The Customer Success Professional S Handbook

The definitive “Customer Success Manager How-To-Guide” for the CSM profession from Gainsight, who brought you the market-leading Customer Success The Customer Success Manager has become a critical asset to organizations across the business landscape. As the subscription model has spread from the cloud and SaaS to more sectors of the economy, that pivotal role will only grow in importance. That’s because if you want to compete and thrive in this new environment, you need to put the customer at the center of your strategy. You need to recognize you’re no longer selling just a product. You’re selling an outcome. Customer Success Managers (CSM) are committed to capturing and delivering those outcomes by listening to their customers, understanding their needs, and adapting products and services to drive success. Although several existing resources address the customer success imperative, there is no authoritative instruction manual for the CSM profession—until now. The Customer Success Professional’s Handbook is the definitive reference book for CSMs and similar roles in the field. This practical, first-of-its-kind manual fills a significant gap in professional customer success literature, providing the knowledge every CSM needs to succeed—from the practitioner level all the way to senior leadership. The authors—acknowledged experts in building, training, and managing Customer Success teams—offer real-world guidance and practical advice for aspiring and experienced CSMs alike. The handbook is written by practioners for practioners. An indispensable resource for front-line Customer Success Managers, this much-needed book: Demonstrates how to build, implement, and manage a Customer Success team Helps new CSMs develop their skills and proficiency to be more employable and grow in their careers Provides clear guidance for managers on how to hire a stellar CSM Presents practical tactics needed to drive revenue growth during renewal, expansion, and customer advocacy opportunities Explains proven methods and strategies for mentoring CSMs throughout their careers Offers valuable insights from Gainsight, the Customer Success Company, and the broader customer success community with more than a dozen of the industry’s most respected leaders contributing their perspectives Currently, with over 70,000 open positions, Customer Success Manager in one of the fastest-growing jobs in the world. The Customer Success Professional’s Handbook: How to Thrive in One of the World's Fastest Growing Careers—While Driving Growth For Your Company will prove to be your go-to manual throughout every stage of your CSM career.

Your business success is now forever linked to the success of your customers Customer Success is the groundbreaking guide to the exciting new model of customer management. Business relationships are fundamentally changing. In the world B.C. (Before Cloud), companies could focus totally on sales and marketing because customers were often 'stuck' after purchasing. Therefore, all of the 'post-sale' experience was a cost center in most companies. In the world A.B. (After Benioff), with granular per-year, per-month or per-use pricing models, cloud deployments and many competitive options, customers now have the power. As such, B2B vendors must deliver success for their clients to achieve success for their own businesses. Customer success teams are being created in companies to quarterback the customer lifecycle and drive adoption, renewals, up-sell and advocacy. The Customer Success philosophy is invading the boardroom and impacting the way CEOs think about their business. Today, Customer Success is the hottest B2B movement since the advent of the subscription business model, and this book is the one-of-a-kind guide that shows you how to make it work in your company. From the initial planning stages through execution, you'll have expert guidance to help you: Understand the context that led to the start of the Customer Success movement Build a Customer Success strategy proven by the most competitive companies in the world Implement an action plan for structuring the Customer Success organization, tiering your customers, and developing the right cross-functional playbooks Customers want products that help them achieve their own business outcomes. By enabling your customers to realize value in your products, you're protecting recurring revenue and creating a customer for life. Customer Success shows you how to kick start your customer-centric revolution, and make it stick for the long term.

"This book contains so much common sense that my neck was getting tired from nodding my head in agreement so often." Peter Armaly, Senior Director Customer Success, Oracle "...a comprehensive review of the Customer Success role and responsibilities..." Anne Marie Ponder, Senior Manager, IT Infrastructure, Astellas Pharma US "...a must read playbook for all business leaders and customer success-focused professionals." Jason Noble, Global Customer Success and SaaS Leader "I wish a book like this existed when I started in Customer Success!" Cyn Taylor, Enterprise Customer Success Manager, LogicMonitor "...provides all the ingredients to create the right customer success strategy." Baptiste Debever, Head of Growth & Co Founder, Alkalab "...an invaluable resource for anyone with an interest in Customer Success." Adam Joseph, CEO, CSM insight "A structured and logical approach that will help new and experienced CSMs to bridge the gap between Customer Success theory and practical application." James Scott, General Partner, Success Hacker Customer success management is "the practice of helping customers to generate value from using our products" and it is a relatively new and fast-growing profession with many new CSMs coming into it from other customer-facing professions. Due to the speed with which the profession is undergoing change as it matures and expands, both new and existing CSMs need to keep abreast of customer success best practice. However there are relatively few books that provide much in the way of practical guidance for customer success practitioners and even less options for resources such as tools, templates and checklists that enable a consistently high quality approach whilst increasing the CSM’s productivity. Practical Customer Success Management is a practical guide book and comprehensive training manual for CSMs that provides a simple to follow, best practice framework that lays out the core steps at every stage of the customer journey to business outcome success. It describes and explains which situations each step applies to and provides recommendations for activities or tasks that the CSM can perform to complete each step, together with detailed guidance for successfully completing those activities. The book also includes a suite of tools and templates that enable rapid completion of tasks whilst ensuring consistency of approach both across multiple customer engagements and by multiple CSMs within a team.

If leaders aren't integrating their digital offerings into a philosophy of Customer Success, they will be defeated in the next decade, because technical excellence and other traditional competitive advantages are becoming too easy to imitate. The Customer Success Economy offers examples and specifics of how companies can transform. It addresses the pains of transforming organizational charts, leadership roles, responsibilities, and strategies so the whole company works together in total service to the customer. Shows leaders how their digital implementations will make them more Amazon-like Helps you deliver recurring revenue Shows you how to embrace customer retention Demonstrates the importance of "churning" less Get that competitive advantage in the most relevant and important arena today—making and cultivating happy customers.

As a customer success leader, whose insight do you rely on for success? Your field is still maturing, yet your profession is one of the fastest growing in the world. There are tons of books and blogs written by success professionals sharing their experiences and strategies, but how do you know what will work for your specific situation? Whose advice is the expertise you can trust? Wayne McCulloch has more than 25 years of experience in the software industry-years spent in training, adoption, and customer experience, the building blocks for customer success. Now he's sharing what he knows as a chief customer officer leading global success functions. In The Seven Pillars of Customer Success, Wayne provides an adaptable framework for building a strong customer success organization. From customer journey actions to the development of transformation advisors, you'll read detailed examples of how companies have put these seven pillars to the test. To create a culture of customer success and stand out in the marketplace, you need a proven framework and knowledgeable perspective-this book provides both, and more.

Across entire verticals of the economy the new normal is the recurring revenue business. Charging customers on a monthly basis, firms with this model have to play by an entirely new set of rules, rules which generally favor the customer over the seller. But this new model also opens up fantastic opportunities to provide and extract more value from the relationship as well. To create that value business needs to move away from a hunting mindset to a farming mindset. That change is the new paradigm of Customer Success. Many business leaders have heard of Customer Success but few understand what it really means to run their business from the Customer Success standpoint. Even fewer have the experience to build the Customer Success function and optimize its performance. As a pioneer in the field of Customer Success, Guy Nirpaz is acknowledged as one of the earliest proponents of this business realignment. In

The definitive guide to developing and managing a successful career in the information profession: Information Professionals and Knowledge Managers deal with significant challenges in building successful careers for a number of reasons associated with common misperceptions of their expertise and roles. In environments where they must often justify their work and value over and over again, those already in the profession need a boost and those just entering need to be prepared for a reality that may differ quite a bit from their expectations. The book is intended to give readers a set of tools and techniques with which to secure a strong career, build an effective brand, and succeed as professionals. Click Here to view the official page for this title on Facebook. Written by opinion leaders and highly respected authorities in the field Draws upon 50-plus years of experience in a variety of settings and roles Offers realistic and honest pointers - no sugar-coating

Proven leadership strategies that will impact your career and your company Having the right CFO is a critical component for every company's success. Guide to CFO Success provides CFOs and those in the making with a strategic blueprint to benefit their companies and their careers. This book reveals how to build a strong, successful career plan with guidance on team building and management of the multiple relationships that CFOs face on a daily basis, plus how to balance one's work and personal life. Offers strategic guidance for leadership growth for CFOs Presents essential information for every CFO who wants to play a tactical role in their organization Includes best practices for building and developing the most effective Finance Team Features practical career advice for future Chief Financial Officers From balancing one's work and personal life to dealing with the CEO, Guide to CFO Success has the answers you need to plan for a strong and successful career.