Onboarding is arguably one of the most critical components of customer engagement and retention, so scaling it well is important. This week, Brittany Soinski, Manager, Onboarding at Loom joins Jay Nathan to share how her team has tackled this program: Created an onboarding team who is dedicated to owning this process Developed strong templates by starting with post-sale, ending with renewal, and identifying all of the things that happen in between Set a 60-day goal for customers and...

This week, Jeff talks with Jake McKee, founder of Jake McKee Consulting about community's role in business. Jake shares some critical points for companies looking to bring a community program into their business model that help ensure it is more than just a 'nice to have' opportunity. Community needs to be embedded into business operations, and to do this well, you must: Understand your business goals and your community priorities and then align them well Use the OGSDT framework (Objectives,...

This week, Dan Ennis, Manager of Scaled Customer Success at Monday.com joins Jay Nathan to continue our series about Scaled CS. Starting with Dan's definition of scale, "Increasing the impact with customers without necessarily having the same increase in input on the human side", Dan walks us through the scale process Monday.com went through. Sharing some focused areas that shifted from a 1:1 to a 1:many without a heavy internal lift with ideas such as Office Hours, communication shifts,...

This week Jay Nathan is joined by Nisha Baxi, Head of Community and Digital CS at Gong to discuss the 5 questions that are often asked by companies who haven't implemented community. Why Community (What is the ROI/Value) Who should own and run customer communities? How do you staff a community? How do you get people to share content in a new community? Should your community be open? Nisha shares how Gong has become a community that their customers rely on for information, support, and...

This week Jeff Breunsbach takes a look at how being successful with a scaled approach relies on prioritizing and executing on a small number of things very well. Simple options such as education and training Tracking consistency Strong content that resonates with customer needs By making sure these pieces are well built and have strong customer awareness, you are setting the stage for a scaled approach that works. -- Gain Grow Retain exists to connect people, knowledge, and ideas to advance...

This week, Jeff Breunsbach takes a look at some important components of customer education: Product Learn what part of your product aligns with the customer needs Our customers don't need to utilize every part of our product or be aware of every new feature Focus on the features and aspects they need and help them become experts in those areas Specialized education is better than a 1 size fits all versio Business Use educational pieces that help your users have a better understanding of their...

This week Jeff takes a look at the impact of equating a Named CSM with quality service. With the current economy, having a named CSM is a luxury many companies are no longer investing. CS teams are now in a position to pivot, but an understanding of that impact must be understood in order to successfully transition. -- Gain Grow Retain exists to connect people, knowledge, and ideas to advance the state of customer success. We're on a mission to connect B2B SaaS customer success leaders so...

This week Jeff takes a moment to talk through the waves of the Customer Success Team journey. There are typically 3 waves of focus within the team as specialization becomes necessary. First 2 waves are mainly focused on 1:1 programs while the 3rd is all about scaling. However, in this state of moving away from 1:1 towards a more scaled focus, we need to add roles from the 3rd wave much sooner int the process. Learn more about setting your 2024 team and plans up for the best possible...

This week, Nicole Saunders, Director of Community at Zendesk talks with Jeff about how community can help bring value to the customer experience by bringing CS in as a strong content provider. Helps move from a transactional to a relational and learning experience Helps align the community around scaled ideas to create synergy and utilize tools and offerings collaboratively across the company to become more retention focused Helps focus on certain KPIs and metrics that other teams have so you...

Another session in our Scaling CS series, Tessa Thorburn, Head of Customer Success joins Jay to talk about how her team at Loom has used scale to increase their efficiency and value to customer. From role specialization to programs that scaled well, she shares her insights and experience in helping her team increase customer value effectively. Building the case for role specialization Use case webinars Listening to customers at scale Re-onboarding Technology Communication through...

In this episode, Mike Sasaki, VP of Customer Success at Emburse talks with Jay about scaling CS. Not simply from a growth perspective, but a more important impact on profitability focus. From areas of his business he has been able to scale effectively with strong results to other areas of consideration that have to be managed when scaling programs, Mike's practical examples and insights will help you take a look at scaling in a broader way. Connect with Mike -- Gain Grow Retain exists to...

Change is inevitable, but how a leader handles it can be the difference between success and failure. Join Dillon Young, Leader of CS at Maxwell as he and Jeff Breunsbach take a look at changes and how to handle them well. Identify issues and gaps, focusing on leading indicators Evaluate potential solution effectiveness identifying lagging indicators Trust your fellow teams to do their part in the process...change has to include everyone Ask questions and collaborate Bottom Line: -...

This week Jeff Kushmerek joins Jeff Breunsbach to talk about the difference between onboarding and implementation   Onboarding Implementation Ongoing Finite Period Measurement - Time to Value Measurement - Time to Launch No handoffs Multiple handoffs   Jeff K. shares his insights into how to handle the differing needs of Implementation in a way that supports the customer's goals, the metrics needed to be measured, and the outcomes that need to be defined. -- Gain Grow Retain exists to...

Sandy Yu and Jeff Breunsbach talk about the importance of priorities in this week's Gain Grow Retain podcast. Knowing that there can only be one priority at a time, how do you select what to focus on? Here are some of the questions being discussed: Prepare by understanding the resourcing, the organizational needs, and the cost of NOT doing it for each potential priority Decide after gathering data (but don't let the research go on too long!) What are the responsibilities of the leader in...

Daphne Lopes, Principle Manager of CS at Hubspot joins Jay Nathan to talk about Hubspot's focus on meeting each customer at the right time with the right information through scaled CS. In this episode, learn how segmentation, data models, content, and cross-collaboration all play a foundational role in creating a customer experience that is based on scale without sacrifice. Connect with Daphne -- Gain Grow Retain exists to connect people, knowledge, and ideas to advance the state of customer...

This week Rohan Gupta and Gopal Srinivasan, Partners at Deloitte, join Jeff to talk about a hot topic: AI in Customer Success. Generative AI has made access more accessible for the average person, but what are some ways CS teams can utilize AI to support the work they do in a more effective and efficient way? From practical suggestions for getting started to potential roadblocks, the conversation focuses on the shifts teams and companies need to start making to utilize this powerful...

This week, Jeff discusses the various stages of the CS team and focuses on the newest realm of specialized roles. All of the stages are important to building an effective team. These specialized roles: Scaled Program Managers, Customer Marketers, and Community Managers can help drive specific outcomes by developing campaigns that benefit customers whether they have a named CSM or not. -- Gain Grow Retain exists to connect people, knowledge, and ideas to advance the state of customer...

In this re-release from April 2020, Jay Joined Mark Stoddard and Dave Blake of ClientSuccess as part of their CS Leadership Webinar Series. Although they talk about the impact of COVID on the market in general and customer engagement specifically, the conversation is just as relevant today as teams undergo major changes that often result in the loss of your primary stakeholder. After sharing some practical tips, the group them shifts to answering audience questions, making this a great...

This week, Jay Nathan talks to Shauna McClemens about how Higher Logic Vanilla has built a strategy utilizing their customer community to scale CS programs. By ensuring that the entire community is focused on customer success, companies are able to provide a space for 'the right information at the right time for the right person' in a way that is more effective than any other method. Listen to the process she and her colleagues worked through to move from a space that was operating without...

This week, Jeff takes a quick look at the increasing need to build relationships, and the need to do it at scale.  Why scale a relationship? The changing dynamic of the stakeholders themselves as well as the need to move away from a single point of contact are all factors. Take a listen to a variety of ways Jeff suggests to not only scale your relationships, but do it in a way that builds value beyond the current relationship building processes. -- Gain Grow Retain exists to connect people,...

This week, Jeff takes a quick look at the idea that every customer gets a CSM. This belief has resulted in high costs, lower impact, and a mistaken idea that the CSM is the solver of all problems. Instead, focus on your top revenue generators for 1:1, and look at scaling the rest in an effective and valuable way. Strong self-service is much more valuable than a CSM with a 500-customer book of business with little to no interactions and no additional programs to support their needs. -- Gain...

Scaled CS is a hot topic due to the constraints most organizations are facing, but what does that really mean and how do you do it well? Chris Dishman, SVP of Customer Success at Totango spends some time with Jeff sharing his insights. Scaling CS doesn't change the focus of CS, it simply looks at ways to make the process of helping customers realize value more efficient, usually with the support of technology. During the podcast, Chris takes a look at making sure your tech stack is set up...

This week, Jeff takes a quick look at how to help your CSM team manage the increasing pressure they are under: 1:many programs. Jeff walks you through 5 steps to move quickly into some effective and simple ways to to allow your CSMs to scale where they can so they can focus on what they need to. -- Gain Grow Retain exists to connect people, knowledge, and ideas to advance the state of customer success. We're on a mission to connect B2B SaaS customer success leaders so that we can learn from...

This week we are bringing back a 2021 podcast with Wayne McCulloch on the 7 pillars of Customer Success. Focusing on the fact that it is moments with the customer rather than the customer relationship that is owned, Wayne shares how focusing on those key moments will provide a stronger customer experience. With some practical examples, Wayne shares how companies who build for success through optimizing processes internally while still focusing on the customer's definition of success create...