Customer Success & Failures

This has been a difficult week. I had to say goodbye to many amazing colleagues as part of a Meta layoff that impacted about 11,000 people. I’m thankful that I’m still employed but sad and concerned for those that have been let go. I’ve been trying to help those affected as best as I can.

Beyond trying to directly help those impacted, I thought it might be helpful to share more about my journey and provide some advice. Unfortunately, the tech sector and especially startups can take the brunt of economic downturns and the current recession we’re in is a good example of this. A company can be a unicorn one day and a “doomicorn” the next. Working in technology and especially tech startups is a gamble. Some bets pay off, but many don’t.

Customer Success seems to be a prime target for layoffs unfortunately. Although the role of CS is even more important in tough times as protecting revenue should take precedence, CS can often be the first to be chopped.

As someone who has been laid off, it’s a horrible experience. There is usually little to no notice and you are tossed to the curb like trash. Many people realize they are part of the riff when they find they can no longer access internal systems. There are no going away parties and no parting gifts. There are no thank you’s given and no opportunities to show your appreciation for your colleagues. Ba bye, so long and don’t let the door hit you on the way out. It really, truly stinks.

I have now been through a few economic downturns in the tech industry, so I have some experience here I can share. Let’s go waaaaay back. All the way back to 2001. I was a young sprout in school doing a post-grad engineering bootcamp and my school suddenly ceased operations and went into receivership. We’re coding one day and the next our systems are shut down. That was a horrible day and I was freaking out. I was on the brink of financial ruin as my $25K in tuition fees evaporated and I was now stuck paying off some massive student loans (on top of previous loans). Luckily, a white knight came along and bought out the school so we could graduate and eventually get jobs. I made it through the dot-bomb era relatively unscathed.

In 2008 I dodged another bullet. The tech industry was again hit hard as part of the mortgage crisis and my company at the time, Eloqua, laid off some outstanding people. Back then Eloqua was the clear leader in the marketing automation space and the layoff was a reminder that your job is never safe. Market conditions will dictate your fate - regardless of the impact or contributions you’ve made.

When I finally faced a layoff a decade later, it was due to my employer’s mediocre performance and the seniority of my role. My team was being cut in half and my role was deemed unnecessary, so I was let go. It wasn’t a surprise and the writing on the wall had been clear for a while, but it was still disappointing. My biggest challenge was having just 60 days to find a new job or face leaving the country due to my temporary H1B workers visa I had at the time. This layoff didn’t just impact me but also my wife and my three children.

I’m someone with a lot of pride and fully committed to the cause of the company I’m working for. Probably too committed :). While I took the layoff in stride, I did question my own abilities and if I had what it took to be a leader in Customer Success. This is natural and reflecting on your past is important. However, I decided very quickly that I couldn’t dwell on what happened - it was time to move forward. I also didn’t have a choice as my immigration clock was ticking.

For those that have been laid off - keep your head high

After taking a day to soak in the shock of my predicament, I knew I had to act quickly or face having to pull my kids out of school and moving back to Canada. Not that there is anything wrong with Canada, but I wasn’t ready to admit defeat and I wasn’t prepared to completely disrupt the life that we had made for ourselves in the US. What helped me in those first few days was my former colleagues reaching out and offering words of encouragement. In addition, I kept in mind that this was a bump in the road of a longer journey that I was on. I then got down to work.

Here are the steps that I took to find my next opportunity:

What role do you want?

Your first inclination may be to let your network know that you are looking for work. I recommend pausing on this temporarily as you want to maximize the assistance your friends and colleagues can provide to you. When they reach out to you, thank them, and then let them know that you will get back to them with specifics on the positions and organizations you would be interested in. You first need to spend time figuring out where you want to take your career next. You also may need a few days to decompress from what just happened. Take that time.

In my own situation, I took a step back to consider what I enjoyed most in my past and what I disliked. A good exercise that you can do by yourself or with a trusted colleague is to ask yourself two questions:

* What do you love the most about your previous roles?

* What do you like the least about your previous roles?

This is an exercise I run regularly with members of my team when I’m trying to help them narrow down areas of passion that they can focus on or find their next career moves. When I asked myself these questions, I recognized that I loved building teams, leveraging technology, coaching team members, and devising and executing strategies. My future roles had to provide me with these types of opportunities. I also realized that there were certain industries that just didn’t interest me and that I would avoid in the future.

Once you answer these questions on your own, you can decide if you want to remain in a similar position or need to seek out other roles. You may determine that you need to further specialize your role (for example: focus on onboarding or operations rather than CSM) or that you need to change your career path entirely.

What’s amazing about being in Customer Success is that you are usually qualified for many more roles once you’ve been with a company for a few years. As an example, many of my colleagues who were in Customer Success at Eloqua ended up going into marketing operations as Eloqua was a B2B marketing technology. Being laid off gives you some freedom to determine what you want to do next.

As I knew I wanted to stay in Customer Success, I then asked myself: “What title am I looking for?”. I had been a VP for several years so it would be natural to look for other VP roles. As I was in a time crunch, I asked myself how important a title was vs the actual opportunity. I decided that the title didn’t matter if I liked the company, the compensation was adequate, and the role was challenging enough. It’s important to think through this now so you are mentally prepared to start your job hunt as well as recognizing what you’re ok with. More on that below.

What type of company do you want to work for?

When I started my own job search, I didn’t want to find myself in the same predicament of being laid off again within a few months. I decided to create some specific criteria for my job search regarding the companies that I wanted to join. I wanted to work for a company that had a significant amount of cash in the bank so I wouldn’t be concerned about whether they could make their next fundraise.

I also wanted to work with a product that I really believed in. I realized that I preferred more complex and technical solutions. Rather than being an add-on to an existing tech stack I preferred a product that was a platform and mission critical for my client’s success. This would also contribute to how they could withstand an economic downturn. In addition, I desired to spend my working hours with executives that I related to and that I trusted. I looked for leaders that demonstrated humility and empathy. I tested for this by presenting ideas and seeing how receptive they were to what I was proposing.

While compensation is obviously important, you need to think through the type of company that you would be most interested in. This will increase the chances of landing your preferred role and the likeliness that you will maintain your role for the long term.

Leverage your network

Once you've clarified the roles and the types of companies you want to work for, it’s time to activate your network. Create a post on LinkedIn and let people know the various roles you prefer and the types of companies or industries that most interest you. Update your LinkedIn status to indicate you are looking and change your headline to include the roles that interest you. Reach out to your network directly and ask for help.

Some of you may be a bit bashful about letting the world know you lost your job. That’s ok and in fact I kept my employment status on the downlow when I was laid off. I reached out to a select few in my network who I knew were well connected and asked for assistance. All that said, I recommend that you let as many people know as you can that you are looking for a new role - the broader, the better. Now is not the time to worry if you haven’t spoken to someone in a few years. Who cares? Most people will want to help you - you just need to ask.

Keep yourself busy

One of the most torturous parts of finding a new role wasn’t the rejection from employers. It was waiting to hear back from companies where you were deep in the interview process. It can be extremely deflating to wait for several weeks for that next interview or for an offer that you believe is coming. You can start to get anxious when you only see one interview for the entire week. Try and occupy your time with work-like activities that will keep your mind sharp and prepare you for the future ahead. Here are a few suggestions based on my own experience:

* Read. I love reading as I see it as a way to 10X my knowledge on the cheap. I’ve become a better leader over the years simply by reading and leveraging what I’ve learned. You don’t get too many times in your life when you can devour several books at once - leverage this time.

* Have coffee dates. Don’t hide yourself away. This can lead to a downward spiral. Meet up with friends, family, and colleagues either in person or virtually. Reconnect with people you lost touch with and learn what you can from them. Your trusted colleagues can also help you work through any baggage you have. In addition, many opportunities may spring up that you never knew existed just by meeting up with other people and walking through your interests.

* Take courses. Besides reading, courses are another terrific way to occupy your time and uplevel your skills. I leveraged my time between jobs to uplevel my excel data analysis skills and I’ve found these to be instrumental in my day-to-day duties. Udemy and other courses can be $20-$30 a class for several hours of learning. There are many free trials of learning sites and other free courses out there. You can never go wrong when you invest in yourself. Your limiting factor is usually time, and you have a lot of that right now.

To stay motivated in my job hunt I would usually combine all these items into a single day in the city. I would act as if I were going to work and hold court at one of several Starbucks. I would read, take courses, and meet up with people. Getting out of my normal surroundings was important as I needed a change of scenery.

You may need to take a step down to take a step up

Many people view their career journey as a ladder. That’s a flawed perspective. It’s more like a climbing wall where you may take a sidestep or even go down to continue your climb. I’ve seen several people make the mistake of declining a great position at an up-and-coming company because they considered the title a demotion and felt they deserved better. As an example, some candidates refuse a senior CSM role as they have some management experience and don’t want to settle. Don’t let a phenomenal position at an amazing company slip away because your ego got in the way.

There have been several times in my career where I've taken new positions that either paid me less or were at a lower level. Was this stupid? Perhaps but I was playing the long game. I recognized that I would gain more through the experience I would attain and from the future success of this company. This would more than make up for a better title at a company that was going nowhere. I was taking a massive risk, but it was a calculated one. I was also confident in my own abilities.

Not everyone can take a pay cut though so you will need to evaluate your own situation. I determined with my wife that we could cut back our expenses in the short term which allowed me to take a lower title.

Bet on yourself

One of the people that inspire me the most is Toronto Raptor’s point guard, Fred VanVleet. Coming out of college he went undrafted. Nobody seemed to want him. His agent said three words to him on draft night that he carried with him as he struggled with his next steps in life: Bet on yourself. He eventually secured a starting role on the Toronto Raptors back court, has won a championship and been named an NBA all-star.

My advice to everyone going through this is to not give up - bet on yourself. You have the skills, and you have a lot to show the world that they have yet to see. Determine the roles and companies that you want to work for, leverage your network, keep yourself busy and be prepared to take a step down to take a step up. Stay positive - you got this.

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To those that have been laid off and need help, feel free to reach out to me and I’ll do what I can to assist you.

To those reading this that have had colleagues recently laid off, please reach out to them. It’s incredibly jarring to go through a layoff but it’s more unsettling when your former colleagues pretend you don’t exist. Reach out to them and be there for them.

A father was on his deathbed but before he died, he took his daughter aside and said: "I'm giving you this watch that was your grandfather's. It's almost 200 years old. Go to the local jewelry shop and ask them how much they would pay you for it.” The dutiful daughter did as her father asked and went to a local jewelry shop. She returned to her father and said: "They will take $100 for the watch because of how old it is."

The father then said: "Now take it to the local pawn shop and see how much they think it's worth". The daughter again followed her father's instructions and went to the pawn shop. She reported back to her father that the pawn shop would only pay her $20 as the watch was scratched.

The father then asked her to travel to the museum to find out how much they thought it was worth. At this point, the daughter was starting to doubt if her father still had all his senses but as a loyal daughter she did as her father asked. The curator at the museum told the daughter that the watch was a rare historical piece and that they would offer her $375,000 to include it in their historical collection.

She hurried back to her father to share the news. Her father sat up in his bed and said: "I wanted to show you that the right place will value you in the right way. Don't find yourself in the wrong place and be angry if you feel you aren't valued. You need to speak up for yourself. And don't stay in a role where someone doesn't see your value, or where you don't feel appreciated".

Why did I tell you that story? I told you that story so I could tell you this one about myself. Early in my career I was managing a team member and my manager at the time wanted to give me the title of "team lead". I pushed back and asked for the manager title. I knew my worth and recognized that this was a manager role with manager responsibilities. Besides, someone else in the organization was in a similar role and had the manager title. Truthfully, I wasn't ready to be a manager, but the title was important to me. I didn't settle and I was given the title of manager.

Later in my career I wanted to seek out new CS leadership opportunities, so I moved my family from Toronto to the NYC area. This was a massive risk and took a tremendous toll on myself and my family, but I knew my value and had faith in my abilities. There have been other times when I didn't feel valued or appreciated but before I did anything, I evaluated the situation to determine why I felt that way, how I needed to change and what was best for myself and my family in the long term. I sought out advice from others before I made any rash decisions. I knew my worth and knew that if I wasn’t happy, I needed to make a change.

I want to remind you that you are talented. You are unique. You may not be in the right role, or you may be looking for that right role. Whatever the case, evaluate your own situation. Ask yourself if you feel valued. Look inwards. Talk to your manager if you can. Seek out advice. But don't settle. Find people that value you and your abilities. You are worth it.

“I’m not busy at all” said no customer success professional ever. Listen, I know you are super busy but what about your customers? They are extremely busy too and we sometimes fail to take this into account - all to our detriment. I know it’s frustrating when you see your customers floundering and you want to help them. The problem is that it doesn’t mean your customer has the mindset or capacity to act at this moment. Keep in mind that they work with multiple products and already have a full plate of priorities. Your challenge is to convince them to act but you also need to assess their mental state. How do you do that?

Spoon theory and customer success

For those with autoimmune diseases such as Lupus, it can be challenging and tiresome to continuously communicate how they are feeling. As a result of this, the spoon theory was developed as a straightforward way for those that have chronic illnesses to let others know their energy levels. These so called “spoonies” start their day with a defined number of spoons (say 10) and as they complete activities, they use up their spoons.

The number of spoons they have left signifies their current state. As an example, when someone has one spoon left for the day, they are making it clear that they are fatigued and need to conserve their energy.

When it comes to your customers, they also have limited time, attention, and energy. It’s helpful to visualize the number of spoons your customers are currently holding when you need them to do something. The question is, how do you get a sense of what they have on their plate and what they have an appetite for? I will take you through a proven method you can use.

Assess your customer’s motivation

You can quickly get a sense if your customer is ready to move forward by using a proven technique that many psychologists use called “motivational interviewing”. To evaluate your client’s motivation to change or take action, ask them the following scaling questions:

* On a scale of 0 to 10, where “0” is not important at all and “10” is crucially important, how important is it for you to take action?

* On a scale of 0 to 10, where “0” is no confidence at all and “10” is completely confident, how confident are you that you can take action?

Ideally, your customer responded with both high importance and high confidence to act but that seldom happens. You’ll find some of your customers that are highly motivated to act but have low confidence they can perform what is required. This may be due to a lack of skills, self-confidence, resources, time, budget, or faith in your product. 

You may have customers responded low for importance but high for confidence. It could be that they have other priorities, so your product or project is taking a backseat. They may also be egotistical and overconfident in their abilities, so they don’t believe they need to do anything or that your solution is worth the investment. You will want to dig into this further by using these two follow up questions:

* “Why did you pick the number X and not a lower number?”

* “What would it take to move it to a higher number?”

Your goal here is to listen for “change talk”, which is your customer telling you that they want to improve their current situation. For example, if your customer says: “I chose ‘8’ for importance as this area is critical to me and my company.”, you know you are on the right track as there is a desire to get moving.

If they provided a ‘3’ for confidence, you want to hear something such as: “I really want to use your new feature but I’m just too busy right now”. That gives you a sense that they are low on spoons. You can further dig into this to determine what their priorities are. You should then switch gears and put a plan together that works best based on their priorities. You can also try and give them some spoons by offering to directly assist them or suggesting a resource such as professional services that can assist them. Your goal should be to lower the barriers, so you reduce the friction that is causing a barrier to act.

Stay hungry my friends

Always keep in mind that your customers are people just like you. They are busy, have lives outside of work, and have limited time and energy. Try and determine how many spoons they have so that you have confidence that the neccessary steps will be taken. Don’t assume that the customer will do what they said they were going to do - you must assess their mental state. And if they say they are busy, get them to commit to a date that they can meet and discuss this again or suggest some approaches that can make it easier for them to start.

Try out these recommended scaling questions and let me know how it worked out for you. Don’t give up - stay hungry or you could risk losing the client.

PS: A Canadian oldie but a goodie (and a glimpse into Toronto in the early 80’s).

You are sitting there and scratching your head. You just got an email from your client that they will be churning. How could this be? You spoke to them last week and have had regular meetings and they never mentioned the possibility of leaving.

Unfortunately, if you are in customer success, this can happen from time to time. The relationships that you think you have with your clients aren’t as strong as you think they are. Sorry to burst that bubble.

Here are two questions that I’ve borrowed from Claire Lew that I recommend you ask yourself regularly for each client to ensure you know where you stand with your customers.

Reality Check

You first need to do a reality check. Ask yourself: “To what degree are you seeing the current reality for what it is?” You need to get real here. Consider these items:

* Is the client actually achieving value from your solution?

* Do you know if they would renew tomorrow if they had to?

If you can’t confidently answer these questions, you need to dive deeper. As Bob London recommends, ask your clients disruptive questions such as: “If a competitor reached out to you, would you respond?”. Keep probing until you are satisfied with the response.

Just because a customer tells you everything is ok, doesn’t mean that it is. At times, it’s easier for them to gloss over their larger issues as they may be busy. In addition, they may be fed up as they are tired rehashing ongoing issues. It also may be easier for you to shake off signs that there are problems such as a customer canceling a call or ignoring your email. Seek out the truth - even if it hurts.

Environmentally Friendly

The second item to consider is the environment you’ve created for your customer. Ask yourself: “To what degree are you creating an environment for your client to be successful?”. Consider these items:

* Have I provided the client with everything they need to succeed?

* Do I need to do the work for the client or are they able to do it by themselves?

* Where are they struggling? Why are they struggling?

If you can’t confidently answer these questions, start by reviewing their conversations with your support team, any other voice of customer feedback such as surveys as well as their usage of your product. Look for potential issues within these areas and any past correspondence you’ve had.

Then ask them the challenging questions “how can we make things easier for you?” or “If our product went away tomorrow, how much pain would this cause you?”. Ask follow up questions to ensure that they are getting the support they need to be successful. Determine what are some of the immediate and longer-term steps that can be taken to improve their situation.

Figure out how to create a better environment for your customer and this will create an overall better customer experience.

Don’t get burned by unexpected churn. Challenge yourself with these two questions and challenge your clients.

PS. Here is a movie from 90’s that I highly recommend:

We’re moving so fast - light speed at times. In customer success we have to make so many micro-decisions that at times we can operate on autopilot. Think about a recent customer interaction you had. How did you respond to it? You probably relied on instinct based on your previous knowledge or processes and policies that your company has in place. You may not remember half of what you said. In most situations, that’s fine. 

But this of course doesn’t always work - especially where customers don’t agree with your response.  The challenge is recognizing when you have entered a special situation. A moment when your decision will make or break your client relationship. These are what I call moments of truth. Think of these situations like the butterfly effect where a small action will change the future. I will try and help you identify these moments of truth and provide recommendations so you can act appropriately. First let me tell you about my own wakeup call.

You can make a mistake, but how will you recover?

Going back a few years now I was in the depths of hell handling several client contract negotiations during the initial stages of the Covid crisis. I will be honest here - it was one of my most challenging times as a CS leader. As it was still early in the pandemic, it was difficult to understand the impact this would have on our customers. Different customers were experiencing the pandemic differently and I had to make decisions quickly based on sparse pieces of information. The main issue was that I had too many items coming at me from all directions. It didn’t take long until I made a colossal mistake that could have had larger repercussions.

One of our clients was starting to see an uptick in their business but they needed help. They needed to add licenses to help their team so they could better assist their own customers. Moving at the speed of light I coached my customer success manager to follow our process and offer our clients a solution based on our stated policies. The challenge was that this solution didn’t fit the client’s needs and would be costly. I didn’t realize it, but I was in a moment of truth, and I failed miserably. 

The client had no choice but to proceed and when the dust settled, they took the time to let me know that they weren’t happy with what transpired. They felt that we could have been more customer-centric and they were right. This was the wakeup call I needed, and I can’t express my appreciation enough to this client. After thanking them for their feedback I quickly reversed course. I obtained the necessary approvals to provide a better solution that made more sense in this situation.

Reflecting on this time, I realized that we should have pushed the pause button and considered the situation from the client’s perspective. Our policies were valid but didn’t account for the unique crisis we were in. We needed to consider the client’s business needs and go outside the lines of our established policies. This was our moment of truth and something I now constantly remind myself of.

Defining moments of truth

While I love Wayne McCulloch’s book The Seven Pillars of Customer Success, I disagree with how he defined moments of truth. He used this definition: “Anytime the customer comes into contact with any aspect of a company, however remote, he or she has an opportunity to form an impression”. He referred to a moment of truth as any time a customer interacts with you.

My definition is different. It was something that a former executive at Eloqua, Alex Shootman, had instilled in me years ago. I define a moment of truth as: “a critical interaction in the customer journey when the action(s) your company takes will determine if the client remains a long-term customer.” Therefore, this isn’t just any type of engagement. This moment will shape the future of your customer relationship.

How do you know it’s a moment of truth?

As I mentioned, it can be challenging to realize that you are in that make or break situation with a client. Here are some signs that can tell you that you are in a moment of truth:

The customer tells you. This is the easiest situation of all to recognize because your customer will very explicitly tell you that your future relationship is hinging on how you handle the current predicament. They may also tell you that they are very upset with how a situation was handled. This could revolve around a critical bug, a missing feature, the price of a renewal or several other circumstances. In some situations, clients will bypass you and express how they feel on social media and in online communities. While it’s easy to recognize that this is a moment of truth, it’s still not easy to resolve.

In some situations, it’s recommended that someone such as a customer success manager qualify how dire the situation is. I like to use qualification questions such as: “From 1-5 with 1 being the most important, how critical is this item for you?”. In other situations, such as the story I shared, it isn’t needed. I knew my client well enough to recognize the severity of the situation and that they were right. If the client takes the time to tell you that they feel you messed up, you need to address the situation quickly and handle it delicately. 

The client is very emotional. The client may not outright tell you that they will stop doing business with you, but you can tell from their mannerisms that they are unhappy or angry and at a breaking point. In these situations, it’s best to label the emotion so the client can communicate how they are feeling. For example, you can reflect on what the client said: “It seems that you are very upset”. You can then add if it makes sense: “How do you recommend we resolve this issue?” 

In these situations, you need to slowwwww down so you can take in the customer’s perspectives. Ask yourself these questions:

* Why is the customer feeling this way? What is impacting them or their business right now that may be causing this?

* How would I want to be treated if I was the customer?

* What has happened previously that may be impacting how they are reacting?

* Are our current processes and policies adequate for the exact situation we’re in right now?

* Is what the client is asking for unreasonable?

By asking yourself these questions you have paused long enough to turn off your autopilot and think through your actions. I also recommend going for a walk. If you have any doubts as to how you have acted or how you plan to act, pull a colleague aside and walk them through the situation. Ask them for their advice on how they would handle this. Ask them for feedback on your planned course of action. Getting a second opinion can prevent the wrong action or help get things back on track.  

The client goes silent. When you are experiencing a moment of truth, you have a brief period to identify and rectify the situation. If it’s not handled correctly, you may have a client go dark on you. This is typically a clear sign that you failed to act appropriately from their perspective. It’s best to acknowledge that so you can move forward. 

I had a situation where the CSM-client relationship had deteriorated but I hadn’t noticed it quickly enough. They had kept pushing off meetings and were ignoring my reach outs. I asked for a brief call and said that the conversation was of a sensitive nature and could only be done by phone. 

After some additional prodding, the client agreed to meet, and I told them that we needed to do better. I recommended a path forward and asked them for their input. They agreed to my plan, and we were able to repair the relationship. This was lucky but it was only when I realized that this was a moment of truth and that I had to force the situation or risk losing the client forever.

Your moment of truth

I want you to think back again on recent conversations you’ve had with your customers or anyone for that matter. Did you face a moment of truth? How did you handle the situation? Would you approach things differently now that you saw the consequences of your actions?

Consider client relationships that may be on the rocks or past interactions that you should have handled differently. What changes can you make to rectify these situations? What changes will you make when you experience another moment of truth? This is your moment of truth. What will you do?

“Did you see that crazy deal that just came in? I can’t believe that we sold to them!”

“The salesperson reached out to my client and didn’t tell me. Now I have to clean up this mess that they created.”

“Why did sales push through that upsell? They clearly weren’t ready to make that purchase!”

Do any of these sound familiar? While these examples are fictitious, they are commonly said by customer success teams in regards to their sales colleagues. I’m sure I’ve said something similar over the years as well.

We’re also seeing these stereotypes perpetuated on social media (see the example below). I mean, they are really funny I’ll admit. But it’s not helping solve the underlying issue and while it’s an unpopular opinion, improvements can actually be made.

While it may seem nice to have a laugh at someone else’s expense, it’s causing a deeper rift between sales and customer success. Do you think this will help prevent another “wrong fit” customer from being signed? Do you think this will prevent the sales team from trying to upsell clients who are at-risk? Complaining about the problem just perpetuates it. It can make things worse as it becomes harder to see things from other people’s perspectives. That same empathy that is needed to help your clients also needs to be directed inwardly to your own organization. It’s time to look at this from a different perspective and break out of this us vs them mentality.

Your ego is in your way

“Own your s**t” is something that was ingrained into me over the years as a leader. The book Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin really drove this point home and changed my way of thinking. My takeaway from the book is that I’m fully responsible for everything that my team is involved in. If we lost a customer, that’s my fault and not the CSM. If someone quits on my team, that’s on me. I focused on improving our processes and creating a culture of accountability and high performance. I made sure that we owned our s**t. The problem I learned is that it isn’t enough.

I had a situation where we ran an upsell campaign that wasn’t communicated well to our customers. This caused some unnecessary friction with a small number of customers and the brunt of their unhappiness fell on the customer success team. Under the pressure of being chewed out by customers and then having my overburdened CS team being dragged through the mud yet again, I had had it. I escalated this to senior management and lashed out: “We really screwed this up. Why did this happen?”

I thought I was being a good soldier and practicing “extreme ownership”. I had my s**t together - why didn’t other people have the same mentality? I thought “if you mess up, own it, learn from it and move on”. What I realized later was that I had let my ego get in the way. I was looking at this from a black and white perspective. However, I couldn’t get past my own way of thinking that I was right and the other teams were wrong. While someone else may have made a mistake here, I was making the bigger one.

Own their s**t too

It wasn’t until I read Meg Poag’s book “The Adversity Hack” that it dawned on me that my thinking was flawed. As she phrases it, “I had to go to battle with my ego”. She defines ego as the following:

“Ego is the armor that guards the beliefs, pathways, and patterns we have built up to protect ourselves, survive, and feel better.”

I was blaming someone else as I was giving in to my ego. What I needed to do was to stay curious and try and better understand why certain actions were taken. We have to assume that everyone is trying to do the right thing (and not just the CS team). If mistakes are made, it’s best to understand why they happened. I needed to ask myself, “what role did I play in this situation?” and “How could have I prevented this from happening?”

In the situation with the upsell campaign, I could have made more of an effort to review the communication strategy to mitigate potential issues. My sphere of ownership needs to go beyond my team - I need to extend my ownership to others. In summary - you need to own other people’s s**t too.

This applies to many situations. If you find challenges between sales and CS in your own organization, you need to take responsibility and find out why this is happening. It could be that this was how the sales team was trained (or not trained). It could be due to how the sales team is compensated.

Stay curious and focus on the role that you play in the situation rather than feeding into your own ego and falling back on the blame game (and the Insta memes). Be the better person and you will speed up the chance to make real change and progress. Above all, stop blaming sales by default. This doesn’t help and only hinders the situation.

PS: This way of thinking goes well beyond sales and customer success and can extend to any situation - including personal relationships.

PPS: While I am aware of my ego it doesn’t mean that I still don’t get tripped up in my own s**t. I have a good sense of when it may be happening and when I need to pull myself up.

Meg Poag, The Adversity Hack (Austin: River Grove Books, 2021), 13

A number of years ago I was working with one of my clients who was a very talented marketing operations manager when I was a customer success manager at Eloqua (a marketing automation platform). Their goal was to deliver more targeted content to their prospects but the data that they stored in Eloqua was all over the place as data tends to be. They had collected contact information in a very unwieldy manner over the years. As an example, for the country field, United States was spelled in 20 different ways: USA, US, United States, America, 'merica. You get the point.

“I have a great solution for you” I quickly exclaimed. “It’s called the data washing machine”. No joke. It really was called that and probably still is. I continued: “It will help you clean up your data through a series of rules in our workflow engine”. The challenge was that this workflow engine in Eloqua called “Program Builder” was a beast and not the easiest product to use. I could see the hesitancy in my client’s face as we spoke as I knew they had a lot on their plate already. It was obvious that I was losing them. “It’s ok,” they said. “We’ll just export the data and fix it ourselves”. I knew that this wouldn’t be the right move and would add countless hours to their campaign creation process. How could I turn this around?

I decided to switch gears and started to talk about another one of our clients that were similar to them and had the same problem. They just happened to know the marketer over there as well. I remember telling them “Yeah, Dox also had that issue. They had a number of challenges targeting the right prospect by title so they used their washing machine to bucket people into their designated personas. The great thing is that after they implemented their own contact washing machine their email open rate went up by 20%, they generated 30% more qualified leads and they doubled the number of monthly campaigns they executed. Do you want to have a chat with Mary over at Dox? I can set that up. It’s up to you”. I saw a glimmer of light in my client’s eyes. “Well, there’s no harm in having a chat with Mary. It would be great if you could reintroduce us” they said. I had hit paydirt and prevented them from digging a deeper hole for themselves. All with the power of a story.

Tell it, don’t sell it

I was off to the races and built out a plan to get them using my proposed solution. The strength of stories is extremely underrated when it comes to customer success. While you may have a great product or service, your customers may not be ready for what you have to offer even though it will solve their problem. It’s foolish to think that someone will do what you say just because you said it. It’s best to consider a story that can help bridge the gap between your product or service and their need. In this case, a customer story was the right tool. My goal was to have them visualize what the end result may look like which was why I shared the success metrics. I focused on telling the story rather than selling the benefits of the contact washing machine. I then proposed to have one of our other customers tell it to them directly which is even more powerful.

I also used a bonus technique to counteract the psychological effect called “reactance” which happens when people feel you may be too pushy. Think of that annoying associate that comes up to you in your favorite clothing store and asks “can I help you?”. 99% of the time you want to scream “No, go away” but of course you don’t say that out loud. By saying “it’s up to you” I let the customer decide what they want to do next and I made it an easy first step. Giving your customers freedom and options can help people take the first step when they may be hesitant to.

Gather those stories

Your challenge: What stories do you or your team have that should be used to help change the behavior of your customers? Customer success managers should have a bank of stories that they have close at hand and can easily leverage. Most likely, they already exist but they haven’t been brought together. You can start to gather them - even if they are in a rough draft to start. You can then refine them and work with your team on how best to deliver them. That is coming up in a future post so stay tuned….

Look for those stories - they are there:

PS: this post was an example of a story

Do any of these statements sound familiar to you?

“We expected your product to be able to do that with the click of a button. If you don’t have this feature we may need to look for another solution.”

“Your competitor is able to display our data as line charts and bar charts. Why can’t you do that too?”

These of course are fictitious examples but the pain that you may be experiencing may be similar. Your customers may have expectations that your solution is supposed to have certain features or work in a certain way and if it doesn’t, it’s broken. For the most part, I don’t blame the customer in these situations as most likely there were incorrect expectations that were set along the way. The problem is that much of this is out of your control for the following reasons:

* The client felt they were promised certain features during the sales cycle that you had nothing to do with.

* You have a limited ability to modify your product roadmap let alone the timeframe that your customer may be asking for in regards to these new features.

* Lastly, your various client stakeholders have different agendas and objectives and both the people and the priorities change over time. This makes it challenging to balance what different people want and to ensure they are receiving value.

Regardless of the situation, you, as the customer representative, have to sort out this mess. One way to try and get things on a better track is to leverage the concept by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy called “The GAP and the GAIN”. Let’s dive into what this is all about.

Mind the GAP

Sullivan and Hardy used this concept of “the GAP and the GAIN” to explain why some people have such a hard time being happy. These people are always measuring themselves against an ideal that they have pictured in their minds. For example, they may expect to be making 7 figures by the time they are thirty and have a home and two kids. Not attaining that high salary or that house in the suburbs could send them spiraling out of control. Even when they may have actually accomplished their goals they may be unhappy with the size of their home or the job title they have. It never ends as they are in a constant “pursuit of happiness” (thanks Thomas Jefferson). This is called being in the GAP and it affects a large number of people.

If you feel that I may be describing some of your traits, you are not alone. I’m someone whose #1 strength as part of the CliftonStrengths is “achiever” and I’ve lived too much of my life in the GAP. My 12-year-old may have finished his homework and done his chores but I’ll scold him for leaving his dirty plate on the dinner table by mistake. I can be a real jerk at times as I’m focused too much on the GAP and not the GAIN.

A GAP mindset can really hold you back in life. In contrast to living in the GAP, living in the GAIN is measuring yourself against a starting point rather than against a future ideal. It’s about appreciating what you and others have accomplished rather than agonizing over what didn’t happen (or that it didn’t happen as you expected it to). How do you apply this concept to your customers?

Focus on the GAIN

The feature request that was mentioned at the beginning is a clear example of your client being in the GAP. How do you move the conversation from the GAP to the GAIN? Your goal should be to get your customer to be proud of what they have accomplished so far with your product rather than of what may be lacking. You can also point out the product improvements that have been made that have directly impacted them.

Here are my recommendations to move to GAIN thinking:

* Make sure you know what your starting point is. Confirm the metrics that are important to your customers and the outcomes that they want to achieve. For example, if their goal is to unify all of their systems so they have a clearer understanding of their customer data, you will want to define that up front. This could be on the kick-off call or on a business review (QBR).

* Track progress against the starting point & sell it. If you know the starting point, you can focus on how the client has progressed against this rather than focus on what they have yet to accomplish. Create a joint success plan or just define specific tasks that need to get done to demonstrate the progress being made. Focus on the GAIN (the progress) versus the GAP (what wasn’t done). Leverage strategic meetings such as business reviews (QBRs) and other high profile meetings such as executive sponsor touchpoints to go over what has been accomplished. Point out the new features that have been rolled out -especially the ones that have directly impacted your client. Once the customer acknowlodges their progress, be sure to update all of the customer stakeholders. Sell those wins.

* Identify if the client is in the GAP early and address it. We all go into the GAP sometimes but there may be different ways to get out of it. That is why you need to identify any client issues early on in the relationship and attack them head-on. For example, if the client is expecting a feature, let them know if you will build the feature, if you won’t build it and if there are other options. You need to set the right expectations so that the client isn’t stuck in the GAP.

I’m not saying that by focusing on the GAP you can ignore all feature requests and other asks that your clients may have. However, when you are in a tough situation and your client may be fixated on certain issues, try and elevate the discussion beyond the problem at hand. As an example, I remember being in a tough renewal conversation where the client questioned the price we proposed. I reminded the client of all the progress we made due to their CSM’s assistance. The client acknowledged the high-quality service they were receiving and recognized that this was baked into the cost. We were able to shift the conversation from the GAP to the GAIN and secure the renewal.

GAIN some more happiness

Your challenge: Start to document all of the wins and accomplishments from just one of your customers. It could be new features or modules they have rolled out with your product. It could be configurations you helped them with or some wins from your support team. It could be them surpassing key metrics based on their defined outcomes. You could even just ask them: “what has your company found to be successful using our product?”. Get your customers into a GAIN mindset and I can guarantee that it will make you and your customers feel better.

PS: When you ask that “success” question, get ready to share the response with the rest of your organization as you will typically uncover a golden nugget. Get everyone into GAIN thinking.

PPS: This is more a reminder for me for a self-proclaimed GAPper. Focus more on what you have accomplished, what your family has accomplished, what your team has accomplished, what other functions have accomplished versus what they haven’t. Focus on the GAIN vs the GAP.

PPPS: Get in the GAIN and get happy!

“Is there anything else we should discuss?”

You’re just wrapping up what you think is a successful customer meeting. However, you have this bad feeling in your gut that is telling you that something isn’t right and you know it isn’t from your lunch. You start to recall other signs that may affirm this belief. You remember seeing a sarcastic remark from the customer in one of their recent support interactions and you know that their business may not be doing as well right now. Instead of inquiring into these items you say:

“Ok, well if there isn’t anything else we can call it a meeting.”

As you close out the meeting you know that you probably just made a terrible mistake. And just to make you feel bad, I can tell you that you probably did. You let them off easy. You didn’t dig into a potential problem. Even worse, you didn’t seize on an opportunity to deepen your client relationship.

Poke the bear

The reason that many meetings end this way is that most people don’t like conflict. It makes us feel uncomfortable. We could get a response that we don’t like. What people don’t realize is that your customer is probably feeling that same level of discomfort and it’s easier for them to not share with you how they are really feeling. They are busy and are thinking about the next task or meeting. The problem is that feelings of discontent fester and if you aren’t the one that will poke the bear, the bear will eventually get fed up and you will have customers churning.

There is gold in there - you just need to mine for it

One of my favorite authors on leadership, Patrick Lencioni, used the term “mining for conflict” as it relates to making internal meetings more interesting. The idea is to surface sensitive issues at meetings so that the people present can work through them together. While it’s not easy to have these conversations, people will be grateful that you cared enough about them to ask the hard questions. As a customer success professional, you can be a miner of conflict with your customers as well. It usually takes your customer relationship to another level as you are being more transparent and vulnerable with each other. I’ll go through some of the ways you can do this with your own customers.

How to be a miner of conflict

Uncovering areas of conflict during meetings involves the following steps:

* Establish trust. Before you jump into a challenging discussion, you should try to create an atmosphere where there is mutual trust. This can include using active listening techniques and being empathetic. Using “reflections” is a great way to do this. Before getting ready to rumble as Brené Brown likes to call it, you need to have a level of intimacy that will prevent your clients from trying to duck the hard-hitting questions that are flying their way.

* Ask tough questions. You should come into meetings prepared with a few tough questions that will help you determine where you stand or will help to expose deep-rooted issues. For example, to test if a client will renew, ask them: “If your manager asked you if you would renew with us, how would you answer that?”. You should also have your radar up during the meeting and look for signs that your customer has more to say than they are letting on. Lastly, keep an eye out for facial expressions that show frustration.

* Ask follow-up questions and dig in. Don’t let the client off the hook when they start to reveal their challenges. Ask follow-up questions when you are looking for additional details and dig in your claws. You can ask for specific examples and then schedule follow-up meetings if needed to better understand their issues. Try and get to the root problems rather than just focusing on what is above the ground. You also want to have clear next steps to address the problem.

Most customer success professionals will find these steps challenging and shy away from them. My suggestion is that you role-play this to become more comfortable with being uncomfortable. You can then use something like Gong to go over how you did on actual customer calls and determine if you had your hard hat on and were mining or you were just skimming the surface.

Your challenge: Make your meetings more engaging and improve your client relationships at the same time by being a miner of conflict. Look for signs of frustration and come prepared with some tough questions. Poke the bear.

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PS: A little Neil Young for your day. Mine for that gold!

Picture this situation: Your meeting with a customer who you’ve known for a while. You get along with them fairly well but they can be challenging at times. You spend the first minute of the meeting catching up and of course talking about the weather. Finally, everyone on the Zoom arrives, people have figured out they need to go off mute and the meeting begins. Before you have a chance to go through the agenda your client asks for the floor. They spend the next few minutes ripping into you over an issue they are having. You are caught a bit off-guard here but to show that you are listening you start nodding your head as if to say that you understand their concerns. Instead of making things better, most customer success (CS) pros make this mistake which just turns a small fire into a massive inferno.

Providing a solution won’t help

During these situations, most CS pros go into problem-solving mode as that is what they’ve been taught. They believe that their jobs are to solve problems. The challenge is that if you jump right into suggesting a solution after the customer has unloaded on you, you may not fully understand the whole issue and the customer may not care to hear your advice as they are still too angry.

What you need to do in this situation is do whatever you can to hold yourself back from trying to solve their problem. Even if you know how to easily address the issue. Press pause and do the following for a higher chance that they will follow your instructions.

Reflect before you deflect

After the customer has completed telling you their issue the best approach is to use a technique called “reflection”. Very simply reflect back to the customer what they told you. For example, if the customer lets you know that the bugs in your product are causing them delays which are impacting how they run their business, relay this back to them. You can simply say “It seems that the bugs in our product are creating productivity issues for your team which is impacting the overall performance of your business.” That’s it. That simple reflection technique that many psychologists use (it’s from something called “motivational interviewing”) will start to improve the situation because you actively listen to the concerns of your client. Using this reflection approach shows that you understand their issue. Here’s the even better thing: if you didn’t relay back the information to the client correctly, it gives them the chance to correct you. That isn’t a bad thing. This gets you and the customer fully aligned on the issue which will now allow you to switch to solution mode.

President Theodore Roosevelt famously said: “Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.” When it comes to challenging customer conversations (and I have been part of many of these), don’t go to solution mode until you have demonstrated that you are truly hearing their concerns.

Your challenge: Try out using the reflection technique with your customers. This may seem very foreign to you if you have never used it before. Practice doing this with your teammates and/or rewatch your calls (if you record them) to ensure that you are doing it properly and not just acknowledging what the customer just said. You can even use this technique with a friend or loved one (yes, it can save personal relationships too). Avoid going into solution mode by default and put on your empathy hat. Try out this technique on your next call and let me know how it goes. Be that person that your customers can trust and count on.

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And now, a little Bruno Mars - be the light for your customers!