By Mike Lee
Your favorite ICP User should be your next CSM!
The success of a new Customer Success Manager transitioning into a new job depends on a number of things. Candidates that can swiftly comprehend a wide range of knowledge regarding the product, the client, and the sector they service must be sought after by CS Leaders. Most of this is difficult to learn using conventional interviewing techniques.
What happens if we can quickly do away with two of those factors? Success might come more quickly. How can we go about this? I'm happy you asked...
Today, I'm introducing the Specialized Customer Success Manager, a position I've been working on for more than a year.
A higher-level CSM position known as a "Specialized Customer Success Manager" (SpCSM) essentially takes into consideration the individual's background in the market your product targets. This means that your next CS recruit should be a user who fits your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), which may be debatable. Let me explain.
SaaS businesses typically spend a lot of time identifying their ICPs. This is due to the fact that not all consumers can utilize your product. There are generally issues with a newly acquired customer who is not an ICP, which frequently results in churn. In other words, the customer was attempting to utilize your product in a manner contradictory to the intended purpose. On the other hand, ICP customers often face the exact problems your product seeks to address, and want the outcomes you are trying to assist them in achieving.
As a result of how your product improves their lives or resolves an issue they regularly encounter, ICP customer users will highly value using it. The high-end users have usually been in their industry for some time and have observed several issues that your solution hasn't even attempted to solve. This indicates that your high-end customer is knowledgeable about the industry and its problems, how your solution improves their life, and what further has to be done to make it better.
A new CSM who has never had experience in the industry your product serves cannot be taught this level of knowledge. Training can accomplish a lot, but the hardest thing to learn is industry expertise. Along with helping to create common CS assets like success plans, risk analyses, business reviews, etc., industry knowledge and expertise will allow a SpCSM to understand how the product's roadmap will affect users and perhaps even aid with initiative prioritization.
There are various advantages to hiring a CSM who has used your product in the industry it is utilized; some businesses, like Aha! understand this very well and are already focusing their recruitment on those who would have benefited from their software. In their case, product managers are the primary target audience for their product management tool. With a product like this, it's crucial to understand the difficulties a product manager has and how this software may help. Having first-hand experience in product management is the only way to comprehend these difficulties completely.
All customer success roles listed on Aha! specifically indicate "Product management experience necessary." They take this requirement VERY seriously. This seriousness stems from the knowledge that the customer success manager MUST have spent enough time in that capacity to be able to guide the customer to the desired outcome to connect with a user of their software. I believe Aha! agrees industry knowledge cannot be "taught" in an onboarding or training video.
The use of SpCSMs is a technique that may be applied by ANY firm that uses CSMs. Former teachers and educators would be helpful as CSMs in Kâ12 EdTech since only individuals who have worked in a classroom or educational facility can understand the demand for various products. It is difficult to relate to the same sentiment unless you have spent years trying to figure out how to educate 30 kids at various levels in a classroom. This does not imply that one cannot grasp the issues with empathy.
Although the concept of SpCSMs is not new, I don't believe it has ever been published. In the coming months, the description and concepts surrounding SpCSMs will be published in a way that will assist CS leaders in identifying potential ICP Users who may aid the organization's growth by contributing direct feedback to the product team based on their own experiences as well as industry knowledge.
Stay tuned for further details on developing SpCSMs in your organization. I consider it to be The Rise of the Specialized Customer Success manager.
The Success League is a customer success consulting firm that offers a CS Leadership Certification program which includes classes such as Hiring Top Performers and Planning a Steam Structure. Please visit TheSuccessLeague.io for more info on this and our other offerings.
Mike Lee - With 28 years as a technical professional, Mike is currently the Head of Customer Success at PublicInput, the leading Software as a Service public engagement platform. He leads the entire post-sale organization including Customer Success, Customer Support, Onboarding, Renewals Management, Professional Services, and Training. Mike also is an Adjunct Professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC). Mike received his MBA in 2011 from UMASS and is currently perusing his Doctor of Business Administration at UNCC.