarity to the essence of what you need to master at each each level :
🔷 Entry level: Mastering Prioritisation
🔷 Senior CS: Becoming an Advisor
🔷 Customer Success Manager: Solving for the outer-loop (fixing it for all customers)
🔷 Customer Success VP: Solving for the outer-outer-loop (aka cross functional)
Full Article
In the dynamic world of customer success, professionals have the opportunity to embark on a rewarding and challenging career path. As they navigate through various stages, their roles and responsibilities evolve, requiring them to continuously enhance their skills and knowledge. This article explores the three distinct levels that define the customer success career trajectory, shedding light on the critical competencies and mindsets necessary for success at each stage.
The customer success profession is pivotal in fostering lasting relationships with customers, ensuring their satisfaction, and driving value realization. It is a discipline that demands a unique blend of technical expertise, strategic thinking, and exceptional interpersonal skills. By understanding the three levels of a customer success career, aspiring professionals can better prepare themselves for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead, ultimately positioning themselves for long-term growth and career advancement.
For those just starting out in a customer success career, the foundational skills revolve around organization, conscientiousness, grit, and the ability to prioritize and manage time effectively. At this entry-level stage, success is often determined by how well you can structure your workday, tackle tasks systematically, and demonstrate a strong work ethic.
One of the key questions an interviewer may ask is, "How do you decide what to work on and how do you prioritize your work?" This question aims to gauge your self-awareness and ability to consciously think about your approach to work. Effective time management and prioritization are crucial for entry-level customer success managers, as they are typically juggling multiple accounts and responsibilities.
Demonstrating grit, or the perseverance and passion to push through challenges, is also highly valued at this stage. Customer success can be a demanding field, and the ability to stay focused, resilient, and dedicated to achieving goals is essential for long-term success.
Organizational skills are paramount for entry-level customer success managers. This includes maintaining clear communication channels with customers, documenting interactions and action items, and ensuring that nothing falls through the cracks. A strong attention to detail and the ability to multitask effectively are also key attributes for success at this level.
Overall, the entry-level stage of a customer success career is about building a solid foundation of work habits, time management skills, and a conscientious approach to serving customers. By mastering these fundamental abilities, you'll be well-positioned to take on more advanced responsibilities as your career progresses.
At the mid-career level, a crucial skill for Customer Success Managers (CSMs) is the ability to provide advisory services to their customers. This involves guiding customers through challenges, offering recommendations, and even challenging their assumptions when necessary.
As customers gain experience and maturity in using a product or service, their needs and goals often evolve. A mid-career CSM must be able to anticipate these changes and proactively suggest solutions or alternative approaches that align with the customer's long-term objectives.
One of the key responsibilities of a mid-career CSM is to ask thought-provoking questions that help customers re-evaluate their current strategies or practices. This requires a deep understanding of the customer's business, industry, and the broader market trends. By asking insightful questions, CSMs can uncover potential blind spots or areas for improvement that the customer may have overlooked.
Effective mid-career CSMs are not afraid to challenge customer assumptions or push back against requests that may not be in the customer's best interest. They possess the confidence and expertise to respectfully disagree and provide well-reasoned counterarguments or alternative solutions. This ability to have candid conversations and offer constructive criticism is crucial for building trust and fostering a true partnership with customers.
Moreover, mid-career CSMs should be skilled at presenting complex information in a clear and compelling manner. They must be able to articulate the value proposition of their product or service, as well as the potential risks and trade-offs associated with different approaches. By presenting information objectively and transparently, CSMs can empower customers to make informed decisions that align with their goals and priorities.
Overall, the advisory skills of a mid-career CSM are essential for driving customer success and building long-lasting relationships. By providing guidance, challenging assumptions, and offering recommendations, these professionals play a vital role in helping customers achieve their desired outcomes and maximizing the value they derive from the product or service.
As customer success professionals progress to senior and principal levels, their focus shifts from addressing individual customer issues to identifying broader trends and developing proactive programs. At this stage, closing the "outer loop" becomes a critical skill.
Senior CSMs excel at trend spotting across their customer portfolio. They recognize recurring pain points, common challenges, or emerging needs shared by multiple customers. This bird's-eye view allows them to proactively develop programs, resources, or initiatives to address these trends before they escalate or impact a larger customer base.
For example, a senior CSM may notice that several customers are struggling with a specific feature or workflow within the product. Instead of addressing each case individually, they can work with cross-functional teams to create targeted training materials, host webinars, or suggest product enhancements to streamline the experience for all affected customers.
Closing the outer loop also involves identifying product-level issues that may be driving customer challenges. Senior CSMs collaborate closely with product teams, providing valuable insights from the frontlines. They can pinpoint areas where the product may be falling short, suggest improvements based on customer feedback, and advocate for enhancements that better meet customer needs.
By proactively addressing trends and product-level concerns, senior CSMs play a crucial role in driving customer success at a strategic level. Their ability to anticipate and address broader challenges before they escalate not only improves customer satisfaction and retention but also contributes to the overall growth and success of the organization.
The ability to effectively solve immediate customer problems is a crucial skill for entry-level and mid-career customer success managers. At these stages, the focus is on a reactive approach, addressing the issues that arise in real-time and providing prompt resolutions.
Customer success professionals at this level must possess strong problem-solving abilities, allowing them to analyze the situation at hand, identify the root cause, and implement targeted solutions. This involves actively listening to the customer's concerns, gathering relevant information, and leveraging their product knowledge and technical expertise to resolve the problem efficiently.
Closing the inner loop requires a hands-on approach, where customer success managers roll up their sleeves and work directly with the customer to address their specific pain points. This may involve troubleshooting technical issues, providing guidance on product features or best practices, or facilitating communication between the customer and other internal teams, such as product development or support.
Effective communication and interpersonal skills are also essential in closing the inner loop. Customer success managers must be able to articulate complex concepts in a clear and concise manner, ensuring that the customer understands the proposed solutions and their rationale. Building trust and fostering strong relationships with customers is key, as it allows for open dialogue and collaboration in resolving issues.
While closing the inner loop is a reactive approach, it lays the foundation for more proactive and strategic customer success initiatives as professionals progress in their careers. The experience gained from solving immediate customer problems provides valuable insights and helps identify patterns that can inform long-term strategies and product enhancements.
At the senior and VP levels of customer success, the ability to close the outer loop becomes crucial. This involves identifying patterns and trends across multiple customer accounts, enabling proactive program development to address emerging challenges before they escalate.
Senior customer success professionals excel at spotting recurring issues or opportunities across their portfolio. By analyzing data and customer feedback, they can pinpoint common pain points, feature requests, or areas for improvement. This bird's-eye view allows them to develop targeted programs, training materials, or process improvements that can be rolled out preemptively to relevant customer segments.
Moreover, senior customer success leaders possess the skill to connect the dots between customer feedback and product roadmaps. They can collaborate with product teams, providing insights into customer needs and desired enhancements. This feedback loop ensures that product development aligns with customer demands, ultimately driving higher adoption, satisfaction, and retention.
At the VP level, customer success professionals take a holistic view of the entire customer lifecycle, from acquisition to renewal and expansion. They can identify strategic opportunities for growth, such as upsell or cross-sell initiatives, based on their deep understanding of customer needs and pain points. This strategic vision enables them to shape the overall customer experience and drive revenue growth for the organization.
Closing the outer loop requires a combination of analytical skills, strategic thinking, and cross-functional collaboration. It's a hallmark of seasoned customer success professionals who can transcend tactical problem-solving and drive lasting, impactful change for their customers and the business.
A critical skill for mid-career customer success managers is the ability to provide advisory services to customers. This involves guiding customers through complex decisions, challenging their assumptions when necessary, and offering recommendations based on deep product knowledge and industry expertise.
At this stage, customer success managers must move beyond simply executing tasks and solving immediate problems. They need to develop a strategic mindset, anticipating customer needs and proactively offering solutions that align with the customer's long-term goals and objectives.
Effective advisory skills require active listening, critical thinking, and the confidence to respectfully challenge a customer's perspective when appropriate. Customer success managers must be able to ask probing questions, understand the customer's context and constraints, and then provide tailored recommendations that address the customer's unique situation.
This advisory role also demands a deep understanding of the product or service being offered, as well as a broad knowledge of industry trends, best practices, and potential pitfalls. Customers often seek guidance from customer success managers as trusted advisors, relying on their expertise to navigate complex decisions and avoid common mistakes.
By developing strong advisory skills, mid-career customer success managers can elevate their value proposition, fostering deeper relationships with customers and positioning themselves as strategic partners rather than mere service providers. This skill set is crucial for career advancement, as it demonstrates the ability to think critically, solve complex problems, and drive tangible business outcomes for customers.
As an entry-level Customer Success Manager (CSM), one of the foundational skills to master is effective prioritization and time management. With a multitude of tasks, requests, and responsibilities vying for your attention, it's crucial to develop strategies that allow you to focus on the most impactful work and deliver exceptional customer experiences.
One effective approach is to categorize your tasks based on their urgency and importance. Urgent tasks are those with impending deadlines or immediate customer needs, while important tasks contribute significantly to long-term goals or have a substantial impact on customer satisfaction. By prioritizing urgent and important tasks first, you can ensure that critical issues are addressed promptly, and high-value activities receive the attention they deserve.
Another strategy is to leverage tools and techniques for task organization. Maintain a comprehensive to-do list or use project management software to keep track of your tasks, deadlines, and priorities. Break down larger projects into smaller, actionable steps, and schedule dedicated time blocks for focused work on specific tasks.
Time blocking is a powerful technique that can help you regain control over your schedule. By allocating specific time slots for different activities, you can minimize distractions and ensure that you make progress on your priorities. Additionally, consider implementing the Pomodoro technique, which involves working in focused intervals followed by short breaks, to maintain productivity and avoid burnout.
Effective communication and collaboration with your team and stakeholders are also essential. Regularly discuss priorities with your manager, seek clarification when needed, and don't hesitate to ask for support or guidance. By fostering open communication and leveraging the expertise of your colleagues, you can ensure that you're focusing on the right tasks and aligning your efforts with the broader organizational goals.
Remember, prioritization and time management are ongoing processes that require continuous refinement and adaptation. As you gain experience and face new challenges, regularly reassess your strategies and adjust them to align with evolving priorities and customer needs.
As a customer success manager gains experience and progresses in their career, they develop the ability to identify patterns and trends across multiple customers. This skill, known as trend spotting, is a crucial aspect of becoming a senior or principal-level CSM.
At this level, CSMs move beyond simply solving individual customer issues and begin to look for broader trends and commonalities among their customer base. By analyzing data and customer feedback, they can recognize recurring challenges, pain points, or opportunities for improvement that may affect a larger segment of their customers.
Once these trends are identified, senior CSMs leverage their strategic thinking and problem-solving skills to develop proactive programs and initiatives. These programs are designed to address the identified trends proactively, rather than reactively addressing issues as they arise with each customer.
For example, if a senior CSM notices that several customers are struggling with a particular feature or workflow within the product, they may collaborate with the product team to create educational resources, such as webinars, tutorials, or knowledge base articles. By providing these resources upfront, the CSM can help customers better understand and utilize the product, reducing potential frustration and support requests.
Additionally, senior CSMs may work with cross-functional teams to develop process improvements, product enhancements, or new offerings that directly address the identified trends. This proactive approach not only improves customer satisfaction and retention but also positions the company as a thought leader and trusted advisor in the industry.
Trend spotting and program development require a deep understanding of the customer base, the ability to analyze data effectively, and the strategic vision to develop scalable solutions. It is a critical skill that separates senior-level CSMs from their entry and mid-level counterparts, enabling them to drive significant value for both customers and the organization.
At the VP level of customer success, professionals must possess the ability to identify product-level issues that contribute to customer challenges. This skill involves not only recognizing patterns across multiple customer accounts but also understanding the underlying product features or limitations that may be driving those patterns.
VP-level customer success managers work closely with product management teams, providing valuable insights from the customer's perspective. They can analyze customer feedback, usage data, and support tickets to pinpoint areas where the product may be falling short or causing friction for users.
By collaborating with product teams, VP-level customer success professionals can advocate for product enhancements, new features, or user experience improvements that address the root causes of customer issues. They can prioritize product roadmap items based on the potential impact on customer satisfaction, retention, and revenue.
Moreover, VP-level customer success leaders can leverage their deep understanding of customer needs and industry trends to inform product strategy. They can anticipate future customer requirements and provide guidance on product direction, ensuring that the company's offerings remain competitive and aligned with evolving market demands.
Effective communication and influence are crucial skills for VP-level customer success professionals when working with product teams. They must be able to articulate customer perspectives clearly, present data-driven insights, and persuasively make the case for product improvements that will drive customer success and business growth.
As you progress in your customer success career, you'll take on increasing levels of responsibility and develop more advanced skills. At the entry-level, the focus is on mastering the fundamentals of time management, organization, and grit. You'll learn how to prioritize your work effectively and develop a strong work ethic.
As you gain experience and move into a mid-career role, you'll need to become more advisory. This involves the ability to guide customers towards the best solutions, even if it means respectfully disagreeing with their initial requests. You'll need to develop a deep understanding of the product and industry to provide valuable insights and recommendations.
At the senior or principal level, you'll be expected to close the inner loop by solving tactical problems efficiently. However, the true mark of a senior customer success professional is the ability to close the outer loop. This involves identifying patterns and trends across multiple customers and developing proactive programs to address potential issues before they arise.
Finally, at the VP level, you'll need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. This means not only understanding customer trends but also examining how product development and strategy are impacting customer success. You'll work closely with product teams to provide insights and ensure that customer needs are being addressed at a strategic level.
Throughout your career progression, continuous learning and skill development will be crucial. You'll need to stay up-to-date with industry trends, best practices, and new technologies. Additionally, soft skills such as communication, leadership, and problem-solving will become increasingly important as you take on more senior roles.
Customer success is a rapidly evolving field, and the ability to continuously learn and adapt is crucial for career growth and success. As customer needs, technologies, and industry best practices evolve, customer success professionals must stay up-to-date and continuously hone their skills.
Continuous learning involves actively seeking out new knowledge and insights from various sources, such as industry publications, conferences, webinars, and peer networking. Staying informed about the latest trends, tools, and methodologies in customer success can help professionals identify areas for improvement and develop strategies to better serve their customers.
Furthermore, continuous skill development is essential for advancing in a customer success career. This may involve taking formal training courses, attending workshops, or seeking out mentorship opportunities. By consistently expanding their skill set, customer success professionals can enhance their problem-solving abilities, communication skills, and overall effectiveness in their roles.
Embracing a growth mindset and actively pursuing learning opportunities can also foster innovation and creativity. As customer success professionals gain new insights and perspectives, they may identify novel approaches to addressing customer challenges or optimizing processes within their organization.
In addition to personal growth, continuous learning and skill development contribute to the overall advancement of the customer success profession. By sharing their knowledge and experiences, customer success professionals can help shape best practices, drive industry standards, and contribute to the collective understanding of effective customer success strategies.
Ultimately, a commitment to continuous learning and skill development is crucial for customer success professionals who aspire to advance in their careers and become successful leaders in their field. By staying curious, adaptable, and dedicated to personal and professional growth, they can better navigate the ever-changing landscape of customer success and deliver exceptional value to their customers and organizations.
As you progress through the three levels of a customer success career, the skills and responsibilities evolve significantly. At the entry level, the focus is on developing strong organizational abilities, time management, and a diligent work ethic. Mid-career customer success managers must cultivate advisory skills, providing guidance and recommendations to customers, even when it means challenging their initial requests.
Senior and principal customer success managers take on a more strategic role, closing the outer loop by identifying trends, developing programs, and proactively addressing potential issues across their customer base. At the highest levels, customer success leaders must also possess the ability to analyze product-level drivers and collaborate with cross-functional teams to drive improvements.
Throughout this journey, continuous learning and skill development are essential. Successful customer success professionals embrace a growth mindset, constantly seeking opportunities to expand their knowledge, refine their expertise, and stay ahead of industry trends. They understand that career growth is not linear but requires adaptability, resilience, and a willingness to take on new challenges.
Ultimately, becoming a successful customer success leader demands a combination of technical proficiency, strategic thinking, and a deep commitment to delivering exceptional customer experiences. By mastering the skills and responsibilities at each level, customer success professionals can pave the way for rewarding and impactful careers, driving customer satisfaction, retention, and business growth.
.png)
.svg)
