Customer Strategy Podcast

In this episode of the Customer Strategy Podcast, I'm talking with Alex Katzman, the chief growth officer at Enervee.

Alex and I talk about how to develop a joint roadmap that's aligned between the customer and Enervee in a way that allows them to deliver value as soon as possible and help Enervee grow down the line.

Enervee provides Choice Engines that empower consumers to choose the energy-saving consumer products and clean vehicles they aspire to. We transform energy efficiency and electric vehicle programs by using the Enervee Score to save customers on their energy costs without any incentives required. Enervee partners with innovative electric and gas utilities reaching over 28 million households in the US.

In this episode of the Customer Strategy Podcast, I'm talking with Sara Bochino, Director of Customer Success at Integrate.

Sarah and I got into an interesting conversation around how to build an executive sponsorship program that not only scales but also gets executives involved early in the process.

With everything going on in the world today, you can never have too many touchpoints with your customers, especially at an executive level.

In this episode of the Customer Strategy Podcast, I'm talking with Jennifer Chiang. Jennifer is the Director of Customer Success at Yup.

Jennifer and I got into an interesting conversation about the challenges she was facing when onboarding new employees in the company.

Up to now, Jennifer has been able to spend a lot of time with every new hire infusing empathy and understanding for Yup's customers.

However, the company is growing and she is no longer able to spend time 1:1 with every new hire.

Ultimately, we came up with a great solution to scale what Jennifer was doing to deliver the same result and give her time back.

In this episode of the Customer Strategy Podcast, I'm talking with Maranda Dziekonski, the VP of Customer Success and People Operations for Swiftly.

With everything that is going on right now with the global pandemic, Miranda and I talked about the challenges and some strategies for handling engagement and renewal conversations with their customers.

Neither Maranda nor I have a crystal ball and know how to handle this perfectly because frankly, this situation has never happened before.

But it was really helpful to talk through some of the situations, permutations and ways that the team at Swiftly is engaging with their clients.

In this episode of the Customer Strategy Podcast, I'm talking with Jake Jorgovan. Jake is the founder and CEO of Content Allies, a firm that specializes in helping industry experts and consultants become thought leaders through content marketing.

Jake and I got into an interesting conversation around how to drive the urgency and engagement of his clients.

Some of his clients sign up for a service and then don’t engage. When this happens, the Content Allies team has to chase them down and try to prod them in order to engage. Jake has made the work that needs to be done by the client as easy as possible but there's a key element missing. That is what we dig into and what's going to make a real difference.

We get really hands-on in this conversation and I’m happy to report that after we recorded this episode, Jake put everything we discussed into action. The changes he made have had a big impact on customer relationships and their ability to deliver a result as quickly as possible.

How do you design a CS organization that can efficiently handle multiple different products, disciplines, stakeholders and business units?

Very carefully...

In this episode of the Customer Strategy Podcast, I'm talking with Star Hofer, the VP of Customer Success at eCompliance.

Star and I got into an interesting conversation centered around designing her future CS organization as eCompliance was acquired by a much larger company last year.

The acquiring company brought in 3 new distinct products that will be combined with the 2 that eCompliance was already servicing, bringing the total number to five different products in their portfolio.

While all these products are related, they typically have different business units, different functions and different requirements for each one.

We tackled a wide range of issues on this topic, enjoy!

In this episode of the Customer Strategy Podcast, I'm talking with Kelley Turner, the VP of customer success at Upland Kapost.

In this episode of the Customer Strategy Podcast, I'm talking with Kelley Turner, the VP of customer success at Upland Kapost.

Kelly and I got into a really interesting conversation around how to handle the turnover at the executive level of their accounts, and the reality is that at the leadership level of their clients, turnover is a constant challenge.

So instead of reacting when an executive sponsor leaves, we looked at a situation where we anticipate such departures, and prepare for it in advance.

In this episode of the Customer Strategy Podcast, I talk with Stephanie Stapleton, the VP of customer success at Udemy for Business.

In this episode, we talk about adoption and specifically how the Udemy for Business CS team can engage their clients in a meaningful way throughout the entire customer lifecycle.

We also cover how to make a small psychological shift that can have a significant impact on the actual accomplishment, growth, and development of an account.

Udemy is the world's largest online learning marketplace, with over 40 million students accessing 130,000 courses every single day.

Their business division, Udemy for Business, packages the highest-rated courses from their public marketplace and sells them as a subscription to companies who want to support the development of their employees.

Subscribers of Udemy for Business have access to over 3,500 courses on everything from coding to management to Customer Success, including my most recent course, Customer Success Manager Elite, which is also available on the Udemy platform for those who don't have a subscription.

In this episode of the Customer Strategy Podcast, I talk with Brett Andersen, the VP of Client Success at Degreed.

Brett and his team of client success managers at Degreed are on a mission to inspire transformative learning practices in companies around the world.

Brett and I got into an interesting conversation around how to use a data-driven approach to calculate workloads and targets for CSMs.

Brett has used different models in the past, and for 2020, Brett is looking for the most effective way to accurately account for how much revenue and how many accounts a CSM should own at Degreed.

As we discussed what is ultimately most important to Degreed, we focused on the potential revenue component, digging into it and understanding what this could look like and what it could potentially lead to in the future.

As always, I think you're going to enjoy this episode.

What we covered on the show...

- What Degreed is all about and how the client success function works in the company.

- What makes Degreed different from an LMS.

- How to use a data-driven approach to calculate workloads and targets for CSMs.

- Brett’s takeaways from our conversation.

This episode of the Customer Strategy Podcast is a special one.

I'm the guest on the show and I'm interviewed by my good friend Jake Jorgovan, who is the founder and CEO of a company called Content Allies.

Jake and his team at Content Allies turn consultants into thought leaders through content marketing. So if you're an expert in your field, but never have time to turn your expertise into marketing content, then content allies can help.

In this episode, we talk about...

- What I was doing before starting my own consulting firm...

- What I’ve learned since that time...

- What it's like to venture out on your own and do something that nobody else has done...

- How I deal with the uncertainties and challenges of working for yourself...

- and much, much more...