Putting Humanity Back Into Digital Customer Success with Jon Johnson of UserTesting | Episode 029

Nik Mijic, co-founder of Matik comes to us this week with not only a fascinating back-story, but some great CS-related content as we discuss a wide variety of very timely and important topics. 

In this episode, we talk about:

• How Matik automates the creation of content with personalized data, primarily for CS and Sales
• The current state of the ‘digital business review’
• A good understanding of your data is needed for a quality DBR
• Sending out one-pagers based on usage milestones or monthly project status updates - automagically
• A lot of people are scared of negative data, but using it to highlight customer improvement opportunities is key
• The importance of benchmarking cohorts of customers to help them grow and act on the adoption of the product
• Keeping a library of common customer objectives and content/measurements to help them along that path
• Moving beyond rules-based automations in favor of GenAI improvements of the inputs that would normally feed your automations to make them even better.
• Savvy sales teams are taking post-sale data and aggregating business value cases out of it to help set expectations
• Nobody’s data is perfect - don’t let that keep you from getting something in place
• Feedback loops are very important in Digital CS to make sure you are constantly monitoring what is working and what is not working
• The Kirkpatrick model, typically used in L&D can also be used in other ways to measure the short and long term efficacy of your programs and content

Enjoy! I know I sure did...

Nik's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikola-mijic-9012201b/
Matik: https://www.matik.io/

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Website:
For more information about the show or to get in touch, visit DigitalCustomerSuccess.com.

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The Digital Customer Success Podcast is hosted by Alex Turkovic

• Her journey into customer education at Pendo
• The approach to dealing with a new set of circumstances or ambiguity
• Interplay at Pendo between digital plays and educational offerings
• Driving prescriptive outcomes in customers’ journeys, especially when there are many potential outcomes 
• Identifying users' roles in-product to make sure content is curated for the right audience 
• 1:1 Office Hours - assess, unblock & get out. Customers have availability via a calendar to a resource if they are stuck
• Start with where you are, what problems you’re trying to solve and what is your inventory of existing resources
• Facilitate the happy path digitally and using your humans to intervene when they stray
• Using the resources around you and partnering with other teams to fill in the gaps that you have around subject matter expertise, content creation, etc.
• Prioritizing content creation based on product roadmap, customer impact of a product change  
• Instructional designers are underusing heroes in SaaS
• Brand & design standards - when to adhere to them strictly or not

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If you are getting value from the show, please follow/subscribe so that you don't miss an episode and consider leaving us a review.

Website:
For more information about the show or to get in touch, visit DigitalCustomerSuccess.com.

Buy Alex a Cup of Coffee:
This show runs exclusively on caffeine - and lots of it. If you like what we're, consider supporting our habit by buying us a cup of coffee: https://bmc.link/dcsp

Thank you for all of your support!

The Digital Customer Success Podcast is hosted by Alex Turkovic

Lane Hart of Contentsquare brings to CS a no nonesense approach to ensuring the renewal via strong data analysis combined with a very human approach of customer engagement. He has taken lessons learned from his years in management consulting at IBM forward into a rocketship trajectory in CS at Heap - now Contentsquare. 

Be sure to grab a pen and paper for this one as we talk about:

• Scaling the Heap CS team and starting a CS Ops function
• The importance of knowing what Data is available and how it all correlates to drive customer outcomes
• Advice: Don’t get stuck because the data is not perfect
• Use data in change management by ‘showing your work’ and telling a story of how you got there.
• Service recovery philosophy: So much of CS is gracefully falling on our sword - and owning up to that can lead to some incredibly real and human moments.
• Effective interventions on negative sentiment customers can turn these situations into extremely healthy relationships
• Contact-level data is so often in very poor shape, not just in formatting but also in whether that contact is still at the company or what role they have
• Implementing in-app prompts for new users for them to self-identify what role they play
• Using bounced emails to adjust customer contact data - flagging contacts that have left - then reaching out to company to get updated contacts via active users
• Surveys are annoying and you have to be very careful not to bombard people
• Standardizing metrics, both product and commercial,  across departments and then putting them front and center in front of the whole company to drive alignment
• Tracking champions after they leave a company - they can be incredibly valuable CSQLs to land new accounts with minimal effort

Lane's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lanehart/

Resources:

• Lenny's Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/
• Scaling People: https://amzn.to/3wDVfVH
• Nudge: https://amzn.to/3wDVfVH
• App: OmniFocus: https://www.omnigroup.com/omnifocus/

Shoutouts:

• Mike Molinet
• Mark Kosoglow
• Wes Gibson
• Todd Busler

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Like/Subscribe/Review:
If you are getting value from the show, please follow/subscribe so that you don't miss an episode and consider leaving us a review.

Website:
For more information about the show or to get in touch, visit DigitalCustomerSuccess.com.

Buy Alex a Cup of Coffee:
This show runs exclusively on caffeine - and lots of it. If you like what we're, consider supporting our habit by buying us a cup of coffee: https://bmc.link/dcsp

Thank you for all of your support!

The Digital Customer Success Podcast is hosted by Alex Turkovic

Dickey Singh, CEO of Cast joins us this week for a bonus episode in which we discover his fascinating journey from a long line of engineering leadership roles to today, where he's leading the charge of AI in CS. 

We discuss at length what he and his team at Cast.app are doing to help revolutionize digital CS and what the future of all of this technology looks like.

Topics covered include:

• Dickey’s long history with AI and his journey from an engineering background into serving customer success today
• He was ‘there’ at the inception of Customer Success
• How Cast.app  helps its customers achieve 30x ROI via providing digital CS
• 1:Many vs. 1:1 vs. Many:Many in Digital CS
• Getting persona-specific in your outreach, but don’t go by titles and go by responsibilities, interests and user profiles
• Digital provides efficiency and automation to drive efficiency for CSMs
• Executive personas are likely not going to be in the app and a lot of C-level execs prefer text messages
• SMS is a powerful way to reach certain personas and shouldn’t be as frowned upon as it is
• The tendency for AI to hallucinate and how it needs to be verified by the human
• Current and future state of AI in CS and how adopters stand to gain massive efficiencies. More and more useful AI tools are coming.
• Prompting won’t be as relevant in the future as it currently is

Enjoy! I know I sure did...

Dickey's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dickey/
Cast: https://cast.app/
Pure Storage ROI with Cast: https://cast.app/purestorage-roi

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Like/Subscribe/Review:
If you are getting value from the show, please follow/subscribe so that you don't miss an episode and consider leaving us a review.

Website:
For more information about the show or to get in touch, visit DigitalCustomerSuccess.com.

Buy Alex a Cup of Coffee:
This show runs exclusively on caffeine - and lots of it. If you like what we're, consider supporting our habit by buying us a cup of coffee: https://bmc.link/dcsp

Thank you for all of your support!

The Digital Customer Success Podcast is hosted by Alex Turkovic

James Lawson of River Consultancy Group joins us this week in a fun conversation that spans a wide range of topics including a growing sentiment among CS leaders that contributions to the customer journey should be cross collaborative in nature. 

James is the founder of River Consultancy Group and currently serves as CCO at key Computer Applications Ltd. It is this along with his long history in CS that have shaped his unique and healthy outlook on CS and how CSMs specifically can best position themselves in the future.

In this episode, we cover topics including: 

•  Why CS is so prevalent in software and not as much elsewhere
• Customer success as a company-wide capability, not just CS function
• Internal collaboration around customer journey actions
• Providing value at scale with the illusion of it being personal 
• Making sure we don’t forget to celebrate the success of our users and various personas
• CSMs who have strong consultative skills will have the edge in the future
• Storytelling on the back of data points is where humans excel and this can be supported by digital
• Personalizing digital engagement by asking personas about their engagement preferences
• The importance of having your product and digital motions lead with simplicity
• Continually tweaking your ICP using internal and external indicators - especially among your smaller customers that are scaling, vs the largest customers.

Enjoy! I know I sure did...

James' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jlaw-customersuccess/
River Consultancy Group: https://www.riverconsultancygroup.co.uk/

Resources:

• The Daily Stoic: https://dailystoic.com/
• Deep Work: https://amzn.to/3SHZaby

Shoutouts:

• Mickey Powell (Episode 001): https://www.linkedin.com/in/mickeypowell/
• Markus Rentsch (Episode 026): https://www.linkedin.com/in/markus-rentsch-customer-value-led-growth-for-saas/

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Like/Subscribe/Review:
If you are getting value from the show, please follow/subscribe so that you don't miss an episode and consider leaving us a review.

Website:
For more information about the show or to get in touch, visit DigitalCustomerSuccess.com.

Buy Alex a Cup of Coffee:
This show runs exclusively on caffeine - and lots of it. If you like what we're, consider supporting our habit by buying us a cup of coffee: https://bmc.link/dcsp

Thank you for all of your support!

The Digital Customer Success Podcast is hosted by Alex Turkovic

Today's discussion with Dee Kapila is a fascinating insight into the world of building innovative digital programs within a very well known and broadly used organization, Miro. As Global Head of Scaled Customer Experience, Dee leads both digital and customer education functions. Her talk last year at Pulse on having SLG & PLG work in harmony for the benefit of the customer journey was fascinating on completely on point!

Our conversation focused on:

• How digital CS is putting many functions and practices together to scale CX - not just CS.
• Digital CS in relation to other orgs in the company and ensuring you are building together with cross-collaborators
• Leveraging cross functional competencies to work together on securing the customer journey
• Focusing on quick wins to get something going quickly, while you focus on the big picture, future state activities
• "Product vs. Sales Led Growth? Embrace BOTH with Scaled CX": Cliff notes of Dee’s talk at Pulse last year
• Her scaled team structure and the importance of leaving room for variability when building these teams
• Scaled Customer Experience Team with three pillars: Scaled Education, Scaled Production & Digital Success with Scaled teams to support
• A peek at the digital tech stack + the custom in-house tooling built at Miro 
• In-app guidance needs to be elegant and not overbearing or clunky.

Enjoy! I sure did...

Dee's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deekapila/
Dee's Talk at Pulse in 2023: https://pulselibrary.gainsight.com/video/product-vs-sales-led-growth-embrace-both-with-scaled-cx
Dee's Substack: https://deekapila.substack.com/

Shoutout:

• Sam David @ Monday.com 

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Like/Subscribe/Review:
If you are getting value from the show, please follow/subscribe so that you don't miss an episode and consider leaving us a review.

Website:
For more information about the show or to get in touch, visit DigitalCustomerSuccess.com.

Buy Alex a Cup of Coffee:
This show runs exclusively on caffeine - and lots of it. If you like what we're, consider supporting our habit by buying us a cup of coffee: https://bmc.link/dcsp

Thank you for all of your support!

The Digital Customer Success Podcast is hosted by Alex Turkovic

Ezra Zimbler is a long time LinkedIn team member, currently based in Dublin who is driving some really great initiatives and customer facing teams. He's a diversity & equity champion within the halls of LinkedIn as well as without. This is definitely a topic of conversation in this episode, along with LinkedIn's efforts around building customer community and how the teams are structured around digital CS. 

In this episode, you'll hear about:

• Ezra's background in sports management and his transition into CS
• His team’s focus on customer enablement
• Using digital motions to focus a CSMs time on having valuable conversation with customers instead of content creation & admin work
• Structure of CS around digital at LinkedIn using a ‘Programs’ team
• How LinkedIn structures around line of business and customer segment
• Implementation of inSided at LinkedIn to drive community and starting with a core group of customers for early feedback and into broader availability launch
• State of the CS Community  in Dublin 
• Ezras work in DEI and driving equity & diversity within LinkedIn and co-founding TransformHER to help break the double glass ceiling outside of LinkedIn
• Treating LinkedIn content as more of a library vs. a feed where you can search for historic content

Enjoy! I sure did!

Ezra's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ezimbler/
Customer Success Monthly Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7023248545004539904/
Customer Success Monthly YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@CustomerSuccessMonthly/

Shoutouts:

• Dan Ennis
• Declan McKiernan - Programs at LinkedIn
• Andy Best - Community at LinkedIn

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Like/Subscribe/Review:
If you are getting value from the show, please follow/subscribe so that you don't miss an episode and consider leaving us a review.

Website:
For more information about the show or to get in touch, visit DigitalCustomerSuccess.com.

Buy Alex a Cup of Coffee:
This show runs exclusively on caffeine - and lots of it. If you like what we're, consider supporting our habit by buying us a cup of coffee: https://bmc.link/dcsp

Thank you for all of your support!

The Digital Customer Success Podcast is hosted by Alex Turkovic

Sara Roberts (Bayview Talent and host of Success Unscripted) may not immediately jump out to you as an obvious guest of this podcast. No, she doesn't run a digital CS function nor does she have a rich history in CS.

What she does have is her finger on the pulse for growing and scaling CS teams as that is her recruiting agency's specialty. As such, it was a great opportunity to talk about two specific areas: the state of the CS job market today and how to build & scale digital functions.

In this fascinating interview we discussed:

• Being part of the Zenefits growth and the evolution into her establishing Bayview, specifically focused on CS recruiting
• Hiring and the job search freeze are thawing
• Sara’s motivation for starting the Success Unscripted Podcast
• The importance of being vulnerable and sharing your hard experiences to help others who are doing the same
• Building and scaling digital teams from a hiring perspective 
• Hiring for digital is not just about putting your Junior CS teams in a scaled team but instead looking for technical resources, marketing people, product…etc.
• Start by analyzing what systems & people you have. What are the skills gaps in relation to what problems you’re trying to solve. That will inform your hiring strategy for digital.
• For a digital role - you are looking to hire people who can go deep into the data, but can also pull up and see the strategy
• Practical advice for CSMs looking for their next role: take on projects and prove you can already do the work of that role
• For those looking for work: Focus on the industry you already have experience with which will give you a leg up over other applicants. Focus on the ACV of the target customer that is within your comfort range. Finally, focus on what stage company it is vs. your experience.
• Don’t just send in your resume and call it a day - recruiters are likely not looking at those resumes. Find the manager of the team and send them a note on LinkedIn.

Sara’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saralynneroberts/
Bayview Talent: https://www.bayviewtalent.com/
Success Unscripted Podcast: https://www.unscriptedpod.com/
Resources:

• Crunchbase for conducting targeted company searches based on your criteria

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Like/Subscribe/Review:
If you are getting value from the show, please follow/subscribe so that you don't miss an episode and consider leaving us a review.

Website:
For more information about the show or to get in touch, visit DigitalCustomerSuccess.com.

Buy Alex a Cup of Coffee:
This show runs exclusively on caffeine - and lots of it. If you like what we're, consider supporting our habit by buying us a cup of coffee: https://bmc.link/dcsp

Thank you for all of your support!

The Digital Customer Success Podcast is hosted by Alex Turkovic

Reminder! Enter for a Gold Pass to the CS Festival in Austin:

1. Leave a review the podcast and send a quick screenshot to alex@digitalcustomersuccess.com
2. Go to this LinkedIn post and Like it: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7152780848642068480
3. Leave a comment on that same post. Easy!

Today's Guest Annie Dean of RecastSuccess is a TRUE CS veteran and is one of those rare individuals who was around when the term 'Customer Success' was coined! 

What does that mean for us? Lots of insight and knowledge to learn from. In this fascinating conversation, Annie draws from her deep career at legendary companies like LinkedIn, Cisco & Coursera - as well as her current experience with RecastSuccess - to give us a ton of great nuggets of knowledge.

It was also a pleasure having her on as RecastSuccess does so much to drive equity and diversity within CS - which is definitely worth highlighting. 

In this fantastic conversation, we cover a lot of ground including:

• How to prioritize where to start digitally
• How tooling has helped us to normalize digital CS 
• The genesis of RecastSuccess and its mission to help foster diversity in CS 
• The role profiles of Digital CS and how product management, marketing, sales ops  and data science fit in well with DCS - not necessarily CSM.
• How RecastSuccess partners with VCs & Startups to help grow CS orgs with well trained team members
• Early stage startups have an advantage because you can start with automations and have them in place from the beginning
• How to be proactive with end-users (those that aren’t reaching out) to help drive outcomes for those executives
• Average professional in the US uses 80 apps regularly - which is why it is imperative to be proactive with users 
• Semi-live webinars are a great way to scale
• New AI tools are there to augment and improve what you’re doing - not replace what you’re doing.
• Racial & Gender diversity in tech and RecastSuccess’ mission for building CS teams that are as diverse as possible
• The ever-present topic of whether to QBR or whether to not QBR

Annie's Industry Newsletter List

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Like/Subscribe/Review:
If you are getting value from the show, please follow/subscribe so that you don't miss an episode and consider leaving us a review.

Website:
For more information about the show or to get in touch, visit DigitalCustomerSuccess.com.

Buy Alex a Cup of Coffee:
This show runs exclusively on caffeine - and lots of it. If you like what we're, consider supporting our habit by buying us a cup of coffee: https://bmc.link/dcsp

Thank you for all of your support!

The Digital Customer Success Podcast is hosted by Alex Turkovic

Enter the contest for a Gold Pass ($1300 value!) to the Customer Success Festival in Austin (Feb 13 & 14, 2024) by following these steps:

1. Review the podcast on your platform of choice and send a quick screenshot to alex@digitalcustomersuccess.com
2. Go to this LinkedIn post and Like it: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7152780848642068480
3. Leave a comment on that same post about what aspect of CS Festival you're most looking forward to or any questions comments you might have about the event.

Today's Guest Anika Zubair is a CS household name and award winning customer success leader who is constantly providing insanely valuable content to the community. She has led and scaled many functions throughout her career and is currently Head of Customer Success at Griffin. 

There are so many valuable nuggets of information to pull away from our conversation in this episode including:

• Leveraging technology to meet our customers where they are with what they need
• Covid normalized digital engagement
• The resurgence of QR codes
• Transitioning from full-time gig to consulting and back
• The difficulty of the current job market
• Using ‘CS Trailers’ to solve for customer engagement via short form, TikTok style video and how this style aligns with how people are consuming content today
• Combining short videos (max 90 seconds) with analytics and strong call to actions can lead to strong customer engagement
• Practical example of a short onboarding flow
• Things like 'Spotify Wrapped' are HARD to get to but so effective if you do
• Celebrating customer wins and demonstrating value digitally
• It’s ok as B2B to communicate like B2C - we are all just human

Anika's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anikazubair/

Apps:

• Cast.app - Virtual Digital CSM
• Bagel - Tie product features to revenue opportunities and customer feedback

Content:

• This is Growth Podcast
• Revenue Today Podcast
• CS Office Hours

Shoutouts:

• Dan Ennis
• Jay Nathan
• Jeff Breunsbach

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Like/Subscribe/Review:
If you are getting value from the show, please follow/subscribe so that you don't miss an episode and consider leaving us a review.

Website:
For more information about the show or to get in touch, visit DigitalCustomerSuccess.com.

Buy Alex a Cup of Coffee:
This show runs exclusively on caffeine - and lots of it. If you like what we're, consider supporting our habit by buying us a cup of coffee: https://bmc.link/dcsp

Thank you for all of your support!

The Digital Customer Success Podcast is hosted by Alex Turkovic