Developing talent is a key competency for competitive companies. As Customer Success leaders, we have many roles across a growing number of departments we can leverage to engage, challenge, and retain top talent. An ambitious team member starting today as a support agent, can grow over time into a CSM, Account Manager, and then into a manager, without ever leaving the Customer Success organization. We can provide growth and variety if you make talent development into a practice. This presentation shows you one way to hire and retain top Success talent.

1. Attracting and Retaining Top Talent
By Leveraging the Many Career Paths in Customer Success
By Paul Reeves, VP Customer Success
February 2018

2. Contents Developing vs. Hiring
Caveats and Warnings
Development Planning
Ongoing Practice
Hiring
Retaining Top Talent
Competencies, Skills, and Traits
Talent development as a strategy

3. Make Talent
Development a Key
Competency

4. Developing vs Hiring
When do you source internally or look externally?
Reasons to Develop Reasons to Hire
You have the talent in-house New skills/mastery/experience needed
Cost/time efficient (Gaps are sufficiently
small)
Not enough time/money to develop
Cultural affirmation Culture improvement
Manager’s duty

5. Hiring Top Talent
Employee success starts with a JD and a career-defining challenge that attracts the
right applicants
“A high performer can deliver 400% more productivity than the average performer.”

6. Tools to Attract and Hire Top Talent
One of the most important, but hardest management competencies to master
The Pitch
You have a life/career changing
opportunity for the right
candidate.
A PreparedTeam
Prepared team aligned on the
right outcome.
Advertisement (Job Post)
Your ad should make your
pitch and appeal to the right
candidate.
The Package
Assemble a competitive offer
and highlight how life/career
changing.
The Criteria & Test
Know how to measure and
assess candidates.
Externals
Realize things like reputation
can work for/against you
(Glassdoor).

7. Example Pitch
Be able to explain why this is THE opportunity for the right candidate
Fast-track career Update/improve
skills
Demonstrate
consistent ability

8. Example Job Post
“Tokbox, a leader in WebRTC communications, is
seeking a Manager of Technical Support Services to join
our Customer Success team and be our key leader
responsible for ensuring we achieve our support KPIs and
customer satisfaction targets…”

9. A Prepared Team
Document and train the team on plan, process, assessment

10. Hiring Tips
Common recommendations to improve process/outcome

11. Resources
Geoff Smart and Randy Street
by Lazlo Bock

12. Retaining Top Talent
Congratulations! You hired the best…

13. Talent is mobile
You have to work to retain capable people
according
to Paysa
While top performers may stay
longer, good talent is actively
recruited

14. Why do good employees leave?
A few of the key causes that a manager can influence
“Stagnation…”
• Lack of personal and
professional growth.
Inc.com,
• Andrew Chamberlain
(Ph.D, is chief economist at
jobs site Glassdoor and
director of research at
Glassdoor Economic
Research.)
Hate boss
• Not liking or respecting a
boss is a top reason
Forbes.com
Lack of
acknowledgement
• Not feeling respected or
valued Forbes.com

15. Why stay?
What tools do we as managers have to retain talent?

16. The Practice
Make a practice/habit of ongoing talent development
• Agree on SMART goals (metrics/outcomes) as guideposts
Have a goal/destination/direction as a guide post
• Provide clear, actionable feedback in a timely manner
Monitor and assess progress regularly
• Be prepared for all outcomes
Promote/re-align/adjust at regular intervals (yearly)

17. Fortunately, Umbrella of Customer
Success is Growing
More paths to develop
Presales
Engineering/
Support
Onboarding
Engagement/Ma
nagement
Renewals
Services &
Training

18. Many Careers in Customer Success
In a SaaS/Subscription world, it’s quite possible to have an exciting 20-year career in Customer Success
€57B 71K
Team
315M
Customers
$44,415/yr
Customer
Support
Rep
$84,046/yrCSM $101,642/yr
Strategic
Account
Manager
$124,623/yr
Director,
Account
Manageme
nt
$76,214/yr
Technical
Support
Engineer
$94,446/yr
Technical
Sales
Engineer
$109,100/yrTAM $160,507/yr
Director,
Technical
Account
Manageme
nt
$85,292/yr
QA
Engineer $95,126/yr
Configurati
on
Engineer
$111,224/yr
Technical
Services
Manager

19. Competencies
Recommend career paths based on strengths that complement/additive

20. Competencies (part 2)

21. Characteristics
Understanding one’s personality is important

22. The Development Plan
You can help someone develop informally and formally
Informal Formal
Verbal or in writing
Documented plan of action with measurable
objectives, schedule, and tracking approach
Employee demonstrates ability to do the job
and achieve
HR-supported
Manager has ability/authority to grant
promotion
Requires documented tracking
Acceptable in start-ups or lean
environments
Requires documented assessment

23. Tracking
Either approach requires the employee and manager to track progress
Informal Formal
Both verbally and in writing as part of 1-
on-1
Can be part of 1-on-1 or separate
Outputs may be measurable but formal
report not required as part of record
Requires written statement of progress and status
Requires documented tracking by candidate
Requires documented assessment by manager

24. Caveats & Challenges
Every employee deserves a plan and ongoing feedback, but it’s not easy and not risk-free
• You have to dedicate yourself to the program and consistently deliver
Takes time, energy, and skill/expertise
• Be able to reward, and not reward
You have to be prepared to deliver on success and failure
• You can offer, manage, and execute, but you can’t force someone to grow
personally/professionally; also, development is hard work
It has to be employee-driven

25. Recommended Reading
by Stephen Covey
by Teresa Amabile and Stephen Kramer
by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha
by
Rajeev Behera
by Mike
Shultz of the RAIN GroupRAIN Group

26. Thank you!