If customer success managers don’t understand how to analyze customer-related data, it’s difficult for them to assist clients on their unique challenges and offer tailored solutions.
To ensure data literacy at video interviewing platform Spark Hire, Alexis Waarich, a manager of customer success, said data training takes place early and often across the entire CS org. For example, new hires are trained on reporting tools like Salesforce and ChurnZero from day one.
Once CSMs are fully onboarded, the key to professional success is consistency, Waarich said. At Spark Hire, all client-facing teammates are held to the same metrics and leaders use uniform language so that CSMs know how they’re being held accountable.
Furthermore, Spark Hire’s CS team holds regular meetings where both individual performance and customer health are discussed with full transparency. According to Waarich, baking data into every aspect of CS training and daily life ensures their CSMs have the knowledge and confidence they need to do their best work.
How do you ensure CSMs have access to the data they need, when they need it?
Our team is accustomed to data-driven reporting on both individual performance and customer health. They have scorecards that we go over together in team meetings and one-on-one settings. Within these scorecards, all of our most relevant reports are linked so they can easily access them in our CS tools, Salesforce and ChurnZero.
Every meeting is centered around data and we are consistently speaking the same language, so they know how they’re being held accountable. Further, we have dedicated meetings and workshops to educate our team on the different reports we use, so they can pull customer-relevant data in real time without assistance.
Every meeting is centered around data.”
How do you train your CSMs to feel empowered to leverage the data they have access to?
From day one, we educate our team on how to navigate Salesforce and ChurnZero. We have weekly target strategy meetings to discuss areas of opportunities. They’re frequently centered around how they can leverage the data they have access to.
We’ve gone as in-depth as modifying existing reports to include various filters that allow them to hone in on a specific subset of their customer base for tailored outreach. By doing this weekly, we are ensuring that the team is well-versed and confident enough to sort through all of the data we have at our disposal.
What steps have you taken to bake data into your culture and the conversations you have with customers?
We always encourage open communication on where we stand with team and individual targets. On a weekly basis, we leverage customer health reporting for a number of reasons. We want to be sure we’re presenting our most successful customers with additional opportunities to enhance their plan. We also go over their strategy and highlight their successes so we can potentially help other customers who may not be having as much luck.
Conversely, we use the same reporting to identify customers who may be lagging. Without data, we wouldn’t have the ability to target our approach and service our customers in the way they need to be serviced based on their experience.
