General Knowledge states that every successful business needs to have a sales and marketing team. But in the world where customers have the highest say, businesses should look towards a focused customer success specialist, by expertise. Read on to explore more about customer success and how to become a specialist in the given field.

Firstly let us clearly know what defines a customer success specialist. Simply put, they are otherwise known as customer success manager or client advocates. He is the one who follows customers through the sales process, down to the support period. They form a direct relationship with the clients and render them a personalized experience, imbued with value propositions. Let us see what we need to look for in a customer success specialist.

#1 Soft Skills on the go

Goes without saying, excellent communication skills give you a higher edge over the rest. You will have to communicate both verbally and in black and white. As a customer success specialist, you may have to hone your writing skills a bit as well. It may be required to converse on social media or chat or email. You will regularly have to talk to your clients on a timely basis.

#2 A great Trainer too

As a customer success specialist, you will have to make your customer’s life easier. And that is possible by offering a great training experience to the clients, be it about your service or product or be it an experience. Better yet, in challenging times like Covid-19, you can easily schedule conference calls or visitations. And you can render them interpersonal training there itself.

#3 Keep your Clients updated

While it is crucially important to maintain a healthy relationship with your clients, you might as well begin with keeping them posted about the product’s or services’ updates. It is much needed to keep them in tune with the changes such as the new innovative features, or new products if any that are complementary to the ones which are already in use.

#4 Learn to Empathize

Of the most pertinent qualities, a customer success specialist can contain, empathy is something which I believe holds high. Your customers do not just want to be heard, they also want to be understood and validated. And as a great specialist, you will really have to dig up your empathy notes. Simply put, you should be in a position to articulate and work in on a client’s problem. Truly understand what is the issue and how can you contribute to getting them out of the trouble.

#5 Strategize and Plan ahead

You must be able to chalk out an accurate life cycle for each type of clients you deal with. You must understand how the customer proceeds through one step and another. Say to begin with onboarding and then progressing into customer loyalty and later customer advocacy.
Every now and then, you will have to come up with new plans and strategies to minimize churn and enhance the customer experience, so that they stick around more.

#6 Data Analyzation

You should also be privy to the vital data structure of your company. Rather, these data should be at your tips wen used to evaluate both the client and the customer experience with your brand. Have an eye for research and various surveys. This will help you build a detailed profile of your customers, both for their expectations and experience as well.

#7 A Helpful Team Player

As you already know that you will have to work with the customer success team and if possible, with other teams too. And that is why you should be a team player, who can jell up well with a variety of other personality types. Not just that, you will have to learn what the customer expects and will have to work closely with the product team, to truly understand how well the product is reaching the market.

#8 Tenacity as well

As a customer success specialist, you must show strengths, willingness, and be ever-ready in a position to handle customer complaints if any. If you do this properly, this is a winning attitude that you can portray towards customer management. At least, your client should have this picture in their head that you are there for them, whenever wherever. As that is all that counts.

#9 A true problem solver

Be that individual who is willing to get out in the front of the problem and be smart enough to face it. You will also have to come up with quick and easy real-time solutions and deal with the mess. While a lot of customer support is about solving the problems, once they have occurred, your task should be aimed at eliminating them even before they take place. That is what you should be striving to achieve as a customer success specialist.

Rightly quoted by Tomasz Tunguz, a venture capitalist, “At the outset of a startup, engineering throughput can be a limiting factor; the team simply can’t code fast enough. At some point, the product launches but no one knows about it. Marketing is the bottleneck. When customers come rushing through the door, money in hand, sales, and customer support might stunt the growth of the company. Other times its culture or product-market fit or money or competition. But for each startup at every stage, there is a limiting factor.”

Final Take

Nevertheless, this role is still infant and yet to be redefined. However, the right customer success manager must intuitively understand the clients and be able to build long-lasting relationships. This will benefit your business in the later hauls. I suggest, even prior to hiring, you can ask yourself what you truly want from a customer success specialist. Soon, you will see how the questions become the answers if you know what I mean.

WRITTEN BYKaustubh Sangam

Kaustubh Sangam is a Customer Success Analyst with 2 years of experience. Committed to delivering exceptional customer experiences and driving business growth. Proficient in leveraging data analysis to optimize customer success strategies.

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