Stephanie Berner (LinkedIn CS Executive) explains why customer success should align with go-to-market and revenue rather than product leadership.
Insight
Berner: NPS and CSAT are easily gamed and less actionable early on
“In later stages, you can start to look at other metrics like NPS, CSAT, time to launch, and your implementation. Those can be great metrics. Those sometimes can be, you know, easily gamed, so they don't necessarily provide the right insight for leadership or e…”
Insight
Berner: Simple renewals belong in CS, expansion renewals belong in Sales
“If renewals are primarily just that, a renewal conversation, where there's a quick, you know, exchange of papers, a quick conversation, if there's a change in price, but there isn't a detailed negotiation or any complexity with that transaction, that renewal p…”
Insight
Berner: CS Reporting Directly to CEO Keeps Leadership Close to Customer Experience
“I am a big fan of, say, the CS organization reporting right into the CEO, because in those cases, the CEO is really close to the customer experience, no matter what phase the business is in, super early or operating at scale.”
Insight
Berner: Tying CS comp to renewal quotas neglects product adoption
“The thing that I think companies get tripped up by is when you put a significant amount of comp against a renewals or expansion quota, that is going to drive behavior. And if you want your teams only focused on getting the renewal across the line, that is wher…”
Insight
Berner: Dedicated implementation specialists outperform generalist CSMs on onboarding
“The problem with that is CSM Brett does an implementation and onboarding process once, maybe twice a year. Because that's how many net new customers you get in your portfolio. Versus if you have a group of implementation specialists, they do it all day, every …”
Insight
Berner: Formalize CS when problem-solving consumes over half of staff's day
“When you have a meaningful volume of customers, you end up Spending, say, more than half your day just resolving problems or getting them going in your product, then that's the time that it makes sense to consolidate that work into a couple of individuals.”