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Ch 23 - Monetization Ch 24 - Metrics Ch 25 - Scaling --------------------- We had over 200 registered attendees again this month! We continued Part III this month with three breakouts for Chapters 23, 24, and 25: “Monetization: Should I Charge for CS to Boost Profitability?,” “Metrics: How Do I Measure Customer Success?” and “Scaling: How Do I Grow CS Without Throwing People at It?” Our spectacular moderator lineup included: Christina Kosmowski, President, LogicMonitor (who doubled Slack’s revenue as former Global Head of CS) Omid Razavi, CCO, SupportLogic (featured in the Monetization chapter of the book!) Mike Maday, Director of Client Outcomes, Gainsight (hosted our 1st--and most popular--Health Score Workshop!) Dana Soza, CEO, DSCS (and author of How to Land and Succeed in the Customer Success Profession Together, we brainstormed strategies and shared some real-life experiences to help tackle common challenges we all face in the CS world. Some of these ideas included: 1. Investing in digitizing CS operations with things like chat bots to cut down on costs and drive up NPS scores, ultimately helping to scale the business. – Shawn LaRocco 2. Creating a library of customer stories advocating their product and services to help drive revenue and monetize CS. – Veronica Iermieri 3. Victoria Munneke‘s company scaled by hiring less costly 3rd parties to handle surveys including both its analysis and follow-up, giving CSMs 40% of their time back.

Ch 20 - Organizational Structure Ch 21 - Roles & Responsibilities Ch 22 - Budget We had over 200 registered attendees this month! We continued Part III this month with three breakouts for Chapters 20, 21, and 21: “Organizational Structure: Should CS Be a Part of Sales or Its Own Org?,” “Roles and Responsibilities: Who Owns Renewals and Revenue?” and “Budget: How Much Should I spend on Customer Success?” Our spectacular moderator lineup included: Easton Taylor, Director of Customer Success, Gainsight Jane Graham, VP of Customer Success and Renewals, UKG Carissa Berube, Regional Director or Customer Success, Gainsight Dana Soza, author of How to Land and Succeed in a Customer Success Career. Together, we brainstormed strategies and shared some real-life experiences to help tackle common challenges we all face in the CS world. Some of these ideas included: 1. Having a separate sales and CS team, but having a strong working relationship with one another is important; Susan Maruup’s previous company had a Director of CS that reported into sales/marketing; this worked very well for them. 2. Ensuring your CSM platform helps automate CS duties, so CSMs can focus their time on customer health. -Will Catron 3. When renewal involves multiple people in a company Ash Tutika mentioned that their VP of CS plans a meeting 1-2 months ahead of a needed renewal/expansion to help bring all stakeholders together.

Ch 17 - Avoiding CS Silos Ch 18 - Launching CS in an Established Business Ch 19 - Leadership With over 200 attendees, February’s BookShop was a raving success! This month, we hosted co-author Allison Pickens for a pre-BookShop Fireside Chat, where we got to learn from one of the CS masterminds behind The Customer Success Economy book we’ve been reading. After the chat, we finished Part II and started Part III with three breakouts for Chapters 17, 18, and 19: “Avoiding CS Silos,” “The 1st Step: Launching CS in an Established Business,” and “Leadership: What Kind of Leader Do I Need for CS?” We had yet another spectacular moderator lineup this month: Harshi Banka, Director of Customer Success at Gainsight PX Kristi Faltorusso, VP of Customer Success at IntelliShift Kristen Hayer, Founder, CEO of The Success League Dana Soza, author of How to Land and Succeed in a Customer Success Career Together, we brainstormed strategies and shared some real-life experiences to help tackle common challenges we all face in the CS world. Some of these ideas included: (1) Using shared OKRs to boost communication and create alignment among different teams, (2) Using metrics, like leading (engagement, adoption, outcomes) and lagging indicators (GRR/NRR), and (3) Having product leaders take more ownership in product adoption metrics in order to move from product-centric to customer-centric.

Special Edition! Fireside Chat with Alison Pickens, co-author of The Customer Success Economy. ---------------- With over 200 attendees, February’s BookShop was a raving success! This month, we hosted co-author Allison Pickens for a pre-BookShop Fireside Chat, where we got to learn from one of the CS masterminds behind The Customer Success Economy book we’ve been reading. After the chat, we finished Part II and started Part III with three breakouts for Chapters 17, 18, and 19: “Avoiding CS Silos,” “The 1st Step: Launching CS in an Established Business,” and “Leadership: What Kind of Leader Do I Need for CS?” We had yet another spectacular moderator lineup this month: Harshi Banka, Director of Customer Success at Gainsight PX Kristi Faltorusso, VP of Customer Success at IntelliShift Kristen Hayer, Founder, CEO of The Success League Dana Soza, author of How to Land and Succeed in a Customer Success Career Together, we brainstormed strategies and shared some real-life experiences to help tackle common challenges we all face in the CS world. Some of these ideas included: (1) Using shared OKRs to boost communication and create alignment among different teams, (2) Using metrics, like leading (engagement, adoption, outcomes) and lagging indicators (GRR/NRR), and (3) Having product leaders take more ownership in product adoption metrics in order to move from product-centric to customer-centric. Read on for other great ideas…

Ch 14 - Finance Ch 15 - IT Ch 16 - HR We consistently top over 100 attendees each month, and January’s BookShop is no different! We continued Part II this month with three breakouts for Chapters 14, 15, and 16: “Finance: The New Scoreboard,” “IT: The New Mission for the CIO,” and “HR: Happy Employees Take Better Care of Customers.” This month, we had yet another impressive moderator lineup: Karl Mosgofian, CIO at Gainsight Ed Powers, VP of Client Success at InteliSecure Emilia D’Anzica, Founder, CEO of Growth Molecules Dana Soza, author of How to Land and Succeed in a Customer Success Career Together, we brainstormed strategies and shared some real-life experiences to help tackle common challenges we all face in the CS world. Some of these ideas included: (1) Using a Time Value of Money approach to demonstrate the value of Customer Success and help justify investments, (2) Susan Maruup uses a psychology trick called “mirroring” to help IC’s feel more connected to their leaders, and (3) Gainsight’s CIO, Karl Mosgofian, hosts monthly meetings to bridge the gaps between each group managing applications, giving time to discuss people’s struggles, or tools others are exploring. He lists his agenda items in this Gainsight blog: https://www.gainsight.com/blog/the-changing-role-of-it-a-better-way-to-model-your-organization/

Ch 12 - Services: Go from Hours to Outcomes Ch 13 - Support: go From Reactive to Proactive We consistently top over 100 attendees each month, and December’s BookShop is no different! We continued Part II this month with two breakouts for Chapters 12 and 13: “Services: Go From Hours to Outcomes” and “Support: Go From Reactive to Proactive.” This month's moderator roster was spectacular! We had 2 Gainster’s, myself, and my mentor, Kathy: Dana Soza, author of How to Land and Succeed in a Customer Success Career Rod Cherkas, VP of Global Services at Gainsight Emily McDaniel, VP of Global Support at Gainsight Kathy Lee, VP of Customer Support at Planet DDS For Services, some ideas included: (1) getting the PM & CSM involved earlier in the sales & implementation process respectively, then share ask each other for notes, deliverables, communications, along with a 30-min handoff call that involves the customer, for a more seamless handoff, Barbara Bliznak. (2) asking your Director to allow you (the CSM) to attend the implementation kickoff meeting with the customer and do a ride along during implementation to see how their current product is used in the field, then take your own notes and capture your own data, Dana Soza. For Support, some ideas included: (3) Think about segmentation by size and outcomes and match personas accordingly. Carrie de Groot. (4) Think about having a dedicated support engineering on the biggest accounts to create a more personal and proactive experience. Eshwar Dandapani Services: Go From Hours to Outcomes Support: Go From Reactive to Proactive

Ch 8 - It Can't Be Delegated Ch 9 - Design From the Start for CS Ch 10 - Marketing Ch 11 - Sales November's BookShop had 100+ registrations from attendees all over the U.S.! We started Part II this month with a breakout for each of the four chapters (8-11) including "It Can't Be Delegated", "Product: Design from the Start for Customer Success", "Marketing: our Job Doesn't End with the Lead", and "Sales: Customer Success is your differentiator. This month's moderators included Dana Soza, author of How to Land and Succeed in a Customer Success Career, Laura Beavin-Yates, SVP of Customer Success at Immersion Neuroscience, Adam Luff, VP of Business Outcomes at Sight Machine, and Josh Zamora, Director of Customer Advocacy at ServiceNow Some creative ideas included (1) speak Sales language to win them over, i.e., showing how CS increases renewal dollars by 2-3%, (2) prioritize feature requests with a matrixed graph that includes Health Score and MRR, then manually plot customer requests based on these, (3) avoid giving customers "The Hug of Death" with everyone reaching out to help by creating a Playbook around handling customer issues, and (4) ask where the customer is on the lifecycle, and change plays/interaction based on whether they're nurturing, growing, etc., and include Playbooks that account for customer potential/white space. Read on for other great ideas…

Ch 3 - Job Market Ch 4 - Churn Ch 5 - Growth Engine Ch 6 - What Customers Want October’s BookShop covered a whopping six chapters! This allowed us to close out Part 1 of The Customer Success Economy, which “focuses on the evolution of the customer success economy: What does it look like now and how did it get to where it is today?” Of the six chapters, we created four breakouts based on demand for the topic, which included (1) making yourself more marketable in this new job market, (2) early warning success techniques around churn, (3) tactics to drive expansion, new logos, and renewals, and (4) giving customers what they want through outcome-driven tactics. This month’s moderators were Dana Soza, Laura Beavin-Yates, Rick Suber, Tiffany Morin, Debbi Stanley, Ed Powers, and Cindy Greeratiyuth who led discussions that uncovered lots of applicable how-to’s. Some juicy tidbits include how to use your Activity Feed to gain recruiters attention, or how to use the Rule of Reciprocity to gain a customer’s attention; or what behaviors can predict logo churn for SMB’s, as well as what’s needed to get Product to develop a new feature customer’s want, and my personal favorite for this month is from Mark Bangerter who advised asking the question “what is success to you?” because a company’s desired outcome is different than a company’s contact’s personal goal/outcome. It’s the difference between swimming with the current or against it. More specifically, if you can understand what their personal driver is and deliver on it, then you’ve provided yourself the easiest path to achieving the company’s desired outcome. They will help you win.