5 Requirements For Effective CSM Training

  • 6 mins read

One of the core focuses of Customer Success is enabling customers to be successful in their use of products and services. But what about enabling Customer Success Managers? How do we ensure that we are equipping our CSMs with the knowledge, tools, and skills they need to be successful in their roles?

All too often CSMs are sent into a proverbial battle of fighting customer churn and low product adoption without being equipped with the tools to help them be successful. One of those tools is proper Customer Success training.

While there is an important element of on the job training that occurs within the Customer Success Management role, it’s typically not enough to ensure your CS team will be operating and performing at the highest level they could be. Just as there are millions of dollars poured into sales training each year to improve the performance of Sales Executives the same investment can and should be put into Customer Success Management.

I recently had a healthy debate with a CRO about investing in Sales training vs Customer Success training. First off, I would say invest in both if possible. I am certainly not suggesting not to invest in sales training. During our discussion, the CRO raised points such as, ‘Budgeting for sales training will provide an ROI because it will help our sales team bring in more revenue’. Sure will. Can’t argue that point. However, the same can be said for CS training. By investing in Customer Success training you are investing in a higher performing team, which will result in:

  1. Increased revenue from your customer base as fewer will churn and more customers will increase their spend with your organization.
  2. Increase in acts of advocacy, which means you have loyal customers that will bring your company more leads and business.
  3. Decrease in the cost to serve as you will have a much more efficient team managing your customer base.
  4. Improved employee engagement which can also be an outcome of investing in employee training. And did you know that higher employee engagement can result in 2.5 times higher revenue?

Pretty amazing, right? This results in a win/win/win scenario. A win for your organization, your customers and your team.

Convinced yet?! Great. Let’s talk about Customer Success Management training.

There are three categories of knowledge that Customer Success Managers require in order to be effective in their role of customer enablement. The categories are:

  1. Product Training
  2. Industry Knowledge and Best Practices
  3. Customer Success Training

For the purposes of this post, we are going to focus on Customer Success Management Training and what elements are necessary to create an effective program. At the crux of it, training should concentrate on making CSMs experts at helping customers adopt their product in a useful way which will directly facilitate customers in achieving their desired and required outcomes. When those two things happen with customers it brings positive results to your company. So, how do we get there, and how do you take your CSMs from good to great?

Glad you asked. Let’s get to it:

Customer Success Fundamentals

It’s critical to make sure that everyone understands how Customer Success operates and that there is a foundational level of knowledge set. For example, does your team understand the difference between Customer Support and Customer Success Management? Is there clear delineation? Are they familiar with the purpose and mission of Customer Success? Providing a foundation of what CS is, how it is measured, and what a CSMs priorities are should help to ensure your CSMs are focused on the right goals and moving in the appropriate direction. Be careful not to assume your team is equipped with all of this foundational knowledge, especially if some of your CSMs are new to this profession.

Train CSMs On Effective Communication and Engagement with Customers

Customer engagement is one of the cornerstones of CS. Being an effective communicator is a key part of creating positive engagement and is one of the most critical skills a CSM should have and continue to develop. Communication and engagement skills impact everything from running effective meetings, managing difficult conversations, objection handling, and negotiation, just to name a few areas. If you invest in improving your CS team’s engagement skills your organization will benefit from increased product adoption, higher outcome achievement, improved customer relationships, increased revenue, decrease in churn and higher customer satisfaction. And who doesn’t want that!?

Train CSMs to Become More Proactive, Prioritize and Manage Time

To be an effective CSM means operating in a proactive state, having excellent prioritization skills, and managing time effectively. Although these are skills that a lot of professionals in various fields should possess, providing training, coaching, and workshops in the context of Customer Success will have a meaningful impact that’s directly related to their role and to their performance. Training that includes strategies and tactics specifically for CSMs can translate into powerful results.

How to Run Customer Meetings Effectively

Whether it’s running kickoff calls, training, quarterly business reviews, or meetings to close on expansion sales, knowing the tactics and strategies of running effective meetings can dramatically impact customer relationships. It can be the difference in achieving mutually beneficial outcomes, customer loyalty, deeper relationships, establishing the CSM as a partner/advisor, and ensuring those renewals and expansion deals are closed.

Managing Churn and Expansion Skills

Just like sales has their process and skill set required to negotiate, objection handle and close more sales, so does Customer Success. Enhance your CS teams skill set around managing churn risks, renewals and driving more revenue from the customer base with a comprehensive training program designed for CS professionals in these areas.

Customer Success is a business discipline in its own right with professionals that require a specific skill set in order to execute on their roles as effectively as possible. There are both hard and soft skills that need to be nurtured and developed. You can try the approach of hiring Customer Success Managers and simply getting them on the phone, and they may do well, but they likely won’t achieve their potential performance level. However, if you give them comprehensive training then they will excel to a far greater degree, which will help both your customers and your organization reach your respective goals.

Ready to create a high performing incredible Customer Success Manager team? Get in touch, we can help.