#TDSU Episode 196:

⏱️ Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:48 - Should customer success exist?

00:02:52 - The Frank Slootman perspective

00:03:36 - Turkeys, digestion, and CS analogies

00:05:55 - The marriage of customer success

00:07:45 - A single throat to choke?

00:09:47 - Can tech replace CS?

00:11:27 - Most CS professionals lack this experience

00:13:12 - Eat some rocks, save your marriage

📺 Lifetime Value: Your Destination for GTM content

Website: https://www.lifetimevaluemedia.com

🤝 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/

[JP] (0:00 - 0:22)

Don't chicken be eaten stones or something to put in their belly so they can help like digest food I think I think that's some kind of thing. Maybe it's turkeys One of them birds that they like eat rocks so that they it can help them like digest food or something like that I don't know You know what I say to this topic is you could do what the hell does that have to do?

[Dillon] (0:22 - 0:23)

What made you want that?

[JP] (0:23 - 0:35)

I was gonna steer it back around because you said Are you ready for this? Are you ready?

[Dillon] (0:35 - 0:50)

Horrendous. All right, you guys ready? What's up lifers and welcome to The Daily Standup with lifetime value where we're giving you fresh new customer success ideas Every single day.

I got my man jp with us jp. Do you want to say hi?

[JP] (0:50 - 0:52)

What's going on?

[Dillon] (0:52 - 1:47)

What's going on? What's going on? What's going on?

What's going on? And we have rob with us rob, you want to say hi What's up people and I am your host. My name is Dillon young and it's just the three of us Raise your hand if you've got Something to share with the audience Oh, that's right in his youth small shirt Straining extra small.

I buttoned it for you. It fits It's not for me. Don't you say that?

Bust out of these buttons Any brother if you can't bend over to tie your shoes without your buttons straining It does not fit. I need to find someone to tie my shoes for me Is what you're saying or you need to get those step in sketchers keep looking this good All right, rob. What do you got for us?

[Rob] (1:48 - 2:52)

Oh, I went into the well the content. Well, yes You know reddit and on customer success reddit somebody posted customer success Should not exist And this is a recent this like just came out just came out They said all right. Okay.

Sorry for the clickbait, which I appreciate they're saying that but seriously the other day It says but seriously the other day I started thinking that if product sales implementation and support did their job, right? We wouldn't exist Mm-hmm. I already disagree, but most days it feels like cs exists simply to pick up the pieces from other departments Which in essence it is a very important role and justifies having it Would love to hear some counter on my way of thinking I envy some of the people that come on here Just to share how truly strategic they get to be with their customers, which by the way truly strategic You guys know how I feel about that Means anything to everyone And the other departments and the discipline compliment what they do Is it really out there Let's hear it

[Dillon] (2:52 - 3:36)

No, not at all. Tell me is that frank slootman? Is that frank slootman underscore one two three because that's his whole concept.

It's peach as no Peach as no, no, not peach That's that's a frank slootman burner then or it could be mine i've said the same thing I think it's not a crazy thought Because that is how a lot of b2c companies work They don't have a customer success function and they've absorbed customer success responsibilities into those other groups anyway I don't need to beat that dead horse jp. What do you think?

[JP] (3:36 - 4:37)

You know when you said that it reminded me of like Don't chickens be eating stones or something to put in their belly so they can help like digest food I think that's I think that's some kind of thing. Maybe it's turkeys One of them birds that they like eat rocks so that it can help them like digest food or something like that I don't know You know what I say to this topic is you can do what the hell does that have to do? I was gonna steer it back around because you said People some people have absorbed customer success if you can't digest all this stuff on your own, right?

Maybe you have to outsource it to get it from someplace else But I guess you don't need customer success if you've already eaten all the rocks like a turkey has But I digress we can get out of that what i'll say about this is look you don't think you need customer success, bro Don't do it See what happens don't do it. See what happens. You know what I mean?

[Dillon] (4:37 - 4:40)

I know that's what rob thinks because he already said he disagrees.

[JP] (4:40 - 5:53)

Yeah, so so go ahead see what happens Maybe you don't really need it Maybe you need it in some form, but I am I think at this point a proponent of the inside out approach Like I think if you're building a company like maybe someone's ah and one of the first things we need to do is get a customer success the part I wouldn't be like No, the first thing to do is figure out who your customer is like all this some of this other stuff Before we're just putting it out there in the same way that we've talked about Don't go buying a csp or buying all these gadgets in hopes that they are going to fix your problem Look at it more like what do we need to solve the problems that we currently have so do it inside out You know, so the question I get it It's clickbait because it's like we need customer success and it's the answer that all customer success professionals have which is it depends So, you know, I think it just depends on the particular situation but to that person's point i'll just say We've said it a lot you do end up picking up a lot of stuff that sort of falls through the cracks a lot of rocks Exactly. See I when I come with the fire analogies i'm always coming with fire now, even if you can't see it Well, I generally agree with you.

[Dillon] (5:53 - 5:55)

I'm not sure I understand this one, but i'm rolling with it.

[Rob] (5:55 - 6:39)

Go ahead Yeah Well, there's we have to acknowledge there's a difference between how things are and how they should be and my concern for this person is that they've Probably grown up In a bad world with customer success that was built incorrectly Right, but if we idealize for a moment and remind ourselves, what's the origin story? Why does this thing exist? Or to the contrary we look at the world where customer success doesn't exist There are real things that slip through the cracks The person who says that customer success should not exist is the person who says when you get married in a relationship You're all set.

You don't need to keep continuing to work on the relationship But the conventional wisdom is obviously you have to keep working on the relationship.

[Dillon] (6:39 - 7:45)

You have to keep Developing the relationship in order for it to keep renewing itself in order for it to keep but that's I agree with you, but I don't and here's the reason why first of all because i'm a catch and my wife Need to be no i'm kidding. I'm kidding Because we're not saying the thing that needs to be we need to tease apart the difference between customer success motions and the title That somebody has that's called customer success customer success motions are critical Paramount you Usually cannot do without them and that applies to b2c as well. It doesn't matter how good your product is You don't necessarily According to frank slootman and peach asno Is you do not necessarily need a customer success?

Manager, so while I agree that you need customer success to continue to improve upon your marriage and keep it happy You don't necessarily Your analogy breaks down there because you don't necessarily need a csm to do that. You need those practices those philosophies Those motions, right?

[Rob] (7:45 - 8:21)

It's you may not need like a marriage counselor for a successful relationship But you still need the same motions that make the marriage Just try to eat rocks You're looking for these out of the box marriages you just go down the whole depot get you an out-of-the-box marriage locked in yeah no, I think it's I think the question becomes I what I actually when we were having this conversation. I pulled up my racy chart of customer success And if you haven't done a racy chart Of course, it's just without the racy. Of course I did.

[JP] (8:22 - 8:25)

So it's a way of looking at all the responsibility on a lacy chart, my man

[Dillon] (8:27 - 8:31)

That's good, that's good, that's how I know you're not married because there's not a lot

[Rob] (8:34 - 9:46)

So I pulled up the list of what are all the things that cs orgs do everything from support to implementation to to renewals to success plans to value discovery to whatever And I mean upsells Uh, and even in some cs orgs It's even the tactical stuff like billing and invoicing following up on past new invoices and I hate that stuff which usually we take it off the racy, but Sometimes it's there but anyway my point is to say Could we live in a world where we just wipe out that csm section of the racy chart and redistribute work to all the other departments? Feasibly, but does it make more sense to have it collectively living under one role? Yes, that's why the role exists Because otherwise you've got such a disparate customer journey where you've got this person Doing billing who's conflicting with this person who's trying to run an upsell who's conflicting with this person Who's managing an angry customer with a feature request?

And a refund request and and you kind of need In your words Dillon the conductor to bring that all together a single throat to choke I think feasibly This idea feasibly sits over top of the entire thing, right?

[Dillon] (9:47 - 11:26)

Does it make more sense to have it all live within a single department or a single title? Yes, sometimes no Sometimes and I think a big Piece of this is the technology we now have at our disposal Historically, we didn't have the technology I think a lot about the technology that call centers use that Centralize all of the information about an individual's account So if I call once and I bitch and moan about something when I call in six months, they know about it Because it's sitting right there And that's a an incredibly elementary example But I think it helps to frame the way in which we should view our customers organization-wide And if we did that You lose a lot of your argument About tribal knowledge or institutional knowledge, but not about your company, but about your customer You wipe that off the slate.

You don't need that anymore. And then if you extrapolate that out to just data in general You start to lose a lot of the value Of what csms do I don't think that means they shouldn't exist I think it allows them to do the things that are way more valuable. That stuff's not valuable.

That's just trading information emails and notes and junk like that Even chasing after invoices what it allows them to do is to be creative with their customers to really take the time And to listen and to be that strategy partner that guy in reddit was complaining that he doesn't do anything other people do

[Rob] (11:27 - 11:45)

I just noticed something really interesting Most csms have never had a csm You ever think about that most csms they've never been the economic buyer of sash software They don't actually know what it's like to be on the other side of the table.

[JP] (11:45 - 12:14)

I've seen it Well, i've seen i've been on calls with a csm. I remember my first role actually a csm showed up He was horrible. I was appalled.

I was like, you know, you knew yeah, i'm thinking all these csms or all this He was you know bar He was awful. I was like what? This happens the confidence that some people have i'm just gonna say before we end the episode I'll i'm not into choking.

So I don't need choking my throat.

[Dillon] (12:14 - 13:12)

I'm not with it I'm, it's it's funny I don't know that i've been the economic buyer a ton except in the small things I do With lifetime value and things of that nature, but my wife Has many csms that contact her And she will pepper me Every so often with hey, is this What they should be worried about is this the person I should contact about this or should they be talking to me about this? And I try to always conditionalize it and say well in my experience This is the way it's been done, but it is Almost every time and this is probably just a condition of our profession Almost every time I do cock my head just slightly and i'm like, it's not the way I would do it. Yeah, right Anyway that is our time.

Thank you For bringing this reddit post to our attention rob.

[JP] (13:12 - 13:16)

Let's call this episode. Marriage is falling apart Marriage is falling.

[Rob] (13:16 - 13:17)

Thanks. Pete jasnow.

[Dillon] (13:17 - 13:21)

Yeah. Thanks. Pete jasnow eat some rocks.

Save your marriage. See you later

[VO] (13:28 - 13:59)

You 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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