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Josh
Welcome to this special edition of the [Un]churned CS Insider report. Hello, everybody. Welcome to this episode of [Un]churned Josh Schachter, CEO of UpdateAI host of [Un]churned. These guys are making me laugh here. This is our first incredibly excited this our first episode collaborating with CS Insider. So we’re going behind the scenes of this week’s CS insider report. It’s a bi-monthly report that comes out that gives you all the best in the world of customer success. And I’m here with some very, very, very special important guests to help us have a roundtable about everything in this week’s report. First off, we have Mr. Jon Johnson.

Jon
What’s up guys, John Johnson here. And do we know it’s bi monthly or bi weekly? Like have we had that discussion yet? Because it’s the same. Yeah.

Josh
Next up, Christie falter. Russo, Christie, say hi. Hi, Christy. Nailed it. Nailed it. Nicky Powell,

Jon
hello, I’m here. You’re here.

Josh
Cool. So we assembled this group, these folks are leaders in this space, have lots to say about customer success. I’ll be moderating for the most part, because I have less to say, but I think I can help drive the conversation a little bit. And we’re going to, we’re gonna have a lot of fun. The only rule of this program moving forward is for each of our guests, each of our CO hosts here to be them their authentic selves. So anything goes given that this is the first episode, we’re all together here. We’re all in some sense meeting each other. And maybe some listeners are meeting us as well. Here, they don’t know much of our background. I wanted to play around a little bit with a format for an icebreaker. I’m reading this book, I just finished this book. It’s called the micro script rules. It’s basically about how to create a tagline. But you can also apply that to yourself and describing your own life. And they have this thing I think there’s even a website and a book that was published, where you have to describe your life in six words or less. And when you look at it in the book, like the examples, this guy gives Bill Schley it’s actually quite poetic. It’s almost like Haiku the way people have it. I don’t expect haiku today. But I don’t want to go around. And I would like for us to learn about each other and our listeners to learn about us through six words or less well, six words about your life. John Europe.

Jon
Oh, God, I’m first. But this here’s my six words. Elder millennial, theoretical firefighter coffee. First. We have to do it.

Josh
We’re gonna we’re gonna each other for these. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So

Jon
82. I was born in 82. We are arguably Yep, we are the first millennial generation, it’s kind of between 82 and 83. Feel like that says a lot about us. Like we saw the world before the internet and then the screeching of the internet. And then whatever the is going on right now. Like we’ve just seen it. All right, theoretical firefighter. I like solving problems. This has been kind of a tagline for me for a long time. I don’t actually put out I have put out fires, camping, started fires, not camping. But also just like getting in a room together and figuring out a problem that we’re trying to solve or something of that nature. So this idea of like a theoretical firefighter, I think that’s very poetic. And then coffee first, I just, I have a deep love for coffee. Like it is my favorite thing. It’s it’s the thing that connects most of my relationships and friendships. I make fancy scientific coffee at home. And I will I will blow your mind with I like have awards for pouring cappuccinos and like all kinds of stuff. So I was raised in the coffee scene in Seattle, when you’re a musician, you figured out that the best way to make money is at a coffee shop, not as a musician. So that’s, that’s my six minutes.

Josh
Do you need coffee to get up in the morning? Are you just like a zombie before coffee?

Jon
So I would say yes, but um, after going to a therapist for so many years, I have learned I’ve actually like been working on doing other things before coffee. So like exercising or meditation or something like that, that kind of gets me to the coffee, not because it’s like a problem or an addict or anything of that nature. But I think that there is there’s like an immediacy I love coffee and I feel like I get up in the morning and I just like Chuck a cup. If I’ve had two cups, I can’t have a third otherwise like everything shakes and I want to enjoy my coffee and I spent a lot of money a lot of time on my coffee. So like I I make sure that I have food in my stomach and I make sure that I like have something before I have my coffee so that when I do it’s it’s it’s almost like a methodical nature, if you will.

Josh
So talking about like just early mornings and I don’t know Christy, you get up really early. Why don’t you introduce yourself?

Kristi
Should I introduce myself as I get up really early?

Josh
I was looking for a segue. I know you’re like one of these like I get up at 3am type people.

Kristi
I don’t get up at three I sometimes I get up at three. i My alarm goes off If at 405 every day so I can get up and go to the gym at my house by 420 at the gym by 430 Class starts at five, so like, very, very heavily regimented from like 4am till 830 When I was like, but in seat at

Josh
work, so you’re at the gym at 420 Just as John and Mickey are engaging in other activities. What does that mean?

Kristi
We all want to know, we don’t want to know. Whenever we’re fine instead of my business what you’re doing at 4am I just, Oh, it’s 420 Come on. It’s legal. Yeah. Am isn’t the same as pm right?

Jon
It is. Waking

Josh
56 words.

Kristi
Okay. I did not edit this 100 times like John, but I think I nailed it and I only did it one. So we’re gonna say stopped caring what others think success.

Jon
I love that. That’s actually great.

Kristi
I think that summarizes my life because I spent like, I don’t know I want to say like my first 30 years of my life, probably over caring what people thought about everything right? How I looked what I said what I did, who I dated, religious, every aspect of my life, I feel like was like something I consumed myself as other people’s opinions about things. And over the past 10 years I’ve been maniacally focused on not giving a not caring what other people think, and I will say that my ability to shift my focus to just doing what I’m doing and focusing on me and the output of what I’m doing and who I am and existing for me, has driven so much success personally and professionally for me over the past 10 years, I met my husband, I had personal success, career success, right? All the things good that I think of that I have today in my life all came when I stopped caring about people. I love it.

Josh
I see that about you. And I mean that in a very complimentary way. You’re very focused and you’re able to be very productive and get so much done for that reason, I’m sure. So that’s why we’re also wrapping up this first inaugural episode of our of our we got Ashley on topic, we get to tune out but do people really want to listen to us for three hours? I mean, I don’t know I don’t know Christy how your husband does it for Joe Rogan. Like these these like two three hour podcasts.

Jon
We’re gonna keep it picky. I love it. If he if he

Kristi
Success, career success, right? All the things good that I think of that I have today in my life all came when I stopped caring when other people,

Josh
I see that about you. And I mean that in a very complimentary way. You’re very focused and you’re able to be very productive and get so much done for that reason, I’m sure.

Mickey
Also the most like a haiku so far.

Kristi
Right? Because I have a sentence and then my final word, and that had an exclamation point when I wrote it.

Mickey
Yeah. Mickey Powell, Mikey. Yeah, I can’t encapsulate really what I want to say, which is probably what I should be putting in my six words. And again, we’re like you, John, I definitely spent way too much time thinking about this. So I played existential dad tech, technically correct sleaziest technically correct. Oh, I like that. There’s a little bit of ego there. But I think that’s a good thing. Like, I think it’s like, you know, that’s really I like that. Yeah. It’s like, how much do we want to unpack it or not at all, and we just move I

Josh
actually think it’s also your you’re the you’re the chat GPT guy, Mickey, that’s, I’m forever, like labeling you and classifying you like that. And I feel like that’s like, that’s like your Ode to Chet GPT. technically correct. Yeah.

Kristi
I would love to play by your enthusiasm for sleep. Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah. I’m a big Napper. Right. But like, for me, like, Yes, I do get up early. But there’s nothing I love more than like a two hour nap. At some point. I don’t know how to nap for less than two hours. Like, I’m like, I’m going down. It’s like I’m down.

Jon
I took a nap Sunday afternoon. And my favorite thing about naps is not knowing where you are when you wait, like when you wake up? Is it? Do I need to go to work? Do I have children? Like what is going on? Has anybody ever

Josh
fallen asleep on a call with a customer? Be honest?

Mickey
Yes. No, like, definitely. Wrong. Blink,

Kristi
I will say like long. blinks are definitely a thing. And that happens in the afternoon for me, like after 3pm. It’s tough. Like, again, I’ve been up for almost a full day at that point, right? So it’s like a blink that you forget to open your eyes back up. And then you’re like, oh, okay, someone can see me because I’m on a zoom.

Mickey
Christy, what do you define a blink? And when you transition into nap, is there like, is there an over under on I’m so tired

Kristi
that I feel like every time I blink, it might be a micro sleep. I don’t know.

Mickey
Maybe you shouldn’t get up at 430 in the morning. I need

Kristi
to grow five unified. Christi i

Mickey
so i actually like got in the habit of power napping to the point where like, I would set my alarm for 20 minutes. And I I basically trained my body that as soon as you start to kind of feel that drifting off. I’ll snap back out of it. And then I feel refreshed. And there’s science to back that up. No, I

Kristi
know. I feel like there’s been a lot of tick tock videos lately or Instagram rules that like you’re bringing, like your brain recognizes sleep after a certain amount of time and like you kind of fall into this thing. It’s why you shouldn’t hit the snooze button. There’s a lot of logic behind that. Like don’t snooze, just get up.

Mickey
I don’t talk. I don’t take or talk.

Kristi
I don’t eat. I watch Instagram rules, which I was told that my daughter is we’re old people go to watch tick tock.

Mickey
Yeah, it’s what happened on tick tock a month ago,

Kristi
right. So she’s always like, criticizing me for being very, very behind.

Mickey
Oh, so I go on Reddit. So then my two months behind? Not even

Kristi
relevant. I don’t even know what’s happening on Reddit. I think Ronald Reagan is still president on on Reddit. All right.

Josh
I’m going now ready? Yeah. Larry David meets Shaq in progress. Those are my sick words. Six words. Six words to

Mickey
Yeah. So Larry. Okay. So I want to know what attributes of Larry David and what attributes

Kristi
have you just met him? Like, listen, I haven’t known Josh his whole life, but he definitely throws Larry vibes.

Mickey
He does. Yeah, but where does Shaq I want to know the crossover between Oh Jack,

Josh
because of his big shoes. Interesting. No, Shaq my last name is Schachter. I grew up idolizing Shaquille O’Neal. Also, I feel like Shaq is he’s a very jovial person, you know, like he which is not me, but it’s something to aspire towards. I suppose. And

Mickey
have you ever seen Jack eat a bagel? No. It’s not

Kristi
like a bagel by like it’s like a bigger size bagel does it? Yeah, they go by

Mickey
Yeah, it’s like a bagel by like a beer can and it’s like a like an eight hour it’s it’s amazing.

Josh
storable I didn’t progress because I think this was what you were saying. Christie it’s all we’re all in progress. Right? The growth mindset was a book that really inspired me.

Mickey
So there you know the way she’s

Josh
great. I bought copies of that for people. I mean, it was it was incredible.

Kristi
How do you give it to them without seeming rude. This benefit from this growth mindset.

Josh
I messed up a lot of ways. I bought it from my boss at my last job even Well, that’s it but that’s the Larry David part. It all comes full circle. Okay, should we talk about customer success or should we just banter why? We’re 10 minutes in so if you want to skip all the banter, just just start out right now. The

Kristi
banter and stop for the customer success gonna

Mickey
say customer success has played out and we need to talk about it.

Kristi
Oh, Joe Rogan vibes and I’m here for that.

Mickey
So four hours from now we’ll finally get to the topic

Kristi
of it. Are you kidding me? Who doesn’t listen for all four hours to get to the one sentence punchline at

Mickey
the end? Can I make a statement that might exclude me from future podcasts?

Kristi
Interesting. Yeah, I

Mickey
never listened to an episode of Joe Rogan meaning that either Okay, you guys want to hear an

Kristi
interesting fact, heard almost every Joe Rogan podcast but I’ve never played it on my own device or have opted into listening to it. It’s a forced experience that has been playing on his on his phone. And so it’s like just on all the time, all the time. You get a second hand Rogan that’s out there. Okay, Nick, Nick, Nick, Mara,

Josh
everybody, how can we start? How will we start talking about CSR? First episode we’re not I’ve heard of this guy. Neck, right. But he did write a post and it is included in your on LinkedIn. And it is included in the upcoming episode or excuse me, report for CS insider this week. By the way we’re filming this today is the first day of spring. So Happy Spring, everybody. It’s also my dad’s birthday and my parents anniversary. But I digress. Yes. So Nick talks about making internet everybody’s you know, everybody. I mean, unfortunately, it’s true is looking for jobs right now. It’s just the world we live in. I think I got a notification this morning that Amazon is laying off 9000 more, right? So it’s like 27,000 Yeah, crazy. So So Nick, give some advice. And we’re, by the way, everybody, we’re gonna put the links to all these articles that we discussed from the report in the show notes. So you can check it out there. And of course, if you’re subscribed to CS insider, you’ll get the report there, you’ll get all these links. And Nick talks about his tips for candidates of ways for their ways for them to really kind of network and get the insider look into these roles. And so I want to talk about that with you guys. What what, Christy, I want to I want to start with you. What are some ways you must receive you’ve been a manager now for years, what are some of the ways that you’ve that have been most successful in getting a candidacy in front of you?

Kristi
Honestly, it’s a network, I was hit. That’s, that’s the fastest way for me if I was looking, and then also for the candidates that actually I ended up hiring, almost always our referrals, I would say, of everybody I’ve hired in my professional career, I would say more than 50% of them had been referrals through my network and somebody saying like, this is somebody you have to hire.

Josh
And it’s just like that, is it? Is there any like tactic that has stood out to you that somebody has, you know, because of a thank you letter or a cover letter or this or that was just really it’s the strength of the referral? And, and you know, the factors of like, who’s given the referral, how strong it is, etc?

Kristi
Well, all those things, obviously play a big part of it, right? Like any, I won’t just take a referral from anybody really has to be a trusted, reliable source. One that I feel comfortable, that would be referring somebody appropriate for the role. But listen, I think today, there’s so many ways for any candidate to stand out. And I feel like it’s a missed opportunity for folks that aren’t taking advantage of it. I don’t know about you guys, but like, I very rarely get a thank you or follow up from interviewing anymore. And I feel like just like, wow, when did we stop doing that? I don’t know if it’s a generational thing. But like, when I first started interviewing, like, early in my career, I would write an thank you notes on a card and mail it to somebody now I get that nobody does that anymore. So that’s fine. But email works, right? Guess what? I bet you if you even just took that one little step to send a follow up and a thank you. Here’s what I learned. Here’s what I heard. Here’s why I think I’d be a perfect fit, you would be doing something that most other candidates are doing today. Yeah, like that is that’s how easy it is to stand out. And I won’t even go into all the fancy tech things you could do like with chat, GBT?

Mickey
Well, that’s good. I was thinking about this, too. i There’s a couple of guys that I’m mentoring right now that are on the job market? And do I send the follow up? It’s like, Yes, always send a follow up. I think that there is if you follow tick tock and if you follow any of the trends in the space right now, like there is this kind of like, back and forth of like, people are kind of tired of employers taking advantage of the employees. So they’re like, if there had been on the market for a long time, and they’ve sent 100 resumes in and you’ve got no responses. And maybe to get that one interview, it’s it’s really hard to say like, why should I go above and beyond? When these companies treat me like a number and they treat they don’t even tell me that I’m not even excluded. Right? Like it’s that back and forth. And I do think it’s a double a double edged sword. I think that there’s a lot of people that desperately need jobs, and maybe they’re doing the spray and pray they’re applying 200 jobs, and they’re maybe not being as tactical or strategic as you and I maybe because they don’t have this the ability to or the space but I do think that there is something about how do you make like a human emotional connection when everything is digital, and you kind of hit the nail on the head that Christy This is one of the things I wanted to ask is yeah, the email is great. I actually had a one of one of the guys just got that. I was mentoring. He just got an offer. He’s like, Hey, do I I sent a follow up. And I was like, Well, yeah, absolutely. And he goes in what? In what avenue? Right. And I was like, What do you mean? He’s like, Well, I added him on LinkedIn, you know, and like I all this kind of stuff, right? It’s like where he’s like, got four channels that he could reach out. He’s in a Slack group with him, this guy that interviewed with and it’s like, that’s actually a really good question. And I didn’t have like a direct answer. I was like, whatever you feel is the strongest way to kind of make that connection? How do you feel about this? We live in a world that is like, multifaceted with communication. You know, I mean, how do you do you rely on email? Do you accept those thank yous on LinkedIn, or, you know, if somebody comments on your LinkedIn, are you like, Oh, this is really thoughtful, or, you know, the advice that I gave is like, if you just connected with this person, and you post something that is in reference to what you talked about, it’s more likely to get in front of that person because of the algorithm, right? It’s a new connection and stuff. Like, what level? Do we carry this? Because, look, I can send an email and say, thanks so much, this is great. And then move on to the next one. Like that’s, that’s like bare bones, right? Yeah.

Kristi
I would say like, Listen, you got to know your audience. I call me like, hn. Archaic, but like, I love email. Still, I may be the last person out there making that claim. I am bold. I love email, like me and Dave, like my CEO of our clients success, he likes slack, I like email, I’ll email him something, he copies it into Slack and replies, they’re like, I mean, it’s horrible for us to communicate, know your audience. Not everyone is active on LinkedIn. So even though you just connected with somebody there, and they accepted your request, if they’re not active on it, they might miss your message, right. But if you have found that in your correspondence to get to where you are now, they’ve been responsive over email, and that’s been your avenue of dialogue stick there, right. So I think just give it some thought, I don’t think there’s one way to do anything. I also like little creativity. As much as I do love email. I have gotten some interesting videos and follow ups that I like, I love a personalized video or even the audio. Like even like on LinkedIn, you can do an auto recording if you’re doing it for your mobile device. That’s super cool and personalized. So I just think technology gives us so many different ways to communicate what we want to do to various people. Just give thought into who you’re doing it with.

Mickey
I like to send bundt cakes. I would love to be a recipient of a bunch cake. Bundt cake as a service. Here’s $10 million. Go for it. Hey, I’m telling you nothing. bundt cakes is legitimately my favorite. Like if I can get that in front of people like it works. 70% of the time. You’re saying people really love butter and sugar. Yeah, I

Kristi
didn’t hear it wasn’t there just like a Utah company that just opened up or somewhere that is doing pancakes like fancy pancakes? I think we should Google it. I’m pretty sure like after carnival.

Mickey
That’s nothing. Bundt cake. Yes,

Josh
it’s a West Coast thing.

Mickey
I’ve been using them for like a decade.

Kristi
I’m over here in New York. I don’t know about these Bundt cake things. But I would like I’d like to participate.

Mickey
I’ll send you one. Christy.

Kristi
I’d be excited to receive it.

Mickey
Can I say one thing that stood Mikey? Do you have an opinion? I want to point something out in management a few. But that’s cool, John. Oh, it’s Nikki miking off. Like the mouse or the mantle. Hey, Mickey,

Josh
you know, and it’s been good as on this podcast, except for mispronouncing your co host names

Mickey
that don’t assume LinkedIn connections are real. He says point people will often ping me and say I see you’re connected. Next, in reality, you know, a huge percentage of these I actually, this is the thing that I think is incredibly valuable. We do this a lot. When it’s like I meet a customer. It’s like, oh, we’re connected at least 15 people, and you really only know one of them. Right? And it’s like, kind of like digging through the bullshit of like, how do you know these people? And, and what that, like that org structure really is I think, you know, some friends like this is just a weird marker. And everybody’s looking for it. So like, oh, you know, this person at that job. I’m like, I randomly follow them for years ago, and I’ve never interacted with them. I can’t make an introduction. I would love to, you know, but I think there’s a lot of intelligence in leading with, Hey, how do you know these people? Do you have a deep relationship and like kind of getting to the heart of that? And then even like, there’s something that’s actually like, symbiotic there too, right? Where like, there’s value for me, if I nurture a relationship with this person, and maybe find value that I have, it’s been in my network for years, and I haven’t really interacted with right is like, how do you have that kind of two sided release?

Josh
Oh, totally. I mean, so there’s a there’s a guy at zoom, who was recently part of the layoffs, and I think really highly of him. And I introduced him to about 10 of my, my, my friends and whatnot in the product management world, because that’s where I came from. And this was a way for me to, like, I got responses. And like, I was able to reconnect with people that I hadn’t spoken to in years. So like, there was a huge guy, I think even one of them was like, ended up in something for update AI that we’re like, we move forward with, right. So like, there’s huge value to that. The other thing I’ll say is like, sometimes if I actually really want to help somebody, for the people that you don’t want to help, it’s like, I don’t really know that person fine. But if you really want to help the person, I think you can still send the email. Even if you don’t know that person. You’re like, Hey, we’re connected on LinkedIn and don’t actually know you. But I think really highly of this person. And I would like to make an intro. And I think there there is that social proofing in play, even if they don’t read even if you don’t really know that contact. Yeah,

Mickey
I love that. And I’ll say this, the last four or five jobs that I’ve gotten have all come from networking. And a lot of them have come from networking I did when I wasn’t looking. So I know this doesn’t help the people that are looking right now. But after you find that next job, and I assume don’t stop, like, keep networking, and I kind of always just kept it in the back of my head of like, I’m going to be active in the various communities, I’m going to connect with people, I’m going to try to help them I actually do a lot of like, I try to help people because I know at some point in the future, it’s going to come back to me either via karma or directly or they’ll be more willing to help me apply. So and people have helped me in the past, so I do kind of see this. So you should never stop now,

Josh
before we move on. I actually I kind of messed up the beginning of our insurance here. We didn’t actually introduce like where we work. So can we just leave very, like in half a sentence. So that’s the whole spiel, right like, so I’m Josh, Founder CEO of update AI John, who are you?

Mickey
I am John, Principal, customer success manager at user testing

Josh
Christie Christie Valtteri,

Kristi
cio Chief Customer Officer at client success. Nikki

Mickey
Nikki am a co founder of update AI Josh was right in the

Josh
head of go to market. Yes. Sounds more official. All right, let’s move on.

Mickey
You told me to say COFINS

Josh
I know but you know, but it’s co founder and head of market anyways. So Sastre let’s, let’s let’s talk about that now more like like, you know, for clumped.

Mickey
Jason Lemkin, he’s frazzled, everybody. I’m from Rhode Island. I

Kristi
don’t need a translator. I know exactly what he’s meant.

Josh
Coffee Talk.

Mickey
That’s right. I’ll give you a topic. Rhode Island neither Rhodes nor an island discuss. I hope I hope everybody gets the reference. And if you don’t you need to look up coffee talk. SNL. Oh, from the 90s.

Josh
Now just just Google the word for Clint. Good luck.

Kristi
do an image search.

Mickey
Oh, yeah. Christine.

Josh
I feel like I like what do you guys think we come up with an image search? I think it’d be like some like, like phlegm from the back of like an old person’s throat or something. You’re gonna get something way worse.

Kristi
Yeah, whatever. Anyway.

Mickey
Use your work computer folks. Okay, so Jason Lemkin, this guy,

Josh
don’t bring it up. Go John, roll with it. Okay.

Mickey
His headline, the question that he is trying to answer it his post, again, links in all of the places. So what can you really do to get turned down and retention up? Here’s my basic list. Some of them may be obvious. But here’s the thing most startups he works with, don’t even do half of the items on this list. So before we jump into the list, because everybody has a list, I would love your opinions on because we’re in customer success. We have to talk about churn and the name of the podcast is uninsured. What do you do with backfit customers? And how do you handle on the churn that you you basically know is coming but you still need the money?

Kristi
30 business?

Mickey
Yeah. So I’m gonna take a little bit of like a contrarian view here. And Chris, he actually this is like part of learnings that I got from mica at Brighton, or have you worked with him at the right edge. So like, guys, like at the basics of it, like you acquire a customer, you pay all that money to acquire that customer, and you need them to pay that back, hopefully, in a reasonable amount of time. To put that on the list is completely disregarding the fact that your peers in sales and marketing have an entirely different set of incentives. And to just be like, Oh, it’s just bad for customers and they suck at selling I’m like you guys are, you are obviously not working with your counterparts to redefine what good and bad if it is redefining your operating model against those people. And so I and by the way, I come to terms with this because I struggled with this when I was the only customer success manager at fivestars dealing with retention and we were selling small businesses in the US so like, you know, they’re paying us 200 bucks a month. It wasn’t like huge contracts, but the volume was massive. Once I kind of got rid of that whole stigma of like, this is bad the customer is to sales, you’re selling a bad customer and I started participating in the process of helping them identify and sell and operate around those customers. It made not only the relationship better, just like with my peers, but it also led to better outcomes versus a company Yes, you will where I want you to go and and this is I’ve been kind of nurturing this opinion here where a lot like Marcus talks about this all the time. It’s like you have a path Customer burn it like it’s got to be over. Like there’s a lot of opinions about like that fit customers. And I think that just means that, you know, if CES is kind of like the center of this customer facing or customer led organization, we’re not telling our counterparts, whether it’s product or sales or marketing, what’s falling through the cracks, right? If it’s kicking it over to our line, or our side of the fence, and we’re just like, why can’t they don’t they don’t fit the persona, right? Like, we’re not doing a deep dive into data of understanding how people are using our platform. We’re just leaving them as bad fit and moving on. I think we gave up a lot of growth, not maybe just revenue, but also like the humanity of a person solving a person’s problem with the software. Like if if they’re doing something unique and creative, that solving their problems, and it fit doesn’t fit your ICP, why is that a bad fit customer? Right? How, how do we get to the point where we are feedback loops, where everything that we do when we lose a customer is because a product product knows and it’s they do a justification on is this? Do we want to keep losing X amount of revenue over the time? Or are we going to build something right? I mean, it comes back to that cyclical conversation that we need to have not just with sales, but like you said, marketing, how are you attracting? What are your demos look like? Well, your visuals like what do you saw? What problems are you saying you’re solving in your headlines and whatnot, because he has no opinions on this? That is

Kristi
false, I was just waiting for a good opportunity to jump in with my with my two cents. So I obviously I wholeheartedly agree with both of you. So we’ve taken a few different steps here our clients success and I want to share x I think that they’ve been helpful. So one, we do a churn reason analysis, every end of month, we have the ability in our platform to track reason code. So when a customer churns, we’ve got prescriptive reason codes that have already been predefined. So we’re tagging them. This helps to reduce like, people custom writing long paragraphs, and us trying to decode what they’ve actually meant, right? Like, we’re tagging them, then you have like your narrative, that’s helpful. But so that somatically is helping us understand where are those holes and what’s happening with those customers. But upstream, what I’ve taken some time to do now is I’ve defined what I’ve called a success probability score. Now, your customer, your your sales team, right, they’re working with marketing, and hopefully your customer success team and all go to market and have defined an ICP, right, and hopefully, your ICP is pretty dialed in at a point where you aren’t bringing in loads of bad fit customers. But just because they do match your ICP doesn’t mean that there aren’t underlying issues that will prohibit them from being successful within a within a particular amount of time. Right. So what I will tell you is like our ICP, usually can always be successful, but over what amount of time and with what amount of resources. So we designed the success probability score, that helps me stack rank now based on 12 different points of criteria, how successful this customer can be based on these things that are unique and specific to them, and have nothing to do with their business. But really understanding who they are right, like resources, their their tech stack where their data lives. First time leadership were to see us rolling to do they have a strategy? Have they deployed CS technology before, right, so we’ve got all of these factors, and come up with a score that allows us to rank these customers, which helps us understand resourcing and time to value which will look different depending on the different cohorts that has helped us navigate some of that bad fit. And really reduce that helping transform customers who would be on the fence, right getting them to value visit client success. For more. Know what I love, I do love the formula that I created. And I do it in Excel, and I have a sample and fill it out. But it was cool that it was a forcing function for sales to understand why even a good ICP customer can still go bad. And I think those underlying factors are really important.

Mickey
We spend a lot of time on case management. And that added a layer that I think I’m going to take to heart here too is like they may not be a quote unquote bad customer. But if they don’t like Amazon is going to like massive amounts of layoffs. Right? I mean, this is like when 1000 employees and one of our biggest customers, right? So like looking at like these people, what roles are being reduced. And there are these decision makers. And if we’re going if we’re not looking at that, and in going into renewal season, and saying, Guys, I have to fight massive amounts of risk, because we do not have the ability to impact success in the way that we did last year, because we just lost 30% of our headcount that use our tool, their decision makers that’s outside of our control, it’s outside of their control, you know, there’s just these these factors, these layers, you have to add in of saying, like you have to think through these things. I love that perspective. Yeah, I’m gonna have one last thing to kind of try to tie it all together and ask the customers is reductive, right? It’s just like a binary. So Christy’s approach of creating these like probabilities of success is really important because it will change over time as you go to new markets as you go up market down market new verticals as you expand your product offering all All, you know, all of those things will impact whether or not somebody is the right fit for your business. So having an actual probability, having a score, having different factors is going to be really critical to understand like the investment we’re making, you know, trying to go up market is working or not. And that’s why that’s why I get so frustrated with it. Because it’s not just right fit. It’s also right time, right? How many times we have customers that are just not at a maturity model that can implement a process that you have Christie, like for your tool, I’ve seen so many demos, your tool and other tools like it where like if you don’t have clean data, if you don’t have clean data, it doesn’t matter how great your tool is, specifically with clients success and some of the competitors, you’re going to be delayed in finding value, regardless of how great your customer success team is. And no amount of demos and no amount of support and no amount of whatever Sastre guys says is going to change the fact that that’s right. And if you’re not capturing that data, based on what is the requirement, what is the opportunity to succeed? If you don’t have that that ranking, then you’re going to lose. I will say the last thing he said number 10 is add a great free trial. And I disagree completely that that is an opportunity. That is a way to reduce churn I think that is Yeah, number 10. Add a great free trial. If you’re I’m saying this sarcastic I love Jason. And if you’re listening, please call me back. If your free trial experience is truly awesome, customers that might churn will select out during the free trial. That’s not all bad. I will say the challenge of that is that that’s a pipeline that somebody’s managing outside of customer success. And it’s gonna give you false negatives from a sales perspective, because you’re gonna have a massive amount of people that are removing themselves from the pipeline that can’t be

Kristi
done. Also, if you’re not a plg product free trial, and don’t really don’t work, right. Like you can’t do a free trial of my product. Right? Is it doesn’t work that way. This isn’t Calendly so I think you need to I think that works sometimes.

Josh
What do you what are you gonna think about five through through eight. So five is do phone support, just do it. Six is answer all tickets in chat in less than five minutes. Seven is visit as many customers via zoom and in person. Eight is do a weekly webinar for all prospects and customers every week. So all of those are about high touch activities. Right about like, just yeah,

Mickey
he’s Yeah, he’s mixed. He’s mixing. Yep. And now we’re gonna we’re gonna be like the jerks of ripping apart his list,

Josh
hoping that he would that he would repost this and share our podcast, but I guess we can throw that out the window. So we might as well now just go at it.

Mickey
No, but we’ve already been blocked. I’ll say this. I think what he like for the people that are listening, there’s different business models, there’s different go to market strategies, like some of the things he posted to apply, like, we were an update AI like we’re trying to do a combination of PLT and direct sales. But Client Success can’t do that. Because they are selling to VPs and CCOs. And they have to do a direct sales motion. And they have to do an implementation. You can’t do plg with like cd into a data warehouse like no, that’s not a thing. So okay, so phone support. Now, you don’t have to do that. No, you you don’t have to if you can, if you can afford it if your customers are paying you a shit

Kristi
list isn’t like applicable to everyone. Right? Like, you have to have resourcing and staffing and like all you have the money for a lot of stuff. I don’t know about you guys, but money money’s expensive these days. I don’t know we have a lot of it. I can’t go to support I I don’t know, my customers aren’t even in offices anymore. Like, let’s just talk about that for a minute. I’d have to literally go to everyone’s home to go have an effective meeting with this scale.

Mickey
Okay, I will say though, number eight, do a weekly webinar for all prospects accompany I do this, I run this with all of our key accounts. It is an incredible way to get training. But here’s the key. And I think this is where it kind of falls down. And I want to I wanted to go a little bit deeper in some of this stuff is we use it as funnels where we have like, the first 10 minutes is like this is how you buy us, right? So for all the prospects like go email, this person that will get pricing and it’s all about funnels, where there’s a follow up, and it’s not just it’s we have managed at scale follow up. So we have bespoke one to one, you know, like, follow ups where we do the trainings, we give the demos, and then the people that like need more, we get on like a one on one call with very specific customer questions, right? And there’s all about the follow up. And I love these ideas of like, how do we solve as many problems as we can? Not in the first call, but how do we kind of get them into the segments that we have the tools to solve? And that’s where the tools become agnostic. If you have phone support, great, you’re gonna send some of them that way. If you have chat support, you’re gonna send some of them that way. But if you don’t have this way for our customers to self select how they get help and where they find answers, and then you’re not measuring and tracking the responses and how that’s like adding to success then none. Nothing on this list matters and you’re just going to keep losing

guys this was awesome. This is exactly what we wanted. Just completely raw authentic, unchained. We will be back in two weeks in collaboration with the next episode or the next ces insider report. And thank you everybody for listening in. Give us feedback. Let us know what you think about this new this new format. Thanks. Thanks, guys, everybody.