How does a customer success team have a lasting, human impact?
When a business invests resources in a robust customer success team — providing trained, passionate personnel and smart customer relationship management tools — it demonstrates that the business cares about its customer relationship.
Beyond a first impression, a healthy, customer-focused business model is likely to pay for itself in the long term. Robust CS programs increase the customer lifetime value — or the total revenue a business expects from a single customer relationship — by 125 percent, according to research from Velaris.
For Chelsey Blair, a customer success manager at Peaksware, a comprehensive approach to customer interactions is a balance of team knowledge and a human-centered perspective.
As an onboarding specialist at AdCellerant, Natalie Richter stays organized and proactive to help small businesses get a better start.
Customers of Scythe Robotics might be lucky enough to meet Account Manager Garrett Flores in person as he goes out into the field to help them make the most out of their automated lawnmowers.
Built In Colorado spoke with Flores, Richter and Blair to hear more about the ways they stay informed and organized to spend more time making a real impact on the lives of their customers.
Peaksware is a company of software brands focused on supporting athletic and music training and education.
What does a typical workday look like for you as a customer success manager?
At Peaksware, our customer success team is versatile, handling a wide range of tasks to effectively serve our customers. A typical day starts with a team standup where we’ll discuss any challenges, share successes and align on goals. This is followed by reviewing our appointment schedule, which includes onboarding new customers and meeting with key accounts. These meetings are centered around understanding customers’ evolving needs, strategizing business growth and offering tailored advice on leveraging our tools.
Throughout the day, we gather and share customer feedback with the product team to inform future planning. Between these calls, we’ll reply to customer emails, plan proactive outreach, review user data to gain deeper insights and reach out to customers we’d like to connect with soon. Our daily priority is to ensure that every customer interaction leaves the customer feeling heard, supported and genuinely cared for.
How do you stay in the loop with product and customer updates?
Our internal teams use a variety of tools to stay aligned on product and customer updates and ensure that we’re working in sync. Product planning and road mapping are tracked through Confluence, which gives visibility into every stage of the planning and development process. Weekly go-to-market meetings spotlight upcoming launches, while a dedicated Slack channel keeps us instantly updated as items go live.
The success team typically sees the evolution of new items incrementally over the course of development. As a team, our approach is to discuss the impact on customers, our strategy for effective communication and how to best achieve adoption among our key accounts. Peaksware is based on a culture of deliberate practice, and expert instruction is a key part of that. This allows us to blend insights from our internal experts in product and marketing and couple that with our deep understanding of customer needs. This approach ensures that we connect with our accounts in a meaningful and impactful way, supporting their goals and fostering strong relationships.
What helps you stay motivated and on top of things?
In customer success, staying organized and motivated is crucial to ensuring customer satisfaction. One of the best pieces of advice I can offer is to consistently apply these three Peaksware values: be deliberate, be impactful and be human. While it’s easy to get lost in initiatives, goals, and KPIs, how you approach these tasks is what truly matters. With every new task or interaction, ask yourself: Is this deliberate? Is it impactful? Is it human? This simple evaluation can save time, streamline your efforts and lead to more meaningful and effective customer interactions.
“One of the best pieces of advice I can offer is to consistently apply these three Peaksware values: be deliberate, be impactful and be human.”
My team helps me stay motivated by fostering a culture of continuous learning. One way we learn is by openly sharing experiences — the good, the bad and the ugly. By sharing failures and lessons learned, we can turn setbacks into opportunities for growth. By learning from each other’s experiences, we strengthen the team’s collective knowledge and resilience.
AdCellerant is a digital marketing company that provides comprehensive software that powers all stages of a marketing campaign.
What does a typical workday look like for you as an onboarding specialist?
I start my day by tending to any urgent campaign matters. Whether that be proposals, pending campaigns or one-off questions. I then hold biweekly meetings to train our new partners on all of our products, software and campaign strategies. I normally have a couple of external sales calls as well, where I get to meet with clients and present campaign strategies to help them grow their businesses.
How do you stay in the loop with product and customer updates?
AdCellerant does a great job of keeping the team informed on digital advertising research and data. I use our research roundups and e-marketer resources as a means of staying informed on our ever-changing industry.
“AdCellerant does a great job of keeping the team informed on digital advertising research and data.”
What helps you stay motivated and on top of things?
My best piece of advice for staying organized is email folders. Every email I get has a designated folder, so I can always refer back to previous communication. I also rely on Google Calendar and tasks to ensure I am getting everything done that I need to accomplish each day.
The onboarding team is highly collaborative. I stay motivated through team and personal goals that drive me to be the best onboarding specialist for my partners. Another huge motivator I have is that I am able to help small, local businesses grow.
Scythe Robotics is an automation machinery manufacturing company reinventing how people care for the outdoor world by building intelligent, all-electric machines.
What does a typical workday look like for you as an account manager?
As an account manager for Scythe, my priorities are managing our client relationships and ensuring their satisfaction using M.52 — our fully automated, fully electric lawnmower — in the field. My day begins early, aligning with our landscape clients’ schedules to ensure I’m available when they need me. The first task of the day is to check Slack for any updates or important announcements that may impact my customers. This helps me and my team stay on top of things and set the tone for a productive day.
After that, I head out to visit local operators in the field, making sure they’re getting the most out of their M.52 machines. I love getting to share tips and tricks to help them optimize their work. Later, I dive into the usage data on our fleet and share progress reports with client management. This helps us find ways to expand mowing operations and boost autonomous usage, so our clients get the best return on their investment.
I also make it a point to visit my out-of-state clients regularly to keep those relationships strong and ensure they’re happy with our products.
“I love getting to share tips and tricks to help our customers optimize their work.”
How do you stay in the loop with product and customer updates?
Keeping up with product and customer updates is crucial, especially with units spread across the country. We utilize excellent tools, such as our CRM system, to help us stay organized. I dedicate a significant amount of time interacting with our clients, leveraging data-driven discussions to ensure their satisfaction and identify areas for improvement.
Research, learning and development are fundamental aspects of our work. I often serve as the liaison between the operators and our software team, alerting them to any issues that need attention. We conduct weekly check-ins to discuss ways to improve our machines. Any hardware improvement requests from customers are channeled through our account managers, and we take these very seriously to ensure we’re building the right machine for all operators. Sharing client feedback is a vital part of this process.
What helps you stay motivated and on top of things?
One thing that really helps is planning my calendar two weeks in advance, a strategy recommended by my manager. This approach keeps us organized and ensures we’re always prepared for the upcoming weeks. Additionally, our CRM system is incredibly useful for tracking our clients’ needs and statuses, so we can jump in to help each other out when needed.
Being part of a startup requires flexibility and adaptability, which adds a lot of excitement to our work. Our team remains motivated by supporting one another and celebrating our successes. It’s rewarding to see how strong client relationships and effective teamwork enable us to overcome any challenges that arise.
