On this month’s episode of The Customer Success Channel Podcast, brought to you by Planhat, I chatted with Prashanth Jothi, Customer Success Manager at HubSpot about how to drive customer outcomes based on customer maturity.
The life of a Customer Success Manager (CSM) is never a dull one. Everyday you meet fascinating people, change how businesses operate (normally for the better), and even help a few get out of a hole. Sometimes it can even be a rollercoaster of emotions!
But how can a CSM make sure they are making the most of their precious time? What are the best tactical things a CSM can do today to help its customers? How can they ensure every customer in their portfolio continues to see success? And more importantly, how do you measure that success?
Prashanth is a customer success enthusiast with a diverse background that spans everything from product to marketing, and sales. He brings a fresh perspective from working across four different countries and shares both tactical and actionable insights every single day on LinkedIn to help inspire fellow CSMs and the CS community.
As a CSM at HubSpot, Prashanth looks after 100+ customers across the UK and Ireland. He normally interacts with his customers through six types of calls including 1) introduction and account planning 2) product activation and strategy 3) upsell and cross-sell 4) value demonstrations 5) renewal positioning 6) difficult conservation. Yet, how is he able to drive customer outcomes in each of these types of calls?
In our discussion Adrian helps answer some of the tricky questions when it comes to scaling customer success quickly:
- What are some of the best tactical things a CSM can do today to help its customers?
- How do you measure the success of a customer? What sort of follow-up calls do you have?
- How do you ensure customers continue to see success at Hubspot? How do you measure customer maturity?
Some key takeaways from this discussion:
- You can focus on adoption, retention, expansion, and advocacy – or you can focus on the customer’s desired outcome and get all of those things
- Working with your customers right off the bat on the first call is so crucial. Firstly we have to set a goal for them, having a timeline, and that quantitative measurement so you can make monthly or quarterly reports, and show the effectiveness of your tool to their business in order to keep that momentum going
- Knowing your key stakeholders is very important
Make sure you listen to the full episode and let me know your thoughts in the comments!