12 Customer Success Best Practices That Can Positively Impact Your Work as a CSM | customer success (2023)

Welcome to our series of CSM blogs from the trenches,a frontline customer success manager community(CSM), which analyzes trends, best practices and advice for the frontline.

Being at the forefront of CSM allows us to directly impact our customers' success. I love that; As our customers are successful, so are we. Every day we learn from practice what it takes to make customers happy and successful.

Mentorenfragen

CSM from the Trenches has a segment in the series that focuses on this7 Mentoring Questions for the Frontline CSM. The goal is that by sharing our experiences, we can learn and apply more practical tips/best practices for the successful careers of our clients.

One of those questions is: "What customer success best practice you've applied over the past few months has positively impacted the success of your role? How did it help you?”

We've compiled a list of 12 customer success best practices that can positively impact your work as a CSM.Let us begin!

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1)Von:Vic Kasoff, Customer Experience Director |Pursue:NarrativaDx|Location: Austin, Texas

With so many priorities the CSM team juggles, time management and prioritization are key. I always try to follow a 5 minute variance rule. If a task can be completed in 5 minutes, just delete it. It helps me create a meaningful to-do list, manage my ongoing inbox, and plan to deliver value to my customers.

2)Von:Sara Maurer, Senior Customer Success Manager |Pursue:Beckon|Location: Toronto Kanada

Our team recently ran a "top tips" exchange as part of our weekly team meeting, which had a tremendous impact. Whether it's a new calendar tool that shows multiple time zones at once, a great email subscription platform to keep up to date with industry trends affecting our customers, or a new screenshot tool to help us be more efficient with our Customers can communicate, everyone on our team keeps tripping over these micro wins.

By taking 5 minutes a week to step back and share it with the rest of the team, we constantly improve as a team, gain efficiency and enable every team member to contribute to our team's success.

3)Von:Jorie Vasco, Customer Relationship Manager |Pursue:Software InGenius|Location: Ottawa, Canada

True Customer Advocacy: I give everything I have to build customer success as a culture. I do this in part by repeating customers' often hard-to-hear stories about what isn't working for them, in the hope that standing up for them will lead to success for both them and us as a company. This honest and transparent approach to client management has helped me to show in my new role that I am passionate about our clients.

4)Von:Adan Kusnia, Director of Customer Service |Pursue:data warehouse|Location: NY

I've stopped focusing on overtime (although my team is taking care of it). Value should be the focus, and renewal is a by-product of that. When your customers truly find the value and path to success they desire, renewal will come naturally.

5)Von:Jesse Brightman, Head of Customer Success |Pursue:the stone|Location: NY

Reduce variability to increase predictability. It all boils down to pattern recognition: you can see the patterns that make customers successful, grow and innovate, as well as what has caused customers not to adapt well or not to succeed. As you test and collect more data points, you can start distilling best practices. From there, you can test, get feedback, and fine-tune. The more you can do this, the more repeatable and scalable your processes and operations become, ultimately allowing you to accurately predict the health of an account based on your operations.

6)Von:Kumpel Evans, Director of Customer Success |Pursue:Grow|Location: Provo, Utah

Something we've recently implemented with our CSMs is a term we coined: Frontline Empowerment. Simply put, empower CSMs to take care of their customers without requiring specific management approval.

From a leadership position, this was beneficial for two reasons. First, we have found that CSMs are becoming more creative, innovative and strategic in their approach to “customer success”. Second, our CSMs have shown a greater commitment to their clients with the added autonomy in their work.

7)Von:Erica Neuell, Senior Customer Success Manager |Pursue:TodosSocial|Location: Arenas, Utah

I've learned to use LinkedIn better! Though it's primarily viewed as a platform for salespeople, job seekers, and recruiters, it can be just as powerful for client success professionals. My strategic use of the tool has enabled me to build customer trust, build strong relationships, reduce churn, and even increase sales—results that come from balancing professionalism and authenticity. While I don't consider myself a LinkedIn guru by any means, I've learned a lot from researching and using the features available to me on the platform.

For a full list of best practices I've learned, see my other CSM from the Trenches post.5 LinkedIn Best Practices for Building, Growing, and Improving Customer Relationships.

8)Von:Rasmus Justesen, Head of Customer Success |Pursue:travel|Location: Copenhagen, Denmark

Find the right software tools and work processes to structure your day. As a CSM, you need to be able to navigate between many different tasks and tasks, which can be difficult at times.

Therefore, make sure you have time in your workday to get 100% closer to your most important tasks. For us at Traede, this means changes to our support channels (phone, email, and chat) so we can continue to provide top-notch, timely service, while also being able to focus on complex tasks without jumping around. inside and outside of this this.

9)Von:Chris Hecklinger, Senior Director of Customer Success |Pursue:TodosSocial|Location: Arenas, Utah

Configuration of periodic calls (weekly, 2 times a month or monthly). It sounds simple, but it has really helped me build relationships quickly, stay close to customers, and stay in customers' minds. If I put a number on it, I would estimate that clients I talk to regularly have 50% more success than those I don't talk to consistently.

10)Von:Botella Benoit, Director of Customer Success |Pursue:little hints|Location:Paris, France

As Director of Client Success, my job is to help the Tinyclues CSM team do their best and ensure that each of our clients receives the same quality of experience, regardless of who the CSM is assigned to.

This can be challenging in the context of customer success practices with high customer contact and a rapidly growing team. An effective practice we follow is sharing knowledge during our daily meetings. Here each CSM has the opportunity to explain situations they are facing and how they are dealing with them, as well as asking for help and advice from other members of our team.

This morning's routine created a great sense of team spirit where new and experienced CSMs work together.

11)Von:Quinton Ayer, Director of Customer Success |Pursue:SalesRabbit|Location:Lehi, Silicon Slopes, Utah

More of a tactic, but my team has started picking up the phone more instead of sending as much email. I think it's very easy to send a ton of email while working on your to-do list, but there are some conversations that are worth a call. It's harder to actually "reach" customers via email when you need to deliver an important message.

We've also started using a product called Loom to email video/screen recordings for specific questions (e.g. if a customer asks a specific question about a specific feature, we'll just record a quick screen recording to give them send an email instead of just typing in a description).

12)Von:Russell Gris, Director of Customer Success |Pursue:pack the sleigh|Location:Santa Barbara, California

While I think clear communication is important to customer success, I believe that setting your customers' expectations accurately is paramount. This is especially true when it comes to a segmented customer base.

Whether you're segmenting by size, growth potential, package pricing, or some other method, it's critical to your success that your customers have a clear idea of ​​the level of customer success you'll achieve. I think this mostly helps to avoid frustration and problems later.

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Would you like to share your mentor's advice? You sendanswers here.

Join the conversation on our LinkedInTrenches Group Page CSM.

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Here are more resources for customer success:

Customer Success eBooks:

Customer Success as Culture: Customer Success Leaders Edition

Ultimate Guide to SaaS Customer Success Metrics

Other CSM from the Trenches Messages:

Cole Sanders, ClientSuccess: 3 principles I learned in my freshman year as a CSM

Sam Feil, ClientSuccess: 3 Best Practices That Lead to Compelling Customer Experiences (How to Avoid the Dreaded Dealership Experience)

Erica Newell, Marketware: 5 LinkedIn Best Practices to Build, Grow, and Improve Customer Relationships

Mieke Maes, Intuo - 5 keys to an effective customer apology

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