Customer success is now table stakes for SaaS companies. At SuccessCon West 2015, we conducted a roundtable discussion with CS professionals on key topics to consider when starting a CS team. Topics included: Creating value, Hiring, Building the playbook/process, Technology

1. 2015 SuccessCon East and West Breakout Sessions
First Year of Customer Success
Paul Reeves
Co-founder, BetterWorks
Sarah Sheikh
Customer Success Manager, BetterWorks

2. Sessions Overview
• Round table discussion based on topics selected from a list
relevant to starting a customer success department/team
• “First year” refers to earliest days/years of a Customer Success
(CS) group
• Over 50 attendees total in both sessions
• Average age of CS group was approximately 6 to 12 months
• Average years of experience of attendee: 7 to 10

3. Topics
• Creating value—internally and externally
• Hiring builders
• Building the playbook/process
• Productizing the service: developing collateral/tools
• Technology

4. Creating Value
Besides owning/supporting renewal and upsell, the first CS members can be strong generalists that
build valuable processes, while augmenting staffing
Staffing Efficiencies
• Sales engineers
• Trainers
• Support agents
• Product managers
Measuring Effectiveness
• # of customer quotes captured/insights published
• # of power users/promoters created/recruited
• # of best practices documented
• # of newsletters, webinars, case studies supported
• # of onsite visits conducted this quarter
• SLAs: Achieving question response/resolution targets
Opportunities
• Creating/managing process to provide
feedback to:
• Product: UX/Features
• Marketing: Messaging
• Sales: Perfect customer profile
• Creating and managing NPS process
• Developing and capturing product and
domain best practice

5. • Proactive self-starter that
demonstrates good consulting
skills—strong in enquiry as well as
advocacy skills
• History of growth in previous roles
• History of being in roles for more
than 2 years*
• Watch for:
• Builds rapport instantly
• Detailed research evident by
insightful questions in interview
• Has insightful questions about
challenges you face
• LinkedIn recommendations from
managers/customers
• Sends thank you note/email
What’s the profile?
Hiring Builders
Builders will help you create the playbook and processes while getting results from day 1
• Hire CS professional unless advanced degree
or esoteric knowledge is required
• SME may struggle with bigger
picture/relationship requirements/needs
Hire SME or CS professional?
Homework Required
• Relevant onsite/in-person presentation or
challenge demonstrating CS skills
• Watch for:
• Instantly build rapport with
interviewing team
• Handles tough questions confidently
• Asks questions in advance of onsite via
email/phone
• Leverages knowledge learned in
interviews

6. • Capturing steps to produce a reliable outcome helps you understand effort/time/complexity to execute
• Helps you develop your own best practices
• Helps educate colleagues on effort required to do CS—a little understood domain
• Helps you reduce onboarding time/effort as you recruit new people
Builders don’t need a playbook, but build it anyway
Building the Playbook/Process
Iterating on capturing successful paths to delivery is a process
• Start simple and build a table in wiki, Google docs
• Document steps, expectations of outcomes, links to resources, and tips
• Capture costs information (time/money) to monitor cost/benefit
• Each new team member required to review and propose changes/updates
• In team meetings, acknowledge improvements made by teammates
How do you build it?

7. • Designer-created/polished presentations and supporting documents
• Customer implementation process illustrated
• Support and resource infographic
• Polished templates for standard content/presentations/emails
• Logos/branding for programs/services
• Dedicated page(s) on the web site
• Sales training on your offering to ensure consistent messaging around offering,
benefits, pricing guidance
Treat your service/offering as a product, not an afterthought
Productizing the Service

8. • Your product
• Usage data
• Feedback
• Email
• CRM
• Web conferencing
• Phones
• FAQ
• Community
• Screen capture/image editing
• Surveys
• Tickets
Recommended first year
Technology
Leverage affordable technology that integrates with other solutions to support processes you own
Beyond the first year
• Customer Success solution
• Customer portal
Build the feedback loop immediately
• Customer enters feedback into your product
• Support team receives/triages the feedback
• Support team sends feedback into change
management system Product Management owns
• CS team educates Product regularly on
insights/requests
• Our example: BetterWorks Product > Zendesk >
Jira and Salesforce (CRM, Health, Goals,
Tasks/playbooks)

9. • LinkedIn: Other CS professionals like you
• SaaStr Blog by Jason Lemkin
• Jason is a successful entrepreneur and VC and has the top rated
blog for SaaS entrepreneurs. He knows a lot about customer
success. Customer Success topics
• Tomasz Tonguz
• Redpoint Venture partner who blogs insightfully about customer
success
Resources
• LinkedIN Group: Customer Success Forum: Started
by Mikael Blaisdell
• Relevant discussion in the forum started by
Jamie McDonnell: Creating a new Customer
Success Strategy for a SaaS start up
• www.TheCustomerSuccessForum.com: Info page for
LinkedIn forum
• www.CustomerSuccessCommunity.com: Map of all
of the known vendors.
• www.CustomerSuccessLibrary.com: CSA library
• www.CustomerSuccessStandards.com: The
Standards committee page
• www.CustomerSuccessCon.com
Customer Success Association
Great insight from thought leaders
• Bluenose blog
• Gainsight blog
• Totango blog
• Frontleaf blog
• Preact blog
Vendors
Experts

10. Send comments/corrections to paul at betterworks.com
@bohappa
Thank you