How to Become a Value-Driven CSM

00:00 Hi everyone. Welcome to another session with CSM practice, the podcast that has everything you need to know about customer success and this episode is dedicated to two kinds of situations.
00:16 One, you are a CSM and you want to know what it means when they say, well, you need to be more value driven.
00:24 You need to be more strategic. We're going to break that down for you And if you are CEO or an executive or a team leader, we're going to share a ton of tactical advice that you can implement within your team to navigate the team to be coming more value-driven.
00:45 But before we start, I want to introduce a very special guest today. Her name is Difat Liv. She's a recognized expert in customer success.
00:55 She worked with some wonderful companies B2B in technology space, of course, such as Microsoft and my systems, very well known startup in Israel, called SISENS.
01:08 And so with a decade-long of experience specializing in customer success, heading large teams in customer success, I think she's the authority to let us know how does she think about this role, how did she navigate through this journey for her CSM teams?
01:29 We've at, thank you so much for taking the time to share your expertise and tactical advice with us. Thank you, Marie.
01:37 I'm so excited to be here today and to talk about the passionate topic to me. can you tell us the teams that you worked with the latest were those mainly high touch teams and if so, like how many customers per CSM did they typically handle?
01:55 So the rest of the company at SISNs, where I actually did two main rooms. I started at the customer facing the SM.
02:02 I actually was the third CSM in the company. And then after a year I become the manager of strategic and enterprise customers.
02:12 So being in ENA back. So basically the focus was the eye hand customers, B2B mainly sucks. But then in the last few years I was doing what we got customer experience, which is actually an operation, training development, everything that to do with business performance, KPI, methodology and processes.
02:37 So with that role, I actually dealt with all the teams, not just the IN. So I had the opportunity to deal with the small media medicine, also with the professional services, so it was more flexible, really in that sense.
02:52 If you ask about the number of CSS, so again, it's the right, you bend on Thailand or a small media.
03:00 So if I end, we end around 15 to 20, a source per CSS, and it's for a small medium, it's worth a bit between 55 to 35.
03:10 And today we're going to talk about what is a value driven CSM and a strategic driven CSM. Does that apply?
03:18 the context that we're going to talk about today, mostly to the high-touch strategic CSMs in that or the work with strategic accounts, or do the same principles apply to the lower segment.
03:33 I think that overall there are both two methodology and practice that I would share a blind mainly to eye-end customers and enterprise strategic, but the concept applies to everyone.
03:47 It's just that instead of doing manual work in some of the situation, we will find the way to automate the processes.
03:55 So maybe by analyzing some of the adoption activities, like product adoption, we might be able to do that automatically. So the principle is exactly the same.
04:07 The practice and the outreach implemented might be a little bit easier. When you were working at CISEN, either as a CSM or as the head of the Enterprise and Strategic Team, what were some of the challenges that were surfacing up in terms of customer value that you felt like the CSMs were initially struggling
04:29 with before you implemented this framework. So as a CSM myself and also as managing the CSM team, we were struggling to measure and say, what a exactly value to this customer, because when we started to discuss with them, it was like a very familiaristic definition.
04:47 They said, we want to increase revenue, we want to reduce cost, but it was so high level. And we couldn't like connect or correlate this business objective into the actual measurement that we wanted to because we want to show actual value so that the gap we're going to be just like they were talking 
05:07 about like very common kind of worries of the subjective but we wanted to show them how our product license was actually contributing to achieving those goals.
05:19 This was like the biggest challenge here. What do you think was causing this challenge? I mean, a lot of times for large enterprise accounts, We hire people that are highly experienced, maybe even more consultants in the past.
05:34 When you were looking and analyzing the situation, what was showing up for you as a gap? The problem or the gap was around the fact that you've talked with the customers about business goals and business objectives and eventually you need to show value from your product, so it doesn't shift in many cases
05:54 like my product is the BI platform. Now we're talking to me about the increasing revenue or reducing cost and how do I connect?
06:02 How do I show them that by using five cents by using the BI platform? I can actually have them to achieve their goals and their success criteria.
06:14 So these tons, the gap between what they were trying to achieve, what I need to measure and how to measure it in order to show them that I actually brain value, that was the main challenge.
06:26 What does it mean to you a value-driven conversation or a value-driven CSM? Please allow the value-driven mindset is to prioritize and align your action as a CSM, your decision and your effort with your customer business objectives and KPI.
06:47 So, troubles everything to what they are actually trying to achieve. To variables, what's in it for them, what's their business output.
06:59 So start with that, and once you have that, make sure that they are maximizing the value from your product and search.
07:08 And that exactly what this block is trying to do, combine the two. So here you are, you are a customer success manager, you have the team, you see a lot of them struggling with this at a high level.
07:21 What were some of the things that you were starting to do differently? I think we kind of create a framework.
07:28 So instead of starting from scratch for every customer, We actually build what we call our value business map for size.
07:37 When we met with those customers, usually in a kick-off call, but not necessarily, we can build that assessment also in the middle of the journey.
07:45 So when we started the process, it wasn't like starting from fresh, asking those questions and trying to make the password understand what we wanted from that.
07:55 So we created what I call a template, It's template that characterize the typical customers of size and so you know, when you as a BI company, how to your customer and day by your product, they're probably talking about five, six, seven different business goals.
08:13 So when you are investing a little bit of time in creating this template, you've got a little link which I'll explain in a minute, then you're actually being able to start something that is half-baked.
08:27 Well, you created the templates. You probably taught the CSMs, how to use them, how long before you're starting to see an impact on science, not just necessarily individual customers, and what was the impact on the organization?
08:44 So it was interesting to say that even without implementing fully the plan, because the plan as the event space, just by having the conversation about the business objectives and the KPI with that practice, create and grow the productivity.
09:01 Because when you start to talk about it with a customer about his main business focus area, you find out that you can help it out in a department.
09:10 So it was amazing to see that even just by talking with a customer, we already created some growth virtuality. So, this part, she will mean, but they've been indictment of their whole process.
09:24 I can say that completely took in here, and I received a saying new and how to talk, how to define it, and how to connect it to the features.
09:34 But overall, the input, I really appreciate you saying that because sometimes I have clients that are very hesitant, they say, you know, you're eat, I don't think the customers are used to talk to us about anything like that.
09:47 They usually just ask us about features, functions, how are free just going to come in and start talking about business outcomes?
09:56 I don't know how it's going to land because they don't perceive us like that. So what was the initial reactions from the customers when you started elevating these discussions to business outcomes and all of a sudden becoming more strategic?
10:09 Was it smooth or were some customers pushing back? So, you would be surprised that first people like to talk, so if you ask them more and more questions, they'd like to tell you.
10:20 But we were super surprised because we realized that the process helps them not less than us to define their KPIs.
10:30 So, at some situations, for example, I was talking with one customer and they told me, you know what, I'd love your product, but I had difficulties to justify the budget.
10:40 And now, if I do it this discussion with you, I realize how much I saved or what was that running for me.
10:47 So I'm running now to the CFO and I'm asking for the money. So it actually helped the customers themselves to do that.
10:54 Of course, we have those customers who push back because they are very stressed. They want to start using the product.
11:00 But I think that overall, I would say they'd be 80, 85% of the customers embraced the process and find it beneficial by itself, just the discussion.
11:10 I can't wait to see, what have you done, what's the framework? Do you mind like unveiling it? So first of all, we had to define what a value of frequency is and means.
11:22 So we identified three elements that we want to focus on. The first one is understanding the customer needs. Which means in a simple word, what we be considered as a success to them?
11:34 So, you know, not just very high growth, but super specific success with the area. The second item was to measure value and business outcomes, which means how to use our product we can actually impact the business requirement, the business objective and the KPR.
11:54 And the third one, as always, we had to wrap that to be a trusted advisor, because we needed the trust of the customer to share with us all this information.
12:05 Some of the measures are coming from there and then we are not exposed to that. So we focused on the song relationship.
12:14 Now that we have focused on business objectives and KPI, let's see the model. The model understands that usually every customer, if you ask them what's your business value category, What's the topic, what's the category that you are looking to get some results of value?
12:32 Most customers will find that they are talking about these three categories. So the first category will be around revenue growth to increase revenue.
12:43 The second category will be to reduce cost, which is also called operational efficiency. and the third category will be around their customers, experience or employee experience or user experience.
12:58 So, we found out that these are the typical categories in every industry. So, the first step when we talk with the customer, we just ask them what's your business focus or business category, and then by showing the three examples, it helped them to connect to what they're working to achieve.
13:16 I just wanted to give the audience a different perspective because I've never seen this before. And I do, as well, talk about business value categories with my clients.
13:26 And I love that you had customer experience because when you talk about sales, you talk about reducing costs, increasing revenues.
13:32 And it's interesting that when you're coming from different solutioning, you might come up with a third category that's different because in your case, it's customer experience.
13:42 And I think it's totally makes sense. From my world, a lot of times the third one, or if you will, a fourth one, is reducing risk.
13:52 Some industries risk is a big deal. And I think the customer experience is sort of like one of the risks that you may want to mitigate.
14:01 You want to elevate the experience, because if you don't, we know what happens. They just leave without letting you know or what's the way taking your totally love that you put the customer experience there.
14:16 I appreciate business value categories. I used that terminology as well. I'm just going to showcase a fourth one could be customer risk, especially if you're working with CSOs or any kind of organizations that have a high level of regulations that might be another good category to put out there.
14:34 Who do you see down and ask what are your business value categories? Because usually when you develop the strategy, you would use that.
14:43 But it's not necessarily a customer facing terminology. Most people have never heard of a business value category, if you will.
14:52 When we were actually sitting down with a client, what was the question that you were asking them, or did you even show them this slide?
15:01 I had just the slide before I meet the customer to put things that are more in his focus area as and things that will make sense to them.
15:10 So for example, if this is the top-to-company, that they release the versions of the time, so talk about time to market, makes a lot of sense.
15:18 Or if this is the product that they are CRM and we're trying to improve net retention, it also makes sense to them.
15:25 So I do show the slide, but I give various decision that allows that to relate to the customer world. And how do you explain this slide, how do you frame the conversation?
15:36 What's kind of like the talk track? I mean I'm saying that the purpose of the fashion in the next 25 minutes or 30 minutes would be to try and define together, there's success criteria.
15:49 But since Disney's sadly in many cases where they should call it to identify immediately, I created three steps, third and first time style, I talked about categories.
15:59 It's easy to relate to categories like for example, If I'm buying product, if I'm the vendor who is studying a product for a project minute.
16:08 So obviously, one of them troubles the area as a umbrella of my customer will be operation efficiency. So if I talk to them about their pain, they relate to it very easily.
16:20 So again, I'm using examples of their own world. And I'm also making sure that my product is reflected within that.
16:30 So now they pinpointed a few, and they said, you know what, do you even like push them a little bit more and say for this year what's most important for you to be successful and improve?
16:42 So what I do is usually I'm talking about the year long because I don't want to address the annual journey, and I'll just talk about a very specific short-term run.
16:54 So we are talking about the company business goals for the coming year. Okay, so you show the slide, you have a discussion around the success indicators for them, what is their success criteria in working with you for their business, and you have a great discussion.
17:12 What's next? What's step two? Let's say that I'm a CSM of a company called TopSpot. This is a CRM function, and my customer is tech IT software.
17:23 This is a company that with a lot of four IT managers to handle all IT aspects. And now we were discussing the first slide and we come up that we actually have elements from the three category.
17:38 So we identified that we would like to handle the Chris revenue category, but then my next question would be, so around in Chris revenue, what is actually your business focus area or what are the areas where you want to see business out when you bought our thing?
17:57 And then they say, okay, you know what? We have a problem that the deals make so long to close, and we're looking to close these clusters.
18:06 So, here we define our business object. Our step in problem is that the conversion rate between leads to opportunity that two of those want is actually not very good and we want to improve them.
18:19 So now that I understood what they are focused on, my next question will be, okay, so let's look at those in the first one.
18:29 What will be considered success to you? They would say we want to improve the time to grow, we want to improve it by 10%.
18:37 We want to make it faster than it is today. We want to have it by three months. So that's where we moved from the business objective into the very specific success with here.
18:50 Is that like to define a success criteria? I mean, is there a bad success criteria and a better success criteria?
18:57 There are common mistakes. No, I would not say bad or wrong. But I would say that it's important to understand that when used by success criteria, it has to be a leading KBI.
19:10 It cannot be, for example, I want to finish the onboarding in three months. That's not a success criteria. That's the time frame that you want to do something, but why do you want to finish the onboarding in three months?
19:26 So by asking the five, why we are actually getting eventually into the Europe success criteria. So yes, we work with the customers to ask more and more questions up and feel at the point where we realize that that's exactly what we need to measure.
19:45 That is the success of the dairy. And it's something that you can negotiate so that the vendors team can be successful.
19:54 So if the customer comes back with something that's a bit too aloof or that is not reasonable, this is your point of negotiation.
20:02 You're essentially using what they call smart goals. So I'm actually using smart goals because I want the goals or the success criteria to be super specific to be measurable.
20:16 I want to define exactly how I'm going to measure them. They have to be relevant to the focus area and to the goals and we have to put dialogue within.
20:25 So we are following the smart goals model and we can see that maybe some other common mistakes is that they put very generic KPI, like for example, I want to improve the employees engaged.
20:40 To say the employees engagement is such a big topic. Let's say that I'm an HR platform record. When we say something like that, we continue and ask, okay, so in what way, in what areas would you like to improve the employees engagement?
20:56 So they can say, okay, they brought the attrition to be lower. They want them to we're satisfied. So now we're talking about measurable capabilities.
21:06 Like astronomers, don't be, I want good vibe that it's not a matter of own. So let's see whether it's me who have good vibes in measurable way.
21:15 That maybe that's on the space is that don't say that use your specific feature would be the success criteria. Like for example, using the reports is our success material.
21:27 No, this is how you have to reach your success criteria, but the question that we need to ask the customer is, okay, what the reports we provide me, what's the value and path what I'm working to achieve?
21:41 That's the success criteria and not the specific feature of all news. All right, so secret sauce time. When you go to that meeting, you said, well, I adjust the first slide with just the categories.
21:54 You don't know what the answer is. Do you already have these lines like this example where you have the business value, the objectives and the actual KPIs already filled out with a high-level map on how to achieve that value, already pre-done before the 25-30 minute call, or is that something that you
22:17 actually prepare as a follow-up call now that you had like the high-level conversation? There is no one wait, but what we usually recommend is to create a template.
22:28 So, as I said, it's not the NDS options. So, we create a template, for example, we look at the increase revenue.
22:35 We create the three most popular business objectives by looking at our number of customers, many customers, and repeat success plan.
22:45 And we created this template. So, basically, we have a good options for each business value, like the operational efficiency we want to cost saving, we want to be more automated, or the success stage for the customer experience we want time to serve, we want customer satisfaction.
23:04 So we invest probably not more than choice 3 meetings to set the template in a very structured way. So once I come to talk with a customer, I already had like the baseline, and I don't like to prepare it in events like this is your successor because I like the conversation.
23:25 I want them to think together with me. Of course it's not always possible and sometimes they prefer that you will bring something and just maybe tweak it but my personal experience is that it's better to show the templates like you see here and then create together the map and then to understand them
23:45 , the updated model started to be just a recap. If I'm a CSM, step number one is to set up a discovery call with the client.
23:54 I assume that could be done in a QBR or something along those lines. Step number two is to have that conversation and pinpoint the business values.
24:04 Now that I know that step number three is to go ahead and look at my success path templates that I might have already structured in advance, generically for all customers, and say, okay, which ones do I want to show the client?
24:18 And do I need to tweak any terminology so that it lands well into my customers' ears, it just sounds like I listened to them.
24:25 So I might change the KPIs, the wordy, but at least I have something that I can start with. So we do have those, that's the job of the CS executives, or the CS ops team, prepare these slides in advance.
24:38 so I don't start from nothing, I start from something. Then I go back to the customer and I show them the success path so that we can align on smart KPIs, smart goals, define something that is measurable.
24:53 And then the fourth step is essentially to create a detailed success plan. You create it and then you review that with the customer.
25:00 Once everybody's aligned, that might result in an upsell, additional services from then on. It's essentially almost like professional services you have to wear the project management hat because that's execution time.
25:15 You're actually actualizing value at that moment. Until the moment that the customer signed up for the success plan, you're just increasing perceived value.
25:25 You're planting the seeds of additional outcome ideas. The customer might say, you know what? That sounds terrific. Let's do that in three months because right now we're implementing this big software you don't have the bow.
25:37 It's fine. But at least in their mind, they know that you can give them more value and you're not dependent on them to tell you what they want.
25:44 You offered all these categories and now you're aligned on what's going to happen this year. So any other steps that happens should be a winner of the real list.
25:54 So I've said a worthy beauty about that is not we only focused on the beat of the site. But then in that step is to correlate that with your features, capabilities, and services for the success point.
26:08 Yes, but that's not the reason you can also be better because if you're talking about close the spacer like the example, but you know that you have the pipeline management tool.
26:21 So in middle key, you know that if you want to show value, focus on the attraction of that So what I realize that if you map all your features in advance, you can correlate or you can connect.
26:36 Success put out that you create on the end of the template and also with the features and capabilities. So you already know what you want to focus when you measure the actual time.
26:48 So having the templates, what happened with the CSMs with the team that you managed back then? Did you find that consistently you got adoption breath and depth a lot faster?
27:00 Were you able to another thing that I would think that this would do is would help you to get CSMs that are a little bit more junior potentially?
27:08 With the right training, the right access to those slides, they could potentially be very dangerous in the most positive way.
27:17 So I have to say it's a conversation with the customer and you need to distinguish between something that they tell you that you say, okay, that's a success criteria to a real fuel success criteria.
27:34 So we take style. What they realize that CSN, it brings different styles, one world using the template and working with the customer through the cake.
27:44 We like used to give that excelsiate and they have like dropped down me with all the template and they got just chill and feeling so it that's some of this method but I'd rather like the conversation and then we would go back and feel it later on.
28:01 But everything was part of the CS2 eventually. So everything was inserted or recruited into the CS button. So anyone says person executive could grow inside and look at the success then and actually see what the most important business objectives and KPIs, what would you say for anybody that's listening
28:22 to this conversation in terms of like things that they should do to implement this properly? What are like some of the key takeaways that they should be taking out of this conversation, if you will.
28:34 First one is to create the organization that's a participant template. It's healthy. So take the time, build it, make sure you have the most common examples of your most common custom, That's the first thing, the second is to create a list of all these key features that are connected to this access criteria
28:55 . The third one is measure the progress through Yeliki, or actual versus target. Always measure, always show robustly or customizable, no progress.
29:07 Not on the dealt rate for the renewable meeting dealt rate when EBR just makes sure to constantly show progress. And I let if I grow to opportunities because I've been the discussion, that's the fact that something we solved so quickly.
29:23 I'm encouraging people to talk beyond the roadie, just try to see what's the customer is after and then help them with it.
29:32 And the last thing is you need to practice. You need to listen to recorded calls. You need to do similar action.
29:39 It's not natural to talk like that. That's what we did for almost three months. We practiced and practiced and practiced.
29:47 What's the best way to practice? Meaning, if I'm a CS executive, I want to start coaching my team to be more comfortable doing these type of discussions and let's say I done all the templates, et cetera.
30:01 What were some of the things that you've done if anything in a more formal way to make sure that these practices actually take place not just necessarily in front of a customer.
30:13 We actually create the framework where we support the CSM in any kind of a way. So we created an inventory of examples, many, many examples of real assessments, not just templates.
30:25 So that was one thing. The other was a bunch of recorded codes of great discussions about success. Then we also did simulations of difficult use cases, customer doesn't want to cooperate with you.
30:39 They don't know what there's that criteria. All this kind of things were invested in simulations and we led to the team property survival with a simulation.
30:49 So that's why like the three main topics that we did close area. I think this is one of the most important topics because we know that the role of the CSM was generated to fill in a vacuum where nobody was in charge or accountable, deliver value to customers.
31:08 And so once we set up the role of the CSM, without giving them the right tools, the right frameworks, the right set up where they can practice these tough conversations and develop these skills and we're not doing them enough justice.
31:20 And I can't tell you how many times I talk to new clients or prospects, they honestly don't necessarily know how to do it.
31:28 And so I hope that people take a lot of value from today's conversation, learn a lot, adopt, adapt, drive, because I think this is one of the most important things that a CSM team should be able to do in an effective manner.
31:44 I once stated, we see the process. So, that's more. Even having a conversation about the category, is a great conversation.
31:53 Even having a conversation just about the business goal that an objective is a great conversation. reaching out to this unified CLIPI is not a one-day thing, with a process.
32:06 I don't want to overwhelm you, it's take some time, but I do feel that it's worth because then it's so critical of how you can demonstrate value to the customers once you have better than correct.
32:18 All right, everyone. If you love today's conversation, you've got some of how moments, some ideas that you want to go ahead and implement, you heard the lady, take it one step at a time.
32:28 one thing, one step, get better at it and then introduce the next step that could be an approach so you're not overwhelmed, your team's not overwhelmed, but truly such a blessing having you here.
32:39 I think this is going to be a phenomenal episode on our podcast and I want to thank you so much for bringing all this value to our audience.
32:56 Thank you so much, you're right. Have you the next episode.