CS Leadership Office Hours is a 1-hour Zoom every Thursday at 11:30am EST. It connects B2B SaaS customer success leaders in an open-dialogue to solve challenges.

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TOPIC: Transition between implementation and customer success

Enterprise (Greater than $50k ACV)

Facilitator: Sheryl Hawk, Customer Imperative

ONE ACTION TO IMPLEMENT
Create clear criteria that is documented for each hand off (sales to services / services to CSM) and introduce role of CSM pre-close whenever possible.

SESSION NOTES:
🚨 How are you ensuring communication flows from Sales to Onboarding to CSM (& how is this governed)?

↠ Sales completes form with required information followed by an internal hand-off call that includes Onboarding Engineer and CSM.

🚨 How did you migrate from a single role (CSM + Technical Install) to teams with specialized roles?

↠ Create a line item for installation (even if you give it away sometimes) and have differentiated experiences ($25k/ $50k, etc).

↠ Clearly define and discuss with Customer the role of CSM vs. Technical Onboarding Resource

SMB (Less than $50k ACV)

Facilitator: Jay Nathan, Customer Imperative

ONE ACTION TO IMPLEMENT
Create a new field on the Salesforce Opportunity record which allows an account executive to choose the reasons that a new customer chose to buy. Make that field mandatory to mark the opportunities as Closed - Won.

SESSION NOTES:
🚨 How do you work with Sales to get CS engaged presales and help them close more deals?

↠ If sales are having a hard time closing a deal have a 15 minute meeting with CS and the prospect to set expectations about onboarding. It helps to drive urgency. Build trust with the sales team.

🚨 When is the right time to specialize roles and move away from the “jack of all trades” CSM?

↠ Get temporary staff on contract to take reactive support work. This allows you to demonstrate the difference between reactive and proactive without adding hard costs. Often times the temps become full time team members once the concept proves out.