Tag: Startup customer success

Customer Experience trumps product

Robert EsquivelLeave a comment

From my time as a CSM I would definitely say that if your product is not perfect your customers experience with you and your team will be what keeps them coming back and renewing.

Lets be honest… no startup has ever released a perfect product so its the CSMs job to provide a fantastic customer experience.

These are ways you can provide an excellent customer experience without a perfect product:

  1. Providing industry related thought leadership to your customers
  2. Partnering with your customers objectives and making it happen
  3. Having those customers come to you with questions on their business objectives
  4. They have probably been frustrated in the past with slow service and push back, be the opposite

Ensuring this relationship with your customers will show that they didnt just buy a software, they bought a partnership as well.

The importance of a Customer Success Software

Robert EsquivelLeave a comment

If you are the only CSM at your startup chances are your startup is in a seed or series A round. This coincides with a lack of resources directed towards Customer Success but more towards sales and engineering. Although I love Customer Success, I think this is the right thing to do.

That being said if your customers are churning at the same rate that you are bringing in customers well then its time to re evaluate some things.

At the minimum your startup needs a way to track customer health. A good CSM needs to understand if the customer is using the software, engaging in advanced ways, and touching with different parts of your organization. A CSM also needs to be able to write down the status of that customer so they can keep tabs.

I tried doing this for two months in Excel and I found myself fumbling around constantly. It was time to get a CSM software.

Let me tell you… it was hard to find something cheap.

The best CS software out there is Gainsight and Totango. The minimum investement in these tools is around 30k. My budget was max 12k a year!

You will be surpised with the amount of CS software available out there. Keep looking and you will find the right fit. I understand you might have A LOT of things going on with customers and internal objectives but give yourself 1 hour a day to keep looking.

After about a month and a half I was finally able to find the right fit at 15k a year. This software has done great things for my process and has improved our churn rate from 70% to 86%.

Technology for CSM’s

Robert EsquivelLeave a comment

Now that you are all settled in as a CSM at your startup you are probably frustrated you are tracking all customer activity through google drive or excel spreadsheets.

When I first started at my current startup people didn’t even know when customers were up for renewal, how much they were paying, or if they were even at risk!!

Tracking your customers product adoption timeline and health is crucial. You need to invest in tools to make your life easier. This works the same way as a CRM system except it allows you to track your customers. I understand it can be expensive but a good CSM is always communicating the importance of customer health and churn through out the organization.

These are the following software you need to be successful as a CSM:

  1. CRM System
  2. Customer Success software
  3. Email automation
  4. Screen share tool (duh, but I need to mention it)
  5. A “form” software where you can send questionnaires or surveys

5 things you should do as the first CSM in a startup

Robert EsquivelLeave a comment

Are you the first CSM at your startup? Congratulations! You have so much opportunity and responsibility to grow the company.

These are the first five things you should do as a new CSM at a startup

  1. Contact your customers and let them know a little about yourself immediately
  2. Learn the business relationship history of your customers with your startup
  3. Write down all the gaps you see in terms of process, do not initiate anything until you have a grasp of everything
  4. Contact your customers through light touch
  5.  Try to make sense of the chaos

Contact your customers and let them know a little about yourself immediately

It is way too early in your relationship with your customers to start scheduling business reviews. Let them know a little bit about yourself and your experience. Make sure to let them know you are there for absolutely any questions, all they need to do is reach out.

Learn the business relationship history of your customers with your startup

It is crucial to understand the history of your customers with your startup. If they are really upset with expectations not being met they will ignore you. You need to be aware of that to adjust your communications with them.

Write down all the gaps you see in terms of process, do not initiate anything until you have a grasp of everything

There are going to be a ton of gaps in customer success process. There might not even be a process. Write what you see is missing and after a month put it all together. This will start helping you build a formal way of doing Customer Success.

Contact your customers through light touch

As I mentioned before, do not start your CSM journey by immediately scheduling business reviews at the executive level. Start letting the customer know that you are there to help them. There are many ways to do this. My favorite is through snapshots of the software, insights they may be looking for, and product update emails.

Try to make sense of the chaos

You will be flustered by how much is going on. Do not worry, things are supposed to break at early stage technology companies. Embrace that things are going to be hectic for a while. This steady emotional state when stakes are high will make you a trusted adviser.

Only CSM at a startup: What to expect

Robert EsquivelLeave a comment

What should you expect if you’re the first CSM at a startup? Expect a roller coaster of a ride. One day you’re feeling fantastic about helping your customers and the other your freaking out because you have so much work you cant deliver on your customer promises.

Here are 5 things you should be aware of:

  1. You will be doing customer support, consulting, building processes, helping with sales, managing customer analyst/specialist, etc..
  2. Your job at the beginning will probably only be customer support
  3. Do not promise anything that might happen
  4. Your customers will challenge you
  5. It will take months to gain trust from your new customers

You will be doing customer support, consulting, building processes, helping with sales, managing customer analyst/specialist, etc..

This one is simple. When I was looking up resources online to help me out I kept coming up frustrated constantly. This is because everything available online is for well established tech companies that have a support team, CS team, sales, and product management team. You are all these things when there’s only 10 people at your company. Great thing is there is a lot of reward from doing this. The downside is you could never focus on customer success best practices yet.

Your job at the beginning will probably only be customer support

If you are the only person touching customers after the sale you will probably be customer support. This is ok because these are foundational skills for a partnership later on. The urgency that we develop with customer support helps us meet our customer action items faster. Dont get discouraged if you feel like you’re the support email for your company. You will build a great reputation with your customers. After 5 months you will finally be able to talk partnership and strategy with your customers.

Do not promise anything that “might” happen

You will get a lot of feedback from your customers about how they would like to view your product. Take that advice and say you will provide it to the product team. Never ever promise them that it will get done. Engineering works in mysterious ways for us sales people so stick close to what their product launches are going to be.

Your customers will challenge you

Yup, they will email you. call you, text you until you answer every question. Once you endure the pain for about two months your customers will want to hear what you have to say.

It will take months to gain trust from your new customers

This ties back to #4, you need to do things out of your job title so the customer understands you are with them 100% and you care about their goals. The more the customer realizes that the more they see a partnership with you. That equals less churn.