Iram Cook: I think for an early stage company like this when you’re the first or second person to be joining or creating a team, proactivity is always important for customer success.
Taylor Kenerson: Welcome to the hyper engage podcast. We are so happy to have you along our journey. Here, we uncover bits of knowledge from some of the greatest minds in tech, we unearth the hows why and whatsthat drive the tech of today. Welcome to the movement.
Adil Saleh: Hey, greetings, everybody. This is Adil from hyperengage podcast, I have Taylor alongside me, and a special guest Iram from UK. Thank you very much Iram for taking the time for this episode. And we so appreciate you that you’ve been looking for looking up to having this conversation.
Iram Cook: Thank you, I’m so happy we could make it work across three different time zones.
Adil Saleh: Cool. So Iram starting off like I was looking at your product, like its more of a product as a service? Could you tell us more about the technology? And then your journey into joining business like this? And what is your why to you know, hop into a customer facing role? What was your motivation?
Iram Cook: Absolutely. So at Mosaic Smart Data, our mission is to enhance performance in the financial markets by unlocking the power of big data. So we’re working extensively with banks and enterprise business to business solution. I mean, you’re probably all very familiar with trading, like equities, stocks and the stock market. That’s a very digitized process. But there’s lots of other aspects of you know the finance or the capital markets, where it’s less digitized and are just now starting to go into electronic trading, like government, corporate bonds, currencies. And as that space is evolving, and we’re getting more and more electronic data banks are having to adapt and how they’re handling that to ensure that they can continue to increase productivity, upgrade their skills to be much more kind of digital first. So that’s where mosaic smart data comes in with a platform that enables sales and trading teams at banks, trading these types of products, to be able to get insight across the different products, across the different clients globally, and ensure that they are making your data driven decisions without needing to be a data expert. So that is mosaic. I’ve been there for three months now. So I’m kind of new into the business of founding the customer success function from scratch. Previously, I worked at a legal tech startup, building the customer success function from scratch there. And I really kind of got into customer success a little bit by accident. I originally worked in sales after doing a science degree at uni, and kind of discovered customer success, it felt like a really good fit for my skill, say I like being able to help people with these kind of busines to business tools we’re helping people with their day to day to be more productive, to increase productivity, to increase revenue. And it’s just such a cross functional role, I find it really interesting to work across product and sales and marketing, and be working really closely with all aspects of those in the business and learn a lot. So yeah, that’s a little bit about me a little bit about mosaic smart data.
Taylor Kenerson: That’s amazing. That’s like one of the really unique things that I find, you know, in CES is that you’re able to combine many different industries and different skill sets and be able to, you know, apply them in different realms, which is, you know, really cool. If you don’t like doing the same thing over and over again, you definitely get different tastes of things. In the CS industry, as at the very least, you briefly talked a little bit about, you know, building CS teams from scratch, can you go in in depth a little bit about what that takes? What are some things that you have to do in order to build a CS team from scratch? What are like some technologies that you have to think of what are just all of these elements that have to come together in order to, you know, build out the proper foundation to scale a CS team?
Iram Cook: It’s a great question. I think number one thing you need is just not be afraid of the unknown. Because when you’re building a customer success function from scratch, there’s no blueprint and each organization is different. A lot of the resources you see online are primarily kind of geared up towards larger organizations, you’re improving existing CS functions. So building something from scratch, it can be a little bit daunting. There’s a lot of information out there and you need to be able to like disseminate what is relevant for you and work out what bits of best practice Can you take into your organization because there’s so much you can do. Customer Success can cover so many different areas across the business, you can end up wearing so many different hats as a CSM. So understanding Hey, what part of that do you want to focus on, is it onboarding? Or is it like a health score and monitoring adoption? What’s our top priority? So not being afraid of all of that, and then being able to focus in on what is the most important thing for your business to start off with?
Taylor Kenerson: You mentioned, the priority thing, which I know so many CS teams face to face, and, you know, up and coming CSV interface, you know, you’re getting so much data, so much information, not only from your internal teams, but also externally, your customers or clients. How do you choose what data to focus on? How do you what are your Do you have, like, you know, questions that you go through the say, Okay, this is the indicator that would be most important or relevant for this company, like, What is your thought process for developing those, those metrics that would say, Okay, this is a successful, you know, customer, and this is the journey that that would take,
Iram Cook: I think when you’re starting a customer success function, you don’t necessarily know you know, off the bat, what those metrics are going to be. And you have to be kind of open to learning that. And you can learn that through conversations with customers and making sure that you’re getting feedback, you’re understanding how they’re actually using the platform, how this aligns with their business objectives, but also, like you’re giving it some time to iterate because you’re not gonna be able to find that out immediately. So like, now we wanna start with the basics like, weekly active users, monthly active users or daily active users, depending on kind of the audience of your your platform. And just focus on have those basic adoption metrics. And then, with getting feedback, you can start to understand what is the key metric that we need to focus on in terms of like all the information, and I mean, we’re just in the process of rolling out our first CRM, we’re kind of early stage and I’ll take journey and I’m like, Just keen for that to be the single source of truth of everything, and just try and just record as much as much as we can there. So then we can work out here, what are the key things that we’re going to need to pull out and focus on in the future?
Adil Saleh: Absolutely. Absolutely. So tell us and you just mentioned that you joined a few months ago. So tell us what was that you were thinking and what kind of onboarding you had, like, initially starting off with a different startup? It’s a different, like helping financial institutions, you’ve been a part of a fintech. Before is, is that a FinTech Pro?
Iram Cook: My previous company was a legal tech. So it was a completely different industry different, no different jargon. But your customer success, the principles are the same. As I said earlier, it’s about working out what are the best practices that are relevant for your business and your model. So my kind of first few months have been a lot of learning the industry learning industry jargon, speaking of customers to understand what their problems are, how they are using the platform, speaking with my colleagues to understand how the platform works, and just getting in all into all the kind of the nitty gritty and definitely being your CSM, an individual contributor, yo, so you can understand where do we need to focus? Loved it.
Adil Saleh: So, you know, talking on three months down the road, like what kind of things you’re still learning? And in terms of, you know, mapping journeys of different customers, like some of the customers you might not have yet tapped in? Or maybe they have not assigned you as yet. Could you tell us a bit more about what kind of accounts you’re serving? And how confident you are at this moment?
Iram Cook: Oh thats a big question. Our customers are banks, they’re big enterprise customers. And we have a handful at the moment and they are on the most part relatively early in their journey. And we’ve got lots of new customers that are in the pipeline, you just start over the next few months and into next year. So right now we’re focused on those current customers and rollout. So onboarding is a big focus, making sure we can monitor adoption and usage is a big focus, and just making sure we’re all aligned as a business given customer successes is a new function on the customer journey. So we’ve recently been doing customer journey mapping exercises, which has been really helpful to understand from the customer’s perspective, from marketing, sales through to customer success. So I’m feeling very positive. It’s very exciting. As I say, there’s always lots to do when you’re starting a new function. But trying to break it down and focus on a few key things and obviously, like kind of hiring people for the team where you need to
Taylor Kenerson: I mean, Thank you saying, you know, focus on a few key things, can you just take us into like your mindset on that, I mean, I just find it so fascinating that you kind of, you’ve been with companies before from the ground up and seeing CST like, being a no CS team with the company and then actually implementing certain processes and certain procedures, and these certain, you know, things that, you know, maybe are common as you move from company to company and build these teams. Can you just go over like, what are the are there fix things, other variables? Like, what, what are these elements that go into, that you’ve seen, you know, teams being built from the ground up half.
Iram Cook: My last company, I was the first full time employee, not just the first customer success, but definitely in the company. So it was very, very much from from scratch, and I was there for three years. So we left with like, obviously, a much more developed customer success function. So kind of coming back again, to starting customer success from scratch. It will really vary from organization to organization, you have to like, assess what you need. So for me right now, my priority is to service my clients as best as I can, through your success planning, introducing that training and onboarding. So so users can use the platform and we’re doing kind of looking at how we can scale, how we do training, and then not getting too worried about all the other things that there are to do. So servicing clients and adoption on because it doesn’t Roman got a new CSM joining next month, so hopefully I can focus on some of the things that but just taking it step by step.
Adil Saleh: Yeah, it’s all about managing one day at a time and making it count. So rum as the representing a platform that, you know, works on the financial data, like giving insights on top. Do you as a customer success manager, what kind of technologies do you have as supportive technologies, let’s say a dedicated data tool that gives you insight on the shoes is because most of your models I see are they’re mostly usage based model with different banks and financial institutions. So how you and your team measures the experience of the entire journey, as well serving those those accounts.
Iram Cook: So as I say, we’re very early in our journey. So we’ve just launched our CRM, which is very exciting. And a good first step I we’re in the process of doing some work to ensure that we have usage data, and both the basics, you know, active users and more in depth, feature base usage. So once we do identify what those kind of key the aha moment is, for our customers that moment of value, the moment of truth, once we’ve identified that, we will have the data to track it. So we’re in the process of developing that for each of our customers. And then looking at how we can view across customers, I mean, being working with with banks, we’ve got hurdles to overcome in terms of your information security, which you may not have a b2c, so the same of a b2c company. So that’s the kind of focus for now but as I say, early stage, we don’t need lots we don’t like we don’t have the kind of capacity to add in lots of new tools right now. Because we’re just focused on the day one stuff and, you know, Google Sheets and excel and things are our friends. But now
Taylor Kenerson: they’re both up you have to build, you have to build from some starting point, right? Before you get you can’t just jump to you know, having all the having a centralized data platform where you have the your CST built into it. And it’s like, that’s the vision, of course, you know, but what are these no steps to take in order to get there is, you know, really, really critical. And because you’ve been a part of, you know, so many different teams, what kind of like challenges do you have you experienced? And like, how have you overcome them more in the sense of, you know, hiring different team members and, you know, on the processes side of CES journey to?
Iram Cook: That’s a big question. But challenges. So, I think, I think the challenges, you again, will often depend on the organization. I mean, at the moment like that, I know, the past six months, yeah, hiring has been really hard because the hiring market has just been so, so crazy. So you got to kind of think about how we can improve your hiring process. So you are being kind of attractive as you can to candidates giving them the best possible experience giving them lots of information. Compared to I think about two years ago, it was more than the employers so favors they could possibly be a bit more lacks. So I think definitely focusing on having a fast hiring processes has helped to overcome that particular challenge. But there’s always going to be different challenges and different fires to fight particularly in the world of customer success. So it’s no the customer success manager, no, no strangers to tell them stuff.
Taylor Kenerson: That’s really, that’s really insightful to on, you know, just being adaptable and understanding that, you know, change is gonna come you’re gonna have like some obstacles and just being open minded and how you attack that and overcome those different obstacles is a really critical piece, especially with you know, building a team around you that needs to have these certain skill sets in order to put those fires out in the in the right way, which is really, really
Adil Saleh: we can also talk about like, since each user has recently joined, and it becomes challenging, of course, for platform like this and, you know, solution like this. So can you tell us more about what kind of training you know, initiatives your business is taking, like your team is taking towards you been better professional, technology wise as well, systematic wise, as well? Like what kind of quality tell us some secrets that you have received, that are pretty different than other companies you’ve worked before?
Iram Cook: Yeah so, working with with banks, and they are quite used to quite a high level of your customer success service. You’ve probably heard of your, the likes of Bloomberg who have you a big, big, huge players. And they tend to offer quite a high level service, a lot of like one to one support. So they will often you’ll come over to the banks office and go around floors, going to people’s desks making so they know how to like login and use all the x y Zed features. So it’s very hands on, very high level, and obviously, not scalable. And so at the moment, we are doing a lot of that, because that’s what they’re used to, that is a really great way of learning how they’re using the platform, how they have their desktop set up, what are their kind of focuses, their challenges throughout the day. So it’s a great learning experience. But I’m definitely looking at how we can scale that. By working with products on here, these are the things that we see customers using a lot, let’s look at how we can embed that into the product workflow, I’d love to look at getting some kind of tool which will help us create kind of In a[p tours and bite sized video tutorials. So people can self service because they’re these, these users are very busy. They’re getting calls and trade coming out throughout the day. So taking the time out to attend a training session, or even have someone there to train you isn’t always feasible. So you really need to make it very bite sized and very kind of outcome focused. But I think it’s just a general thing in most industries. But I’ve definitely feeling a lot more in the financial industry compared to the legal industry. And your lawyers are very busy as well, but it’s just kind of much more strong.
Adil Saleh: Okay, good. Good. What is your day to day, just tell us a little bit about that.
Iram Cook: We’ve, as I mentioned, hiring a new system, got lots of new customers starting soon. So I’m offering that quite quite a high level of service whilst we build out processes to scale. But obviously, you want to get to a point where customer success is much more scalable, we’re able to handle more customers, I think, given our kind of sales motion, and the the platform itself here is enterprise. So it will always continue to be pretty high touch but less high too. It’s like go from super high to high.
Taylor Kenerson: There’s got to be a balance somewhere in between, of course.
Adil Saleh: Yeah, there’s there has to be a new term super high touch.
Taylor Kenerson: So that might be good for some.
Adil Saleh: Yeah, cool. Stuff goes up too, by the way, just out of curiosity, like, Of course you are bound to work with a financial institution, you have regulations that you need to meet and all that is your growth strategy also includes some of the industries that you are yet to tab.
Iram Cook: Yeah, it’s a great question because the financial markets are so big and so many people are involved in them in various ways. I mean, we are as well. Right now our focus is on banks. But there’s lots of different roads, we could go down as huge opportunities so I’m focused on banks for now, but then kind of looking ahead at what might be the the next best step
Taylor Kenerson: You also spoke a little bit about, you know, bringing on a new CSM, which will hopefully alleviate some things that you have to do. So you can focus on different things to kind of tag team that together, that’d be really a clutch. But for our audience that is maybe looking at getting into ces or, you know, being interested in hire and hired by, you know, a CES m, what is, you know, some things or characteristics that you look for in someone that to be a part of your team, and something that you want you want in your culture, I know it’s variable based on the company, but one of these commonalities.
Iram Cook: I think, for an early stage company like this, when you’re the first or second person to be joining or creating a team, proactivity is always important for customer success. It’s like, incredibly essential, like proactivity and independence, to be able to your take ownership of, okay, there’s no process in place for this, but we need it. So I’m going to work it out. And I’m going to look externally for ways we could do this and kind of creatively think of a solution to this problem, because there’s no blueprint, you don’t necessarily have colleagues, you can ask, you can start, you need to be kind of kind of confident to be independent, and be that proactive person that is going to work out the solutions, things. And as I say it’s a core skill for CSMs in general, but it’s just so so important for being early stage, really enjoying that variable, no did the same fast paced environment.
Adil Saleh: Loved it, loved it. So I really appreciate the way you came up, you stumbled upon this podcast with a very unique platform we had, we had SAS businesses in the data analytics niche, that are serving, you know, agents, like travel agencies and transits on just like swiftly and other businesses as well. Like they’re serving the big data and providing insights of different government authorities and in the some of them are in the legal industries as well. And you will go and like thinking of next five years will definitely Kevin define financial firms like KPMG, and all these big firms, you may, you know, think of, you know, having some sort of collaboration. So that aspect is something I definitely loved. Also, we would come up with a survey that like that will keep it will mention in the notes that keep it like three or four months later. So you can have enough knowledge to kind of go that you’ve just become this three months modern knowledge that you’ve consumed. That is incredible, because I can, I can only imagine that for a platform like this and coming from a background as yours is not that easy. So we will really appreciate you for being that smart and vigilant. And you know, it was pleasure having you today.
Iram Cook: Thank you Adil, Im appreciating the praise,, if you can keep going.
Taylor Kenerson: Well keep it coming. We love it. We really appreciate you though around really, really appreciate you and love the insights you drop. And I’ll definitely I’ll connect with you on LinkedIn, I think I feel isn’t really connected with you just need to stay in touch. And you know, keep these conversations going. And however, we can help you in any way. Always feel free to like check out any of our networks. And we’ll be happy to give you a warm introduction that anyone or any way we can help we’re here for you. So this is awesome. I really appreciate you.
Iram Cook: Thank you. So it’s been really great to chat with you both. Yeah, it’s been an absolute pleasure.
Adil Saleh: Thank you so very much for staying with us on the episode. Please share your feedback at
adil.hyperengage.io We definitely need it. We will see you next time and 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 with qualified people for the episode just to make sure we bring the value to the listeners. do reach out if you want to refer any CS leader. Until next time, goodbye and have a good rest of your day.
