A Day in the Life Starts with Client Emails

Question!?

I want to start each newsletter with a question I have been pondering this month.? I will offer some of my thoughts but would love to hear your thoughts as well.? Please step into the comments with your thoughts.?

How do we support the Customer Success professionals who are being laid off across the tech industry??

With layoffs hitting the tech industry especially hard, where most of the Customer Success functions exist, right now is a challenging time for our profession as so much amazing talent gets laid off. Some things I have done in the past include gifting folks LinkedIn Premium Subscription (but I’m starting to run low with the velocity of these actions), launching the #InItTogetherChallenge to do 1:1 meetings with folks who were impacted, and engaging with resources on LinkedIn.? For those that have been impacted, what are things that have been most helpful for you as these events happen??

Insights!?

One big question I get from folks looking to break into Customer Success, is around what a day in the life looks like for a CSM. This is, of course, a hard question to answer as the role can look very different for different companies working with different industries. However, I will share with you some of the answers I got from the #AskCustomerSuccess interviews as well as my own experience.? I also ran a poll on LinkedIn this month to ask a bit about project work which I think is an interest aspect in the day in the life of a CSM.?

While most people mentioned that no days looked the same, most of them started with client emails. With the clients being at the heart of this role, I don’t think that should surprise anyone.? Starting the day in your inbox and ensuring your customers inquiries are addressed is a usual place to start.???

In this same theme, scheduled customers meetings were another constant for this role.? These calls did take a few different shapes including but not limited to:?

• Kickoff Meetings?
• Health Checks?
• Quarterly Reviews?
• Technical Consultations?
• Progress Calls?

The third bucket that everyone agreed on was collaborating with internal teams. As CSMs are usually part of broader account teams, working with the other members of this team is key to being a successful CSM. There were additional teams that were mentioned as working with but not on a day-to-day basis.? A couple examples of this include product and marketing teams.??

One piece that was not mentioned as much in my interviews, but I know plays a role in the CSM life are projects. Due to this I ran a poll to get a sense of how many projects CSMs are taking on, if any. ~50% responded they had 1-2 projects, but the most surprising thing was that nobody answered they didn’t have any projects. This seems to answer the questions that, yes, this would be considered part of the CSM role. We’ll do a deeper dive on project work in some future newsletters as well. This was and continues to be a key part of my CS journey.?

So, to bring this all together, I would say there are four main buckets to a CSM role:?

• Client Meetings and their preparation?
• Client Interactions beyond meetings?
• Internal Collaboration?
• Project work?

Did I miss any key buckets you would add here??

5 LinkedIn Posts I Found Interesting This Month!?

Carly Agar shares some key insights around Customer Success job searching during a time of mass layoffs.?

Daphne Costa Lopes encourages CSMs to have thoughtful disagreements with their customers.

Elizabeth Hope, MA shares a reminder around how layoffs disproportionately impact black professionals and some steps you can take to help ensure this doesn’t happen at your company.

Marija Skobe-Pilley launched Power Up Mentoring for those woman in Customer Success looking to be part of a mentorship program.?

Nick Mehta talks about creating a Prescriptive Value Methodology to guide your customers to the best path to value.