Gain Grow Retain
345 episodes - English - Latest episode: 4 months ago - ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsIn the podcast dedicated to customer success leaders in the B2B SaaS and tech space, hosts Jeff Breunsbach and Jay Nathan share conversations about growing and scaling subscription businesses with a customer-first approach. The podcast is aimed at SaaS and technology leaders who are facing the day to day challenges of scaling.
This podcast is brought to you by Higher Logic.
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Episodes
Scaling CS with Brittany Soinski of Loom
December 18, 2023 12:00 - 46 minutes - 64.2 MBOnboarding is arguably one of the most critical components of customer engagement and retention, so scaling it well is important. This week, Brittany Soinski, Manager, Onboarding at Loom joins Jay Nathan to share how her team has tackled this program: Created an onboarding team who is dedicated to owning this process Developed strong templates by starting with post-sale, ending with renewal, and identifying all of the things that happen in between Set a 60-day goal for customers and iden...
Building Community/Business Alignment
December 11, 2023 12:00 - 52 minutes - 72 MBThis week, Jeff talks with Jake McKee, founder of Jake McKee Consulting about community's role in business. Jake shares some critical points for companies looking to bring a community program into their business model that help ensure it is more than just a 'nice to have' opportunity. Community needs to be embedded into business operations, and to do this well, you must: Understand your business goals and your community priorities and then align them well Use the OGSDT framework (Objectiv...
Scaling CS with Dan Ennis from Monday.com
December 04, 2023 12:00 - 46 minutes - 63.7 MBThis week, Dan Ennis, Manager of Scaled Customer Success at Monday.com joins Jay Nathan to continue our series about Scaled CS. Starting with Dan's definition of scale, "Increasing the impact with customers without necessarily having the same increase in input on the human side", Dan walks us through the scale process Monday.com went through. Sharing some focused areas that shifted from a 1:1 to a 1:many without a heavy internal lift with ideas such as Office Hours, communication shifts, m...
Scaling Customer Success with Nisha Baxi from Gong
November 27, 2023 12:00 - 1 hour - 84.6 MBThis week Jay Nathan is joined by Nisha Baxi, Head of Community and Digital CS at Gong to discuss the 5 questions that are often asked by companies who haven't implemented community. Why Community (What is the ROI/Value) Who should own and run customer communities? How do you staff a community? How do you get people to share content in a new community? Should your community be open? Nisha shares how Gong has become a community that their customers rely on for information, support, and ...
10-Minute Trumpet: 3 Keys for Scaled Success
November 20, 2023 12:00 - 7 minutes - 10.1 MBThis week Jeff Breunsbach takes a look at how being successful with a scaled approach relies on prioritizing and executing on a small number of things very well. Simple options such as education and training Tracking consistency Strong content that resonates with customer needs By making sure these pieces are well built and have strong customer awareness, you are setting the stage for a scaled approach that works. -- Gain Grow Retain exists to connect people, knowledge, and ideas to ad...
10-Minute Trumpet: 3 Layers of Education: Product, Business, Market
November 13, 2023 12:00 - 8 minutes - 11.8 MBThis week, Jeff Breunsbach takes a look at some important components of customer education: Product Learn what part of your product aligns with the customer needs Our customers don't need to utilize every part of our product or be aware of every new feature Focus on the features and aspects they need and help them become experts in those areas Specialized education is better than a 1 size fits all versio Business Use educational pieces that help your users have a better understanding ...
10-Minute Trumpet: Having a Named CSM
November 06, 2023 12:00 - 8 minutes - 11.3 MBThis week Jeff takes a look at the impact of equating a Named CSM with quality service. With the current economy, having a named CSM is a luxury many companies are no longer investing. CS teams are now in a position to pivot, but an understanding of that impact must be understood in order to successfully transition. -- Gain Grow Retain exists to connect people, knowledge, and ideas to advance the state of customer success. We're on a mission to connect B2B SaaS customer success leaders so...
10-Minute Trumpet: Scaling Your CS Teams Through Specialized Roles
October 31, 2023 15:50 - 8 minutes - 11.4 MBThis week Jeff takes a moment to talk through the waves of the Customer Success Team journey. There are typically 3 waves of focus within the team as specialization becomes necessary. First 2 waves are mainly focused on 1:1 programs while the 3rd is all about scaling. However, in this state of moving away from 1:1 towards a more scaled focus, we need to add roles from the 3rd wave much sooner int the process. Learn more about setting your 2024 team and plans up for the best possible outc...
Integrating Your CS Goals with Community
October 23, 2023 11:00 - 40 minutes - 55.1 MBThis week, Nicole Saunders, Director of Community at Zendesk talks with Jeff about how community can help bring value to the customer experience by bringing CS in as a strong content provider. Helps move from a transactional to a relational and learning experience Helps align the community around scaled ideas to create synergy and utilize tools and offerings collaboratively across the company to become more retention focused Helps focus on certain KPIs and metrics that other teams have so...
Scaling CS: Tessa Thorburn with Loom
October 16, 2023 11:00 - 40 minutes - 55.9 MBAnother session in our Scaling CS series, Tessa Thorburn, Head of Customer Success joins Jay to talk about how her team at Loom has used scale to increase their efficiency and value to customer. From role specialization to programs that scaled well, she shares her insights and experience in helping her team increase customer value effectively. Building the case for role specialization Use case webinars Listening to customers at scale Re-onboarding Technology Communication through chang...
Scaling CS: Mike Sasaki with Emburse
October 09, 2023 13:00 - 52 minutes - 72.1 MBIn this episode, Mike Sasaki, VP of Customer Success at Emburse talks with Jay about scaling CS. Not simply from a growth perspective, but a more important impact on profitability focus. From areas of his business he has been able to scale effectively with strong results to other areas of consideration that have to be managed when scaling programs, Mike's practical examples and insights will help you take a look at scaling in a broader way. Connect with Mike -- Gain Grow Retain exists to ...
Rolling Out Changes
October 02, 2023 10:30 - 44 minutes - 60.7 MBChange is inevitable, but how a leader handles it can be the difference between success and failure. Join Dillon Young, Leader of CS at Maxwell as he and Jeff Breunsbach take a look at changes and how to handle them well. Identify issues and gaps, focusing on leading indicators Evaluate potential solution effectiveness identifying lagging indicators Trust your fellow teams to do their part in the process...change has to include everyone Ask questions and collaborate Bottom Line: - Pri...
Implementation is Not Onboarding
September 25, 2023 10:30 - 39 minutes - 54.7 MBThis week Jeff Kushmerek joins Jeff Breunsbach to talk about the difference between onboarding and implementation Onboarding Implementation Ongoing Finite Period Measurement - Time to Value Measurement - Time to Launch No handoffs Multiple handoffs Jeff K. shares his insights into how to handle the differing needs of Implementation in a way that supports the customer's goals, the metrics needed to be measured, and the outcomes that need to be defined. -- Gain Grow Retain exists t...
Setting Priorities for Your Team
September 18, 2023 10:30 - 40 minutes - 55 MBSandy Yu and Jeff Breunsbach talk about the importance of priorities in this week's Gain Grow Retain podcast. Knowing that there can only be one priority at a time, how do you select what to focus on? Here are some of the questions being discussed: Prepare by understanding the resourcing, the organizational needs, and the cost of NOT doing it for each potential priority Decide after gathering data (but don't let the research go on too long!) What are the responsibilities of the leader in ...
Scaled CS: Daphne Lopes, Hubspot
September 11, 2023 10:30 - 1 hour - 88.2 MBDaphne Lopes, Principle Manager of CS at Hubspot joins Jay Nathan to talk about Hubspot's focus on meeting each customer at the right time with the right information through scaled CS. In this episode, learn how segmentation, data models, content, and cross-collaboration all play a foundational role in creating a customer experience that is based on scale without sacrifice. Connect with Daphne -- Gain Grow Retain exists to connect people, knowledge, and ideas to advance the state of cust...
How CS Leaders Can Adopt AI
September 04, 2023 11:00 - 46 minutes - 63.7 MBThis week Rohan Gupta and Gopal Srinivasan, Partners at Deloitte, join Jeff to talk about a hot topic: AI in Customer Success. Generative AI has made access more accessible for the average person, but what are some ways CS teams can utilize AI to support the work they do in a more effective and efficient way? From practical suggestions for getting started to potential roadblocks, the conversation focuses on the shifts teams and companies need to start making to utilize this powerful tool. ...
10-Minute Trumpet - Specialized Roles
August 28, 2023 14:22 - 8 minutes - 11.8 MBThis week, Jeff discusses the various stages of the CS team and focuses on the newest realm of specialized roles. All of the stages are important to building an effective team. These specialized roles: Scaled Program Managers, Customer Marketers, and Community Managers can help drive specific outcomes by developing campaigns that benefit customers whether they have a named CSM or not. -- Gain Grow Retain exists to connect people, knowledge, and ideas to advance the state of customer succes...
The Vault -Building Relationships During Uncertain Times
August 21, 2023 11:00 - 55 minutes - 76.5 MBIn this re-release from April 2020, Jay Joined Mark Stoddard and Dave Blake of ClientSuccess as part of their CS Leadership Webinar Series. Although they talk about the impact of COVID on the market in general and customer engagement specifically, the conversation is just as relevant today as teams undergo major changes that often result in the loss of your primary stakeholder. After sharing some practical tips, the group them shifts to answering audience questions, making this a great podc...
Scaling CS with Community
August 14, 2023 10:30 - 44 minutes - 61.7 MBThis week, Jay Nathan talks to Shauna McClemens about how Higher Logic Vanilla has built a strategy utilizing their customer community to scale CS programs. By ensuring that the entire community is focused on customer success, companies are able to provide a space for 'the right information at the right time for the right person' in a way that is more effective than any other method. Listen to the process she and her colleagues worked through to move from a space that was operating without ...
10-minute trumpet - Relationships at Scale
August 07, 2023 10:30 - 8 minutes - 11.3 MBThis week, Jeff takes a quick look at the increasing need to build relationships, and the need to do it at scale. Why scale a relationship? The changing dynamic of the stakeholders themselves as well as the need to move away from a single point of contact are all factors. Take a listen to a variety of ways Jeff suggests to not only scale your relationships, but do it in a way that builds value beyond the current relationship building processes. -- Gain Grow Retain exists to connect peopl...
10-Minute Trumpet - Over-indexed on having named CSMs
July 31, 2023 10:30 - 7 minutes - 9.72 MBThis week, Jeff takes a quick look at the idea that every customer gets a CSM. This belief has resulted in high costs, lower impact, and a mistaken idea that the CSM is the solver of all problems. Instead, focus on your top revenue generators for 1:1, and look at scaling the rest in an effective and valuable way. Strong self-service is much more valuable than a CSM with a 500-customer book of business with little to no interactions and no additional programs to support their needs. -- Gai...
Scaled CS is all about efficiency
July 24, 2023 11:00 - 47 minutes - 65 MBScaled CS is a hot topic due to the constraints most organizations are facing, but what does that really mean and how do you do it well? Chris Dishman, SVP of Customer Success at Totango spends some time with Jeff sharing his insights. Scaling CS doesn't change the focus of CS, it simply looks at ways to make the process of helping customers realize value more efficient, usually with the support of technology. During the podcast, Chris takes a look at making sure your tech stack is set up ...
10-minute Trumpet - Take Pressure Off Your CSM Team
July 17, 2023 11:00 - 7 minutes - 10.2 MBThis week, Jeff takes a quick look at how to help your CSM team manage the increasing pressure they are under: 1:many programs. Jeff walks you through 5 steps to move quickly into some effective and simple ways to to allow your CSMs to scale where they can so they can focus on what they need to. -- Gain Grow Retain exists to connect people, knowledge, and ideas to advance the state of customer success. We're on a mission to connect B2B SaaS customer success leaders so that we can learn f...
The Vault - 7 Pillars of CS
July 11, 2023 16:04 - 39 minutes - 54.3 MBThis week we are bringing back a 2021 podcast with Wayne McCulloch on the 7 pillars of Customer Success. Focusing on the fact that it is moments with the customer rather than the customer relationship that is owned, Wayne shares how focusing on those key moments will provide a stronger customer experience. With some practical examples, Wayne shares how companies who build for success through optimizing processes internally while still focusing on the customer's definition of success create...
Want to Become a World Class CSM?
July 03, 2023 11:00 - 8 minutes - 11.7 MBIn this 10-minute trumpet, Jeff Breunsbach shares his views on how CSMs should be preparing for career growth. Instead of the Enterprise-level CSM being the goal, focusing on building scaled CS skills is going to give you the biggest bang for your buck. How? Leveraging a 1:many focus in areas that increase your reach Focus on writing skills Identifying self-service opportunities Large-scale impact on customers instead of a 1:1 focus with limited reach --- Gain Grow Retain exists to co...
The Vault - Where does Community fit into your Customer Success Strategy?
June 26, 2023 11:00 - 32 minutes - 44.5 MBIn this Vault episode from October, 2020, Joe Huber, formerly the Customer Community Strategist at Sprout Social joins Jeff to talk about the impact of community as a part of your organization. Not only can community provide space for customers to share best practices, create sub-groups based on focus, needs, and company type, share processes and templates, but it brings value to your brand just by providing this space. Learn the steps necessary to prepare your community launch (or relaunc...
Jay Nathan’s Take on CS
June 19, 2023 11:00 - 1 hour - 87.6 MBFirst aired on Leadership Masterclass on June 4, 2023, Jay Nathan joins Subha Shriniivasan to discuss multiple aspects of Customer Success. From the start of Gain Grow Retain to Jay's thoughts on Customer Success's role in a variety of organizational goals, this episode dives into some of the common questions being asked. Why do we need CS? How is CS different from other go-to-market functions? How can companies drive customer experience to build credibility for new customers? How do yo...
Using Events to Strengthen Your Customer Experience
June 12, 2023 11:00 - 43 minutes - 60 MBEvents are no longer a 'nice to have' for companies. Instead, they are opening the doors to stronger relationships and engaging with customers to become a massive opportunity in a people-first Go-to-Market' plan. This week, Mark Kilens, CMO at Airmeet joins Jay to talk about how they are using events as a catalyst for understanding and ultimately supporting customers through thoughtful, scalable events that are creating two-way experiences in a fast-moving and dynamic way. Connect with Mar...
The Vault - How CS Operations can Help Scale
June 05, 2023 13:51 - 32 minutes - 44.1 MBThis week GGR dusts off another gem from the past, this one from December 4, 2019. A strong CS Ops team can make a huge difference within an organization and be a force multiplier for the entire CS team. Jennifer Kirkland (formerly VP of CS Ops and Professional Services at Conversica, currently Executive VP of Client Success at Axero) joins Jeff and Jay to talk about how Jennifer used her account and product management experience to create a process that made a difference and helped the CS...
Renewals
May 08, 2023 11:00 - 46 minutes - 63.4 MBWhere should renewals live, and why it doesn't really matter... That's the focus of a conversation between Julie Fox, Senior Manager of CS at FloQast and Jeff Breunsbach this week. Regardless of which department owns the renewal process, it really has to be a team sport, where success is based on the involvement of everyone. Customers do not renew (or not) based on single experiences or relationships, so making sure a strong customer experience exists across all departments is going to be...
Focus on Your Customer
May 01, 2023 11:00 - 42 minutes - 58.1 MBAre your customer meetings focusing on your product or your customer? If you are spending time talking about your product, you are leaving a lot of value on the table (and probably finding it difficult to get your customers to keep coming back for more). This week, Bob London and Jeff Breunsbach spend some time talking about how a shift from a product focus to a more strategic role that supports the high level goals and needs of your customer can increase the impact and alignment you have....
Making Your CSMs Become Great Change Management Experts
April 17, 2023 11:00 - 7 minutes - 9.83 MBYour customer won't wake up tomorrow thinking "I cannot wait to use XX product more today!" Jeff Breunsbach takes some time to look at the role change management plays in product adoption. Look for ways to reduce customer effort Identify business problems to solve Update processes where necessary Identify customer stakeholders who will be impacted Integrate into their existing tech stack Moving into helping customers through change management with a new product adoption can help you b...
Meeting Prep is a Lost Art
April 13, 2023 11:00 - 8 minutes - 11 MBAre you making sure your meetings are 'Can't Miss'? In this week's 10-minute trumpet, Jeff talks through some simple ideas for not only using meetings strategically, but adding simple before and after processes that can hep you make a lasting impression and stand out. 'Do the simple things really well' ----- Gain Grow Retain exists to connect people, knowledge, and ideas to advance the state of customer success. We're on a mission to connect B2B SaaS customer success leaders so that we ...
Building Predictability Into Your CS Organization
April 10, 2023 13:50 - 37 minutes - 50.9 MBRod Cherkas, CEO and founder of HelloCCO, joins Jeff Bruensbach this week to talk about creating predictability and stability through consistence processes, which come from building consistent skills. In order to make this happen, CCOs (or those who aspire to become one) should focus on: Building cross-functional relationships Communicating effectively Segmenting customers and building plans for each segment Use 1:many processes for repetive CSM work Help stakeholders learn customer ex...
Our CSMs Are Really Change Management Experts
April 03, 2023 11:00 - 39 minutes - 53.8 MBCSMs are really in the business of helping our customer champions become really great change management experts. Let's prepare our customers for the people, process, and technology updates necessary to adopt our product Connect with Garrett here Connect with Michael here ----- Gain Grow Retain exists to connect people, knowledge, and ideas to advance the state of customer success. We're on a mission to connect B2B SaaS customer success leaders so that we can learn from one another. Chec...
CSMs should be great change management experts
March 30, 2023 14:27 - 6 minutes - 3.15 MBCustomer success teams aren’t here to simply train the customer on using a product. Customer success teams are change management agents. Helping guide a customer to an outcome through people, process and technology habits. Reframe the thinking for your CS teams. Join the conversation. ----- Gain Grow Retain exists to connect people, knowledge, and ideas to advance the state of customer success. We're on a mission to connect B2B SaaS customer success leaders so that we can learn f...
10 Customer Churn Benchmarks for SaaS Leaders
March 27, 2023 17:00 - 50 minutes - 68.9 MBThis week, Greg Daines, CEO of ChurnRX joins Jay and Jeff to talk about churn benchmarks. Some key highlights: no statistical alignment between whether satisfied customers stay (CSAT) inertia is real - make sure you aren't giving your customers a reason to leave story telling the history of your relationship is a good thing measurable results is one of the largest factors in longer retention make sure your customers are measuring results bridge the gap here, especially if results measu...
Churn Benchmarks
March 23, 2023 11:00 - 18 minutes - 25.1 MBAre your churn benchmarks telling you what you think they are? Jay Nathan takes a look at the Churn benchmarks for SaaS leaders by Greg Daines, CEO of ChurnRX and some of the results might surprise you! Jay shares some key takeaways for 5 of the 10 benchmarks reviewed in the report. CSAT - no statistical correlation between customer reported satisfaction and customer lifespan. Customer Results - is your customer achieving measurable results and is your CS team including this in conversat...
Strategic, Tactical, and Operational
March 20, 2023 11:00 - 33 minutes - 45.7 MBAre your CSMs operating with a single point of contact? Damien Howley, CCO of Whip Around shares how having a Strategic, Tactical, and Operational focus in your customer relationships not only prevents that single point of failure when a main contact leaves, it strengthens your customer knowledge in a way that cannot be done with a single relationship. Learn what this looks like in real life, and how to effectively ensure your CSMs are utilizing this process well. Connect with Damien here...
Scaled CSMs Should Be Creating Content
March 16, 2023 12:00 - 8 minutes - 11.2 MBAre you using scaled CS as a universal engagement strategy? If not, you are missing out on giving your team the chance to build out their roles due to lack of bandwidth. In building relevant and actionable content, it is important that you: know the persona know the product know the market share best practices have a variety of content types webinars workshops 5-7 minute recordings in-product guies templates social media The result of a strategically planned content library that...
Scaled CS is Looking Alot Like Marketing
March 13, 2023 11:00 - 35 minutes - 49.4 MBThis week, Karessa Parish, Growth Marketing Manager at ClassTag joins Jeff to talk about the connection between scaled CS and marketing. Here are some of the key takeaways: Look for ways to automate things that you do over and over Evaluate your content to align with customer self-service needs CSMs should be facilitators rather than information keepers Give a space for customers to talk to each other Examples of scaled ways to grab your customer's attention Connect with Karessa here ...
QBRs Need an Overhaul
March 09, 2023 17:33 - 9 minutes - 13 MBQBRs are a topic of conversation almost any place that CS professionals gather. That is because they are a vital tool in helping customers understand how your product aligns with their business goals. The problem is these meetings have become another task, and one that many customers are skipping. So how do you move from the old way to a new, more engaging way of talking to customers? Make it more about them instead of you Share metrics and slides ahead of time - bonus points for recordi...
Effortless Experience
March 06, 2023 12:00 - 46 minutes - 64 MBGoing above and beyond for your customers seems like a no-brainer, but is it really? Data shows that performing 'Hail Mary's' for your customer doesn't have any greater impact than simply meeting their needs. Matt Dixon shares some tips on what you should be focusing on, and the good news is it is relatively inexpensive in terms of money, time, and resources. We need to move our customers from signature to value as quickly and efficiently as possible. Allowing your CS team to focus on mak...
Delight vs Effort
March 02, 2023 12:00 - 16 minutes - 22.8 MBIt seems intuitive: you increase retention by delighting your customers. However, data exposes the fact that something that takes a lot of effort and often the increased expense doesn't bring the results you are looking for in terms of loyalty, retention, or even advocacy. Instead, strong value and ROI come when companies look for ways to reduce the effort our customer have to expend to be our customers. Jay takes a look at how teams can work to make reductions in efforts that equip our c...
Trends in the Job Market Around B2B Tech
February 27, 2023 12:00 - 41 minutes - 57 MBJay is joined by Christina Lock, Founder and CEO of Catch Talent. We talked about trends in the labor market and what she’s seeing across the tech companies her team works with. Here are the questions we went over: What are the trends you see in both the job market and the labor market? How are employers responding to shifts in the labor market? What roles are most in demand right now from your perspective? How have the requirements changed over the past several quarters? There is a do...
We Need Our CSMs to Become More ”Strategic”
February 23, 2023 12:00 - 7 minutes - 10 MBWe need our CSM's to become more "strategic". (What that really means, no one will ever know) BUT, here's an easy way to *start*... Coaching your CSMs to get better at asking open-ended questions AND listening. Open-ended questions often begin with words such as "Why" and "How." Or they can use phrases such as "Tell me about..." 💩 Did you accomplish your goals in Q1 2020? ➡️ Tell me more about your goals from Q1 2020... 💩 Has your business been affected by the recent recession concern...
Building Account Maps for Predictable Outcomes
February 20, 2023 12:00 - 38 minutes - 53.5 MBToday we are joined by Michael Tuso of Callypso as he brings his experience from sales and account management to share practices that customer success leaders can use: Building account maps can help you identify the right people Sets the stage for consistent account practices Finding ways to build maps at scale and community-driven techniques ----- Gain Grow Retain exists to connect people, knowledge, and ideas to advance the state of customer success. We're on a mission to connect B2B...
CSMs Should Not Learn to Talk to CFOs
February 16, 2023 12:00 - 7 minutes - 10.1 MBMake your champion the hero of the story when dealing with their finance partners. Here are 3 ways you can do that: 1) Help prepare them around how to defend the ROI of your product - remember to think about inputs and variables to the model. Think like a lawyer - you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. 2) Beyond ROI, help them understand the downside of not using your tool. Think in terms of cost (particularly labor) and lost efficiency - the story/narrative is important here. 3) M...
Scaled CS with Enterprise
February 13, 2023 11:00 - 54 minutes - 75.1 MBThis week, Jon Johnson, Principle Customer Success Manager at UserTesting joined Gain Grow Retain to talk about how to scale in an enterprise environment. Building trust and showing value is a foundational part of the process but segmentation becomes the key to success. Create buckets to segment Get specific Simplify Scale can help you identify the right conversation with the right person at the right time. Connect with Jon ----- Gain Grow Retain exists to connect people, knowledge, ...
ChatGPT for Scaled CS
February 06, 2023 12:00 - 24 minutes - 34.3 MBJeff and Jay come together to talk about three possibilities for leveraging ChatGPT in scaling your Customer Success program: Customer Discovery Key Contact Insights Strengthen Content Learn how using ChatGPT can help speed up some of the processes your team is doing, increasing the value of the time they have to spend with the customers. ----- Gain Grow Retain exists to connect people, knowledge, and ideas to advance the state of customer success. We're on a mission to connect B2B Sa...