Customer Success & Failures

Customer success professionals are often thrown into the deep end. They are told to act like trusted advisors, which includes driving adoption, building relationships, or uncovering growth opportunities without being given clear instructions or training on what to do.That’s why I wrote The Strategic Customer Success Manager — and why I joined a recent webinar with CS Insider to provide some assistance to CSMs. We mainly focused on how to build more trusted relationships with clients and colleagues, and this post distills the key takeaways from that session. It will help you move from task manager to trusted advisor.You’re operating as a task master and not even realizing itLet’s get real: If your day is filled with sending “just checking in” emails, logging product bugs, or reacting to renewal reminders, you’re operating as a task manager.A trusted advisor, on the other hand, earns a seat at the strategic table. Their customers typically don’t ignore their messages or meeting requests. Why? Because they bring insights, not just unstructured agendas.The trusted advisor starts with the customer’s business, not just their product usage.Three Ways to Uplevel Your Role1. Start with the Company, Not the ProductTypical CSMs say:“I noticed you haven’t used Feature X.”Strategic CSMs ask (a Bob London disruptive question):“If your leadership team were sitting around a table, what’s the number one priority they would be discussing?”The difference?By trying to understand your customer’s business and internal pressures, you position yourself to tie product capabilities directly to business outcomes. And that’s where value lives.2. Focus on Impact, Not Just AdoptionAdoption is typically a vanity metric - it doesn’t tell the whole story. Just because users are logging in doesn’t mean you’re making a difference.Ask yourself:* Are we solving the problem they hired us to solve?* Is our solution affecting their key KPIs?* Can they prove ROI internally?Better yet — help them prove it. At Siena, we created an ROI calculator to show savings and outcomes tied directly to our solution. Customers took it and ran straight to their execs with it. It made renewal a non-issue.3. Be Customer + Company CentricBeing customer-centric is a foundational element of being a customer success professional. But being customer and company-centric takes you to another level to the strategic layer.This means:* Bringing well-framed feature requests to the product team, not just a wishlist.* Saying “no” the right way — with alternatives and rationale.* Understanding your company's priorities so you can balance the two worlds.Your product team, sales team, and execs will trust you more. And your customers? They’ll thank you for helping them see the big picture. You just need to communicate this in the right way (I go into this more in chapter 17 of the book).Building Trust: The Real DifferentiatorTrust is the foundation of strategic customer success. And it doesn’t just come from solving tickets.Here’s what it does come from:* Disruptive questions: Ask questions that make you and your customer a bit uncomfortable. In the webinar, I share a story where I ask the question, “Is there anything you hoped I’d ask but didn’t?” This leads to an outpouring of information from the customer that helped us secure a two-year renewal.* Extreme ownership: Take responsibility when SNAFUs occur - don’t place blame. The customer doesn’t care who caused the issue. They just want it resolved. Focus on that and get away from the blame game. Do you really think someone intended to mess up? Probably not. In addition, don’t throw other departments under the bus.* Vulnerability: Saying “I need help” — to your colleagues is OK. Asking for assistance isn’t demonstrating weakness. It’s showing that you're strong enough to admit that you can’t handle everything on your own. Being vulnerable also means letting your clients know more about who you are as a person. When you do this, they will do the same and it will deepen your relationship.* Consistency: Follow through on what you commit to. Words are words until you act. If you fail to follow up or show up consistently, you damage trust.* Candor + Care: Saying no, kindly but firmly, when needed. If you’ve built a strong relationship with your clients, built on value and trust, you’ve earned the right to push back from time to time. It’s not about your customers liking you - it’s about achieving their business outcomes. Sometimes the answer is “I’m sorry, but we just can’t do that”.You’re not their buddy. You’re not their therapist (ok, maybe you are). You’re their partner. That’s what being strategic means.Your Personal Roadmap to Becoming StrategicYou don’t become a trusted advisor overnight. Just like your product has a roadmap, you need one too.Start here:* Pick one challenging question (e.g., “From 1–10, what are the chances you’d renew tomorrow?”).* Practice it. Use it with 3 clients this month.* Review responses with your team. What worked? What didn’t?* Layer in more strategic techniques from there.And always bring a “golden nugget” to every call — a story, insight, feature, or piece of data that adds unexpected value.Final Thought: It’s Not a Title — It’s a MindsetBecoming a strategic CSM isn’t about waiting for a promotion or new role. It’s about how you show up right now.Ask better questions. Prepare deeper insights. Balance your customer’s needs with your company’s goals. And never forget: you are the differentiator.Let’s make “strategic” the new standard.Here is the full video from CS Insider and feel free to ask me questions here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadhorenfeldt.substack.com

Thanks for listening to Customer Success & Failures.Join my book launch team for "The Strategic Customer Success Manager": https://www.strategiccustomersuccess.com/ Customers deleting your emails without reading them is the new customers sending your calls to voicemail. I can guarantee that your customers delete your emails without even reading them. Why? Because you most likely aren’t offering enough value to warrant them taking even 5 seconds to scan your messages.I’ve unofficially banned the words “checking in” from our customer success team’s vocabulary. It’s a waste of time as customers don’t need you to check in with them. Either they will reach out to you if they need something, or they will respond if you offer them something that they deem valuable.Be your customer’s blind spotWhat excites customers is when you notice an issue or an area of opportunity they weren’t aware of. If you can be your customer's blind spot, you will get noticed and build trust. I recently saw an amazing example of this from my own CSM team.One of our customers is being impacted by the current trade wars, and our CSM reached out to them to not only provide some tips but also make certain modifications that would help them automate their current processes. Our CSM knew that they were short-staffed and would probably not have made this on their own. She knew that they really needed our help and that if we didn’t step in and provide value, we may have a churn risk on our hands. This change was going to save them time and provide a better experience for their end customers.She not only stepped in, but her communication was extremely crisp, so they understood what was expected of them. She even provided examples of the positive impact of the changes she made. She was acting as her customer’s blind spot.What was the end result? She earned a call with the customer where she could quickly review the changes she made and better understand what else was happening in their business. In this way, she can look for additional opportunities to drive more value and build trust.What I love about this approach is that she operated as if the client’s time was precious and it wasn’t a given that the client would jump on a call with her. She earned that right. Before she could switch to a more strategic perspective with the client, she was very tactical and got her hands dirty in the product.There are a few additional lessons to point out.Act as if you won’t get a responseToo often, I hear “Well, they just ignore all of my reach-outs” as an excuse for not engaging the customer. That may be the case, but you first need to ask yourself, are you providing enough value to the client that earns you the right to get a response? I’m not talking about mentioning a recent product release of yours. Are you sending them something that they truly see as valuable? Are you teaching them something about themselves that they don’t know about? While you may think you’re wasting your time as they’ll probably just ignore your email, you have to put these concerns aside. Communicate as if you won’t get a response from the customer and be OK with that.What do you think is the response rate of emails to your sales reps? Probably 5% at best. Your response rate should be much higher, but don’t expect to hear back, and don’t be discouraged after that first reach out. You should be tracking whether it was received and opened. That tells you that your clients may be finding it valuable. Expect to send a follow-up if you don’t get a response. If your message contains something of significant value, I can guarantee that it will have a higher chance of a response. In my follow-up messages, I like to use “no” oriented questions such as “Were those updates I suggested not helpful?”. This tends to get more traction.Regardless, have a mindset that you may not hear from your client, but you should be sending your updates or message regardless.Don’t try to do too much all at onceWhile providing something of value is a necessity when reaching out to clients, don’t do too much all at once. Just keep things simple and focus on the most impactful actions. You can then earn the right to take additional actions. That’s what my CSM did. When the client responded enthusiastically to her message, she then recommended additional changes. This ensured the client wasn’t overwhelmed. It’s like the old cars that would be flooded when you gave them too much gas. Go easy at the beginning with your clients so their engines are warm and they are receptive to taking on more.Gone are the days when there was a 99% chance your customers would respond to your communications. With layoffs, leaner teams, and the sheer amount of technology vendors that many of your clients deal with, they don’t have the time! They don’t even have the time to read your communication. You need to stand out from the rest. You need to earn every minute of your customer’s time and not expect anything in return. But, if you prove your worth by providing something that they perceive as valuable, you have a better shot of creating a partnership that will result in a longer-term relationship. PS: One tip I mention in my book is this concept of the golden nugget. This is a valuable piece of information that your clients are most likely unaware of. Create a golden nugget database that you and your team can refer to. You can even create a custom AI GPT to query.PPS: I’m so happy to announce that I’m formally starting my launch team for my new book, The Strategic Customer Success Manager, where I talk about these concepts and more. If you want to join the team and get some of the materials in advance for free, go to my launch site.Thanks for reading Customer Success & Failures! This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadhorenfeldt.substack.com

This has been a difficult week. I had to say goodbye to many amazing colleagues as part of a Meta layoff that impacted about 11,000 people. I’m thankful that I’m still employed but sad and concerned for those that have been let go. I’ve been trying to help those affected as best as I can. Beyond trying to directly help those impacted, I thought it might be helpful to share more about my journey and provide some advice. Unfortunately, the tech sector and especially startups can take the brunt of economic downturns and the current recession we’re in is a good example of this. A company can be a unicorn one day and a “doomicorn” the next. Working in technology and especially tech startups is a gamble. Some bets pay off, but many don’t. Customer Success seems to be a prime target for layoffs unfortunately. Although the role of CS is even more important in tough times as protecting revenue should take precedence, CS can often be the first to be chopped. As someone who has been laid off, it’s a horrible experience. There is usually little to no notice and you are tossed to the curb like trash. Many people realize they are part of the riff when they find they can no longer access internal systems. There are no going away parties and no parting gifts. There are no thank you’s given and no opportunities to show your appreciation for your colleagues. Ba bye, so long and don’t let the door hit you on the way out. It really, truly stinks.I have now been through a few economic downturns in the tech industry, so I have some experience here I can share. Let’s go waaaaay back. All the way back to 2001. I was a young sprout in school doing a post-grad engineering bootcamp and my school suddenly ceased operations and went into receivership. We’re coding one day and the next our systems are shut down. That was a horrible day and I was freaking out. I was on the brink of financial ruin as my $25K in tuition fees evaporated and I was now stuck paying off some massive student loans (on top of previous loans). Luckily, a white knight came along and bought out the school so we could graduate and eventually get jobs. I made it through the dot-bomb era relatively unscathed.In 2008 I dodged another bullet. The tech industry was again hit hard as part of the mortgage crisis and my company at the time, Eloqua, laid off some outstanding people. Back then Eloqua was the clear leader in the marketing automation space and the layoff was a reminder that your job is never safe. Market conditions will dictate your fate - regardless of the impact or contributions you’ve made.When I finally faced a layoff a decade later, it was due to my employer’s mediocre performance and the seniority of my role. My team was being cut in half and my role was deemed unnecessary, so I was let go. It wasn’t a surprise and the writing on the wall had been clear for a while, but it was still disappointing. My biggest challenge was having just 60 days to find a new job or face leaving the country due to my temporary H1B workers visa I had at the time. This layoff didn’t just impact me but also my wife and my three children.I’m someone with a lot of pride and fully committed to the cause of the company I’m working for. Probably too committed :). While I took the layoff in stride, I did question my own abilities and if I had what it took to be a leader in Customer Success. This is natural and reflecting on your past is important. However, I decided very quickly that I couldn’t dwell on what happened - it was time to move forward. I also didn’t have a choice as my immigration clock was ticking.For those that have been laid off - keep your head highAfter taking a day to soak in the shock of my predicament, I knew I had to act quickly or face having to pull my kids out of school and moving back to Canada. Not that there is anything wrong with Canada, but I wasn’t ready to admit defeat and I wasn’t prepared to completely disrupt the life that we had made for ourselves in the US. What helped me in those first few days was my former colleagues reaching out and offering words of encouragement. In addition, I kept in mind that this was a bump in the road of a longer journey that I was on. I then got down to work.Here are the steps that I took to find my next opportunity:What role do you want? Your first inclination may be to let your network know that you are looking for work. I recommend pausing on this temporarily as you want to maximize the assistance your friends and colleagues can provide to you. When they reach out to you, thank them, and then let them know that you will get back to them with specifics on the positions and organizations you would be interested in. You first need to spend time figuring out where you want to take your career next. You also may need a few days to decompress from what just happened. Take that time.In my own situation, I took a step back to consider what I enjoyed most in my past and what I disliked. A good exercise that you can do by yourself or with a trusted colleague is to ask yourself two questions:* What do you love the most about your previous roles?* What do you like the least about your previous roles?This is an exercise I run regularly with members of my team when I’m trying to help them narrow down areas of passion that they can focus on or find their next career moves. When I asked myself these questions, I recognized that I loved building teams, leveraging technology, coaching team members, and devising and executing strategies. My future roles had to provide me with these types of opportunities. I also realized that there were certain industries that just didn’t interest me and that I would avoid in the future.Once you answer these questions on your own, you can decide if you want to remain in a similar position or need to seek out other roles. You may determine that you need to further specialize your role (for example: focus on onboarding or operations rather than CSM) or that you need to change your career path entirely. What’s amazing about being in Customer Success is that you are usually qualified for many more roles once you’ve been with a company for a few years. As an example, many of my colleagues who were in Customer Success at Eloqua ended up going into marketing operations as Eloqua was a B2B marketing technology. Being laid off gives you some freedom to determine what you want to do next.As I knew I wanted to stay in Customer Success, I then asked myself: “What title am I looking for?”. I had been a VP for several years so it would be natural to look for other VP roles. As I was in a time crunch, I asked myself how important a title was vs the actual opportunity. I decided that the title didn’t matter if I liked the company, the compensation was adequate, and the role was challenging enough. It’s important to think through this now so you are mentally prepared to start your job hunt as well as recognizing what you’re ok with. More on that below.What type of company do you want to work for? When I started my own job search, I didn’t want to find myself in the same predicament of being laid off again within a few months. I decided to create some specific criteria for my job search regarding the companies that I wanted to join. I wanted to work for a company that had a significant amount of cash in the bank so I wouldn’t be concerned about whether they could make their next fundraise. I also wanted to work with a product that I really believed in. I realized that I preferred more complex and technical solutions. Rather than being an add-on to an existing tech stack I preferred a product that was a platform and mission critical for my client’s success. This would also contribute to how they could withstand an economic downturn. In addition, I desired to spend my working hours with executives that I related to and that I trusted. I looked for leaders that demonstrated humility and empathy. I tested for this by presenting ideas and seeing how receptive they … This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadhorenfeldt.substack.com

A father was on his deathbed but before he died, he took his daughter aside and said: "I'm giving you this watch that was your grandfather's. It's almost 200 years old. Go to the local jewelry shop and ask them how much they would pay you for it.” The dutiful daughter did as her father asked and went to a local jewelry shop. She returned to her father and said: "They will take $100 for the watch because of how old it is."The father then said: "Now take it to the local pawn shop and see how much they think it's worth". The daughter again followed her father's instructions and went to the pawn shop. She reported back to her father that the pawn shop would only pay her $20 as the watch was scratched.The father then asked her to travel to the museum to find out how much they thought it was worth. At this point, the daughter was starting to doubt if her father still had all his senses but as a loyal daughter she did as her father asked. The curator at the museum told the daughter that the watch was a rare historical piece and that they would offer her $375,000 to include it in their historical collection.She hurried back to her father to share the news. Her father sat up in his bed and said: "I wanted to show you that the right place will value you in the right way. Don't find yourself in the wrong place and be angry if you feel you aren't valued. You need to speak up for yourself. And don't stay in a role where someone doesn't see your value, or where you don't feel appreciated".Why did I tell you that story? I told you that story so I could tell you this one about myself. Early in my career I was managing a team member and my manager at the time wanted to give me the title of "team lead". I pushed back and asked for the manager title. I knew my worth and recognized that this was a manager role with manager responsibilities. Besides, someone else in the organization was in a similar role and had the manager title. Truthfully, I wasn't ready to be a manager, but the title was important to me. I didn't settle and I was given the title of manager. Later in my career I wanted to seek out new CS leadership opportunities, so I moved my family from Toronto to the NYC area. This was a massive risk and took a tremendous toll on myself and my family, but I knew my value and had faith in my abilities. There have been other times when I didn't feel valued or appreciated but before I did anything, I evaluated the situation to determine why I felt that way, how I needed to change and what was best for myself and my family in the long term. I sought out advice from others before I made any rash decisions. I knew my worth and knew that if I wasn’t happy, I needed to make a change.I want to remind you that you are talented. You are unique. You may not be in the right role, or you may be looking for that right role. Whatever the case, evaluate your own situation. Ask yourself if you feel valued. Look inwards. Talk to your manager if you can. Seek out advice. But don't settle. Find people that value you and your abilities. You are worth it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadhorenfeldt.substack.com

“I’m not busy at all” said no customer success professional ever. Listen, I know you are super busy but what about your customers? They are extremely busy too and we sometimes fail to take this into account - all to our detriment. I know it’s frustrating when you see your customers floundering and you want to help them. The problem is that it doesn’t mean your customer has the mindset or capacity to act at this moment. Keep in mind that they work with multiple products and already have a full plate of priorities. Your challenge is to convince them to act but you also need to assess their mental state. How do you do that?Spoon theory and customer successFor those with autoimmune diseases such as Lupus, it can be challenging and tiresome to continuously communicate how they are feeling. As a result of this, the spoon theory was developed as a straightforward way for those that have chronic illnesses to let others know their energy levels. These so called “spoonies” start their day with a defined number of spoons (say 10) and as they complete activities, they use up their spoons. The number of spoons they have left signifies their current state. As an example, when someone has one spoon left for the day, they are making it clear that they are fatigued and need to conserve their energy. When it comes to your customers, they also have limited time, attention, and energy. It’s helpful to visualize the number of spoons your customers are currently holding when you need them to do something. The question is, how do you get a sense of what they have on their plate and what they have an appetite for? I will take you through a proven method you can use.Assess your customer’s motivationYou can quickly get a sense if your customer is ready to move forward by using a proven technique that many psychologists use called “motivational interviewing”. To evaluate your client’s motivation to change or take action, ask them the following scaling questions:* On a scale of 0 to 10, where “0” is not important at all and “10” is crucially important, how important is it for you to take action?* On a scale of 0 to 10, where “0” is no confidence at all and “10” is completely confident, how confident are you that you can take action?Ideally, your customer responded with both high importance and high confidence to act but that seldom happens. You’ll find some of your customers that are highly motivated to act but have low confidence they can perform what is required. This may be due to a lack of skills, self-confidence, resources, time, budget, or faith in your product. You may have customers responded low for importance but high for confidence. It could be that they have other priorities, so your product or project is taking a backseat. They may also be egotistical and overconfident in their abilities, so they don’t believe they need to do anything or that your solution is worth the investment. You will want to dig into this further by using these two follow up questions:* “Why did you pick the number X and not a lower number?”* “What would it take to move it to a higher number?”Your goal here is to listen for “change talk”, which is your customer telling you that they want to improve their current situation. For example, if your customer says: “I chose ‘8’ for importance as this area is critical to me and my company.”, you know you are on the right track as there is a desire to get moving. If they provided a ‘3’ for confidence, you want to hear something such as: “I really want to use your new feature but I’m just too busy right now”. That gives you a sense that they are low on spoons. You can further dig into this to determine what their priorities are. You should then switch gears and put a plan together that works best based on their priorities. You can also try and give them some spoons by offering to directly assist them or suggesting a resource such as professional services that can assist them. Your goal should be to lower the barriers, so you reduce the friction that is causing a barrier to act.Stay hungry my friendsAlways keep in mind that your customers are people just like you. They are busy, have lives outside of work, and have limited time and energy. Try and determine how many spoons they have so that you have confidence that the neccessary steps will be taken. Don’t assume that the customer will do what they said they were going to do - you must assess their mental state. And if they say they are busy, get them to commit to a date that they can meet and discuss this again or suggest some approaches that can make it easier for them to start. Try out these recommended scaling questions and let me know how it worked out for you. Don’t give up - stay hungry or you could risk losing the client. PS: A Canadian oldie but a goodie (and a glimpse into Toronto in the early 80’s). This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadhorenfeldt.substack.com

You are sitting there and scratching your head. You just got an email from your client that they will be churning. How could this be? You spoke to them last week and have had regular meetings and they never mentioned the possibility of leaving. Unfortunately, if you are in customer success, this can happen from time to time. The relationships that you think you have with your clients aren’t as strong as you think they are. Sorry to burst that bubble.Here are two questions that I’ve borrowed from Claire Lew that I recommend you ask yourself regularly for each client to ensure you know where you stand with your customers.Reality CheckYou first need to do a reality check. Ask yourself: “To what degree are you seeing the current reality for what it is?” You need to get real here. Consider these items:* Is the client actually achieving value from your solution? * Do you know if they would renew tomorrow if they had to? If you can’t confidently answer these questions, you need to dive deeper. As Bob London recommends, ask your clients disruptive questions such as: “If a competitor reached out to you, would you respond?”. Keep probing until you are satisfied with the response.Just because a customer tells you everything is ok, doesn’t mean that it is. At times, it’s easier for them to gloss over their larger issues as they may be busy. In addition, they may be fed up as they are tired rehashing ongoing issues. It also may be easier for you to shake off signs that there are problems such as a customer canceling a call or ignoring your email. Seek out the truth - even if it hurts. Environmentally FriendlyThe second item to consider is the environment you’ve created for your customer. Ask yourself: “To what degree are you creating an environment for your client to be successful?”. Consider these items:* Have I provided the client with everything they need to succeed?* Do I need to do the work for the client or are they able to do it by themselves?* Where are they struggling? Why are they struggling?If you can’t confidently answer these questions, start by reviewing their conversations with your support team, any other voice of customer feedback such as surveys as well as their usage of your product. Look for potential issues within these areas and any past correspondence you’ve had. Then ask them the challenging questions “how can we make things easier for you?” or “If our product went away tomorrow, how much pain would this cause you?”. Ask follow up questions to ensure that they are getting the support they need to be successful. Determine what are some of the immediate and longer-term steps that can be taken to improve their situation. Figure out how to create a better environment for your customer and this will create an overall better customer experience.Don’t get burned by unexpected churn. Challenge yourself with these two questions and challenge your clients. PS. Here is a movie from 90’s that I highly recommend: This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadhorenfeldt.substack.com

We’re moving so fast - light speed at times. In customer success we have to make so many micro-decisions that at times we can operate on autopilot. Think about a recent customer interaction you had. How did you respond to it? You probably relied on instinct based on your previous knowledge or processes and policies that your company has in place. You may not remember half of what you said. In most situations, that’s fine. But this of course doesn’t always work - especially where customers don’t agree with your response.  The challenge is recognizing when you have entered a special situation. A moment when your decision will make or break your client relationship. These are what I call moments of truth. Think of these situations like the butterfly effect where a small action will change the future. I will try and help you identify these moments of truth and provide recommendations so you can act appropriately. First let me tell you about my own wakeup call.You can make a mistake, but how will you recover?Going back a few years now I was in the depths of hell handling several client contract negotiations during the initial stages of the Covid crisis. I will be honest here - it was one of my most challenging times as a CS leader. As it was still early in the pandemic, it was difficult to understand the impact this would have on our customers. Different customers were experiencing the pandemic differently and I had to make decisions quickly based on sparse pieces of information. The main issue was that I had too many items coming at me from all directions. It didn’t take long until I made a colossal mistake that could have had larger repercussions.One of our clients was starting to see an uptick in their business but they needed help. They needed to add licenses to help their team so they could better assist their own customers. Moving at the speed of light I coached my customer success manager to follow our process and offer our clients a solution based on our stated policies. The challenge was that this solution didn’t fit the client’s needs and would be costly. I didn’t realize it, but I was in a moment of truth, and I failed miserably. The client had no choice but to proceed and when the dust settled, they took the time to let me know that they weren’t happy with what transpired. They felt that we could have been more customer-centric and they were right. This was the wakeup call I needed, and I can’t express my appreciation enough to this client. After thanking them for their feedback I quickly reversed course. I obtained the necessary approvals to provide a better solution that made more sense in this situation. Reflecting on this time, I realized that we should have pushed the pause button and considered the situation from the client’s perspective. Our policies were valid but didn’t account for the unique crisis we were in. We needed to consider the client’s business needs and go outside the lines of our established policies. This was our moment of truth and something I now constantly remind myself of.Defining moments of truthWhile I love Wayne McCulloch’s book The Seven Pillars of Customer Success, I disagree with how he defined moments of truth. He used this definition: “Anytime the customer comes into contact with any aspect of a company, however remote, he or she has an opportunity to form an impression”. He referred to a moment of truth as any time a customer interacts with you. My definition is different. It was something that a former executive at Eloqua, Alex Shootman, had instilled in me years ago. I define a moment of truth as: “a critical interaction in the customer journey when the action(s) your company takes will determine if the client remains a long-term customer.” Therefore, this isn’t just any type of engagement. This moment will shape the future of your customer relationship.How do you know it’s a moment of truth?As I mentioned, it can be challenging to realize that you are in that make or break situation with a client. Here are some signs that can tell you that you are in a moment of truth:The customer tells you. This is the easiest situation of all to recognize because your customer will very explicitly tell you that your future relationship is hinging on how you handle the current predicament. They may also tell you that they are very upset with how a situation was handled. This could revolve around a critical bug, a missing feature, the price of a renewal or several other circumstances. In some situations, clients will bypass you and express how they feel on social media and in online communities. While it’s easy to recognize that this is a moment of truth, it’s still not easy to resolve.In some situations, it’s recommended that someone such as a customer success manager qualify how dire the situation is. I like to use qualification questions such as: “From 1-5 with 1 being the most important, how critical is this item for you?”. In other situations, such as the story I shared, it isn’t needed. I knew my client well enough to recognize the severity of the situation and that they were right. If the client takes the time to tell you that they feel you messed up, you need to address the situation quickly and handle it delicately. The client is very emotional. The client may not outright tell you that they will stop doing business with you, but you can tell from their mannerisms that they are unhappy or angry and at a breaking point. In these situations, it’s best to label the emotion so the client can communicate how they are feeling. For example, you can reflect on what the client said: “It seems that you are very upset”. You can then add if it makes sense: “How do you recommend we resolve this issue?” In these situations, you need to slowwwww down so you can take in the customer’s perspectives. Ask yourself these questions:* Why is the customer feeling this way? What is impacting them or their business right now that may be causing this?* How would I want to be treated if I was the customer?* What has happened previously that may be impacting how they are reacting?* Are our current processes and policies adequate for the exact situation we’re in right now?* Is what the client is asking for unreasonable?By asking yourself these questions you have paused long enough to turn off your autopilot and think through your actions. I also recommend going for a walk. If you have any doubts as to how you have acted or how you plan to act, pull a colleague aside and walk them through the situation. Ask them for their advice on how they would handle this. Ask them for feedback on your planned course of action. Getting a second opinion can prevent the wrong action or help get things back on track.  The client goes silent. When you are experiencing a moment of truth, you have a brief period to identify and rectify the situation. If it’s not handled correctly, you may have a client go dark on you. This is typically a clear sign that you failed to act appropriately from their perspective. It’s best to acknowledge that so you can move forward. I had a situation where the CSM-client relationship had deteriorated but I hadn’t noticed it quickly enough. They had kept pushing off meetings and were ignoring my reach outs. I asked for a brief call and said that the conversation was of a sensitive nature and could only be done by phone. After some additional prodding, the client agreed to meet, and I told them that we needed to do better. I recommended a path forward and asked them for their input. They agreed to my plan, and we were able to repair the relationship. This was lucky but it was only when I realized that this was a moment of truth and that I had to force the situation or risk losing the client forever.Your moment of truthI want you to think back again on recent conversations you’ve had with your customers or anyone for that matter. Did you face a moment of truth? … This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadhorenfeldt.substack.com

“Did you see that crazy deal that just came in? I can’t believe that we sold to them!”“The salesperson reached out to my client and didn’t tell me. Now I have to clean up this mess that they created.”“Why did sales push through that upsell? They clearly weren’t ready to make that purchase!”Do any of these sound familiar? While these examples are fictitious, they are commonly said by customer success teams in regards to their sales colleagues. I’m sure I’ve said something similar over the years as well. We’re also seeing these stereotypes perpetuated on social media (see the example below). I mean, they are really funny I’ll admit. But it’s not helping solve the underlying issue and while it’s an unpopular opinion, improvements can actually be made.While it may seem nice to have a laugh at someone else’s expense, it’s causing a deeper rift between sales and customer success. Do you think this will help prevent another “wrong fit” customer from being signed? Do you think this will prevent the sales team from trying to upsell clients who are at-risk? Complaining about the problem just perpetuates it. It can make things worse as it becomes harder to see things from other people’s perspectives. That same empathy that is needed to help your clients also needs to be directed inwardly to your own organization. It’s time to look at this from a different perspective and break out of this us vs them mentality. Your ego is in your way“Own your s**t” is something that was ingrained into me over the years as a leader. The book Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin really drove this point home and changed my way of thinking. My takeaway from the book is that I’m fully responsible for everything that my team is involved in. If we lost a customer, that’s my fault and not the CSM. If someone quits on my team, that’s on me. I focused on improving our processes and creating a culture of accountability and high performance. I made sure that we owned our s**t. The problem I learned is that it isn’t enough.I had a situation where we ran an upsell campaign that wasn’t communicated well to our customers. This caused some unnecessary friction with a small number of customers and the brunt of their unhappiness fell on the customer success team. Under the pressure of being chewed out by customers and then having my overburdened CS team being dragged through the mud yet again, I had had it. I escalated this to senior management and lashed out: “We really screwed this up. Why did this happen?” I thought I was being a good soldier and practicing “extreme ownership”. I had my s**t together - why didn’t other people have the same mentality? I thought “if you mess up, own it, learn from it and move on”. What I realized later was that I had let my ego get in the way. I was looking at this from a black and white perspective. However, I couldn’t get past my own way of thinking that I was right and the other teams were wrong. While someone else may have made a mistake here, I was making the bigger one.Own their s**t tooIt wasn’t until I read Meg Poag’s book “The Adversity Hack” that it dawned on me that my thinking was flawed. As she phrases it, “I had to go to battle with my ego”. She defines ego as the following:“Ego is the armor that guards the beliefs, pathways, and patterns we have built up to protect ourselves, survive, and feel better.” I was blaming someone else as I was giving in to my ego. What I needed to do was to stay curious and try and better understand why certain actions were taken. We have to assume that everyone is trying to do the right thing (and not just the CS team). If mistakes are made, it’s best to understand why they happened. I needed to ask myself, “what role did I play in this situation?” and “How could have I prevented this from happening?”In the situation with the upsell campaign, I could have made more of an effort to review the communication strategy to mitigate potential issues. My sphere of ownership needs to go beyond my team - I need to extend my ownership to others. In summary - you need to own other people’s s**t too.This applies to many situations. If you find challenges between sales and CS in your own organization, you need to take responsibility and find out why this is happening. It could be that this was how the sales team was trained (or not trained). It could be due to how the sales team is compensated. Stay curious and focus on the role that you play in the situation rather than feeding into your own ego and falling back on the blame game (and the Insta memes). Be the better person and you will speed up the chance to make real change and progress. Above all, stop blaming sales by default. This doesn’t help and only hinders the situation.PS: This way of thinking goes well beyond sales and customer success and can extend to any situation - including personal relationships.PPS: While I am aware of my ego it doesn’t mean that I still don’t get tripped up in my own s**t. I have a good sense of when it may be happening and when I need to pull myself up.Meg Poag, The Adversity Hack (Austin: River Grove Books, 2021), 13 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadhorenfeldt.substack.com

A number of years ago I was working with one of my clients who was a very talented marketing operations manager when I was a customer success manager at Eloqua (a marketing automation platform). Their goal was to deliver more targeted content to their prospects but the data that they stored in Eloqua was all over the place as data tends to be. They had collected contact information in a very unwieldy manner over the years. As an example, for the country field, United States was spelled in 20 different ways: USA, US, United States, America, 'merica. You get the point. “I have a great solution for you” I quickly exclaimed. “It’s called the data washing machine”. No joke. It really was called that and probably still is. I continued: “It will help you clean up your data through a series of rules in our workflow engine”. The challenge was that this workflow engine in Eloqua called “Program Builder” was a beast and not the easiest product to use. I could see the hesitancy in my client’s face as we spoke as I knew they had a lot on their plate already. It was obvious that I was losing them. “It’s ok,” they said. “We’ll just export the data and fix it ourselves”. I knew that this wouldn’t be the right move and would add countless hours to their campaign creation process. How could I turn this around?I decided to switch gears and started to talk about another one of our clients that were similar to them and had the same problem. They just happened to know the marketer over there as well. I remember telling them “Yeah, Dox also had that issue. They had a number of challenges targeting the right prospect by title so they used their washing machine to bucket people into their designated personas. The great thing is that after they implemented their own contact washing machine their email open rate went up by 20%, they generated 30% more qualified leads and they doubled the number of monthly campaigns they executed. Do you want to have a chat with Mary over at Dox? I can set that up. It’s up to you”. I saw a glimmer of light in my client’s eyes. “Well, there’s no harm in having a chat with Mary. It would be great if you could reintroduce us” they said. I had hit paydirt and prevented them from digging a deeper hole for themselves. All with the power of a story.Tell it, don’t sell itI was off to the races and built out a plan to get them using my proposed solution. The strength of stories is extremely underrated when it comes to customer success. While you may have a great product or service, your customers may not be ready for what you have to offer even though it will solve their problem. It’s foolish to think that someone will do what you say just because you said it. It’s best to consider a story that can help bridge the gap between your product or service and their need. In this case, a customer story was the right tool. My goal was to have them visualize what the end result may look like which was why I shared the success metrics. I focused on telling the story rather than selling the benefits of the contact washing machine. I then proposed to have one of our other customers tell it to them directly which is even more powerful.I also used a bonus technique to counteract the psychological effect called “reactance” which happens when people feel you may be too pushy. Think of that annoying associate that comes up to you in your favorite clothing store and asks “can I help you?”. 99% of the time you want to scream “No, go away” but of course you don’t say that out loud. By saying “it’s up to you” I let the customer decide what they want to do next and I made it an easy first step. Giving your customers freedom and options can help people take the first step when they may be hesitant to. Gather those storiesYour challenge: What stories do you or your team have that should be used to help change the behavior of your customers? Customer success managers should have a bank of stories that they have close at hand and can easily leverage. Most likely, they already exist but they haven’t been brought together. You can start to gather them - even if they are in a rough draft to start. You can then refine them and work with your team on how best to deliver them. That is coming up in a future post so stay tuned….Look for those stories - they are there:PS: this post was an example of a story This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadhorenfeldt.substack.com

Do any of these statements sound familiar to you? “We expected your product to be able to do that with the click of a button. If you don’t have this feature we may need to look for another solution.”“Your competitor is able to display our data as line charts and bar charts. Why can’t you do that too?”These of course are fictitious examples but the pain that you may be experiencing may be similar. Your customers may have expectations that your solution is supposed to have certain features or work in a certain way and if it doesn’t, it’s broken. For the most part, I don’t blame the customer in these situations as most likely there were incorrect expectations that were set along the way. The problem is that much of this is out of your control for the following reasons:* The client felt they were promised certain features during the sales cycle that you had nothing to do with.* You have a limited ability to modify your product roadmap let alone the timeframe that your customer may be asking for in regards to these new features.* Lastly, your various client stakeholders have different agendas and objectives and both the people and the priorities change over time. This makes it challenging to balance what different people want and to ensure they are receiving value.Regardless of the situation, you, as the customer representative, have to sort out this mess. One way to try and get things on a better track is to leverage the concept by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy called “The GAP and the GAIN”. Let’s dive into what this is all about.Mind the GAPSullivan and Hardy used this concept of “the GAP and the GAIN” to explain why some people have such a hard time being happy. These people are always measuring themselves against an ideal that they have pictured in their minds. For example, they may expect to be making 7 figures by the time they are thirty and have a home and two kids. Not attaining that high salary or that house in the suburbs could send them spiraling out of control. Even when they may have actually accomplished their goals they may be unhappy with the size of their home or the job title they have. It never ends as they are in a constant “pursuit of happiness” (thanks Thomas Jefferson). This is called being in the GAP and it affects a large number of people.If you feel that I may be describing some of your traits, you are not alone. I’m someone whose #1 strength as part of the CliftonStrengths is “achiever” and I’ve lived too much of my life in the GAP. My 12-year-old may have finished his homework and done his chores but I’ll scold him for leaving his dirty plate on the dinner table by mistake. I can be a real jerk at times as I’m focused too much on the GAP and not the GAIN. A GAP mindset can really hold you back in life. In contrast to living in the GAP, living in the GAIN is measuring yourself against a starting point rather than against a future ideal. It’s about appreciating what you and others have accomplished rather than agonizing over what didn’t happen (or that it didn’t happen as you expected it to). How do you apply this concept to your customers?Focus on the GAINThe feature request that was mentioned at the beginning is a clear example of your client being in the GAP. How do you move the conversation from the GAP to the GAIN? Your goal should be to get your customer to be proud of what they have accomplished so far with your product rather than of what may be lacking. You can also point out the product improvements that have been made that have directly impacted them.Here are my recommendations to move to GAIN thinking:* Make sure you know what your starting point is. Confirm the metrics that are important to your customers and the outcomes that they want to achieve. For example, if their goal is to unify all of their systems so they have a clearer understanding of their customer data, you will want to define that up front. This could be on the kick-off call or on a business review (QBR). * Track progress against the starting point & sell it. If you know the starting point, you can focus on how the client has progressed against this rather than focus on what they have yet to accomplish. Create a joint success plan or just define specific tasks that need to get done to demonstrate the progress being made. Focus on the GAIN (the progress) versus the GAP (what wasn’t done). Leverage strategic meetings such as business reviews (QBRs) and other high profile meetings such as executive sponsor touchpoints to go over what has been accomplished. Point out the new features that have been rolled out -especially the ones that have directly impacted your client. Once the customer acknowlodges their progress, be sure to update all of the customer stakeholders. Sell those wins. * Identify if the client is in the GAP early and address it. We all go into the GAP sometimes but there may be different ways to get out of it. That is why you need to identify any client issues early on in the relationship and attack them head-on. For example, if the client is expecting a feature, let them know if you will build the feature, if you won’t build it and if there are other options. You need to set the right expectations so that the client isn’t stuck in the GAP.I’m not saying that by focusing on the GAP you can ignore all feature requests and other asks that your clients may have. However, when you are in a tough situation and your client may be fixated on certain issues, try and elevate the discussion beyond the problem at hand. As an example, I remember being in a tough renewal conversation where the client questioned the price we proposed. I reminded the client of all the progress we made due to their CSM’s assistance. The client acknowledged the high-quality service they were receiving and recognized that this was baked into the cost. We were able to shift the conversation from the GAP to the GAIN and secure the renewal.GAIN some more happinessYour challenge: Start to document all of the wins and accomplishments from just one of your customers. It could be new features or modules they have rolled out with your product. It could be configurations you helped them with or some wins from your support team. It could be them surpassing key metrics based on their defined outcomes. You could even just ask them: “what has your company found to be successful using our product?”. Get your customers into a GAIN mindset and I can guarantee that it will make you and your customers feel better. PS: When you ask that “success” question, get ready to share the response with the rest of your organization as you will typically uncover a golden nugget. Get everyone into GAIN thinking.PPS: This is more a reminder for me for a self-proclaimed GAPper. Focus more on what you have accomplished, what your family has accomplished, what your team has accomplished, what other functions have accomplished versus what they haven’t. Focus on the GAIN vs the GAP.PPPS: Get in the GAIN and get happy! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chadhorenfeldt.substack.com