Churn It Up: Customer Success Podcast

About The Episode This week, Aly talks with Irit Eizips, CEO for CSM Practice. In this episode, Irit explains her approach to customer health scores detailing best practices developed after years of experience, as well as common pitfalls you should avoid as you embark on designing yours. She also shares a detailed customer health score design approach that will help you understand why yours doesn’t work, and what can you do to fix it. Be sure to take notes and try out her approach to augment your health score in a way that would help your Customer Success team become more strategic and proactive in maximizing value for both your clients and your company. Be ready to flip everything you know about scoring your customer’s health. See full show notes here: https://www.receptive.io/podcasts/churnitup/customer-health-scores-irit-eizips.html

This week, Aly talks with Lisa Starita, Head of Customer Success Operations at Beekeeper. Lisa talks about how she used to manage customer requests manually and the problems that caused with the product team. She then explains how she went about solving those issues and practically removing CS from the feedback process. This episode is perfect for anyone in CS who: - Often finds themselves inundated with customer feedback requests. - Feels they're trapped between the customers and the product team. - Wants to set up a scalable feedback system in their organization. Key Takeaways - The trouble with using documents and spreadsheets for feedback. - How to remove CS from the feedback process and create a direct link between customers and the product team. - The warning signs that tell you when to adopt a specialist feedback software. See full show notes: www.receptive.io/podcasts/churnitup/customer-feedback.html

This week, Aly talks with Linda Schwaber-Cohen, CSM at Skilljar. Linda discusses her approach to training and onboarding, explaining how to first approach training calls with new customers, the importance of data, and what you should be focusing on. This episode is perfect for anyone in CS who: - Wants to improve their training program or even start to create one. - Is looking to learn how to offer value in those early interactions. - Needs to prove the effectiveness of their training. Key Takeaways - Why content and delivery are so important. - What to focus on during training. - How to prove the effectiveness of training. - Scaling up and choosing the right tech stack. - How to create value from those first interactions. Resources: www.receptive.io/podcasts/churnitup/customer-training.html

This week, Aly talks with Rachel Jennings, CSM at Assignar. Rachel explains how she developed a health score to help her customer success team prioritize, and details the steps so others can do the same. She also talks about the questions that CSMs should be asking about their customers and the data she uses to answer those questions. Who Should Listen? This episode is perfect for CS managers who realise they need to measure health scores but don’t know where to start. Key Takeaways - The questions you need to ask about your customers. - How to measure the relevant data. - Deciphering the data. - How to create a health score. - Using the health score to improve customer relations. Resources - Find Aly on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlyMahan - Connect with Rachel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/racheljennings1/ -Rachel's Health Score Matrix: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1e5czbWQAL_Y631h8cqm9P9xZijG8vxJzhYvUu7k6EDI/edit#gid=429454996 - How to create a customer health score matrix: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-create-customer-health-score-matrix-rachel-jennings

This week, Aly talks with Amaan Nathoo, Head of CS & Sales at Bonjoro. He provides a way to tackle the issue of customers who seem to ignore your emails by using personalized videos to provide value. He also talks about his approach to onboarding and CS in general and how customer success teams should work with sales. Who Should Listen? This episode is perfect for CS teams who need some inspiration to spice up their onboarding or customer outreach programs. Key Takeaways - The power of personalization. - How to get started shooting video. - How to measure results: Videos vs Emails. - The relationship and handoff between Sales and CS. - Why customers are the best source of CS learning. Resources - Find Aly on Twitter: twitter.com/AlyMahan - Amaan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/amaannathoo - Autopilot Blog: http://blog.autopilothq.com/ Customer Success podcasts that Aly recommends: - Successly Live with Adam O'Donnell - Customer Success Conversations with Adam Joseph - Reduce Churn Live with Kevin Capp - The Customer Success Podcast with Allison Pickens, Gainsight - CSM SuccessCast - Last but definitely not least!

This week, Aly talks with Ola Puchta and Susan Ostojska, part of the CS team at Growbots. They explain the development of their new onboarding process and give some pointers on how to think about what the customer needs from it. They also talk about scaling, prioritization, and how they spend their time. Key Takeaways - How not having a free trial helps Growbots. - Why a high-touch onboarding process can’t scale. - How automated messages help the onboarding process. - The importance of data when it comes to CS. - Why onboarding communications should just get to the point. Who Should Listen? This episode is perfect for CS teams who are in the process of building or just want to improve their onboarding. Resources - Find Aly on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlyMahan - Ola on Twitter: https://twitter.com/puchtaola - Susan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/zuzannaostojska - The Receptive Launchpad: https://help.receptive.io/hc/en-us/articles/115000726211 - Groove HQ Blog: https://www.groovehq.com/blog - Zuora Podcast: https://www.zuora.com/guides/launching-subscribed-podcast/

This week, Aly talks with Ingmar Zahorsky, Director of Customer Success at ChartMogul. He sheds some light on the metrics he uses to determine the success of his CS program and ensures his team are doing their job. He also explains how he prioritizes tasks, utilizes a CS vision, and the importance of self-service help docs. Key Takeaways - They key metrics you should use to measure the success of your CS program. - Why having a overarching vision will help your CS team. - How to prioritize tasks and make sure you remain productive. - One of the best ways to review help documentation to ensure it’s as clear as possible. - How framing communication with customers can improve your relationship with them. Who Should Listen? - This episode is perfect for CSMs who want to measure the success of their work and determine the value they bring to their organization. Resources - Find Ingmar on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/izahorsky - Typeform Blog: https://www.typeform.com/blog/

This week, Aly talks with Srajan Bhagat, recently the founding CSM at RecruiterBox, and currently a CSM of many at Sauce Labs. He explains the differences between working in smaller and larger success teams with a more technical product, giving insights into what you can expect in different types of organizations and CS roles. Key Takeaways - The difference between solo and team based onboarding & CS. - What it’s like to work in CS on a highly technical product. - The initial questions you should ask your sales teams during handoff. - The key tools you can use to work more efficiently. - The types of documentation that can help with your onboarding process. Resources - Find Srajan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/srajanb - Find him on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/srajan821 - Wunderlist: https://www.wunderlist.com/ - Looker: https://looker.com/

This week, Aly talks with Christian Nussbaumer, Customer Success Manager at Hotjar about how he approaches his massive workload of 200,000 customers, including advice on focus and prioritizing tasks, and how CSM’s should also be salespeople. Who Should Listen? This episode is perfect for CSM’s who are struggling to scale or need help with upselling services to their customers. Key Takeaways - The risk of mixing support and success. - The Pomodoro Technique. - How CSM’s can help upsell. - How to deal with large volumes of customers. - The best way to handle customer feedback. Resources - Christian’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nussbi - Christian’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/nussbi - The Pomodoro Technique: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique - aText: https://www.trankynam.com/atext/

Aly talks with Huddle's Instructional Designer, Kimberley Porter, about how to manage a backlog of support content, how to form benchmarks and measure results of support content, and what the best first piece of content is for self-service customers.