5 Lessons Learned As A Customer Success Manager

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It’s been just over a year since I made the transition from a role in Sales and Account Management to Customer Success Manager, setting up a new department and championing our vision to work with customers and assisting them to utilise their training management software to drive success.

The good news is that although eventful and very hard work, our customer success philosophy and Driving Success Initiative has been warmly received by customers and the success of the programme has helped to drive change throughout our business too!  Coupled with our move to improve our processes with a quality management system working within the guidelines of ISO 9001, our commitment to being a customer focused organisation has moved to the next level. 

In recent weeks our Marketing Manager Audrey Clark has been appointed Head of Customer Experience, a role that encompasses marketing, quality, projects, customer success and our technical support helpdesk.  By combining the management and strategic development of these departments we aim to provide a seamless end to end experience for customers with increased emphasis on communications.  This is great news for customer success as I will now be working as part of a larger integrated team.

So, to celebrate our first anniversary I thought I would look back at some of the lessons I have learned and on some of the information we will use to develop and improve our Driving Success initiative.

Driving Success

5 lessons learned

1. Customer success means something different to everyone

Every customer has a different view of what customer success means to them. It could encompass the objectives they are working towards, the timescales they have to implement these or how they wish to engage with the Driving Success programme.  No two customers are the same. This makes it crucial to build solid, personal relationships with our customer base ensuring we understand their business, enabling us to provide them with the best support possible.

2. Customer success is never done!

Customer success is a continuous journey. This was probably the biggest transition for me moving from sales where when a sale was completed it was completed! Customer success revolves around the ever changing needs of organisations and trends in the market. There is always more that can be achieved – the important thing is to keep the momentum going.

3. Businesses of all different types face the same challenges

We work with a really varied customer base from huge international established organisations using our system to run operations all over the world to small, growing training businesses who may have just got to the stage where they are opening booking to the public. Although all customer objectives are tailored to their business, we can still identify trends. For example, in the last six months there has been a focus on automating marketing through the system and moving towards a Managed Service model – identifying these trends has allowed me to put together best practice guides and customer events which explore these areas.

4. Communication is key

This role would not be possible without regular communication with customers as well as internally with other members of the accessplanit team. I work closely with our development and support teams to ensure that our customers have all the information they require when making a decision. In addition, the feedback I receive is that customers find our technical support helpdesk invaluable. 

5. Don’t avoid training – the benefits outweigh the cost

We understand that administrators come and go and while we have our User Guide and knowledgebase available there is nothing which can replace trainer led system coaching. Only when you understand the powerful functionality within the system are you able to make informed decisions about how this can be utilised fully to provide the best return on investment. To this end, training is invaluable and the benefits quickly outweigh any cost of additional training.

Want to learn more about our Driving Success Programme? Download our Driving Success brochure.

Driving Success

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