
This week I’m on a mission to explore the world of customer success, starting with some insight from two people who are in it every day.
Blaike Baucom has worked in customer serving roles for 3 years, and is pursuing the role of customer success during her placement process through Praxis.
Joey Wickham is currently working as an account manager with Vital Interaction, and it’s no question that he’s in the right spot.
Here’s what they had to say about their roles.
Q1: What does the role entail in terms of day to day activities?
Blaike Baucom: “My job entails answering phones, responding to emails (occasionally), creating customer accounts, making sure all paperwork for the day is ready, and greeting anyone that comes into the facility.”
Joey Wickham: “For me, the day starts with coming in and checking the email and what follow-ups I need to get to that day. It’s going to be a combination of research on what your customer needs are and meeting with those customers finding out from them what problems they may have and presenting solutions.”
Q2: Why is customer success important to the overall health and success of the business?
Blaike: “Customers are the backbone of a company and ultimately can help in the decision-making process. It’s important for companies to take customers’
Joey: “It can seem like it doesn’t have a big purpose because you’re not bringing in revenue like someone in sales is, but it’s incredibly important because you may have a million gallons of water coming into the pool every minute, but if the drain is left open, nothing stays. Your job is to plug that drain. See to the needs of customers. Hear them out. Continue to find out what their pain points are and make it your mission to solve those pain points. If you can do that, you create sticky customers who don’t drain through the bottom of the pool. If you do your job poorly, that pool starts to drain and it becomes an unsustainable company.”
A company’s downfall can easily be traced to dissatisfied customers more often then not. If there isn’t someone there to, as Joey puts it, “plug the drain.” How can you say your company is sustainable?
Q3: What are the hardest parts about customer success?
Blaike: “Remembering you can’t please everyone. I am a big people pleaser which means I want everyone to be happy and I strive to help everyone. I’ve gotten a lot better now that I’ve been in a customer success role for so long, but it took time to realize and remember that I couldn’t please everyone.”
Joey: “There is some monotony that can come from constantly looking for how to help people that may have similar issues. You’ll spend a fair amount of your time solving similar problems for people and having similar conversations. At the same time, if you can really get to know your customers and their needs, it becomes exciting to work with them to make their day. Beware of getting sucked into too many projects at once and becoming overwhelmed.”
Q4: What are the most rewarding parts about customer success?
Blaike: “I have a passion for helping people; I always have. For me being able to see the smile on a customer’s face or hear the relief in their voice because I helped them out is super rewarding. Not only that, but I’m big into building relationships with customers which allows me to get to know them even more which is also just as rewarding.”
Joey: “When you hear one of your customers say ‘You guys are the best and are always so quick to respond and solve our problems. Thank you so much for being awesome!’ Customer success gets the good end of this. If you can make happy customers, you’ll reap the benefits
Q5: Is there anything cool or interesting about this role that most people don’t know?
Joey: “There’s a lot of freedom. People like people. Often you can get caught up in thinking a role like this needs to be professional. While there is a balance of professionalism, you can really let your personality shine through (if you don’t have a terrible personality) and make conversation like normal humans do. You can tell them when you don’t know the answer to their questions but tell them you’ll find out. You can ask how their day was without them feeling like you’re wasting their time because your job is their success – in all areas. You want to see happy people and happy people are people who feel like the company they work with knows them.”
Q6: Are there any negative stereotypes or misconceptions people have about customer success that you think
Blaike: “ ‘Customers are always right’ is the biggest one
Joey: “While I mentioned earlier about some things becoming monotonous, in general, I think people put too much stock into this for a role in customer success. You get to interact with so many kinds of people and if you can get to know them, the routine and monotony
Q7: What does it take to be successful in customer success?
Blaike: “Patience. You have to remember to be patient, take your time to answer all questions, even go out of your way if necessary. Communication skills. It’s important in a customer success role to be able to communicate with people from all over. It’s even better if you can understand accents.”
Joey: “A drive for helping people and great follow-up skills. If you can learn to want to help people no matter how they come at you, you’ll do a million times better. Want to help people so bad that even when they don’t respond for two weeks after you ask a question, you follow-up and ask how you can help them better. Never let anything go until they let it go. Tie their success to your success. Get in the mindset that if they aren’t doing well, you’re not doing well. After that – own it.”
Both Blaike and Joey explain how important it is to be consistent in your follow through, and determined in your communications to reach an acceptable resolution.
Q8: What kind of hard skills are necessary or useful for this role?
Blaike: “Patience. Verbal and Written Communication. Time Management. Empathy.”
Joey: “This is one of the jobs that really require almost no hard skills. It’s so tied with personality and your ability to deal with people. A basic understanding of how to write well and fast and how to talk on the phone and you can learn the rest when you get into a specific job.”
Q9: What drew you to the role of customer success?
Blaike: “I’ve always loved helping people and it’s as simple as that. Being able to communicate with people on a daily basis and help them while doing so is amazing and I love it.”
Joey: “My passion is for people. I want to help people. There’s no better place to do that than in a place when your job is literally to help people be successful.”
And there you have it: a passion for people and a love for effective communication. Those are prominent factors within customer success. If your heart isn’t in it, your results will reflect that.
If you’re interested in what these guys are up to, you can find them at these links: Blaike, and Joey
These are some epic Praxians right here!
Next, we’ll look at why customer success is essential and write up a road map to success, accompanied by another voice in the thick of the role: Hannah Dickey, customer success superstar.
Thanks for reading!