What’s the one question people are always asking you about your job? If I had to stack-rank all the questions I get asked by customer success leaders, the question of who should own renewals bubbles to the top—no contest. But when you peel the onion a little bit, this is actually a layered question. Let’s

Ask, “What’s next on our product roadmap?” and you might find yourself drowning in an overwhelming amount of opinions. There’s a tried-and-true way to cut through the noise and it’s hiding in plain sight. Your customer data is a goldmine wrapped in a bow covered in glitter. Why? Because your customers are the most important source

So you think you know your product… but just how deeply do you understand the value it provides? As a product leader, you’re the subject matter expert when it comes to your product. But as we all soon learn, the product is only part of the job. Understanding how your product fits into broader business goals

I don’t know about you, but I constantly think about measuring my life in “moments.” Some of those measurements are profound. How many more Christmases will we have all together with our entire extended family? How many Saturday daddy-and-kid brunches do I get with my three little ones while they’re still somewhat little? How many more

How many of us have heard a business claim “our key differentiator is that we’re very focused on the customer?” And how often has that claim lined up with reality? It’s one thing to say you’re customer-centric. It’s another to put it into practice. Savvy business leaders have long understood that a certain level of

Ben Franklin once said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” Build up those knowledge reserves by attending these can’t-miss conferences of 2019. North America SaaStr Annual | February 5-7, San Jose, CA Event Website Photo source: SaaStr Blog SaaStr is an annual conference that brings together the best & brightest minds in SaaS. It’s

This post was co-authored by Mickey Alon. We don’t have a handle on how each customer is using the product. We need to scale our customer onboarding. Our biggest challenge is product adoption. These challenges are nothing new to Customer Success (CS). But as SaaS becomes the global standard for delivering software, it’s urgent that

“Customer Success Management is hitting the mainstream.” That’s what Forrester analyst TJ Keitt said in his September 2018 report, How to Build a Customer Success Program, and I couldn’t agree more. He goes on to validate it by citing the 44,000 Customer Success Manager (CSM) roles posted on LinkedIn (a 560% increase year-over-year in the number of postings!)

I hear these two questions in the Customer Success community all the time: What profile of Customer Success Manager (CSM) should I hire? Does CSM count as Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) or Sales & Marketing?   These two questions are fundamentally related. The key to answering them is figuring out which of three categories

On Dec. 12, 2018, Gainsight invited the local Customer Success community to join us in Sydney for the first ever Pulse APAC. With 10 Pulses under our belt (six in the US and four in Europe), we’ve gotten pretty good at this. But, in a new geography, you just never know—so we ventured forth with