by Ian Robson | Jan 9, 2020 | General, Persuasion |
George Bernard Shaw once said: “The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” Or put another way, seeing something from your customer’s point of view is not the same as seeing it from your point of view. At the start of any...
by Ian Robson | Dec 19, 2019 | Customer Success |
Almost every discussion of segmenting customers for customer success includes the ‘position’ of the author. “ARR is absolutely the wrong way to do it.” “To be truly customer centric we must segment by need.” “Industry vertical expertise is a must have.” Every one of...
by Ian Robson | Dec 10, 2019 | Customer Success |
I’ve seen this a bit recently. This idea that there are good and bad customers. That there are customers we should divorce because that would be better for everybody. Let’s unpack this idea a little. We live in the real world so companies are going to sell to...
by Ian Robson | Oct 29, 2019 | General, Miscellaneous |
A little nod to my developer friends who will all recognise themselves in this post and to all the CSMs who wish this could be different. Why Developer ETAs Are So...
by Ian Robson | Oct 22, 2019 | Customer Success |
In customer success everything starts and ends with value. Value is tied to outcomes, outcomes require understanding, understanding requires adoption, adoption requires presence and presence requires awareness. This is your true customer (user) journey. Getting to...
by Ian Robson | Jul 2, 2019 | Outcomes |
Blog Customer success professionals all know that delivering business outcomes for customers is critical. I’d wager at least 90% of the CSMs who read that sentence would agree. If we dig below the surface what does it actually mean to say that outcomes are critical...
by Ian Robson | Apr 29, 2019 | Outcomes |
Things move on. For a while measuring success was all about page views or user counts. Your bragging rights, and more importantly investor interest, was all about getting people onto your platform to do something, anything. In 2012 Marc Andreessen called for an end to...
by Ian Robson | Feb 14, 2019 | Foundations |
Scaling any function is a challenge. As a team grows we need to find and hire great people, decide how to re-organise and re-focus as we grow, adjust to the challenges of managing ever larger numbers of people, and adapt our plans when things don’t turn out as we...
by Ian Robson | Feb 7, 2019 | Foundations |
The fundamental scaling challenge facing a customer success function is relatively simple to state. “How do we provide the most effective guidance and support to all of the appropriate stakeholders across our customer base using the most cost efficient engagement...
by Ian Robson | Dec 5, 2018 | Foundations, Hiring |
As was pointed out when I asked for input to this article on LinkedIn, the environment a CSM operates within is as important to their success as the skills, experience and characteristics they themselves bring to the role. So, before you can answer questions about the...
