#TDSU Episode 190:

⏱️ Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:58 - Customer success is a roller coaster ride

00:04:19 - Not everyone is built for the ride

00:07:16 - Embracing unpredictability and teamwork

00:08:43 - Leadership must support the front lines

00:09:27 - Emotional resilience in customer success

00:12:02 - Serving customers in their critical moments

00:13:55 - Next up, the log flume?

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🤝 Connect with the hosts:

Dillon's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dillonryoung

JP's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanpierrefrost/

Rob's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-zambito/

👋 Connect with David Karp:

David's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidalankarp/

[David] (0:00 - 0:16)

All of our inefficiency dysfunction in the organization, whether it's product release, that wasn't quite right, a missed expectation and a sales process. It all leaks towards the customer. It all shows up at the moment.

We're trying to make things happen for a customer and who gets to see that people in customer success.

[Dillon] (0:25 - 0:36)

What's up lifers and welcome to the daily standup with lifetime value, where we're giving you fresh new customer success perspectives every single day. I got my man, Rob with us. Rob, do you want to say hi?

[Rob] (0:37 - 0:38)

Little giants. What's up?

[Dillon] (0:39 - 0:42)

We've got JP with us.

JP, can you say hi, please?

[JP] (0:42 - 0:46)

Hey, running through these episodes like route 130.

[Dillon] (0:48 - 0:59)

And we have David with us. David, can you say hi please? Deep in the heart of Texas.

Howdy. And I am your host. My name is Dillon Young.

David, thank you so much for being here. Can you please introduce yourself?

[David] (0:59 - 1:35)

Sure. Happy to really thrilled to be here. So I am a chief customer officer at Disco.

Been there about three and a half years. Um, really we've got all post sales responsibility. I've been in kind of tech and, and large enterprise work for, I won't tell you how many decades, but it's a number greater than two and less than four.

Um, but a long time, um, grew up in South Jersey. So love the giants. And, uh, I will tell you that.

Um, but really appreciate, um, doing work with customers and, and really getting the opportunity to work across an organization and focus on, um, helping customers thrive.

[Dillon] (1:35 - 1:58)

I'm going to, I'm going to let sleeping dogs lie South Jersey and the giants. You made it sound assumptive. That's definitely not the case.

So I'm slightly offended, but David, you know what we do here? We ask one simple question of every single guest, and that is what is on your mind when it comes to customer success. And with three decades, that's right.

I can do math three decades of experience. Can you tell us what that is for you?

[David] (1:58 - 3:33)

Yeah. And, and, uh, I, I apologize for any offenses unless I offended a, an Eagles, a commander or a Cowboys fan, then it's all, you can assume it's intentional. Um, but like, I'll, I'll, I'll say this.

I think a lot about when you're doing any work that is customer facing, I really think about it as, um, riding a roller coaster and, um, you have to intentionally decide I want to get on this roller coaster. And what's really cool about a roller coaster. And I'll give a shout out to the movie parenthood.

If you haven't seen it, check it out. Where there's a scene that talks about how thrilling and exciting and terrifying, um, a roller coaster ride can be, um, which is a lot different than America around because America around just goes around. And if you're working with customers, there's going to be days that it's terrifying days.

It's going to be exciting days. You're going to feel like it's the greatest ride of your life and days. You're just going to want to throw up and get off the ride.

But the cool thing about a roller coaster is you don't really ride it alone. You tend to ride it with other people. And one of the great things about having post-sales responsibility is you get to, or help the whole organization align to ride that roller coaster together and have a great ride.

But I think about, because you're not riding it alone, you've really got a choice to make every day, um, because you're riding it with other people. If I'm having a great ride, I'm going to assume other people are not. And I'm going to look over and say, who can I help out today?

Whose hand can I hold while they're having a terrifying ride? And if I'm having a tough day, I got to be willing to let somebody else hold my hand and help me get through it. Cause the bottom line is our customers are counting on us riding this ride together, um, for them and really enjoying the experience.

[Dillon] (3:33 - 4:18)

There's some interesting themes in here about vulnerability, that last piece you said about willing to be vulnerable, but also this level of unpredictability, which I think if you were a pessimist, which luckily for you guys, I am. And so this is the way I view it. It could also be viewed as if you don't like that unpredictability, then get the hell out.

Now I am absolutely putting words in your mouth there, David, but I wonder if there's a, if there's ever a time you think of it that way, where you have folks either that you're, you're working side by side with, or folks that you've had on your team, not necessarily today, maybe it was years ago, who were like, I just don't like the way this goes. Have you ever had to say to them like, well, then you got to get off the ride, brother.

[David] (4:19 - 5:10)

Yeah. Um, maybe, maybe I haven't said it as directly as you did. Um, cause I tend to be an optimist, but in maybe in the middle and the realism, heck yeah, it's, uh, like especially today where we know that there's greater expectations for all of us and where people are uncomfortable, or maybe they could be in a customer success role, a post-sales role and have a different set of responsibilities.

We're all being held accountable to driving company performance. And so it's going to get uncomfortable. And guess what?

If you don't like it, it's not the right place for you. And that's okay too. And better to, to raise your hand and say, this isn't right for me, or take the hard feedback and do the hard work to get better, otherwise you're just standing in the way and you're going to be, you're going to be uncomfortable.

Are you going to fight reality? Go get on the merry-go-round. That's a good ride for people.

It really is. Um, not everybody likes the rollercoaster. It's hard.

[Dillon] (5:10 - 5:18)

It's a hard message, but I think it's the right one. JP, what did you take from what David said? Cause I obviously interpreted it one way, but what did you pick up from it?

[JP] (5:19 - 7:16)

Yeah. Well, I mean, like you said, Dillon, there's, there's, there's a lot of themes to what you shared, David. So many, you could say it's like a theme park.

There's so many things that you shared. And, um, I think that there is, when I think about customer success, I think more and more, I begin to associate it with unpredictability just in general. So I do like, you know, sort of like the call out to sort of holding someone's hand through it.

Because even though sometimes, you know, empathy can be a maligned word. Now I feel like it's sort of, it sort of has its own rollercoaster ride was the way that we view it. I do think that that is, um, a really good use of empathy.

Understanding that, you know, CS, we are often, I feel like we're not often in the driver's seat. Like there's other things. And so we're sort of like along for the ride.

And so I think that good CS leaders can navigate that sort of uncertainty by understanding that like, you know, they may have to be that stabilizing force, AKA the hand that they reach out to the people that are on their team. I think that that's like a mark of a really good, you know, CS leader. I say that's, that's definitely one of the things I appreciate about, you know, some of the leaders that I have currently where I am is that, you know, when people can be a stabilizing force and whether that means like stability doesn't know and holding your hand doesn't always have to mean coddling, it can be like Dillon's sort of alluded to where you say like, yeah, he's like, are you along for the ride or like, do you want to hop off? I mean, sometimes that's just the line that has to be drawn.

And I think that that can be as empathetic as anything, you know, because you're giving people clarity, you're giving them where you stand instead of sort of leaving things ambiguous and vague.

[David] (7:16 - 8:43)

Yeah. JP, I love that. Cause I, I think holding somebody's hand doesn't mean they're not on the right ride.

Right. There's plenty of days I've needed, I've needed my handheld. I got kicked in the teeth.

I got things wrong. It happens all the time. I think what's really cool about being in customer success is this.

I think I have long believed that all of our inefficiency dysfunction in the organization, whether it's a product release that wasn't quite right, a missed expectation and a sales process, it all leaks towards the customer. It all shows up at the moment. We're trying to make things happen for a customer and who gets to see that people in customer success.

So I can get mad about that or I can go, this is just part of my job for the company is bringing us back and helping us see those gaps and helping us solve it. I'm not going to get mad about it. It's part of doing business, but some days it feels awful.

And some days you feel like I got this. And so just understanding and being realistic about that, I think gets you through it and just being willing to be the person that's going to let other people help you and hurt the person who's going to help other people. That's really what I think makes it enjoyable for me and why I like the ride.

But it is going to be unpredictable. It's going to be hard. There's days it's going to be great.

But because we have that visibility, we have to bring that back to the rest of the company. So the ride gets a little smoother the next time, or maybe my third time on it. I know where that big loop is coming and I'm ready for it.

And I'm enjoying it more than I did maybe the first two times.

[Dillon] (8:43 - 9:26)

David, you mentioned something in there around, we are often at sort of the bleeding edge of the issues that are discovered and particularly when they are customer facing. And you mentioned having to be comfortable with that and, and, and kind of like weathering that storm. The one piece I'll add to that, and I recognize that I'm saying this to a leader is that your leadership has to understand that that's your role too.

That your role is being on the front lines and not necessarily the person who is always responsible for what happens on the front lines. That's a key piece. And one where I have found the most frustration before is when my leadership didn't understand that.

Rob, why don't you go ahead?

[Rob] (9:27 - 10:07)

Yeah, lots to say. This resonates with me a lot, David. I'm thinking about actually when I was at one job, at the end of every day, we took 30 minutes to do what was supposed to be a training and the way we kicked off every quote unquote training was we would just ask, who got punched in the face today?

Who got punched? And it often became, it often became event sessions. Cause we, I mean, it was hard.

That was like right when COVID hit, we were in a really abstract industry and we had no idea what we were doing, how to talk about it. And, and it actually makes me think also about who is it that spoke about emotional resiliency? Do you guys remember JP Dillon?

[Dillon] (10:07 - 10:09)

Jennifer Albrecht, probably.

[Rob] (10:09 - 10:26)

Yes. Yeah. Jennifer talked about emotional resilience.

Change resilience. And I thought that that was like, I've had these sort of two different forces in the back of my head. It kind of makes me think of like when I used to manage a kitchen and it was like, you know, like the bear, it was just absolute chaos.

[JP] (10:26 - 10:29)

He wants to be the bear so bad. I would love it.

[Rob] (10:29 - 12:02)

Nothing more. When I retire, I'm, I might resume, I might put the apron back on. But, but it's actually, it's, it's interesting because when you, you know, we have these two different and I'm going to give you, I'll just give the audience a couple of practical tips that have helped me.

First of all, like when dealing with this struggle between like, well, when dealing with the struggle of the rollercoaster, there's, there's something I researched once that helped me get through it, which is you guys know the work of Danny Kahneman. He's a behavioral economics. Behavioral economist.

He talks about the difference between the experiencing self and the remembering self. So just cause something is kind of doing it when you're experiencing, it doesn't necessarily mean you will remember it negatively. And I can say this, looking back at like chaotic times where I've, you know, burned a steak in the kitchen or whatever.

And there's a lot of things we can do in customer success. Also, like a second thing that came to mind is just somebody said recently, he's like, we start all of our meetings five minutes after the hour, because we leave five minutes just for the uncertainty that happens between meetings and the pressure that happens when you're booked back to back. So like, that's a good tip.

And then the last thing I'll, I'll, I'll leave you guys with, I was thinking actually through the perspective of the customer's lens, in that case, the customer is the one riding the rollercoaster, like they sign up for the ride and they think that you're the person who's running the rollercoaster and that you have full control over everything. And yeah, sometimes you're just sitting next to them. So, but it's cool when you think about like customer journey mapping, it's like, okay, let's see where the customer's experience goes up, goes down, goes through a loop, et cetera.

So a lot of interesting extensions of this analogy, but I'll stop there.

[David] (12:02 - 13:55)

No, you know, it's, it's so well said. And, and, uh, when you're, when you put that apron back on, let me know, I'm going to make a trip. I want to, I want to enjoy, enjoy some of it for sure.

Although I'm a little nervous now with the burn steak, you know, I'm in Texas now, so I got to get, you know, right. Look, it's interesting. I think as leaders, we, we choose every day how we show up, right?

Like I can show up as the person who's bearing the burdens that are foisted on me, or I can show up and say, look, this is what I'm here to help us do as a company and what I got to do is help us all understand that that customer, I would think of, it's really simple that here's what's going on. It's what's Thursday. It's 1123 for me.

There is a customer we have that's doing a big presentation Friday afternoon for the, either their customer or their boss. And they are logging into our system to pull data today for that presentation. Oh, by the way, happens to be their anniversary tonight.

And they're counting on going home and taking their significant other out for a meaningful dinner. What's their experience when they log in to get that last bit of data to prepare for tomorrow? Is it a good one?

Does it work? Is it simple? Or do they run into a problem that's creating this incredible, stressful moment for them?

That terrible rollercoaster ride to your point, Rob, like that's the cool part is we get to solve for that. I'm not solving for something. Somebody else did wrong in the organization or the customer who had a bad expectation.

I'm solving for that moment. So they have the dinner that they want tonight and they crush it when they're doing their presentation tomorrow. That's like the coolest thing we get to do.

It's just really unpredictable and hard, which makes it kind of fun. If you ask me, maybe I'm just a crazy person. Um, maybe it's because of where I grew up, we'll get back to the South Jersey thing and what it takes to survive that, but truly like that's the privilege we have, that we get to solve those kinds of things for real people.

That to me is why the ride is so cool.

[Dillon] (13:55 - 14:26)

South Jersey is inaccurately represented in this episode. I mean, listen, you guys, does that make you feel better? Crazy insane giants fans are not what we're known for.

David, that is our time. Thank you so much. Love this topic.

Uh, the idea of the roller coaster ride and, and everything that comes along with it. Would love for you to come back in and give us a new analogy for, um, let's say the log flume. Maybe that's where we're at next, but for now we've got to say goodbye, David.

Real pleasure, gentlemen. Thank you so much.

[VO] (14:34 - 15:05)

You've been listening to The Daily Standup by Lifetime Value. Please note that the views expressed in these conversations are attributed only to those individuals on this recording and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of their respective employers. For all inquiries, please reach out via email to Dillon at lifetime value media.com find us on YouTube at lifetime value and find us on the socials at lifetime value media until next time.

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