The Customer Success Roundtable – Episode 2

Customer Success Managers, Account Managers, and Retention Specialists are all roles that are critical to a scaling organization, and retaining/growing recurring revenue. These roles are so critical in fact, that there are over 18,000 jobs posted on LinkedIn looking to hire this talent in Canada, AND the demand for these roles outweighs the supply by 52%.

Although it is known that these roles are imperative to an organization’s success, the CS and Sales communities still have many unanswered questions when it comes to hiring for these roles: What are the key differences between these roles? How do they uniquely contribute to the growth of the company? How do you define the ideal candidate for each position? And, how do you attract the best talent?  

So, to tackle these questions and more, we’re hosed a live panel of esteemed Revenue Leaders that included Josh Guttman from Lane, Jayme Smithers from Thoughtexchange, and Vanessa Brangwyn from Achievers, moderated by Netty Kim from Sales Talent Agency. 

 

A few of our top takeaways from the session include:

18:30 – An organization needs multiple solutions (Customer Success Managers, Account Managers, and Renewal Specialists) to create a seamless customer journey. That said, it depends on what stage a company is in to determine what net revenue retention hires they need and what those roles look like.

21:35 – There is currently a trend where organizations are moving toward a pod model where their net revenue retention team operates as one. When determining whether or not an organization should move toward this model they need to consider the type of stage they are in and the type of customers they have. 

27:30 – When defining the ideal candidate profile for net revenue retention roles, your organization should have a philosophy that defines the needs/goals of the organization. This will help a company be clear on the skills and characteristics that are needed to fulfill these roles successfully. 

39:50 – Onboarding for net revenue retention roles can be difficult as there is so much to be learned in these roles. Best practices include creating a partner system for new hires so that they can learn from and lean on someone already in the role.

 

Have a question that wasn’t answered? A topic you’d like us to cover? Let us know!