?? The evolution of skills in Customer Success during the AI revolution??

The image above has been Generated by AI - Prompt: "create a picture of a customer success manager thriving for generative AI and collaborating with machines helping customers". I have no idea who the creature with the glasses is - the customer? the CSM? Anyways, it is kind of cool. :)

Generative AI is a powerful technology that can create new content and insights from data. It has the potential to transform Customer Success by enabling personalized and proactive interactions with customers, improving retention and loyalty. It is important to note that whilst our profession is and will more and more benefit of a plethora of tools and assisted motions, the same is happening to our customers and also to the services that they will be imagining for our society to progress.

Generative AI also poses significant challenges and risks for the labour market and society as a whole. It may disrupt existing jobs, create ethical dilemmas, and require new skills and regulations.

Therefore, it is important to understand the implications of Generative AI and how to use it responsibly and effectively.

This post is about how Customer Success Managers should evolve their skills in order to continue to play a role in developing the success of their teams, their companies and their customers – ultimately their own personal successes.

Before we start, let me contextualize why this revolution is so fundamental for businesses and society across the World.

Is Generative AI a fad?

How we create is evolving thanks to Generative AI. For the first time, machines are producing while humans are supervising. The promise is that this technology will assist us in relieving mankind of the dull, repetitive and difficult tasks, so that we may concentrate solely on the purpose and creativity of our work - the concept, the strategy, and the vision.

This represents a tidal paradigm shift in terms of how we do things.

It is by all means a true creative revolution, but you should not be thinking about arts only: think about how you craft a presentation, how you position a product, how you prepare for a meeting, how you produce and consume information.

Most importantly, think about how this affects your customers and their ability to imagine new exciting services: as a Customer Success Manager you are here to ensure they are successful in their journey, correct? Well, we just all got an earthquake in the business panorama and this is going to affect massively the very same customers we help. We need to skill up to stay up the game and continue to help our customers realizing their ambition to do more.

In addition to drastically altering nearly every profession, Generative AI is also redefining what work is. AI models are already beginning to simplify several repetitive or computationally intensive elements of the production process. All of this results in the opportunity for us to learn the genuine meaning of labour and the core of what it is to be a human. We are about to enter a magnificent new existence where we concentrate on what makes us special as a species - our curiosity, conscious awareness, dreams, emotional intelligence, and vision - while the algorithms we have developed help us and amplify producing and carrying out our unique vision.

Some companies will massively benefit of this shift, as they embrace new ways. Other companies will be massively challenged in what they do. Think of Chegg . In May,?Wall Street wiped over 40% ?off this online education company’s stock price in a single day, valuing it at one third of what it was worth at the time of ChatGPT’s initial launch. Of course, the idea of widening access to education globally, of democratizing and making education more accessible globally makes news like the above less traumatic from the big picture, representing a shift in energy and focus.

Additionally, whole categories of jobs will change if not disappear, new categories of jobs will be created. Inevitably there will be fluctuations in the wellness of those losing their professionalism and needing to reposition and reskill themselves, and those opening up new ways and paying the price of being pioneers .

This is exactly the point here: Generative AI is here to stay and is progressively triggering a domino effect across the business landscape and the society.

How can Customer Success Managers stay relevant in an AI world?

We all know that Customer Success Managers thrive when balancing the company’s revenue generation engine whilst sustaining the success of its customers. We do it in many ways, we adapt to the specific industry, we go beyond selling products and genuinely partner with individuals at the customer - we ultimately play a role in between organizations and find that sweet spot between the internal needs of our companies and the ambitions of our customers. I like to think that a Customer Success Manager is paid by his or her company, but works for the customer!

And now, we need to change the way we do it by both leveraging Generative AI to do our work differently, as well as enabling our customers to adopt Generative AI to augment the possibility of realizing their ambitions.

So how best to protect our Customer Success teams and enable them to be prepared for what is to come in AI?

We’ve all been through some intense times lately: after the Hybrid revolution, somebody came up with an oxymoron: “do more with less”. More of a philosophy dictated by need, rather than an idea on the means. Fortunately, we’ve been lucky: once most of us were seriously questioning how to do more with less without sacrificing quality, the Universe gave us a benevolent sign: Generative AI.

Generative AI is here to ease some of the pressure. Until now, Generative AI has largely operated in autopilot, albeit in silos: a tool to generate images, a tool to paraphrase, a tool to imagine posts and the occasional chain of tools to automate concatenated tasks.

Every day a new tool springs up like a magic mushroom, and introduces a pshycedelic new possibility, yet this already feels like Generative AI 1.0.

Generative AI 2.0 is in the making, and we will all be soon switching from autopilot to co-pilots. The copilots of the future will operate alongside people, releasing them from their digital debt, increasing their productivity, democratizing execution and fostering a world of creativity. Businesses that use AI will be the winners and professionals that embrace AI will be a step ahead, ushering in a new era of productivity growth and wealth creation.

In order to ride this exciting wave of change, Customer Success Managers should build their resilience and adaptability by cultivating GenAI skills (as in Generation AI), so they can ensure they still have a job in the future.

These skills are important for us to stay relevant: running away in the age of AI is not going to work – the best form of defence is the attack. A bit like looking after your personal success being a proactive affair, not a reactive one. Sounds familiar.

Take on challenges, embrace them, and understand how we can work and collaborate with AI and those who will be resilient and resourceful will be able to do better than others.

So here we go, to remain competitive in the AI era, as a Customer Success Managers you need to curate the following skills proactively:

1.?????Understand the intricacies and familiarize yourself with Generative AI tools

If you haven't tried out any of them, go and try them out now!

Explore them all, be curious, open your mind. And be critical, as some of them may not useful and use more of your energy than what they give back.

Naturally, the tools you are currently using today have or will soon be updated with AI capabilities: use those features intentionally and systematically.

See what they do well. Understand how they work. But more importantly, recognise their limitations, so you can provide value to others and protect your time.

is a community driven movement, be the conduit of its continued success by taking and giving in equal parts.

I am not going to provide a list of these tools here, there’s a lot more vibrant posts on this subject and even if I created my own list, it would be obsolete as soon as you finish reading this sentence.

These are the areas where I think there is a lot of added value for playful exploration:

automating mundane tasks:

1. composing emails, automating calendars.
2. providing in-depth answers to customer questions (even in real-time!).
3. contributing to Knowledge Base articles.
4. sharing, evangelizing, amplifying on social.
5. preparing meetings, presentations, memos.
6. drafting call scripts.

providing insights into customer behaviour and feedback:

1. analyse customer feedback.
2. conduct sentiment analysis.
3. reduce customer churn by predictive analytics or by suggesting a personalized experience to avoid customers disconnects.

consolidating research capabilities:

1. customer research.
2. conduct market and trend analysis.
3. spot new and emerging trends, technologies, and tools.
4. research the person you’re meeting.

Creating a better organization:

1. optimize processes, Standardize workflows and processes.
2. improve defining clear objectives and KPIs.
3. help Segmenting customers.
4. automate repetitive tasks for the team – a bit like synthetic Customer Success operations.
5. curate augmented Digital Customer Success.

Of course, AI is never 100% correct as it is continuously learning, so do not forget that AI is great when there is not a precise “right answer” but cannot be trusted when the answer must be perfect.

There’s many ways to democratize Generative AI tools into the workstream, I found the concept described in this article very interesting and if you ask me – this is the way a leader should drive his or her team when gamifying the journey.

2.?????? Leverage AI delegation

Simply put, AI delegation is the moment when humans delegate tasks to machines, leveraging complementary competencies. You typically do this via natural language these days, and everyone is talking about using the “prompt” to brief the machine.

Learning how to create a proper prompt will vastly improve the quality of the work you’re capable of getting AI to do for you.

It’s very important that Customer Success Managers develop an understanding of what AI is capable of and what its limitations are – see above!?

Although tools today are designed to be very easy, learning to really use them effectively still means dedicating some time to studying and learning how to communicate with them.

And last but by no means least, it’s critical to develop an understanding of the regulatory and ethical implications of using AI. See below!

There’s a ton of resources around , and to test the power of prompts I will actually create one to ask the machine for help. So here we go:

My prompt: “Please recommend the four best postings on LinkedIn with practical tips about format prompting Generative AI chatbots”.

(I always say “please”, because yes.. even if it’s a machine I am polite within!)

I found some articles that might be helpful. Here are some of the best LinkedIn posts with practical tips about format prompting Generative AI chatbots:

1.????How to perfect your prompt writing for ChatGPT, Midjourney and other AI generators

2.????LinkedIn testing Generative AI feature for writing posts

3.????85 Best LinkedIn ChatGPT Prompts To Grow Your Audience - Great Ai Prompts

4.????Prompting 101: Writing prompts for AI - GoDaddy Blog

Let me add a personal favourite here - How to Research and Write Using Generative AI Tools by Dave Birss (the link will unlock the course for free for 24 hours).

In a nutshell: for the best prompt be clear and specific, use examples and role playing, include context and refine, refine, refine. Crafting an effective prompt is the new white.

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3.?????? Develop an understanding of AI fundamentals.

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Customer Success Managers do not need to learn to code, but need to understand the basic principles on how these systems are trained and how they behave: the days an irate customer will call you because your chatbot is diverging with inconsistent answers and embarrassing interactions is soon approaching, so you need to be on top of what may be ?happening so at least you can sustain the initial conversation and calm your customer down.

Investigate how AI is affecting your specific industry: using AI in a pharmaceutical industry is very different from creating a legal document in a law firm. Read and read more so you can start developing the intuition of what AI can or can’t do and get ideas on how it is going to apply in your domain.

There’s quite a lot of introductory courses that you can leverage. Whilst the list keeps growing at an exponential rate, I would suggest you start from here:

• AI for Everyone by DeepLearning.AI.
• Career Essentials in Generative AI ?by Microsoft and LinkedIn.
• Seven new no-cost Generative AI training courses to advance your cloud career by Google.
• Making Friends with Machine Learning by Cassie Kozyrkov.
• Generative AI for Executives by AWS.
• LangChain: Chat with Your Data by DeepLearning.AI.

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?4.?????? Find Insights in Data Analysis

As AI mainly relies on vast datasets, developing your data interpretation and analysis skills will allow you to get insightful knowledge and insights on AI-driven decision-making. Data analysis is a fascinating and rewarding field that can help you discover valuable insights from data and make informed decisions.

As a Customer Success Manager you do not need to become an expert in the field, but background knowledge will empower you and enable you to know what you are talking about when sustaining a conversation on Generative AI.

You can get started today by:

• practising on projects with real data: look at the many learning opportunities available, which include hands-on projects using real data sets, or you can design your own projects using free public data sources. Or you can work on mini hackathons in your day-to-day job: you can volunteer to make an analysis on your customer trends, or maybe look for correlations on sentiment and the customer journey?
• learning the basics and have an idea about tools and techniques that can help you work with data, such as statistics, programming languages (R or Python are popular choices), SQL (for querying databases), data visualization (for presenting your findings), and data cleaning and preparation (for ensuring data quality). Here’s a starting point on Coursera: How to Become a Data Analyst .
• practicing presenting: finding insights in data is one aspect, successfully conveying those findings is another: Customer Success Managers will need to be able to explain the analysis process, results, and recommendations to different audiences, such as technical peers, business stakeholders, or general public.?

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?5.?????? Emotional Intelligence and the Importance of “Why”

While AI can handle repetitive tasks, emotional intelligence and human interactions are still irreplaceable in many areas: Generative AI will not be able chat to your customer at a coffee machine near you.

Keep developing emotional intelligence to improve your interactions with coworkers and customers. It can actually be fun and some of us believe is the essence of our job!

One trait that sets humans apart from machines is our ability to ask "why". Why is anything carried out in a certain way? Could the execution be improved? As a Customer Success Manager you should reflect on these questions daily. Don't just do something because someone else has done it before. Examine the actions made and the results. Does everything actually exist as it seems to exist, and if so, why?

Humans will play a crucial role in the new era of automation because of our ability to question reality. Facts, data, and results are generated by computers. It will be up to us to question how such results were attained, how they may be persuasively conveyed to advance agendas, and what should occur next.

If you have an inquisitive mind, you will stand out from the crowd. Curiosity and disruptive creativity will continue to distinguish us.

Here is a starting point if you want to improve your Emotional Intelligence: 13 Emotional Intelligence Activities, Exercises & PDFs

6.?????? Be the Chief Ethical Officer for Yourself and Those Around You

As a responsible Customer Success Manager it is crucial to understand the ethical implications of AI to ensure you can guide your customers on a responsible use and avoid biases and discrimination in the decision-making.

Such implications are not limited to the customer using your company's products, but will necessarily affect how your customer behaves ethically when using AI in their business and product development. Therefore, it is important that your customer understands how to use Generative AI technologies responsibly and ethically, to create a more balanced, fair and human society. By providing your expert guidance, you will not only help your customer succeed, but also support the advancement of ethical standards and practices that benefit everyone.

Evangelize ethics with enthusiasm, bring it at the forefront of every conversation, democratize the conversation. Here’s a few ideas of where you can make the difference:

• start by observing the customer data estate and guide them into prioritizing privacy, reducing biases in the datasets and promoting transparency across the whole business.
• promote ethical decision making, including:

1. enforcing security and privacy of data collection storage, use and reuse.
2. algorithm auditing, to ensure they are free from biases.
3. deciding how to reduce environmental impact.

• suggest creating a clear and open ethical policy
• float the idea of responsible AI and diverse data training within your customer.
• guide businesses to create customer listening mechanisms for ethical concerns.
• suggest the creation of an AI committee.
• ensure the conversation on ethics is elevated, by stimulating the conversation and demanding for expertise (do they have an Ethical AI Officer?).

Whilst the list above may not be directly connected to your product ad may not seem tangible, this will be instrumental to a healthy maturity growth in your customer – and they will love you conducting those conversations.

It would be ridiculous of me to create an already outdated list of resources, so I invite to use your favourite generative chatbot to look at the latest resources. In the meantime, this list of courses will give you a good starting point: 20 recommended free AI-Ethics, Data Ethics and XAI online courses to get started right away .

7.?????? Always Apply Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is the ability to analyse, evaluate and synthesize information from various sources and perspectives. It is a valuable skill that can help you solve problems, make decisions and communicate effectively.

However, in the world of AI critical thinking coupled with creative problem-solving are essential skills for Customer Success Managers who want to deliver strategic value to their customers. By applying these skills, you can evaluate the outputs of AI systems and identify potential challenges or opportunities. Sometimes, a proposed solution may not be feasible or optimal, and other times, it may be a breakthrough that transforms the approach. In either case, you can help your customer achieve their objectives by thinking critically and creatively.

Developing critical thinking requires practice and feedback. Here are some suggestions on how you can improve your critical thinking and resources you can use online for free to practice:

• Ask open-ended questions that challenge your assumptions and explore different angles. For example, instead of asking "Is this true?", ask "How do we know this is true?" or "What are the alternative explanations?"
• Seek out diverse sources of information and perspectives that challenge your existing views. For example, you can read articles from reputable sources that present different opinions or perspectives on a topic, or listen to podcasts or videos that feature experts or practitioners from different fields or backgrounds.
• Reflect on your own thinking process and identify your strengths and weaknesses. For example, you can keep a journal or a blog where you write down your thoughts, arguments, evidence and conclusions on various topics, and review them periodically to see where you can improve or learn from others.

You can practice your critical thinking skills with online exercises and games that test your logic, reasoning and creativity.

For example, you can try the Critical Thinking Web , which offers free online courses and tutorials on various aspects of critical thinking or you can also play games like Brain Games or Lumosity , which are designed to train your cognitive abilities such as memory, attention, speed and flexibility.

8.?????? Adopt a Growth Mindset

The rapid advancement of AI is shaking many industries and creating a continuous flow of new opportunities for professionals. However, it also poses significant challenges for those who want to keep up with the changing demands and expectations of employers and customers. To succeed in an AI-driven world, Customer Success Managers need to adopt a Growth Mindset, which is the belief that one's abilities and skills can be improved through effort and feedback. A growth mindset enables one to embrace continuous learning as a lifelong journey, rather than a fixed destination.

To grasp the meaning of a Growth Mindset I encourage you to listen to this catchy song featured in an episode of Sesame Street , that encourages listeners to embrace challenges and persevere with a growth mindset.

By doing so, one can stay relevant and competitive in the fast-paced job market, as well as enjoy the process of discovering new knowledge and deloping new capabilities.

And in this case become a cookie master – ops monster!

In an AI-driven world, learning is a lifelong journey. Embrace change and continuously update your skill set to keep pace with the ever-evolving AI advancements, ensuring you stay ahead of the curve.

As a Customer Success Manager, you have a unique opportunity to enhance your skills on the wanderlust universe of AI and deliver more value to your clients. Generative AI can help you automate tasks, analyse data, personalize interactions, and optimize outcomes. But you need to act fast and adapt to the changing landscape of customer success.

Don't wait for the future to come to you. Don't resist the inevitable transformation that AI brings. Embrace the revolution and ride the wave of innovation.

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by upskilling yourself in the world of AI.

And by not forgetting that your humanity will always be a learning opportunity for the machines.

The above article is my first complex example of collaborative writing with a machine: what an experience!

Generative AI helped me tweaking some of the research, refining some of the sentences, and it created the main image. This last paragraph has entirely been created by a GPU somewhere in a datacentre on planet Earth.

I am riding the wave and it feels awesome!