CSMs as the Heated Seats of the Corporate World | TDSU Ep. 3

00:00:30   lifers welcome to the Daily standup this is our brand new project from lifetime value where we give you daily ideas to think

00:00:48    about in the Cs space I'm your host and I'm thinking I want to smell like JP today JP can you tell us what you smell like today today I smell like Bergamot and upsells that sounds great and Rob can you say hi hello nice to meet you Betsy I smell like a deodorant from the dollar store probably but and I'm your host uh I'm gonna have to work on Rob's introduction skills my name is Dylan young Betsy do you want to introduce yourself yes I am Betsy gilfillan I have had about 15 years of experience in customer success and

00:01:26    account management on many me mediums through many verticals I kind of feel like gz vet grizzled vet a grizzled vet truly grizzled too polished some say grizzled some say polished Betsy you already know the format of the show so can you tell us what is on your mind when it comes to customer success yes so I am thinking about people really throwing around the term and I'm guilty of it because it's on my LinkedIn Banner so pot Kettle but people throwing around the term customer Obsession and not really divulging what

00:02:05    it really what it means to not only the customer but to you as a CSM so what do you think it means so I think that it means um this is something that I've always been skilled at and I think I kind of have a good handle on it it's humanizing the customers getting really curious and learning about them from the game go so you know where they are in the world from like their location if you can find on LinkedIn where they went to school if they they moved from somewhere where they worked in the past

00:02:42    being able to connect with them in a human way draws so much more authenticity into a relationship and just allows for it to grow um I think that people say that they're customer obsessed because they they want to obviously look like they C customer customer obsessed this is our job it's our responsibility to be obsessed but you kind of need to go the extra mile to really prove that and that is it shows up in multiple ways so whether it's like investing in their success so investing your time in understanding you know are

00:03:19    they in a part of part of the world where they can't respond to you because for instance they just got bombed or something you might want to end that I don't know but that's happened a lot lately yeah that happened to one of my customers and so I'm kind of stepping back and realizing oh it's not all about like the daily monotonous tasks ever there is so much more behind why a person can't get back to you or why they can't meet with you or why you should just email them a deck of data as opposed to say like let's let's hop on a

00:03:55    call so I think there are a lot of little nuances but I think the most important part being quote unquote customer obsessed is understanding that there are nuances and adapting to those with your customers customer obsessed is one way of putting it I might the the word that comes to mind for me is prioritization how prioritize your customer I mean look businesses are in business because of their customers but that doesn't always sometimes we lose um focus and we put our priority elsewhere we we we put the customer several

00:04:33    degrees down the line but we say it's in in service of the customer I'd be interested to understand what uh what JPM Rob think about that because it's definitely a delicate balance to strike yeah I'll be quick I remember posting about this some time ago because I never really liked that phrasing something about it just irked me you know but I definitely felt impact motivated and I think that that's the word I like to use I'm imp motivated what are the results I want to see with this customer because that's what I'm

00:05:06    getting compensated for that's the job I'm doing I think it gets away from fuzzy feelings and gets more into what's the impact I'm having with this customer yeah I'll agree with that I mean I think making it making the customer experience less squishy is how a friend of mine Diane Gordon Legend and customer success if you don't know where she phrased it yesterday um I totally agree with that where I see this manifest most is a lot of the companies that I work with they're early stage companies where they

00:05:33    go from the CEO having direct contact with all their first customers and they move to the next phase where they start developing a team around them and they think they're told by their boards and their VCS like your number one job is to build a team around you and make sure you don't run out of money but what the VCS are often not telling these CEOs is your number one job is also to make sure your customers are having measurable results and consistent outcomes and uh another friend of mine his name is Rob

00:06:01    Snider really gifted guy talented consultant who works on product Market fit Consulting he often says like you have your job as an early stage founder is to make sure that you're stringing together a sequence of consecutive case studies um that show consistent measurable results across your customers and that you're connected with the experience that they're having so I feel like that's a really really useful lesson that you bring up Betsy and the term customer obsessed may not capture quite all that Nuance yeah can we agree

00:06:29    though that the the fuzzy squishy definitely greases the wheels like that's part of what Betsy was was getting at here and feel free to correct me Betsy but how important it is to understand that your individual customers like the individuals at the customer that buys your product or service like this is a very small part of their life and to understand that like you can't take all their time right cuz they got a job to do you can't um gloss over the fact that they just got bombed or even if their kid is sick

00:07:06    or they they want to go on vacation and all of those things I think while they are not truly what we're there for JP I I hear you loud and clear like let's let's stop doing red yellow green uh sentiment measurements and let's talk about the value we're actually delivering but I fought this for a really long time but those relationships are The Ticket to Ride babe Betsy what do you think think about that absolutely I I agree I think also I like kind of measuring the impact I think the obsessed it it was really cringey for me

00:07:39    too I have to take that Banner off my LinkedIn um but it's just investing in the people who are investing in your company which are you know those are the customers so I think that it looks like if they're ever if ever there was like a dayto day uh for any CSM which there isn't but if there was it would be you know making sure you've got Google alerts set up for your customers um following their LinkedIn Pages multi-threading throughout their company so you've got more than one contact hopefully it's already a natural thing

00:08:15    and kind of understanding where they are in the world understanding time zone what's going on over there so you can like mention if if they're in a certain part of the world where there's a festival and and ask them about it so kind of personalizing something making sure that they aren't feeling like you're speaking at them or talking at them and that you're actually genuinely interested in them as like a human being so you said all these different kind of like multi-threading all this information you can get from them that's

00:08:47    not just their user data how many times they log in I'm going to call that Sky netting their ass and it's just so you can more effectively serve them right like right sounds super um dystopian but at the same time it's it's super helpful in understanding how to talk to them how to treat them what's important to them can you push them harder can you challenge them or is now not a good time Robin uh JP you got anything to add to that do you think that phrase is a good one or maybe I should uh dumb that down

00:09:21    a little bit you know what you're making me think of is uh I don't know if you guys are fans of the office but the episode where Dwight steals Michael's Rolodex not to do it uh don't want that um no I think I think uh to be honest for me personally I just have this Fascination and curiosity with people and I think most CS people have that as well and that's what got them in the field to begin with and so it just often takes a moment to step back and remind ourselves like we are curious about these people right we're not doing it

00:09:50    out of some like you know way to we're not trying to manipulate these people by learning about their lives we're just frankly curious about what's going on with them you know I think that comes standard you know and you get you get a you get a fancy car you know the heated seats come standard right so I feel like as a CSM a curiosity comes standard you know oh I love that JP like default default are you are you are we the heated seats CS professionals I'm trying to elevate it from greasing the wheels man come on am I keep am I just

00:10:24    keeping their butt cheeks warm is that what you're telling me I'll take it I mean that is an amenity that I always ask ask for now every new car I buy I'm like the most bleeped I swear uh I don't bleep anything buddy so get ready your reputation's about to take a hit I love that it sounds much better than customer Obsession heated seats I'm the heated seats for your customer um that's our time Betsy I want to thank you so much for for coming on and joining us and and sharing your idea it's been a pleasure

00:10:54    uh before we leave can you play us a a tune on one of those guitars K that might ruin your if I even try to so I'm not I'm not here to ruin days all right well thank you Betsy thank you so much and we'll see you around thank you guys good to see you thank you