How CSMs Drive Up Sales?
The role of Customer Success Manager (CSM) could have been valued higher in contribution to revenue, according to many CSMs. They are often misunderstood as a Customer Service Manager. Same abbreviation, but huge difference.
What is a CSM?
Customer Success Managers are often found in tech, especially software and advertising platforms. CSM is the go-to person for strategy, for content, for analysis, for insight, for cross-function collaboration.
By adding indispensable value to customer retention, CSM takes the lead in upselling and increasing Customer Lifetime Value (CLV).
The value of CSM can be summarized in 3 levels:
1. Basic level: Service
This level includes on-demand services: product training, operational support, performance review, and optimization advising. As CSM needs to prioritize accounts strategically for growth, operational service only takes up 10%-20% of time.
With the adoption of AI tools and self-serve resources, soon CSM would lower on-demand service to less than 10% of time, and shift manual support to automation enabling.
2. Intermediate level: Intelligence
The second level of CSM value is the intelligence generated from hundreds of case studies. Best practices in budgeting, content, targeting, measurement can take campaign performance to the next level.
What makes a CSM outstands in best practice advising, is the ability to translate client's industry jargon into marketing message, customized to different audiences in platform's preferred language.
By deep diving into client's brand, product and industry, highly experienced CSM can surprise advertisers with outstanding campaign results, through carefully experimenting new messaging, unique selling point, and creatives.
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Beyond campaign optimization, CSM's sharing in marketing best practices enables client's internal alignment between sales and marketing departments for long-term results.
3. Advanced level: Strategizing
About half of upsell opportunities emerge from client's satisfaction on campaign performance, which can be delivered by CSM's service and intelligence.
But that's not enough for growing the challenging key accounts, which aim for a growth over 100% YoY, or higher.
How to identify whitespace when strategizing? Here is the magic:
Segmentation.
Only the CSMs who have done enough research to understand client's business and industry, can deliver a strategy with growth opportunities embedded in campaign objectives, targeting audiences, content, and cross-function collaboration.
Conclusion
A highly qualified CSM can deliver 3 levels of value smartly, with the final objective of maximizing overall revenue.
As today's tech products are getting similar, CSMs who are led by strategy, powered by intelligence, supported by service, have become the key differentiator that drives up sales.
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Dynamic Communications & Social Media Manager | Customer Success
2 个月I use this exact revenue growth strategy as a CSM weekly and have seen so much impact and built stronger systems for my clients across the board! Thank you!!????
Customer Success (Bilingual Spanish) l Software
2 个月Fangya Cai, I agree with the article. Even while I view job descriptions, there seems to be a vast difference in responsibilities for Customer Success Managers, which seem to include tasks that are more customer service-related.