CSMs and business awareness

(mid tempo music) - Customer success managers exist to help customers, and for many companies that CSMs are employed by, their customers are other businesses. Therefore, the CSMs of those companies must be familiar with the fundamental concepts of why businesses exist, what businesses do and why they do those things, and finally, how they do those things. Depending upon what it is that the CSM's company sells, the CSM may have to engage with business owners, business leaders and or senior managers, as well as with the specialist users or lower level managers of whatever it is that the CSM's company sells. For example, the IT department for IT equipment, the manufacturing department for manufacturing equipment, the finance department for accountancy services and so on. Generally speaking, the likelihood of the CSM engaging with business leaders and senior decision makers increases when the customer is purchasing higher priced, wider ranging and more complex products and services with the intention of them providing comprehensive solutions to complicated business challenges, and reduces when the customer is purchasing less complex equipment or services at lower costs, that are intended to provide specific functionality to fulfill a particular technical requirement. So for example, if a customer purchases new coffee machines as a fully managed service to replace older, less efficient models, in the employees kitchen areas, that the company has to employ people to manage and maintain. This may not need as much attention from senior business leaders as if the customer was purchasing a new production facility that for example, was intended to double their manufacturing output and increase their manufacturing quality and efficiency. Obviously, in the case of the manufacturing facility, this will have a profound impact on the company's capabilities and will be a major capital and ongoing investment that will demand senior leadership involvement at every step in the process. However, even in the case of something like the coffee machines, there's still an investment decision being made, and although the CSM may in this instance be less likely to be talking directly to senior decision makers, the CSM still needs to understand how businesses work in order to be able to help the perhaps more junior manager that they do meet to understand how to measure and report on cost efficiency savings, staff time and productivity savings, and increased employee satisfaction levels, so that those decision makers are able to calculate the return on investment from the coffee machine service in order to decide whether or not to renew the contract when it comes to its end, and at what level to renew it. The point I want to make is this, when selling complex solutions, aimed at solving complicated business problems, the customer success manager will need to have a profound understanding of how businesses work, and should expect to be liaising with, reporting to and providing assistance to senior business leaders and decision makers who will expect the CSM to understand their world, and to react to their needs accordingly. But even when the products and services the CSMs company sells are relatively simple and solve less complex challenges, it's still desirable, and indeed oftentimes necessary, for the CSM to be able to help the customer stakeholders to get the product or service onboarded, adopted, and generating value for the company, and then to know how to measure and report on that value to prove a return on investment to those higher up the business chain who may not be involved in the day to day operations, but who still need to know that value is being realized from the initiative in order for them to consider renewing the contract and or purchasing more of the same product or service in the future. All businesses are different in their details, but a basic understanding of the why, how and what of business, such as we will be going through, can be applied to any type of business, from a large multinational manufacturer, through to a smaller local accountancy firm, or from a relatively new high tech startup, to an older, more well-established retail store chain. It also applies to non-commercial organizations. By commercial, incidentally, I'm referring to a company's existence to make financial profits, rather than to the size of the company, which the expression commercial sometimes refers to. Whilst not for profit organizations such as government departments and charities, may not be attempting to provide profits for their owners, they do still share most of the basic features of commercial companies in that they still have customers for whom they need to deliver some kind of service, they need to prove the return on investment into them, in terms of the amount of value they create, and they will have to employ people in various roles to perform the functions and activities that are required to give them the capabilities they need in order to generate that value. When it comes to reporting on outcomes, customer success managers for non-commercial customers may need to think a little harder about how those outcomes need to be expressed and may sometimes need to express them in terms other than or in addition to financial terms, but the basic role and functionality of business remains the same. And the role of the CSM in helping the customer to attain its outcomes also remains the same. (mid tempo music)