Stephanie: That’s when we identify upsell or expansion opportunities. That’s when we have feedback calls to figure out what they like what they don’t like what they’d like to see in product. But we’re all about adoption at this moment. We’re just too young otherwise. And then when they near towards, like, you know, the nine month mark of their contract all contracts are typically 12 months for the average customer when they near it the nine month mark of the contract. That’s when we start to have those renewal conversations.
Adil: Hey, welcome to the hyper engaged podcast. It’s a weekly interview style podcast series, where we will pick the brains of some of the best customer success leaders across the globe, and try to unearth customer engagement beyond onboarding, expansion and churn. So let’s get right in.
Adil: Hey, greetings, everybody we’ve got Stephanie from gold cast. Its one of the growing leading, live streaming, mid market, SaaS platforms serving, serving…based out of the US. And we’ve got their customer success leader right in front of us. Thank you very much, Stephanie, for joining us today and taking the time. We welcome you.
Stephanie: Of course, no, thank you so much for having me. I’m really, really excited to be here and to chat everything customer success with you today.
Adil: Great, great, great, great. So let’s start with you and said I give you introduction, because we’ve done a lot of research on you. Why don’t you just go ahead and tell us our people? What are your key, you know, motivation, joining goal cast, and what is your what is that you’re heading up to what you’re looking for? Please go ahead.
Stephanie: Yeah, 100%. So I am the Head of Customer Success, and support over here at Gold cast. So I actually run two different departments. I joined to gold cast in January of 2021. I actually was the first non engineering full time hire to join the team. So when I joined gold cast, we are a virtual and hybrid event platform. And they just needed someone to come in and to be there one woman customer success and customer support department. I’m sure anyone in the startup space knows exactly what that feels like when you’re like, hey, you’re going to join the team, we’re not going to have you do 20 rolls under the guise of this one. And honestly, I love that I live for that. So when they made the offer a little about 14 months ago, I I was ecstatic. I couldn’t wait to say yes to join this team. Startup life has always been kind of my life ever since graduating college back in 2013. So I, I love wearing multiple hats. I love rolling up my sleeves, doing the work and also thinking long term goals as well. So gold cast really checked all the boxes. And because they are a virtual and hybrid event platform, it also really fulfilled another love of mine, which was planning events, which I do through startup Austin. So it was really I felt like this role was just created for me. And that’s really how I ended up here as a little bit of a backstory, I get very excited when I talk about it.
Adil: And tell me 1 more thing on that because we came across you know platforms like stream yard and you know, during this day passed out to you COVID head and they got you know, shoot you might have elevation. So how does, you know gold casts, you know, how do you separate gold cast in terms of proposition on what is your unique proposition?
Stephanie: Yeah, definitely. So we can actually collaborate with stream yard within our platform. So stream yard is really good for example at streaming, you know, if you’re doing a an event here and you want to stream it to four or five different platforms, stream yard is great for that. That is not what gold cast currently does. Gold cast currently has everything hosted in one platform. It’s your all in one event experience. But we can take a stream from stream yard actually and push it into the gold cast platform as well. So there’s definitely no competition there. I admired the streaming RT my I actually interviewed at stream yard before joining gold cast ironically. So I’m nothing but blown away with you know, the features that they built. And I thought it was wonderful. Honestly, when hoppin acquired that we now have some friendly competition, of course, but you know, really on the Gold Cost side of things, I think our main value prop is we really do create an experience for attendees where they don’t have to click around in agenda, we really just push them from one session to the next. And we also provide attendees with you know, different ways to interact with their audience members, other speakers, but really, we also provide a very thorough breakdown on the data for every attendee that’s at your event. So the gold cast value prop is really like, hey, you know, you attended this conference, we are going to tell that organizer, how many events that attendee attended, how much time they spent in each event, how they responded to different poll questions, what documents and links they clicked in the platform. So it’s really great for a marketing and sales teams. Kind of data. It definitely, yeah.
Adil: Deep analytics part as well, because that’s that’s something was missing. As far as I use the platform, live stream yard, many other I don’t recall the name, because we’ve been doing webinars back in the Content Studio in 2017. So this was always a problem that we cannot measure. You cannot measure the activities and, you know, interest of our attendees. So that’s really important. I appreciate you brought it up. Okay, so, and also, how big is your customer facing team?
Stephanie: Yeah, we have 12 people total between customer success and support, including myself. So I’ve grown a lot from the one woman show back in January 2021. to Now we’ve been very much in hyper growth mode, for sure.
Adil: Wonderful, wonderful, and you’re leading all the customer facing facing teams as a CCO like your role resonates with CCO at this moment,
Stephanie: yeah, so not a C suite. Person quite yet. You know, shout out to my CEO, maybe one day, that would be great. But right now, I am leading both teams. But my title is more so Head of Customer Success, but there is no one else. Above me except for of course, the founders are CEO and a CEO that I report to.
Adil: Great, great, great, great. So since you’ve been the one of the first customer facing hire, is that is that is that true? Okay, so that is that is true. So you’ve been, you know, inducing you into the team, give them a significant leverage to build a team on top and take your opinions and your experience into account. So how do you think how they expand as an experience building a CS team, from course, that’s going to be some, you know, some really, really exciting experience, because that’s not easy for platform as I see, like gold cast?
Stephanie: Yeah, yeah, no, it definitely comes with its challenges. But that is definitely why I checked the roll was because I was like, Oh, my goodness, I gotta basically build these two departments out of nothing, and I live for that. So it has been a challenge, I think the biggest challenge about really building out departments, especially as a very, very young company, is you need to hire people for both the present and somewhat the future. So you have to really look at the role and be like, hey, I need you to do ABCDE and F right now, but in eight months, I’m only going to need you to do like a and b, and just really finding those people that can become more of like a chameleon, right, that they can fit into a lot of different roles are excited about wearing a lot of different hats. But you know, they have the skill set to really own those, you know, two main, you know, skills in the future. And that’s really, really difficult to come by. And I’ve honestly been very fortunate, where I have hired a team of people who, you know, were hired in the beginning and are still here and sticking around and excited to really help us build and have been through all of the adjustments, that can be very difficult. In terms of starting
Adil: this customer facing tenants is one of the hardest to retain for any tech business, especially in these days, because there’s so much that they have to look around. And it’s just not going to be always the technology on but it’s the culture and how we communicate and how you put them in the right places to do the right thing, what they’re best at. So just like you mentioned, to, you know, actually nurture their skill set over time, it’s not easy to do it in the first place. But this is this is the right way to do it. So now digging deep a little on your customer success. You know, of course, you you got to make it scalable, you got to make it strategic, you got to make it data driven as well. So what kind of steps did you take back then even till now that are scalable in terms of playbooks in terms of what kind of data you import for your customers? What kind of activities you guys track based on different events? And what is your mantra on on to making its success?
Stephanie: Yeah, for sure. So I will say this one probably isn’t as scalable. But the thing that really does make our customer success organization so successful and retain clients is because all of the CSM on the team really do care about the customers that they’re working with. Right now, as I mentioned, you know, we are a hybrid and virtual event app. And that is a very stressful environment. For anyone planning an event. There are so many different moving parts that go into it. And I’m very fortunate that you know, Are CSMs here on the team, I really do care about making sure that each and every event a client does with us, whether it’s their first event or 50th event goes flawlessly. And the fact that they are willing to jump on calls, answering emails, sharing best practices and insights just to really make sure that it’s a great experience for the client. While not always scalable, because it does take some man hours to make that happen. I really think that that’s what makes our organization so successful, and also why a lot of clients then refer us to their colleagues as well, I think there’s nothing more powerful than getting your customers to love you and then referring you know, you to their network. And a lot of you know, the the customers we work from are from those referrals and word of mouth, so not as scalable, but definitely something especially when you’re a young startup and don’t have, you know, the data necessarily to back it up in those first few months. That’s the most powerful way to grow an organization in my opinion,
Adil: 100% agreement, especially because I’m looking at your stack, I’m looking at your customers and you know, the basically the kind of setup they would need, there would definitely need people that can actually guide them to whether a guide or beginner guide or training documents and Training Center, or most occasions, they would just go in on the call and just tell them okay, this is our problem, too. So let’s let’s together, set it up and make the stress off your shoulder. So this is something very good. Do you do you also monitor your your customers data for for the customer success team to be able to, you know, make some, you know, to see as base of data and interact with the customer, of course, they’ll have to eventually interact. So what kind of data is that? And how do you think your customer success like CSM day to day would look like with that data?
Stephanie: Yeah, definitely. So from our side, we kind of aggregate all data using a tool called Catalyst. In the beginning, of course, that was a good tool called Google Sheets. But once we could afford to pay for Customer Success tool, we often with Catalyst, just check the boxes for a lot of things we were looking for. And within catalyst, the data points that we’re really looking at are how many users are in each account, if they’re doing, you know, events consistently that could look like you know, one a month or one a quarter just depending on the relationship with the client and what their events schedule is, we also look at their NPS score, we really are trying to push you know, getting that feedback more and more from our clients. There’s nothing better than kind of sending out those anonymous surveys, whether it’s NPS or something else to really show you how they’re feeling. Whether it’s about you know, the handoff between sales and customer success or how they feel about their CSM, in general, we’re all a team here, I love my team, but we we need that feedback, or if it’s just about their experience in the product to date. So I would definitely say you know, user activity, number of events NPS score are really the three things we’re tracking right now. And again, all of that is in Catalyst. And when CSMs come online, most of their day is working out of catalyst or being on those calls with customers to go through best practices.
Adil: Wonderful. And that serves a purpose for being a dedicated CS tool, like catalyst. So a lot of people on catalysts, and they’re doing an exceptional job, especially in the mid market space where you land too. So, you know, I also observed, you know, well, well, you know, setting up this document, my team had a different notes, and I added some notes into it. So is that right, that you have more of the enterprise sector as your customer base?
Stephanie: Yes, it is right now. Um, at some point in the future, that may change but for the time being, everything I would say we’re doing is enterprise-focused.
Adil: Okay, great. Great. So that must be high touch model is right.
Stephanie: It is it’s very high touch. They’re very, you know, large customer contracts, depending on company size, how many events they want to do on our platform and such of course, but we do we provide very high touch points for them. But honestly, I think even if our model changes in the future, we’re still going to do that because as a former and current event planner, in my free time, I need a team that’s going to always be there to support me even if I’m on like the free version of it. So I don’t think that’s ever gonna go away.
Adil: Pain big, big, big pain. Yeah. You know, I have a really big team and I was just in the morning on Saturday, we have planned an event and we were trying to get together and you know, I had some new team members joined a few days back and I want everybody to get you know, personally connect with them outside of work and you know, they can you know, make big themselves feel like home and then they will just come on next day refreshed and see okay, these people care For me, so I’m more of a people, guys. It’s a big pain for me, I’m still thinking like today to this level, but I’m just still thinking that we need to make sure that it’s worthwhile for them. And there’s so many parts and you know, I love their I love their the way they have induced you having the background in the events and interest in demand. And that might be one of the reasons they’ve, they’ve, they’ve made a decision and someone like you. So appreciate that. That notion they had in the first place. So now, when it’s really high touch, can you just explain briefly about your customer journey, let’s say take on five cases, just give us a journey, like starting from the sales rep. Or maybe can be a same customer success, or sorry, customer support person, and they shared the goals and you know, their requirements and their challenges. And then they that comes the onboarding, can you just move us along? So a lot of people Yeah,
Stephanie: Yeah, for sure. So because we are a small company, I do try to keep this very simple. Across all teams, maybe one day, it won’t be. But right now, I’m a huge fan of let’s keep it simple. And to the point that way, I think it’s just a better experience for everyone. So when a deal is closed by sales, sales, passes it over to our onboarding team. We then set up a 15 minute, you know, pass off call between sales and CS. That way, if there’s anything not in the contract, that we should know about background to date, we can review that we do have a agenda that the CS call does go through just to ensure we have all information needed in order to really get them up and running as soon and as quickly as possible. They then go through our onboarding process, our onboarding process from this end is pretty short. And to the point, honestly, it’s three one hour long calls, we really want to make sure we’re going through the platform thoroughly. But we also don’t want them to waste, you know, three months of their time on it, right. So those three one hour long calls, usually take an average of one call a week. But for some customers, they want to do that sooner. And we love that we want to get them up and running as quickly as possible. So we can really adjust that from this end. And then really, after onboarding, they’re in the adoption phase for the majority of their contract. That’s just the way that our company is currently lined up. During adoption, that’s when we do quarterly business reviews. That’s when we identify upsell or expansion opportunities. That’s when we have feedback calls to figure out what they like what they don’t like what they’d like to see in product. But we’re all about adoption at this moment. We’re just too young otherwise. And then when they near towards, like, you know, the nine month mark of their contract, all contracts are typically 12 months for the average customer, when they near the nine month mark of the contract. That’s when we start to have those renewal conversations. Those conversations, of course, come up organically throughout the year. But it’s really at the nine-month marker where we really start to be you know, more structured around those conversations.
Adil: Great, great, great. So there is there’s so much that you know, that can be applied when it’s when it comes to high touch because you have dedicated resources. So you try to and you always, you know, try to make sure it’s always Pitch Perfect, because you’re trying to communicate and work hands on with your customers. So just on that, do you think any external data would come handy, or you have already incorporated, just like like the CCO of appsflyer, Ziv is a friend of mine. So now he actually shared that we have an external data we integrated with CrunchBase, we get to know okay, this, our customers got acquired and got like any milestone here, like raising funds and stuff. So we try to get one touch point, if that customer lies at risk. So that comes in touch point, and they try to engage that customer in this and the cakes are from all over the world, they have multiple sessions. And so in your case, do you think any sort of external data points external data information can be any form would come handy in your customer journey?
Stephanie: Yes, definitely, there’s two, that I definitely we monitor more than anything else. The first is, of course, if they raised a round of funding, or got acquired, I mean, those are huge wins for our customers, we always want to celebrate that with them when it occurs. And of course, in a customer success team, it could be a single that there are other people within their company than two that we might want to work for. So those are always great, you know, just for expansion opportunities, but also really, you know, celebrating that win on their end. The second external data point that we definitely monitor is if someone left the company, that one isn’t as you know, joyful, necessarily, of course, like we’re happy that they’re growing their own career, but it does, you know, cause us to be like okay, like who’s taking their place like, you know, do they need to be on boarded again, we’re always happy to onboard new team members, but that’s, you know, of course, a different type of playbook at that point in terms of making sure that we know who our you know, new champion within a company is going to be? And how do we get them up and running and really grow that relationship? So those are definitely the two that we pay the most attention to. I’m sure a lot of other CSMs can relate to that as well. I think that’s definitely probably universal ones. Yeah.
Adil: Exactly. And also that, let’s say, let’s assume that one of your team members, sorry, one of your point of contacts, from your customer, just and you kind of you’re working hands on. So there’s a huge scope of building relationship capital, with those with those individuals, of course, it’s always at the end of the day, it’s always going to be about people, your customers are people, your team members, your you know, your seniors, you know, your even your competitors, and all So, and that, let’s say Contentstudio is your customer. And then a point of contact Adil has left and taken another opportunity with CardClan or any other says, but they definitely remember Stephanie and all the you know, conversations yet and how she helped. And then you start like building relationship on top with with me sitting in your know CardClan And I endorse this because I have a relationship with with with Stephanie, I have like she’s tried to help me to best and to serve us back in Contentstudio. So that how do you relate with that? Like, because high touch model definitely serves that, too. And it gives an expansion opportunity as well. And it’s a lot easier than, you know other opportunities in the in the low touch model because it’s directly human first approach.
Stephanie: Yeah, no, I absolutely love when that happens, it happens in two different situations. One is, you know, it’s a very large company, 50 plus 1000 people, and you know, departments talk, and when they refer us to another department, I love having that conversation. And then the other scenario, where it can happen is, again, when someone leaves the company, but they go to a new company, and they remember the great relationship they build. And in both of those, just the way that the company is set up right now here at Gold cast, we do bring sales into those conversations. So if it is a new contract within the company, or you know, an entirely new company, that we refer to I, I love those introductions, and then I always hit up someone from sales. I’m like, Hey, I know this person, like, can you join this call with me, because that’s what our sales reps are so good at. And that’s like the stage we’re at right now. Where we do have to divide and conquer, it doesn’t necessarily fall under
Adil: Thinking of you having 150 customers in a few months, let’s say, yeah, 80% of them are enterprise, which then enterprise and then a lot of them, you know, of course, there’s going to be a lot of people moving from different roles, different companies, and there’s so much movement in, in this space, especially in the COVID days. So you get a data, like your CSM has a book of business of 10 customers enterprise. And he gets a data point that Adil has left your point of contact with this as left and join this company, which also can be your potential prospect. And you just need to just with an action point, of course, any data that doesn’t drive actions is waste. So given action point to your CSM, and then you start building conversation, with Adil? How do you seem like it’s all data driven, like you get it on your dashboard.
Stephanie: I mean, we don’t have a tool like that right now, for for gold cast at the moment we we launched LinkedIn notifications, or if we have a great relationship with that customer, they actually email us to let us know that they’re leaving and tell us where they end up. And then when they do, you know, either officially posted on LinkedIn, or we catch that notification. That’s usually when we reach out to them. And we’re like, hey, like, you know, excited that you’re getting settled? How’s it going? We’d love to jump on a call on a couple weeks, see how you’re doing. But that’s typically like the course of action. And it’s definitely done in conjunction with sales at that point.
Adil: Yeah, that’s right. That’s, that’s right. That’s an that’s very interesting as well, in terms like you are trying to build a same relationship with with some individual in a different, maybe it’s going to be a different industry as well, different kind of, you know, segment of customers, well, it can be a b2b market, it can be a large scale enterprises can be a very small startup. So that’s really, really important for, you know, because I’m people’s guy, and, you know, I care so much about, you know, having to, you know, connect with individuals on a deeper level so that they remember you eternally, wherever they go. So and then everything falls in place from there. And there is another thing as well, like, of course there. Do you have customers that lie in the same segment? I’m sure you do have like, let’s say in the you can say in in the influencer space, you’ve got a lot of influencers using using Gold cast. So do you also have customers stories that you showcase to, you know, existing customers for expansion and also to the new prospect that you think you know, that can be interesting. You just go and pitch Gary we okay, you can use this Vayner admin and VaynerMedia, you can use cold cast because a lot of other folks in the same industry using. So do you have anything? Not it’s not something has to be automated at this point where you’re at. But are you thinking about it?.
Stephanie: Yeah, yeah. So we do a lot of different customer case studies, we partner up with marketing for that. We also have our own bi weekly webinar event, we call it cmo diaries. But through that, we also feature a lot of our customers as well, and really kind of, you know, give them space to share their own expertise, and really how they build their event strategy to date. So there are quite a few ways that we do highlight and really promote our own customer base for sure.
Adil: Wonderful. And also, you mentioned that you’re using a dedicated CS to like catalyst, there’s lots of like, quite widely catalyst. I’m not being so specific on the tool. So as as as a leading CS team, as somebody that needs like, on dashboard indicators, like all the stats, all the managers on the team level and on, of course, the health level and revenue coverage and all, what kind of steps as you leading the CS team? And Cole Cass, would you look, the best like that will answer all your questions.
Stephanie: Definitely. So there are two different types of boards that I looked at every single day through that tool. The first is what are upcoming renewals? Like what are the statuses of those contracts? You know, for us, our fiscal year starts in February. So we’re currently doing q1, but I’m already looking at how to q2, I have a call set up with our CEO and COO on tomorrow, Friday, really goes through, you know, how those are doing. And to really review those, those stats and action items across all team members. And the other view I also look at is customer health, you know, who is happy, who’s not happy? If they’re not happy? Why? If they’re not happy, but not unhappy. And in between territory, honestly, I think I speak for the whole CS like world at this point, like, that’s kind of a worst, we just want them to be really happy. So a lot of it’s also around, like, how do we make them like love us? Like, you know, what other value can we provide our customers with? is the big question. So those are the two things that I’m always like,
Adil: That’s the whole point. You know, that’s the whole point of starting this podcast, because we are just building, you know, we are trying to navigate the gaps, where data again, of course, humans are always going to be there, you know, it’s always going to be intervention for CSMs, you can never mitigate that. But how data can help that and assist humans to act smartly and forecast things ahead of time. A lot of people they’ve come up and say, Okay, this data, this was not present. Even CSM we talked to CSM as well. And they say, Okay, we couldn’t have a piece of information ahead of time, which could have led us to build a meaningful conversation, just that instead of just checking and you know, tabbing on your customers seeking, okay, what’s the reason why it’s there? Why is the health score is not showing up mark, and it’s it’s at risk. Because there are some uncertain, unprecedented things come in the customer journey where you need data, you need people that can tell, okay, that can be product team that can be sales team. So how you incorporate these scenarios, when you think that okay, apart from the fact that we can definitely check on the customer and we are working hands on, we should have something in place where we can navigate how potentially that customer is using our platform number one, how more how likely is that customer to renew? And then we’ll talk about expansion and all and referrals and everything. How do you think that that comes in place in the form of data in the form of technology? Salesforce Mixpanel. You know, CRMs, like HubSpot II have automated sequences, you have trainings, automated, all automated, that I’m just talking about these scenarios when you’re uncertain as a CSM.
Stephanie: Yeah, yeah, no, it’s a really great question. For us, like there are certain data points that you show us a customer isn’t doing well, health wise, like, and that would be if they haven’t started a new event in 60 days, or if they haven’t responded to emails and honestly, like two weeks, it’s kind of a warning sign for me. I will say as our company’s been growing the past 14 months like we’re still adjusting a lot of our playbooks like I just don’t have that science completely down. is a very, this industry changes a lot the event industry changes a lot in terms of who is doing what. And also, when, you know, when conferences happen, it used to be, as we might remember, be COVID. It was like September, October was conference season. But now that we have so many virtual options, I think it’s all year round except for December. So some of it is like honestly, still adjusting. But data is such a crucial role in terms of you know, the customer journey, and also to know when to worry about potential churn or what signals like, Hey, we should get them to do a customer review. So yes, I know, that’s not like a very much this is what we do, because I feel like it’s constantly evolving. But yes, spotter definitely,
Adil: When people share the stage with us, just leaders, like you have loads of experience and scenarios under the belt. And of course, we are going to navigate the gaps. So there is something that you want to see a gap going forward, like you think of Goldcast, having 150 enterprise customers, you can share it openly, no worries. And also, this, like data is important. And then of course, you have to have people that can intelligently understand it, and take action. So at this point of time, do you have any playbooks for like, of course, I believe that there is no good playbook, but there are certain standardized playbooks, and in your industry, there are customers that are overlapping, like influencers industry, like people that are video marketers, like, you know, they are vloggers, and all sorts of nerds as well. So I’m just talking about do you have any standardized playbooks
Stephanie: Oh, yes, we definitely do. We store them all in Catalyst, but we have different playbooks for what we do if it’s their first event, versus what do we do if it’s their, you know, 15th event, they’re both very different. We also have playbooks on what to do if a client goes to you and you haven’t heard from them. And, you know, a couple of weeks, we have playbooks to you know, hey, it’s three months off, you know, out from their their contract coming up for renewal, how do we how do we renew that? I might over playbook that if that’s possible. But I really just want to make sure all scenarios are really taken into account. Because the customer success manager, like they really have to focus on building that relationship. So the more we can really automate that process, tell them what to work for look for, in order to get the customer through that journey. It just helps us work faster and more efficiently. And then we always have, you know, weekly team calls on the CSM, just to go through, like how our customers doing. And I have regular monthly one on ones with the team as well to hear their thoughts on, you know, really cart launch, like I need to know like, is it working? Is it not working? Like, what do we have to adjust? It’s going to constantly evolve, it will never be perfect.
Adil: And understandable. Understandable? So how many customer altogether? Do you have, like that are paying customers?
Stephanie: Yeah, yeah, we have actually, I think it’s about 96. Now, as of this week, um, yeah, so definitely growing a lot. You have to figure when I joined in January of 2021, we had four. So. So it’s been growing a lot along the way. And we actually just really scaled up our sales department as well. I think there’s 12 people on our sales side, too. So we are on track to
Adil: Are you measuring your success metrics on a quarterly basis? Because it’s just been a few years and few months?
Stephanie: Um, so I look at a couple different metrics. Right now. I do look at quarterly but I also do look at I’m looking I’m starting to, like kind of lay the groundwork as well for looking at year over year since we just passed our first year mark. But to date, yes. Like, you know, we’re going into q1 is like our first renewal cycle. So the only option we really have at the moment is quarterly.
Adil: This good that’s you that’s why I asked my quarterly. Okay, wonderful. So, you know, you know, being there and done that, you know, that okay, segmentation as is so vital, you know, the better you can segment your customers, the more efficiently you can communicate and serve them and you know, get them closer to, you know, retention and all the high level KPIs for the customer success team. So what is your tell us more about your segmentation? Do you segment investment, product usage, revenue coverage? You know, there’s different models that SaaS bins is using advantage for,
Stephanie: Like in terms of who owns which account?
Adil: I’m talking about how does your CSM or you segment your customer when it lands on behind you?
Stephanie: Oh, at the moment, it would be according to contract size and location at the moment. Those two factors really. Yes, so We care about locations solely for like, you know which CSM to pass them off to. We have people West Coast east coast on our team. So if they’re based in Europe, it’s East Coast if they’re based in what is it like Israel, it’s like West Coast or something I think I just did my geography is backwards, but you got it. And then we care about deal size, because that also shows us like, hey, based on like this contract size, let’s look at the company size as well match it up, because that will really help us understand the expansion potential there. And then, of course, like, we have the past off call with sales, but all that plays a role in figuring it out. Yeah,
Adil: That definitely makes sense. Okay, okay. So you everything nailed down as far as where you guys are at. And you know, of course, you got to evolve with the passage of time. And, you know, the more you know, many, many talks about data in the high touch, it’s not easy to incorporate, especially at this level, you will experiment, and then it takes investment and people don’t prefer at this stage, even I have a SaaS and I would prefer as this morning, I’ll just focus more on shaping my product to the best level, and then we’ll have the funds and everything to play around with that. So when it comes to like, this is very good question. And this will showcase that how do you think that it should? People should like see us leaders should place data into the operations like how they can be more digital. So now, what do you think like? How do you think that you can mitigate with the help of data in assess just this can be an opinion, because you don’t have at this point with goal cast, you might not have experienced, but it can be opinionated because you you’re a CS leader, yourself. So customer ghosting is one of the biggest problem ghosting, not in a way that your customers or point of contact is not responding. But they are like data is telling something and they’re doing the otherwise. So how do you mitigate it? How do you what is your opinion on that?
Stephanie: Yeah, customer ghosting, it can be a little bit tricky because people ghost you for different reasons. You know, one reason is they bought the contract, and then they just don’t ever end up using you. And you’re really confused as to why unfortunately, that use case like you can go and try to pursue them rebrand sales. And but there’s, there’s no data point at that point, you’re just really confused as to what’s going on. But the other way data can really you know, play a role in customer ghosting is if you did have a good relationship. For the first few months, it may just appear. And I do think data can tell you like more about what they’re doing. Whether it’s you know, there’s been a shift at their company talk about those external signals earlier, it could be Oh, like their company got acquired, or there is a layoff or there’s a new funding round to they’re probably trying to figure out what their next step is. Data plays a crucial role there. It can also tell you like oh, well, you know, based on our event calendar this past year, during July, there was a law and one event happened. So it kind of makes sense why they didn’t respond to us the past few months, because there’s probably nothing happening. So I think it’s a having a lot of data clusters around what’s happening in the space, in terms of you know, that space ebbs and flows, but trying to understand the average of what happened. Also the data factors within that company itself, and then compare them to your data set based on how other customers are interacting. There’s a lot you can take into, as you mentioned, early stage, it’s really difficult to take it all into account. But I hope sometime soon we can get there.
Adil: 100% mean, you’re heading in the right direction. And everybody knows what to do. And everybody know what’s right. So it’s just about time. It’s just about Yeah, so now having a dedicated customer success tool. Let’s talk about it. It’s I think it’s catalyst you mentioned. Yes. Okay, catalysts. So what is something very, very important for you to set up on daily basis? What is something that you need to has is somebody that is leading and making some high level decisions on CSX for customers? You need to be on maybe weekly or monthly basis?
Stephanie: Yeah, yeah. So in terms of updating catalysts, I’m fortunate enough where am i Director of Customer Success sigh she is a ninja with that tool. So she is actually the go to person for updating all things catalyst. I think the catalyst team like loves her honestly, she talks to them on a weekly basis, we have a great relationship with them. Um, but in terms of updating a lot of it is because we are in the beginning stages her and I have been chatting a lot about customer health, and really kind of evaluating the signals that we initially chose for customer health and comparing it to how it’s panning out now. So our biggest I guess kind of data not issue but they were trying to figure out you know, we initially created a customer health like back in June, and we’re like, okay, these points will tell us if they’re, you know, in poor customer or you know, excellent Customer health. But then some of like the data points now just don’t match up because we’re like, well, they’re very healthy. So why is it saying like, por, and that isn’t so much a tool issue as just kind of our assumptions from about eight months ago were incorrect. So a lot of what we do now on, you know, I would say a quarterly basis is really evaluate, like, Okay, how our customer helps do it based on how we think we’re doing, do these match up? Do we have to adjust it? But that’s really like the main focus that we’re reevaluating now.
Adil: Mm hmm. Great, great, great. So this is something that that I came to a point where, you know, I realize, okay, you cannot be married to one playbook, you cannot be married to a set of data points that have worked for, like some good, good periods, you always need to look up for, you know, updates, you need to evolve with your customer journeys. So the goal that customers shared with your sales rep on day one, may evolve over time. So this is an of course, everybody knows, like your CSM is, you know, consistently engaging with your customers anyway, but at the same time, it is it just my opinion is important for your CSM, since he’s closely working with, with your customer to update in any form like that can drive value down the road. And, you know, for the product team to analyze whether this customer is the best fit, and also, whether that customer needs something more out of this platform in order to, you know, value, realization and all that part and adoption part, especially in this segment. Customer lives, that’s very confusing, like most of the like more than 30% of the customers, they actually give churn in the adoption stage in the adoption stage. And some of the complex SAS platforms, they happen to suffer a lot with this. So where that that’s where they need the data, that’s where they need their product team to be 100% integrated with the team that the front runners, the customer success teams, even CLC need to be very much integrated with the customers testing well, not only just one time hands off and stuff, but also consistently checking with with the customer success team and telling them this is what they did. They told us Are you Are you okay? Are you still with us? Are you still evolving with their goals? This is what they told us in the first place. So yeah, that’s that’s, that’s great. So I mean, just a magic one question. Like low engagement is always, you know, it’s always a pain. It’s always a pain for sales, customer support, and even product teams, the engagement. So how do you think like, if you have a magic one, what is that one thing or touchpoint you think you should have to leverage to mitigate this low engagement factor? Whether it’s the product usage, whether it’s the communication, whether it’s, you know, whether it’s support, even you worry live and when sometimes customer don’t even drop a support tickets.
Stephanie: Yeah, yeah, no, for sure, for sure. I mean, it’s definitely a team sport, as you just stated, I’m fortunate enough where all of our departments talk a lot on the gold cow side, just really make sure we try to mitigate issues before they start. But I have like a magic wand or a superpower. I’m not gonna lie. It’s not even tasted driven or platform driven. It’s literally I just wish I had the superpower to sometimes read people’s minds. You know, I would love just to know what the customers thinking before they tell us. I’m trying to I’m trying to work on that skill.
Adil: Nice job. Next job you will get is that will come from, you know, Christopher Nolan.
Stephanie: That would be superb. I am trying to be more proactive. I think our team is coming a long way in spotting issues before the customer tells us and I’m very thankful for that. But that would definitely, you know, mitigate any type of questioning as to what’s going on is if I could just read their mind, but getting better at it working on those skills.
Adil: Wonderful, wonderful. Okay, it was really nice. catching up with you, Stephanie. And I definitely hope we touch base soon with some more ideas, some more topics because there is no monetary interest. We have this podcast, it’s just about helping the community giving it back in the best way possible before we go seven feet down one day. And that’s the only thing that’s going to leave behind is how we made the impact. So I really appreciate that you played your part today. And number next things that can happen and you expect to happen is number one, we’re going to edit this all and make all the branding and put it on our LinkedIn page. Then we’ll try to create a newsletter and we’ll create a detailed blog that that can also have Your credits and your recommendation that you spoke about today. And we’ll we’ll definitely make sure that you have a contribution to it based on all the conversation we have. There will also include some people like Emily’s, like some of your network people from your network as well. We’ll try to, you know, connect you guys in a in a in a in a blog form in a digital form, and then we’ll share it with with you were the email.
Stephanie: Yeah, no, that sounds great. Um, if you need anything else, tell me otherwise, once it’s ready. I am excited to share it everywhere. So just let me know what else you made.
Adil: Thank you very much for your time today. I really, really appreciate it. It was really an exciting conversation today.
Stephanie: Oh, well, I had a I had a lot of fun. You’re great at this. So thank you. I appreciate it.
Adil: You’re so welcome. Have a wonderful day, Stephanie. Ahead.
Stephanie: Sounds good. Bye!
Adil: Thank you so very much for staying with us on the episode. Please share your feedback at
adil@hyperengaged.io. We definitely need it. We will see you next time another guest on the stage with some concrete tips on how to operate better as a Customer Success leader and how you can empower engagements with some building some meaningful relationships. We qualify people for the episode just to make sure we bring the value to the listeners. Do reach us out if you want to refer any CS leader. Until next time, goodbye and have a good rest of your day.
