By Mike Su
As Customer Success Managers we frequently communicate with our customers to provide value and nurture the relationship. Reaching out to a customer can be simple when you have already established a relationship. Like any relationship, you’ll have to put in the work. This can be especially challenging when the customer doesn’t try as hard as you or even worse; does not respond at all. What about when there is recent turnover at your customer and you no longer have your champion on speed dial? Here are some tips and tricks I have accumulated throughout my career that might help you connect with your customers.
Schedule your emails. Like most people, your silent recipient probably gets tons of emails every day. It is easy for your email to get lost or blend in with the rest of their spam. The first task of the day for many people is to clear their inbox. This involves some bulk deleting, and you do not want your email to fall into this category. Try to send or schedule emails to hit their inbox after the morning rush. My favorite time is 10:00am. Remember to be mindful of what timezone they may be in. Other times to avoid are lunchtime, Monday mornings, and Fridays.
Still no response? On to phase 2. Sending a meeting invitation can get someone’s attention especially since you not only show up in their inbox, but you’ll also be directly on their calendar. Be sure to use a good and descriptive meeting name. With some snooping, you might get lucky and find their Calendly link in their email signature to get on their books.
This third one might not apply to everyone, but it can be very effective when it works. It will also take some finesse as it can be perceived as sneaky. If your product or solution is integrated with another tool, there is a good chance you share the same contacts and relationships.
I was once a CSM for a cyber security software company. A common use case of many of my customers was to integrate with a real time communication platform such as Slack. After many failed attempts to get a response from my contact from direct outreach, I reached out to my Slack rep who shared a common customer with me. Lo and behold, we had a symbiotic relationship where the more the customer used my product, the more they used Slack. My Slack rep was happy to re-introduce and connect me with the champion.
Building relationships and cold calling customers is an everlasting and evolving challenge. Give these tricks a try and let me know how it goes. I would also love to learn from others and add to this list.
The Success League is a customer success consulting firm that offers a certification program for CSMs. Visit TheSuccessLeague.io for our full offerings.
Mike Su - Michael Su is a Customer Success innovator with over 15 years of working experience. While leading the team, he has designed, built, and successfully implemented Customer Success departments at various companies spanning from early stage tech start ups to publicly traded enterprises. He is passionate about improving processes and streamlining workflows. As a leader he loves working with people to help nurture and grow their professional careers. When Michael is not helping companies fight churn, he enjoys spending time with his wife, 3 kids, 2 turtles, and 1 dog.