Markus Rentsch’s Post

There’s a right way to do CSM and a wrong one. Yes, it’s black and white, it does not “depend”. The right way to do CSM is to focus on maximizing customer value. The wrong way is to deliver customer value based on your terms. Because customers don’t care about your internal processes, convenience, and efficiency. ⛔️ They are not willing to follow a trial & error approach because you are not running customer discovery. ⛔️ They don’t sift through 30 articles to find the information they need because you are throwing random content at them. ⛔️ They don’t sit through your QBRs watching 50 slides of statistics you care about for 2 hours. ⛔️ They don’t care about your check-in emails you only send them because their usage dropped 95% of CSM teams (estimate based on experience) fall into the latter category and it’s ruining a whole profession. This is how it’s been done for the past decade but never how it was meant to be. If not even Customer Success Management is customer-centric, what is? PS: Become 1% better at delivering, growing, and monetizing customer value every day --> https://lnkd.in/dZ2yRHNR

Customer Success Management is not an activity game. It’s a skills game. It does not matter how many tasks you perform or how packed your schedule is. Because 1000x0 is still 0. You need to become brutally effective in 2024 and beyond. There are 3 top skills every CSM needs to practice near perfection: 1. Active listening If you don’t understand your customers' needs they will fail. Trial & error is not an option. Delivering one-size-fits-all education and training is not an option. Your customers want to achieve success fast and easy. CSMs need to ask the right (open) questions but otherwise shut up and let the customer talk. As a rule of thumb, spend 20% of customer conversations talking and 80% listening. Ask follow-up questions to peel the onion and understand why a specific problem exists. 2. Problem-solving I have met very few CSMs who have mastered that skill. It’s no surprise because most have never practiced. They have spent 80% of their time doing customer support or being in reactive mode waiting for bad things to happen. Ok, putting out fire after fire is some kind of problem-solving. But the problems I’m talking about are complex ones standing between your customers' status quo and their desired outcomes. You can only become effective at helping customers solve complex problems if you have developed a structured approach from discovery to creative thinking. 3. Transferring knowledge You can create high-quality content. You can provide top-notch services. But none of it matters if your customers are not able to transform their learnings into results. There’s a reason why I keep advocating for CS teams to hire former teachers. Your job is not to solve your customers' problems. It's to provide them with the education and training they need to do it on their own. The best way to improve your teaching skills: Feedback, feedback, and more feedback. Ask your customers what worked, what did not and why about your inputs. There are more useful skills as a CSM but mastering those 3 will pay the highest returns. PS: Become 1% better at delivering, growing, and monetizing customer value every day --> https://lnkd.in/dZ2yRHNR

Lots of CSM teams are doing extended Customer Support. - Their work is 80-90% reactive. - They are glued to their inbox. - They are putting out fires, not creating value. Their misery starts right from the beginning. If you don’t know - Why your customers are here - What problems do they need to solve - What they need from you all you can do is respond if things are going south. Proactive CSM starts with a thorough customer discovery and a clear understanding of 1. Customer goals and success metrics. If your customers don't know what they are trying to accomplish and how to evaluate their ROI it's up to you to help them find out. This is where becoming a trusted advisor starts. 2. Customer problems and their root causes You don't solve your customers' problems by throwing random stuff at them. You solve them by eliminating their root causes. If your customers are e.g. targeting the wrong audience improving their outreach does not solve their sales problem. 3. Customer Capabilities Sharing the same goals and problems does not mean your customers need the same treatment. It makes a lot of a difference whether you are selling to a seasoned professional or a startup founder who has never done the job before. Stop relying on the superficial information of the sales handoff. Use it as the starting point for going deeper. PS: Want to become more proactive and deliver actual results? Here are the strategies, tools, and templates you need --> https://lnkd.in/gGRSjD_v

High-paid CSMs are not spending 90% of their time doing reactive work. They understand that it results from a poor mindset and practices like - guessing and assuming about customer needs - following a one-size-fits-all approach - providing generic services and content - tracking vanity metrics and - hoping for the best Instead, they are putting customer value front and center of everything they do. They are - discovering customer needs in detail - providing customers with tailor-made success plans - delivering content and services with a clear goal in mind - following up to ensure steady progress and - leading customers to the promised land Less effort, less pain, and much better results. Better results = higher net value. PS: Join 6.5k+ CS professionals and sign up for my weekly newsletter if you like this post --> https://lnkd.in/dtC7MEjP

The best CSMs are not the busiest ones. The best CSMs are those who create the most value for their customers and their company. - They understand that not all of their customers are equal and tailor their approach to different needs - They understand that not all customers will become successful and prioritize growth over fighting inevitable churn - They measure the effectiveness of their inputs and services and eliminate everything redundant - They have learned to say no to doing the things that have not been done elsewhere - They rely on accurate data, not guesswork to avoid firefighting, band-aiding, and quick-fixing at all costs. - They build customer relationships right from the beginning to prevent customers from going dark - They build processes that deliver their customers' desired outcomes accurately and repeatedly CSMs need to get on the scoreboard now. PS: Want to learn more about delivering, growing, and monetizing customer value? Join 6.5k+ CS professionals and sign up for my weekly newsletter --> https://lnkd.in/dtC7MEjP

Want to become a high-paid CSM? Stop dodging commercial responsibility. Don't fall for this bs that it will destroy your customer relationships. Selling as a CSM has nothing to do with talking customers into buying like a "sleazy car salesman". While new customers buy based on expected value, existing ones buy based on the value they already received. Put simply, it's the value that does the selling for you. If your customers have a definitive proof of value they are interested in further growing it. Your job is to - identify growth opportunities - present them to your customers - connect them with additional resources, features, and/or products - (advise customers on what to buy next) Your customers win. Your company wins. You win. But never forget: The key is to deliver significant value and ensure your customers are aware of it FIRST. PS: Want to learn how to deliver, grow, and monetize Customer Value? Join 6.5k+ subscribers and sign up for my weekly newsletter --> https://lnkd.in/dtC7MEjP

CSMs, your job is not to talk your customers into buying renewals, expansions, and upsells. It's to deliver so much value that growing demand is the logical consequence. New customers buy based on the expected value and existing ones based on the value they have already received. Want to grow the value of your customer portfolio intentionally? Build a repeatable process from discovering to monetizing customer value. Here’s the one I’m using: 1. Decoding Customer Value ✅ Identify customer goals and how they are measured ✅ Understand what keeps your customers from accomplishing their goals ✅ Discover what they need to become successful 2. Operationalizing Customer Value ✅ Build a dedicated roadmap that outlines the steps customers need to take ✅ Break it down to the inputs you need to provide to your customers ✅ Segment customers by the successful journey they have ahead 3. Enabling Customer Value ✅ Give customers quick wins at the onboarding to get their buy-in ✅ Build an outcome-focused education and training program ✅ Measure its effectiveness by the rate of successful implementations 4. Measuring Customer Value ✅Track progress with the metrics your customers care about ✅ Follow up frequently to identify deviations from the success path ✅ Start countermeasures immediately if required 5. Demonstrating Customer Value ✅ Benchmark actual vs projected results ✅ Highlight how your customers’ business changed for the better in the process ✅ Discuss what worked, what did not, and why to (further) improve your customers’ value 6. Monetizing Customer Value ✅ Identify customer growth opportunities ✅ Create scenarios outlining their potential gains ✅ Connect them with resources, features, or products This is Customer Value-Led Growth. PS: Learn more --> https://lnkd.in/gGRSjD_v

SaaS CEOs, COOs, and CROs, you are leaving 80-95% of revenue on the table. 👎 short customer lifetime 👎 little to no expansion revenue 👎 zero new business from referrals 👎 low profitable “competitive prices” This is happening because you don’t invest in proper CSM training and education. Your CSMs don’t have the skills and tools to deliver, grow, and monetize customer value. They end up doing extended customer support and becoming the dumping ground for all kinds of tasks. The biggest waste of opportunities of all time. If you want to unlock your full revenue potential your CSMs need to master 6 core disciplines. 1. Customer Discovery: Understand what value means to customers, how they measure it, and what keeps them from accomplishing their goals. 2. Success Planning: Translating the insights of the discovery into a dedicated roadmap that outlines all the steps customers need to take. 3. Program Design: A tailored mix of content and services built to educate and train customers to solve their problems. 4. Tracking Results: Measuring customer progress with the metrics they care about and detecting deviations from the success path in real time. 5. Demonstrating Value: Benchmarking your customers' performance with the one they had in the beginning at every opportunity. 6. Monetizing Value: Identifying opportunities to further grow your customers' value and translating them into expansions, up- and cross-sells (plus asking for referrals) Customer Success Management is the most powerful growth engine in SaaS. If you keep asking what's the ROI, you are doing it wrong. PS: Learn more → https://lnkd.in/d5tSzwJP

The difference between highly successful and average CSMs is not - their certifications and experience - their weekly working hours - their tech stack but how they approach their role. Here are 7 key differences: Average CSM ❌ Builds everything on guessing and assuming ❌ Focuses on growing feature adoption and product usage ❌ Measures success with the most generic proxy metrics ❌ Checks in with the customer when things are going south ❌ Presents metrics customers don’t care about at QBR/EBR ❌ Does 80% of the talking in their conversations ❌ Helps customers operate the product Successful CSM ✔️ Builds everything on top of discovery and analysis ✔️ Focuses on growing customer value ✔️ Measures success with the metrics customers care about ✔️ Keeps following up to ensure continuous progress ✔️Actively demonstrates value to every stakeholder ✔️ Lets customers do 80% of the talking in their conversations ✔️ Helps customers build excellence on the job Average CSMs are busy. Successful CSMs create tangible results. PS: Learn more --> https://lnkd.in/d5tSzwJP

It’s crazy that we are still discussing what’s the ROI of CSM. It should be nothing but crystal clear but it’s not a surprise at all. CSM teams across the globe have focused on the wrong things in the past decade. Instead of driving value for customers and turning it into revenue for the company they have been focused on improving - product adoption and usage - health scores, CSAT, and NPS - scalability and efficiency As long as they continue doing more of the same CSM teams will continue to fail to make an impression on their C-suite. Here are the 6 things they need to do to change their fate: 1. Customer Discovery - spend the time to find out why your customers are here, what stands in their way, and what they need to accomplish their goals 2. Success Planning - create a roadmap that outlines all the steps customers need to take to become successful 3. Customer Enablement - build a CS program that gives customers the skills and knowledge to solve their problems 4. Tracking Success - measure customer progress with the metrics they care about and follow up to ensure they are moving forward 5. Demonstrating Value - showcase how working with you has transformed your customers’ business to every stakeholder 6. Monetizing Value - discovering growth opportunities for your customers and turning them into expansions, up-and cross-sells (plus asking for referrals) A simple, focused, and repeatable end-to-end process. This is Customer Value-Led Growth. PS: Want to learn more? Join 6.5k+ CS professionals and sign up for my weekly newsletter → https://lnkd.in/dtC7MEjP