In the past when someone asked me what I did as a Customer Success Manager (CSM), I would give them a number of answers but one of them that sticks out for me is a “customer match maker”. This means that I would try to pair up one customer with another with the intent of creating a mutually beneficial relationship.This was a source of power that CSMs have – they know the customer and they can bring customers together to build a stronger user community. This was especially important at customer events as we could not only help customers feel welcome by introducing them to others, we could also increase user adoption of by matching some of our lower performers with a customer who they may listen to more than their friendly neighborhood Customer Success Manager. We were more than happy to foster this process.
In most situations you have a raving fan of your product that wants to help out other customers that may be newer to your software suite. Here’s the problem – I failed miserably at this matchmaking process.
Why do Customer Success Managers Fail as Customer Match Makers?
While my colleagues and I did our best to pair up customers based on their needs we just couldn’t keep up with the demand for the following reasons:
- We don’t know all of our customers so we would go back to the same customers over and over again for help. This led to customer burn out as these same customers could only help so many people. It also limited the assistance we could provide as we would only focus on a select group of customers that we would refer to. This was a lose lose situation.
- We didn’t have the time to be full-time customer matchmakers. We had too many other commitments and the process of pairing up the customers was too time intensive. I know that I felt frustrated as I wanted to help out each and every customer but had a tough time responding to requests that came in either from others in the company or from customers themselves.
The solution was simple but it required technology that could mobilize our advocates. Enter Influitive.
Customer Success Managers + Influtive = Success & Relief
Influitive is a software solution that helps mobilize customer advocates (full disclosure – I now work for Influitive). Customer Success Managers or the community administrator can easily post a “challenge” in Influitive requesting assistance from advocates to chat with a new customer or a customer that wants to speak to someone who is similar to them that can help them get to the next level. Influitive can quickly become a CSMs new best friend by simplifying the matchmaking process and providing a better experience for customers by tapping into the knowledge of advocates. Advocates get to network and meet people similar to themselves. This is a win-win-win situation and the CSM comes off looking like the customer champion that they are. They just got a little help in the process.
Chad Horenfeldt
Enlightened Customers 