This blog is the fourth of five based on anonymized discussions from CCO Summit 2016. Read the third here. This might be a bit of a morbid post, considering most of you reading are probably CSMs or work closely with them. But have you ever wondered: when should you lose your job? That was one

Allison Pickens is VP of Customer Success & Business Operations at Gainsight Note to Gainsight Customers: This post contains links to Vault Assets you can import directly into Gainsight. So you just got promoted to lead a team of other CSMs. Congratulations! And don’t worry too much – we’re here for you. Here’s a framework

Allison Pickens leads Customer Success at Gainsight. I’m excited to announce a new organizational structure for Customer Success at Gainsight. Our previous “post-sales” organizational structure consisted of separate Customer Success, Services, and Support teams, each with a VP reporting separately into our CEO. We’ve decided to merge those three teams into one organization, with Customer

In my previous post we dug into how technology companies – large and small, young and old – account for the costs of Customer Success. The feedback we received was very positive, and I appreciated reading every comment note. Thanks! With that said, we kept hearing a similar question among the feedback we received: “It’s

1. An incredible agenda featuring Functional Micro-conferences If you haven’t seen the agenda yet, you need to. We’re kicking it off on Monday, May 9 with Customer Success University (CSU) Live! Certification Day and a big Welcome Party in the evening. Then we kick into full gear on Tuesday by diving into our main theme:

This blog is the third of five based on anonymized discussions from CCO Summit 2016. Read the second here. Hiring a new CSM can feel a lot like hiring Batman. And not the dark, brooding anti-hero with the scary Batman-voice, but the 1960s Batman. The one with Robin and Commissioner Gordon and the Batphone and

This blog is the second of five based on anonymized discussions from CCO Summit 2016. Read the first here. One of the biggest factors that has led to the explosion of the Customer Success movement is the growing recognition that there’s no one-size-fits all strategy for meeting your customers’ needs. As you get to know

Tom is a highly-motivated and innovative success leader, managing the Adobe eSign Services’ International Client Success team in EMEA and APAC. Tom’s passion is seeking and deploying the next innovative technologies that will improve the way people live, communicate and execute business. In his downtime he enjoys running, barbecuing, and wine tasting. When Adobe first

This blog is the first of five based on anonymized discussions from CCO Summit 2016. A SWOT analysis is a framework that companies and business school professors have been conducting since as far back as the 1950s. If you’re interested in the history of SWOT, Tim Friesner posted a pretty comprehensive investigation of the muddled,

  Allison Pickens is VP of Customer Success & Business Operations at Gainsight. The number-one question that keeps most VPs of Customer Success up at night is: “What’s the ROI of Customer Success?” This question is challenging to answer for two reasons: (1) Broad Accountability with Limited Influence CSM teams are typically held accountable for