The Customer Success Professional's Handbook


Book Description

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.




Customer Success


Book Description

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.




Practical Customer Success Management


Book Description

"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.




The Customer Success Economy


Book Description

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.




Farm Don't Hunt


Book Description

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 Seven Pillars of Customer Success


Book Description

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.




The Early Intervention Guidebook for Families and Professionals


Book Description

This guidebook on family–professional partnerships has been used as a go-to early intervention resource in university coursework, for inservice professional development, and as a support to families in (or considering) early intervention. This new edition has been completely revised to reflect recent research and respond to feedback that the author accumulated from users of the book, including practicing professionals and university instructors. With a focus on how families and professionals can collaborate effectively so that infants and toddlers (0–3) learn, grow, and thrive, chapters address: child learning and development, family functioning and priorities, early intervention as a support and not a substitute, and planning “what’s next” after early intervention. Specific components of early intervention—evaluation and assessment, program planning, intervention implementation, service coordination, and transition—are also discussed. This hands-on resource uses stories of families in early intervention to illustrate key concepts and provides checklists that readers can use to assess their experiences in early intervention. “This guidebook is my go-to source with families, professionals, and students. The newest edition expands upon an already exceptional book with the most recent policy and evidence-based practice recommendations. I can’t keep enough copies in my library.” —Susan Fowler, director, Illinois Early Intervention Clearinghouse “Supporting and empowering parents to help their infants and toddlers with delays and/or disabilities to learn and grow is key to future successes. Bonnie’s Keilty’s comprehensive work on the new edition of The Early Intervention Guidebook for Families and Professionals will help to insure that Part C Early Intervention around the country will stay focused on its work with and for families.” —Roxane Romanick, Founding Board Member Early Intervention Family Alliance




The Hustler's Handbook


Book Description

Getting from Point A – where you are now – to Point B – where you want to be – is not always easy. It’s not always easy to even know what Point B is, what real success in your life would look like! It’s also not rocket science, and you don’t have to be a scholar to make it in this world. What you do have to be is a Hustler. You have to have the ability to put others first, set aside your ego, work through tough times, be thoughtful, be honest, and give people the benefit of the doubt as you would give yourself. This is not complicated stuff, but this is the stuff that creates winners. More than just a motivational message, The Hustler’s Handbook guides you through concrete steps and actionable changes you can make to set yourself on the path to success – through what it really means to HUSTLE: • Helping others get what they want • Under-promise and over-deliver • Sacrifice • Take chances • Listen more, talk less • Expect the best out of people These practices can’t just happen every now and then. This has to be a consistent action that becomes part of you. Stop waiting for the “right moment.” Learn to set real goals, to get rid of the bad thinking that holds you back, to break out of the cycle of mediocrity, to defeat laziness. The time to start is now. Life is no dress rehearsal, so let’s go to work!




The Startup's Guide to Customer Success


Book Description

Are you looking to start or grow a customer success team? Customer success is no longer just for companies with large teams and resources. It's a company mindset that can unlock the biggest opportunities in business. Customer success can help streamline experiences, grow product engagement and loyalty, and more importantly - retain business.In The Startup's Guide to Customer Success, Jennifer Chiang presents a guide on how to plan, execute, and grow your own customer success team and the actionable steps that you can take to champion the customer at your company.Learn insights such as: * The four attributes Shreesha Ramdas, CEO and Co-Founder of Strikedeck, says are must-haves when hiring your first customer success team* How Jamey Jeff, Managing Director of Customer Success Solutions at Coastal Cloud, reevaluated QBRs to derive more value for his customers with less work* How Maranda Dziekonski, VP of Customer Success at Pared, manages her time wisely to not only get everything done, but fight fires and plan aheadThis book is for everyone from new customer success leaders, CEOs and VPs who want their company to be more customer-centric, to start-ups who are starting their own customer success teams




The Architecture Student's Handbook of Professional Practice


Book Description

The essential guide to beginning your career in architecture The Architecture Student's Handbook of Professional Practice opens the door to the vast body of knowledge required to effectively manage architectural projects and practice. A professional architect is responsible for much more than design; this book is specifically designed to help prepare you for the business and administrative challenges of working in the real-world—whether you are a student or are just starting out in practice. It provides clear insight into the legal, financial, marketing, management, and administrative tasks and issues that are integral to keeping a firm running. This new edition has been restructured to be a companion textbook for students undertaking architectural practice classes, while also fulfilling the specific knowledge needs of interns and emerging professionals. It supplements information from the professional handbook with new content aimed at those setting out in the architectural profession and starting to navigate their careers. New topics covered in this new edition include: path to licensure, firm identity, professional development, strategic planning, and integrated project delivery. Whether you want to work at a top firm, strike out on your own, or start the next up-and-coming team, the business of architecture is a critical factor in your success. This book brings the fundamentals together to give you a one-stop resource for learning the reality of architectural practice. Learn the architect's legal and ethical responsibilities Understand the processes of starting and running your own firm Develop, manage, and deliver projects on time and on budget Become familiar with standard industry agreements and contracts Few architects were drawn to the profession by dreams of writing agreements and negotiating contracts, but those who excel at these everyday essential tasks impact their practice in innumerable ways. The Architecture Student's Handbook of Professional Practice provides access to the "nuts and bolts" that keep a firm alive, stable, and financially sound.