The world is driven by customers now. Customers need to be managed. For businesses to grow, it is important to evaluate how their customers are managed. Customer success managers look at customer needs and evaluate them to offer the products and services in the best manner. Customer success managers manage multiple projects regarding customers.

Customer success projects are those with a defined scope and goal. The goal is to make customers achieve satisfaction with the product. The main aim is to make sure the functioning of the organization is smooth and simple. Part of the aspects include overseeing task performance, ensuring team members are aware of the specifications, and looking to make sure the project adheres to its time and budget limitations.

Every customer success manager can be considered a project manager. There are multiple pieces that a CSM manages. Some of the projects included in customer success project management include the ones below.

Managing the sales to CS transition

Customer success managers are the bridge between sales teams and customers. They manage the gap between sales personnel and CS teams. They need to live upon the promises of the sales team and facilitate easy onboarding.

Creating a customer success plan

CS managers also manage customer success plans. From the point of creation to execution, they are involved. A customer success plan is a blueprint of how customers will get success. It needs to keep customer needs in mind.  

Managing QBR or EBR

Customer success managers use QBRs or EBRs to present how their offering has met customer’s KPIs. OBRs will ensure that customer onboarding is efficient. With quarterly business reviews, CSMs can know what the customer has achieved and what the exact stage it is.

Facilitating upsells

Another aspect CS managers do is making sure upselling and cross-selling take place. By managing tasks well, they can ensure customers sign up for allied products or services.

Managing product adoption

CS managers also make sure customers understand product value and can harness the true benefits of it. It is an important goal of every company- making customers feel invested in the product.

The SmartKarrot Customer Success Project Management Feature

The project management feature of SmartKarrot is meant to improve efficiency and quality of service to customers. It offers CSMs the ability to seamlessly manage projects across companies. It is made to ensure customer success manager’s are on-time with product or service related questions.

Here are the various components of the task dashboard that managers projects in customer success:

Tasks Due Soon

This click down shows all the tasks a certain CSM has to do. The ones in the pipeline are shown here along with due date. CSMs can see the tasks they are responsible for (my portfolio). They can also check specific firm related tasks to check progress, understand metrics, and see for completion.

Add a new project

If a CSM wants to add a new project, they can do it in few simple clicks. A ticket is generated to create a new project. An account can be selected ad collaborators can be added. To make it easier for collaborators to understand, a description can be added. Icons can also be added depending on the type of project being created.

The next aspect under the ‘Home’ category is Favorites. CSMs can jot their favorite accounts there. Any priority accounts can be added under the sector.

Tasks

The second tile is for task and project management. CSMs can manage their project management or account management aspects here.

This is specifically for tasks under specific CSM name. Projects or tasks can be categorised based on

• Priority
• Task progress
• Assignee
• Status

CSMs can narrow down projects to the minutest details. This will make sure they are ahead of tasks, manage touchpoints properly, and can fix alerts and warning signals.

This is the task management feature in SmartKarrot.

Ticket Management

In this feature, total number of tickets a CSM has to solve can be viewed. Based on the type of ticket, it can be grouped and sorted. The due date is another feature that will enable sorting of tickets. Higher priority tickets can be checked off first to avoid escalations.

A highlight of this is you can add a customer touchpoint. This will allow you to conform from the customer if they have met their goals for a specific ticket. The ‘A’ beside each row will facilitate action. Every ticket can be acted upon as per requirement.

Financials

This segment is about the financial aspects of customer accounts. The dashboard gives you the financial score of overall accounts as well as individual accounts. Churn tolerance can be weighed against actual churn to understand how accounts are performing. The total ARR or annual recurring revenue is also automatically calculated. You can sort in terms of LTV and TCV. CSMs or users can also take appropriate action such as adding a touchpoint to make sure they can assess the account again.

How does Customer Success Project Management Benefit CSMs?

The main aim of a project management software for customer success companies is to make life simpler for project managers as they sift through different projects.

• Effortless management of projects
• Balanced view of customer accounts
• Managing the pipeline becomes easier
• Team collaboration can be manged to discuss dependencies, tasks, work
• Assist in making the right decisions at any point of time
• Implement success playbooks
• Check financials and understand customer health score

A customer success project management software tool enhances customer satisfaction. It builds a better customer-company relationship as every move is tracked.

Bottom Line

Customer health scores are a great way to understand where the account is. With customer success project management, each account is analysed and tracked in its maximum manner. This makes is easier for CSMs to sift through large accounts, find and locate issues, take actions to solve them, and create touchpoints for future reference. A simplified project management solution for customer success will ensure higher retention rates. Since every customer account is being tracked, proactive action can reduce the chances of customer churn.

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