Process

Issue #73: 1 Thing You Can Do This Quarter to Influence the ICP

[September 15, 2021] The Role of CS Ops in Tech-Touch, Avoiding Management Debt, The Fast & Furious Career Path of Kellie Capote, Customer Success Post COVID.

Culture

Issue #72: Reimagine Customer Success: Design Orgs Around Customer Value

[September 8, 2021] 20 Underrated Qualities to Look for in Candidates, CS Ops: Collecting and Prioritizing Next Actions, Influencing the ICP as a CS Leader, Usage-Based Pricing Playbook.

Strategy

Issue #71: A CCO’s Blueprint for Owning Presales: Making the Case, Metrics, and More

[September 1, 2021] Archetypes of Lazy Thinking, Influencing the ICP as a CS Leader, 4 Ways CCOs Get “Stuck”, How To Align Incentives With Your Customers’ Success.

Business Planning

Issue #70: Why Sales Engineering Should Live in CS

[August 25, 2021] 7 Tips for Writing Perfect Follow-Up Emails, When “Love Your Customers” Is More Than Lip Service, Success Spotlight: Emily Garza, 3 Ways to Confront Bias, Prejudice, & Bullying.

Career

Issue #69: The Fast & Furious Career Path of Kellie Capote

[August 18, 2021] Build Your Customer-Driven Growth Engine, 7 Ways to Protect Your Company Culture, On Being the Leader HubSpot Deserves, Across the Globe: CS in 10 Countries.

Strategy

Issue #68: A System for Pulling CCOs Out of the Weeds

[August 11, 2021] CS Ops is the 2.0 Leader’s Secret Weapon, How to Work Hard, Launching a Voice of the Customer Survey, How Do You Handle a Senior Employee That Is Underperforming?.

Company-building

Issue #67: A Maturity Framework for CS Ops

[August 4, 2021] 5 Stages of CEO Acceptance of Customer Success, How Do You Recognize Your Team for Great Work?, Alex Farmer on the Role of the CSM in Successful Onboarding.

Leadership

Issue #66: Make The Move From CCO to COO

[July 28, 2021] Nobody Knows the ROI of Their CSMs, If You Are Growing 60%+ Your Competition Can’t Hurt You, Landing Your First Board Role, CSM + Renewals = ?.

Hiring

Issue #65: A Philosophy on Hiring From Klue’s VP of CS

[July 21, 2021] Hire People Who Give a Shit, Strategic CSM Comp Plans, “Driving Next Steps” Isn’t Enough. This Is What Moves Deals Forward, 7 Top Trends in CS to Learn From.

Process

Issue #64: A Quick Guide to Informing the ICP

[July 14, 2021] Common Blind Spots for CS Teams, 10 Tips to Evaluate The Caliber of a Company, Buyers Have Changed—Sales Needs To Also, Reframing "Don't Bring Problems, Bring Solutions”.

Perspectives

Issue #63: 6 Lessons from 60+ Success Happy Hour Interviews

[July 7, 2021] What Are The Best Ways To Fail At Customer Success?, What I Learnt After Unpacking One of My Best “Customer Experience” Moments, How Do You Check In Without Saying “I’m Checking In”?.

Strategy

Issue #62: Partnering with DevRel (Advice for CS leaders in platform companies)

[June 30, 2021] QBRs and EBRs Are Things of the Past, Say Goodbye to the Tactical CCO — Here’s What Strategic CCOs Focus On, Nonviolent Feedback, The 4-step Secret to Upselling.

product

Issue #61: Shape Up Your Partnership With Product - Advice From 3 Leaders

[June 23, 2021] A Guide To Customer Exit Interviews, My Leadership Document—2021 Edition, The Intersection of Customer Success and UX.

Leadership

Issue #60: Oracle’s First CCO on Why You Need to Help Close Deals

[June 16, 2021] 25 Micro-Habits of High-Impact Managers, What Product Wishes Every CSM Did, High Growth Team Building, When A Customer Wants to Cancel.

Strategy

Issue #59: What Your Onboarding Experience is Missing: a Customer Enablement Content Strategy

[June 9, 2021] Managing Up - Scaling Teams at Credit Karma & Lyft, Do SMBs Need Customer Success? 100% If Sales Is Involved, 10 Lessons from 10 Years in CS.

Customer Health

Issue #58: Why CSMs Must Act Like Psychologists

[June 2, 2021] Bad Execution vs Good Execution, I Want to Hire Someone My Team Said “No” to on the Debrief, How Zendesk Adapts Best Practices in Product to CS.

Career

Issue #57: How CS Becomes MVP of the Executive Team

[May 26, 2021] How Execs Can Better Present to A Board of Directors, Blog What You’ve Struggled With, Customer Success vs. Sales, Purchasing A CS Platform.

Structure

Issue #56: Why CS Won’t Report to Sales in the Future

[May 19, 2021] Your CSM Interview Blueprint, How to Build a Customer-First Culture, The Judicious Imposition of Structure, The Rise of the Strategic CCO.

Leadership

Issue #55: The Rise of the Strategic CCO

[May 12, 2021] How to Drive Over 100% NRR With SMBs, We Need to Talk About Your Q3 Roadmap, Managing a Customer Success Team With Boaz Maor.

Team Building

Issue #54: 10+ CS Ops Questions Answered

[May 5, 2021] What if There Were No CSMs?, The Art and Science of Customer Experience, How to Design Effective Onboarding, On Speaking up and Shutting up.

Team Structure

Issue #53: Lessons From Running CS Ops at Zoom, Gainsight, Stack Overflow, & More

[April 28, 2021] How to Manage Managers, The Best Email Tips You'll Read in 2021, If Nothing Else—Segment Churn, Between Sales and Product.

Customer Health

Issue #52: Do’s and Don’ts of NPS

[April 21, 2021] Being Busy Doesn’t Mean You’re Productive, Growth Is Sexy but Not Its Ingredients, NPS Subject Lines That Drive Response Rates, Running CS Ops.

Culture

Issue #51: Should Companies Stop Assigning Ownership?

[April 14, 2021] Data Analysis Is Underrated, The Most Important Function in Usage-Based Business, Lessons in Re-Launching a CSM Org, Remote Presentations.

Career

Issue #50: 50 Things Every Customer Success Leader Should Know

[April 7, 2021] How to Hire Bad A$$ CSMs, CS Opportunity Pipeline, Format for Presenting to Your Manager, Running CS Ops at Zoom, Gainsight, & Stack Overflow.

Leadership

Issue #49: 15 Customer Success Leaders Share Their Best Career Advice

[March 31, 2021] The Missing Piece of Software Sales, Running CS Ops at Zoom, Gainsight, Stack Overflow, & More, Change Management in Customer Success.

Scaling

Issue #48: How Do You Transition Customers From High-Touch to Low-Touch?

[March 24, 2021] The 40 Best Interview Questions as a Candidate, Feedback Is a Gift, Write Simply.

Hiring

Issue #47: Interview CSMs Like Intercom

[March 17, 2021] We Are in the Age of the Customer, Level-up Every CSM On Your Team, Force Isn’t Power, Questions for Your First Head of Customer Success.

Career

Issue #46: Career Lessons From 15 Years in Tech

[March 10, 2021] Know Your “One Job” and Do It First, How Guru Layers Human Touchpoints, Presenting to Executives, Privy's High-Touch Feel at Scale.

Strategy

Issue #45: A Customer Advisory Board Plan That Works

[March 3, 2021] When Executives Break, Customer Growth During COVID, How to Give Top Performers Feedback, Six Productivity Tips for CSMs.

Process

Issue #43: Why Risk Forecasting Should Be in Your DNA

[February 17, 2021] Performance Reviews Should Be Unsurprising, Customer Success Budgeting Data, How CSMs Can Help Customers With Change Management, I’ve Spoken to 2,000 Companies About Their Plans for Remote Work.

Hiring

Issue #42: Hiring for a Consultative Mindset—What To Look For in CSMs

[February 10, 2021] Become a Legendary Coach, Hubspot’s CCO on Go-To-Market Success, Partnership Between CS and Professional Services, Selling as a CSM.

Scaling

Issue #41: 5 Pieces of Advice for Scaling Customer Success

[February 3, 2021] Can Customers Afford Your QBRs?, Tough Love for Managers, How to Start a New Tech Exec Job, Optimize Training for Customer Learning.

Culture

Issue #40: What Does Proactive Customer Success Look Like to You?

[January 27, 2020] How to Motivate CSMs, Partnership Kickoff Meeting Structure, Everboarding is the Next Level of Customer Onboarding, How to Build a Culture of Ownership.

Strategy

Issue #39: How to Approach the Customer Maturity Index

[January 20, 2020] Build a First Team Mindset, How CS Leaders Can Influence the Product Roadmap, Advice for Building a Strong CCO <> CFO Partnership, 3 Skills That Leaders Must Develop to Be Executives.

Strategy

Issue #38: 5 Tips for Building a Customer Advocacy Program

[January 13, 2020] 14 SaaS Leaders Share Their Favorite Interview Questions, Building an Industry-Agreed Definition of Customer Success, Root Causes of Customer Churn, Handovers.

Structure

Issue #37: An Incentive Structure That Drives Customer-Centricity

[January 6, 2020] Why Remote Work Changes the Nature of Leadership, Customer Success Career Paths, What Do Customers Want?, The Surprising Power of Asking Great Questions.

Leadership

Issue #36: 2020 Year in Review

[December 30, 2020] 18 Customer Success leaders share their proudest moments from 2020, then we share the four best articles from this past year.

Leadership

Issue #35: The 14 Tenets of Customer Success Management

[December 23, 2020] It’s Time to Level Up Your Finance Game, Typeform’s Guide to Turning Customer Feedback into Action, Tips for Running an Effective CS Summit, Managing Up.

Scaling

Issue #34: Career Pathing for CSMs

[December 16, 2020] Signs You Have an "Everything Department", Scaling the Startup Mountain, Remote Work is Lonely - Here's What Companies Can Do to Foster Community.

Strategy

Issue #33: My 90-Day Plan for Building a Robust CX Org

[December 9, 2020] How to Engage Execs at Your Key Accounts, All Customers Start in the Red, Making Customer Feedback Your Superpower, My Approach to 1:1s.

Hiring

Issue #32: Tactics for Onboarding and Developing CS Talent

[December 2, 2020] Builders vs. Scalers, 3 Points of Internal Friction, A Better Way to Field Requests, How the Busiest People in SaaS Manage Email.

Culture

Issue #29: How to Focus Your Company on Building Customer "Goodwill"

[November 11, 2020] My #1 Rule for Running Meetings, 10 Tips for Onboarding a New CSM, Good Decision-Making Depends on an “Archer’s Mindset”, How CSMs Can Manage Difficult Customer Situations.

Scaling

Issue #28: 5 Prerequisites for Scale with Jennifer Dearman

[November 4, 2020] Book 1:1s With Your Peers, CSM Excellence, Time Confetti and the Broken Promise of Leisure Time, Team Customer Journey Mapping.

Remote

Issue #27: It's Time to Give Your Onboarding Process a Tune-Up

[October 28, 2020] Manager Guidance: 2020 US Election Response, Why CS Matters, Authenticity Over Cheap Popularity, Get the CFO to See CS as a Revenue Driver.

Structure

Issue #26: Building CS Ops at Quorum, Aruba, and Pipedrive

[October 21, 2020] Speak the Language of the CFO When Setting 2021 Budget, How to Debug Distributed Teamwork, A Success Planning Framework, Okta's CEO on What Goes Into Decision Making.

Business Planning

Issue #25: Be Prepared for the CFO to Ask These Questions

[October 14, 2020] The Customer Success Leader's Journey, Customer Success From the Investor's Perspective, QBR Best Practices.

Team development

Issue #24: Degreed Evaluates Directors of CS on These Four Dimensions

[October 7, 2020] Building Healthy Competition Into Your Team, Measuring Customer Engagement, Converting With Support Team to a Success Team, Manager Handoffs.

Strategy

Issue #23: Ed Powers on the future of Customer Success

[September 30, 2020] The Management Flywheel, Two Underappreciated MRR Growth Levers, Why Customer Marketing Must Live Within Customer Success, Building Out Tech-Touch.

Process

Issue #22: 3 steps to create a feedback loop between CS, Product, and Marketing

[September 23, 2020] Breadth and Depth in Adoption, How to Use Feedback to Create a High-Performing Team, How This SaaS Company Keeps Customers, Burnout Should Be a Topic at Your Leadership Meetings.

Reporting

Issue #21: NPS has minimal value, here's what to use instead

[September 16, 2020] How to Prepare for an Extended Period of Remote Work, The Lost Art of Churn Analysis, Running Impactful Offsites, Position Your Product as a Strategic Partner.

Customer experience

Issue #20: The Four Points of Friction Between Sales and Success

[September 9, 2020] Insist on Focus, Five Step Formula for Strategic Account Plans for Customers, The Antiracist Leader: Education, Uncovering Your Customer's Business Outcomes.

Process

Issue #19: Face it, your champion strategy is weak. Here's how to get it right

[September 2, 2020] Use This Coverage Model to Reduce Churn Risk, Why Customer Success is Critical, How to Quantify the Impact of Bad-Fit Customers, Remote Onboarding, Don't Give Feedback About Personality.

Churn Risk

Issue #18: Taking action to mitigate risk with Google’s Brian Lafaille

[August 26, 2020] Take Action to Mitigate Risk, Delivering on the Trusted Partner Promise, Executive Communication, How to Manage Customers by Value, Should CSMs Get Compensated by "Uncontrollable Churn".

Strategy

Issue #17: Defining Champion, Power User, and Buyer

[August 19, 2020] Stop Calling Churn a Customer Success Problem, Customer Experience Isn't Tech Jargon, Four Ways Good Leaders Become Great Ones, Words and Phrases That Top Sales and Success Reps Use.

Process

Issue #16: When is the right time to introduce Customer Success?

[August 12, 2020] A User Guide to Working With You, Establish Your Risk Management Framework, A Leader's Guide to Writing Well, Customer Success is Taking Over.

Culture

Issue #15: How Box brings the customer to the forefront of their company

[August 5, 2020] How to Build Customer-Centricity, Designing a Sales-to-CSM Handoff, Clearbit's VP of CS on Turning Economic Headwinds Into a Growth Opportunity, A CSM to Manager Ratio, Ways to Encourage Feedback From Others.

Team Building

Issue #14: The "challenger" concept for Customer Success

[July 29, 2020] The Challenger Concept for Customer Success, How to Create Remote Happiness, Slick B2B Onboarding, How to Take Personal Development Off the Backburner, 21 Questions to Help You Understand Your Customer.

Culture

Issue #13: How Gong creates raving fans

[July 22, 2020] How Gong Creates Raving Fans, There's No Such Thing As Post-Sales, Avoiding Burnout On Your Customer Success Team, The Best Three Pages on Leadership I've Come Across, Feedback is Not a Gift.

Remote

Issue #12: Foundations of a remote Success team

[July 15, 2020] Foundations of a Remote Customer Success Team, Stop Calling Churn a Customer Success Problem, How to Recognize Remote Employees, How Product and Success Can Define a Feature Request Process, How to Manage Individuals Within Your Accounts.

Structure

Issue #11: How Customer Marketing works at Typeform

[July 8, 2020] How Customer Marketing Works at Typeform, Your Guide to Successfully Training Customers Remotely, Measuring Customer Success Relationships, (Unstructured) Job Interviews Don't Work, The Secrets to Our (Customer) Success.

Structure

Issue #10: What do CSMs need to succeed in their roles?

[July 1, 2020] What Do CSMs Need to Success in Their Roles?, 6 Ways to Drive Revenue Performance, Evolution of the Customer Success Org, Why You Should Eliminate the Title "Implementation Consultant", How to Structure Compensation for Customer Success.

Culture

Issue #9: Does your company value its customers?

[June 24, 2020] 9 Questions to Verify Whether Your Company Values its Customers, Tales & Trends of Startup Resilience, Where's the Best Place for Upsells to Live?, 4 Laws of Customer Success, The Manager's Guide to Inclusive Leadership.

Reporting

Issue #8: How do you advocate for Customer Success with Finance?

[June 17, 2020] Advocating for Budget in Customer Success, Lucidworks' CCO on Building Culture Around the Customer, 9 Questions for Your First Head of Customer Success, Marc Andreesen on Productivity, Why Efficiency is Key to Scaling.

Strategy

Issue #7: The value measurement maturity model

[June 10, 2020] Why Aren't We Measuring if Customers Are Successful?, A Feature Request Process for B2B Product and Success Teams, You Aren't Doing Enough Customer Marketing, Why Isn't The Entire Company Measured on Retention.

Structure

Issue #6: Why Customer Success should report to the CEO

This week's newsletter highlights an interview on "Why Customer Success Should Report to the CEO," and shares articles on Anti-Racist Management Practices, How to Talk About Racism at Work, and more.

Culture

Issue #5: The case for bringing Customer Success into the sales cycle

This week's newsletter highlights an interview on "How to bring Customer Success earlier into the sales cycle" and shares articles on GitLab's Customer Success Vision, Why Writing Matters in Remote Work, and more.

Customer Health

Issue #4: Gauging churn risk during the pandemic

This week's newsletter highlights a piece on "How to gauge churn risk during COVID-19," and shares articles on A Bias to Action, The CCO's Guide to Scaling Customer Success, and more.

Customer Segmentation

Issue #3: Scaling a right-touch customer experience model

This week's newsletter highlights an interview on "How and why to scale a right-touch model" and shares articles on Customer Success Capacity Planner, 4 Ways for Leaders to Build Resilience, and more.

Structure

Issue #2: Preventing the "overblown support team"

This week's newsletter highlights a piece on "How to prevent CS from becoming an overblown support team for enterprise" and shares articles on Who Should Own Renewals and Upsells, Advice for a Career in Success, and more.

Team Building

Issue #1: The "trusted partner" promise

This week's newsletter highlights an interview on "How to level-up the skills of CSMs to deliver on the 'trusted partner' promise," and shares articles on Bringing In More Capital During COVID-19, Building a Knowledge Sharing Loop in Success, and more.