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Speaker A [00:00:00]:

[Un]churned is presented by update AI.

Josh Schachter [00:00:03]:

Hey, guys, enjoy this next episode with Damien Howley. Damien is now the chief customer officer at Nimbello.

Damien Howley [00:00:09]:

I do care about customer happiness. I have I mean, I personally have been, you know, on the front lines with what I would consider some of the happiest customers on Earth. I just don’t think it is the primary point of index that it is that it should be sought after as the first objective. To me, it is a lagging indicator and it is the result of delivering value, delivering to the customers objectives and standing up something that you can then build an exceptional relationship on.

Speaker A [00:00:45]:

Welcome to [Un]churned, a show about the leaders and innovators of companies who have forged incredible customer relationships and stories you can use to advance your own career. Here’s your host, Josh Schachter.

Josh Schachter [00:00:58]:

Hey, everybody, and welcome to this episode of [Un]churned. I’m Josh Schachter, founder and CEO of Update AI and host of [Un]churned. I’m here today with Damien Howley. Damien is an executive and executive in customer success and the author of the latest book Control Your Customer a Guidebook for Customer Success Managers. Damien, thank you so much for being with us today.

Damien Howley [00:01:23]:

Oh, thank you for having me, Josh. It’s a pleasure.

Josh Schachter [00:01:25]:

So let’s start out you wrote a book and we’re going to talk a lot about that content. I’ve read it myself and have really enjoyed it and found it very educational and really, really helpful. Tell us all about your experience in CS and what you’re up to.

Damien Howley [00:01:39]:

I think that’s a perfectly nice way to ask. So I’ve been in software and SaaS for the last 20 years. I’ve been in customer success roles for the last ten years, going on eleven years now, mostly at smaller scale startups. So kind of focused on the hyper growth stage of a small startup in a lot of different spaces around the country. And I currently serve as chief customer officer for a startup out of Charlotte, North Carolina called Whip Around. So to answer your question, my background and my experience of just living in the SaaS world and the customer success world, I’ve had over a decade of exposure now to engaging and interacting with customers.

Josh Schachter [00:02:26]:

And tell us very quickly about Whiparound and about the organizational layout under your purview at CCO.

Damien Howley [00:02:33]:

Yeah, so Whip Around, we’ve digitized the fleet management experience. So in order to keep your fleet safe and compliant on the road, we’ve done this through managing everything from the vehicle inspections all the way to the maintenance and repair process. And so we’ve got thousands of customers that use our software literally three to four times per day per vehicle. Pretty high velocity growth. So I’m the chief customer officer here, and I run the post sale experience, everything from implementation to customer success and support. I also see over internal operations and a bit over, you call it sales engineering. Some of the technical aspects of the sale. So, yeah, that’s kind of the summary.

Josh Schachter [00:03:24]:

Great. You spent your time writing a book. Why did you write this book? Control your customer.

Damien Howley [00:03:29]:

Yeah, look, I wrote this book because in various forms and fashions, I’d been teaching these concepts over the past ten years. And it’s, of course, evolved and matured, and they’ve taken on different kind of unique flavors as I’ve gone from large enterprise customers down to smaller, more like premium plays and government and so on and so forth. But I found that I had a real hard time teaching at scale. So when I got my last company, it was a company called Passport out of Charlotte. I had maybe 25 CSMS in teaching. This content at scale became massively laborious. I mean, I spent a ton of time side by side on phones with the CSM, with the customer, and it worked. I mean, it was highly effective, but I never got everybody. And so I said, what if I had a starting place where the entire team knew the plays and the entire team had the same vocabulary, and everybody just knew what our plays were and how we were going to go and approach these things. And the truth be told, it was a Google Doc, like a 15 page Google Doc that was pretty half asked for the better part of a decade. And only only in the last two years did I say, well, I’m going to take a little bit further and really flesh out a lot of these concepts.

Josh Schachter [00:04:58]:

Half asked is an interesting choice of words because you use a really strong vocabulary in the title of your book, Control Your Customer. It’s not how to build meaningful relationships. It’s not how to create more influence and exposure, et cetera. It’s. Control your customer. And you talk a lot about those concepts. So what is controlling your customer in a nutshell?

Damien Howley [00:05:22]:

Mean? Yeah, I mean, I think maintaining control of your customer means that you are calling the shots and you understand and architect the outcomes of your future as that contract owner or that account manager or whatnot. The idea is that it’s an intentional, proactive, strategic way to look at your customers. And there are thousands of times where I’ve experienced a customer derail a meeting or hijack a conversation or a sale or take you off some of the things that would ultimately deliver longer term value for the customer. And so it’s a bit of a mindset that the control is up to you as a CSM and that you can very quickly lose or gain that control. And if you’re cognizant of what it takes and how to read the room, that you can remain in control. It’s not this die hard desire to control everything, but just more of a philosophical positioning. There’s a lot more in your hands as a CSM than a lot of.

Josh Schachter [00:06:30]:

People think, yeah, that makes sense, and it sounds to me like it’s more of a finesse and an art and a soft science. You talk about different tactics in that, but actually, no, before we get into the tactics of that, you wrote this book for folks that are learning and ramping up their own careers. And I’m interested in hearing what are some of the biggest mistakes that you see people who are still learning about customer success make in the function.

Damien Howley [00:06:55]:

Yeah, I mean, for me, the biggest mistake that I see, and I see it time in and time out, is that the interpretation of the customer experience is derived from one contact and that the CSM naturally latches onto one customer contact. And it’s generally somebody who is using the software and that they kind of represent the entirety of that customer based on the input from one individual or a very small quantity of individuals. They don’t understand that the customer could be a collection of hundreds or if not thousands of employees, all of which may have a hand in using your software or extracting value from your software or even the ultimate success or termination of your contract. Right. That it’s not single threaded experience and that each of those threads requires variation and tailoring to how you mature and engage them.

Josh Schachter [00:07:55]:

How do you set up a new relationship with a company, with a customer as a company in a way where it’s not single threaded? What do we do to get the most enriched multithreaded relationships with customers?

Damien Howley [00:08:08]:

I mean, it starts in sales, the selling process, depending upon what arr you’re selling at, right. It’s going to dictate really what level of the organization you’re able to sell at. But ideally, your sales process is also multithreaded and has multiple stakeholders, has an identified economic buyer and a user buyer and degree of influencers. And that translates over into a healthy and organized implementation. And so those relationships should be formed presale, in my opinion, and should be carried throughout the duration of the relationship. Now, post sale, the frequency and kind of touch of these interactions is going to vary. So you’re not going to pick up the phone and talk to a CRO on a daily or weekly basis, but you certainly have to touch them with some frequency and they have to be part of your cohort of individuals that you’ve developed relationship and deliver value to.

Josh Schachter [00:09:07]:

And you talk about a framework in the book. Can you describe that for us?

Damien Howley [00:09:11]:

Yeah, I’m assuming you’re talking about the value versus relationship framework.

Josh Schachter [00:09:15]:

Well, there’s that I think there’s also that you have like the is it Sto framework as well? Whatever framework you think is most helpful in this regard.

Damien Howley [00:09:22]:

Well, good. Yeah. So the Sto framework is something that I’ve probably drawn on a whiteboard close to 7000 times. I mean, I don’t have no idea where I’m coming up with that number. But the point is, the Sto framework is a massively simplified kind of segmentation of your customer contacts. It’s S is strategic, T is your tactical contact, and O is your operational contact. So your strategic contacts would be very senior up at the sea level, vice president level. They have higher budget authority, they think differently, they care about different objectives, they value different types of interactions, they even have different tolerances, and they have different timelines that they are looking to solution and achieve their objectives. As you move down that pyramid into the tactical, the dynamic of what they care about and what they value changes, and also the timeline or the arc of when they expect to achieve their objectives, it reduces. And then when you get down into the operational, the operational would be much more hands on. Individuals who are using your software, you think of it as a sales rep or a support agent or an accountant. What they care about is much more product oriented. It’s much more focused on the features. Their tolerances are different, their values are different, their budget authority is different. And so this framework is again, a very simple segmentation of your customer contacts. And when you start to segment your contacts this way, you realize that the way that you interact with, and that the programs and the collateral and the messaging and all the aspects of their experience has to vary to maintain their attention and to deliver them value that they perceive as valuable. So that’s the sto framework. And obviously it’s pretty substantial because I wrote a book about it. Right. It goes a lot deeper than that, but it’s been a massively useful tool for me over the last decade.

Josh Schachter [00:11:29]:

I’ve been using that conceptually, it makes a lot of sense. And in practice, how do you implement the SD? Like, do you go through this exercise with your CSMS on a whiteboard or in software to map out all the relationships through the framework?

Damien Howley [00:11:42]:

Yeah, it starts with teaching. And then once they’ve got the concept, there’s a lot of coaching about how the different expectations of how you interact at different levels. Ultimately, we do end up flagging all of the contacts, all of our engaged contacts in our CRM, so that we understand at which level we are engaging our customers. We NPS based on the sto. We do crosssell marketing based on the Sto. We do QBRs based on the Sto, where I’ll just bring I’ll do like an EBR, really an executive business review with just tactical and strategic contacts. We’ve done product release notes based on the SEO, meaning what you’re highlighting in your product release notes to a strategic buyer is vastly different than the value that you should be highlighting to a hands on operational user.

Josh Schachter [00:12:34]:

So you’re segmenting out. You actually segment out. I want to kind of double click into this because I think it’s sounds like an amazing idea or an amazing thing to do in your CRM. Let’s say it’s salesforce I don’t know if it is. You actually classify all of the contacts in an account so that you can enumerate and segment out each of those contacts into the different categories?

Damien Howley [00:12:58]:

Yes, every single one, every engaged contact. So anybody who we’ve had, it been able to identify where they sit in sto.

Josh Schachter [00:13:08]:

Do you track the engagements so that, you know, kind of your frequency and who you’re engaged with and who you might not be as engaged with.

Damien Howley [00:13:15]:

You track all engagements, all phone calls, emails, text messages, just through modern day technology. Right. And then so when I’m looking at a CSM’s portfolio, I’m able to see how many levels of the sto that they’ve engaged across their customer base in a particular time frame. So I can say, well, hey, your top ten largest accounts, you’ve got really rich engagement at the S and the T, but you’re kind of thin on the O. But when we get to your 11th and 12th largest account, I’m only seeing you engage at the operational level. So we need to put a plan in place for you to elevate and move up the ladder and secure a tactical contact or a strategic contact.

Speaker A [00:13:53]:

Did someone say chat? GPT for customer success for free. Update AI has you covered. CSMS get automated summaries of every customer call. That’s real time savings that adds up. There’s no bot. And Update even works alongside other tools like Gong. Sign up today at www dot. Update AI. That’s update AI.

Josh Schachter [00:14:18]:

Damon, I confessed this to you earlier, I’m not a CSM myself. I never have been. Just a fanboy of the industry as a function. But what I’m told from let’s keep assuming that you guys are using Salesforce. What I’m told from folks is that it’s always wildly out of date, like all the different stakeholders that are input into that system. How do you maintain the discipline? Because I think what you’re saying is just such a golden bullet for people, but how do you maintain the hygiene of that data in Salesforce? Is that a challenge?

Damien Howley [00:14:50]:

Yeah, it’s a challenge. I mean, it’s manual in the sense you can get some insight at some point. You can enrich and get the latest titles and such. But really it’s going to come down to the CSM and their read on the level, whether they’re strategic, tactical or operational. It’s not a high bar. I’ve had teams before that I said, I need you to be engaging two of the three levels of the sto. So that means one contact at let’s call it strategic, and one contact tactical. So that’s two contacts in that account. That’s a smaller account, but right then they’re interacting with the customer and they’re identifying different contacts and different targets and then flagging them accordingly. And so it becomes kind of pretty intuitive through just through a lot of customer interaction, really, that’s the hygiene is an active CS team that is very proactively interacting with your customer base.

Josh Schachter [00:15:47]:

Maybe it’s sales folks that I’ve spoken to that have told me that it’s been a mess trying to get those, those databases to have good hygiene. Maybe CSMS are a little bit more vigilant with that, which would make sense.

Damien Howley [00:16:01]:

Well, as a CSM right. You might get hundreds of hours with certain contacts per year. It all depends on the dynamics of your business and how enterprise you are versus how market you are. That number is going to vary wildly. But the point is you get substantially theoretically you get substantially more time as a CSM with your customers in your context than a sales rep in a sales cycle. And so the ability to massage and mature information, the information should be much richer post sale.

Josh Schachter [00:16:29]:

Yeah. Makes sense. In your book, you seem to discount the idea of keeping your customer happy. You verbatim, you call it irrelevant. So tell me more what goes into that statement?

Damien Howley [00:16:43]:

Yeah, I edited that part of the book a lot. I’ve had these interactions over the years when I talk with people and they’re like, you don’t care about customer happiness. I do care about customer happiness. I personally have been on the front lines with what I would consider some of the happiest customers on earth. I just don’t think it is the primary point of index that it should be sought after as the first objective. To me, it is a lagging indicator, and it is the result of delivering value, delivering to the customers objectives and standing up, something that you can then build an exceptional relationship on.

Josh Schachter [00:17:27]:

So on a scale of one to 1010 being the highest, what’s the value of quantifying the value to the customer that they’re gaining from your product? How important is that? Ten. Being like, this is ten. Okay. And what’s the value? What’s the number one to ten of keeping your customer happy?

Damien Howley [00:17:47]:

Yeah, I’d probably say like, be safe. Right. A five, maybe lower.

Josh Schachter [00:17:51]:

That’s a pretty big delta between the two.

Damien Howley [00:17:54]:

Well, you got to think about why people buy software in the first place, right? They’re not buying software to extend their list of friends, and that’s kind of a harsh connection there. But they’re buying software in order to accomplish a particular task or an outcome, a business objective. And they’re buying software in some cases to amplify their own career or their own personal lifestyle. Maybe I’m too hard pressed on it, but I find that the richest relationships I’ve ever formed with customers have come on the heels of exceptional value delivery. Where we are, we’re executing on all fronts. We’re meeting their objectives, we’re helping them grow their business. And those are the happiest customers ever, and we all have them.

Josh Schachter [00:18:43]:

In the book. There’s a few concepts that caught my mind. I only want to go into one more of these concepts. The rest well, people have to read the book, but I want you to choose. So here are the ones that really captured my attention that we haven’t spoke about. This idea of a value to relationship matrix kind of dovetailing on our conversation so far. The idea of celebrating every win, this commitment scale that quantifies what you’re committing to the concept, or the notion of levering everything, using a bad cop in your tactically, and firing a customer as being sometimes a proper approach. Let’s explore one. Damien, what should we go into?

Damien Howley [00:19:24]:

I don’t know. Let’s go into celebrate everything.

Josh Schachter [00:19:30]:

Cool. Good. That’s the one I wanted to go into anyways, because that one was like it was eye opening to me. So what is this idea of celebrating everything?

Damien Howley [00:19:37]:

Yeah, I mean, it’s a really simple concept. I mean, it’s the shortest chapter in the book, right? I guess I might not have picked the best topic here, but it is this idea that everything you do for the customer is in some way quantifiably, delivering some value. And it kind of ties a bit into some of the other concepts that you mentioned. But I found that at larger companies, I might organize a meeting with product team to provide some direct customer feedback on a particular feature, and I will go back to the customer and celebrate that. I will broadcast that to them and take that victory for me. As the CSM literally say, I went out of my way. I did this for you. I’m doing it for this reason because I believe in the value that we’re bringing to you. And so it could be anything from setting up a meeting, or you get an issue resolved, or you get a ticket escalated, or in some cases, you get a term in the contract changed or reduced or whatever. The valuable activities that a CSM does are just so broad but so regularly distilled down to binary outcomes, which I just can’t buy into. Right. I have these CSMS who will work for hours and hours and hours for customers, and then it’s maybe not as appreciated or understood or the value is not even translated over to the customer. So Celebrate Everything is this idea that you should take the wins, communicate with your customers when you’re delivering value in whatever capacity, and over time, these are very nominal, but increasingly they increase your reputation and your value delivery with that customer.

Josh Schachter [00:21:33]:

I loved that. That was my favorite chapter. Honestly. It is the shortest chapter. It’s a really short chapter. Maybe we could post it somehow alongside when we publish this podcast. But it was my favorite because, you know, it was really good at celebrating wins sales. I was able to get that price negotiated for you. I was able to go back to.

Damien Howley [00:21:52]:

My manager, so on and so forth.

Josh Schachter [00:21:54]:

And of course, then that’s acknowledged and so appreciated by the customers. But CS, sometimes we don’t take the time to really celebrate all that we do. And it’s not always obvious to the customer that we did have to go to bat for them or that there was work involved in this. I recently asked the Customer Success manager to marry me. Not in literal terms, but she was so helpful to me and went so above and beyond. It was from a company called High Touch. There you go. That’s my shout out to them for the tremendous work that she did. But of course, my role being what it is in the industry, I wanted to make sure I acknowledged all that. But most people, I don’t think necessarily would always be so cognizant of these efforts. Some of the examples that you give, they opened my eyes, like this idea of celebrating that you were able to fix a bug or escalate a ticket in subtle ways, not like throwing confetti or whatever, right. But like, hey, we were able to really ramp up the resolution of this issue that you were facing. I was able to escalate that as opposed to just apologizing over apologizing for it, turn it into an opportunity to solve their problem. I don’t know, I just felt like for me personally, there were lots of things that I do for customers in my role, and again, like handling support issues. Plug fixes this. That where yeah, you’re right. Like, in very soft ways, you can turn this into a celebration of value that was delivered to them. Yeah.

Damien Howley [00:23:34]:

And if I can add to that, Josh, I don’t know how many chapters in the book I suppose I should know that, but there’s like 25 chapters. A lot of them are tactics. Right. And this is just one of many ways to incrementally drop value to the customer. And I just think it’s something that’s overlooked. And you’re right, like sales, they nail it in CS. Maybe I don’t know what the dynamic is of the CSMS and why. Maybe it’s not as natural to go and claim those, but whatever the case is, I just believe in mathematically and continuously maximizing the value that’s delivered to the customer. And back to the other topic. Right. And that value delivery will outshine any troubles or any challenges in the relationship.

Josh Schachter [00:24:21]:

100%. Damien Howley, CCO. Author of Control Your Customer. Thank you so much for being on this episode of Unturned.

Damien Howley [00:24:28]:

Thank you so much. Josh.

Josh Schachter [00:24:32]:

Hey, guys, it’s Josh. Don’t hang up. If you enjoyed this episode, you know what, even if you didn’t, I’d love for you to give us a rating in itunes or Spotify. And after you do, email me Josh at Update AI with the name of your favorite charity and my company, Update AI will make a donation on your behalf. I’d love to connect with each of our listeners. Send me a LinkedIn request and I’ll accept it immediately. Just go to www dot update AI LinkedIn, and it’ll redirect to my profile. Thanks.