Sophia Idjer’s Post

Stop settling for bad CS jobs—ask these questions! Just because they say it’s CS doesn’t mean it is. Last week, I interviewed a CSM currently at a startup that does everything wrong when it comes to CS. Everything, we talk about here on LI every day until we're sick of it 🤢 This CSM was desperate for a way out, but afraid to quit because of the shaky job market. 😬 Sound familiar? My skin crawls knowing that in 2024, companies like this still exist. But here’s the harsh reality: they do. Some companies out there are posting CS roles that are support positions disguised as something they’re not. They talk a big game, act like they’ve got a "well-oiled" CS department, but behind the scenes? 🚨 It's a chaotic mess.🚨 𝗧𝗼 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗷𝗼𝗯 𝘀𝗲𝗲𝗸𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗻𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗴𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗲: ✋🏽 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗽 𝗴𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗱𝘂𝗽𝗲𝗱! You deserve better. You deserve to work for a company that respects CS and sets you up for success, not failure. Here’s the good news: not every company is like that. ✅ There are CEOs and leaders who “get” Customer Success. 🙌🏽 To you, I say: THANK YOU! Your efforts are what’s driving this industry forward. You understand that CS isn’t just a “nice-to-have,” it’s a business growth engine. ❌ To those that don't? Well, you’re not just hurting your company; you’re damaging your brand and reputation. But let's get back to YOU, the job seeker. You don’t have to fall into this trap again. 👇🏽 Here are some questions you can ask during your next interview to suss out if a company knows their stuff: How many accounts does a CSM handle? • Who does the CS team report to? • How do you invest in the growth of your CS team? • How does CS, Product, and Engineering collaborate? • How does your company define the role of Customer Success? • What happens when a customer isn’t a good fit for your product? • What indicator do you look at to see that your CS team is performing? • Give an example of how a CSM helped shape or influence company strategy? • Describe a time when CS had to push back on Sales for overpromising to a customer? • What’s your customer churn rate, and what’s being done to improve it? • How are customer feedback and issues escalated and resolved? • Walk me through your CS process from onboarding to retention? • What tools are in place to support the CS team’s work? • What is the average tenure of a CS team member? • How do you measure the success of your CSMs? Ask these, and you'll quickly know if you're walking into a well-structured CS department or a dumpster fire. 🚒🔥 👉🏽 What’s the worst CS experience you’ve ever had at a company? What other questions can you ask to test the CS maturity level? Drop it in the comments! #customersuccess #saas #startups #careercoaching  #CS #CSM #SuccessHacks #customersuccessmanager #lessonsfromanewvp  

Customer Success is a passport function! This has always been my sentiment and one of the reasons why it's perfect for me, at least for now. Opportunities to collaborate with Sales, Marketing, Product, and Support...sometimes Accounts Receivable (oof), CSM's are naturally silo-breakers. So if CS ultimately isn't for you, you'll find out what IS and WHY! I could say a LOT more on that but to keep it short: Customer Success isn't for everybody, and that's ok. Neither is rapping. I used to think that was what I was DESTINED to be, and no one could tell me otherwise. I got bars...I likely have an album in me. But a career in rap? NOPE! Just because you love something doesn't mean it will be fulfilling as a career. I'm not a Harvard Business Review apostle but there's a short article I'll link to titled "What You Should Follow Instead of Your Passion" that's worth a few minutes of your time. Perseverance isn't one-dimensional the way obstinance is. I'll link yet ANOTHER article titled "When Following Your Passion Turns Toxic" also from HBR. It's a little longer and references anime, if you're into that 🪭 All of you won't be happy in Customer Success but here's to you finding your dream role, whatever that may be! #CustomerSuccess #ikigai #Career

These are the 2 Customer Success skills nobody is talking about.  👇 Personal branding, and looking for a job. I recently had a conversation with the crew at Lifetime Value Media and admittedly, they caught me at a very reflective time. There was a lot going on in my life at the time, and honestly, I wasn't sure I wanted to listen to it again. I'm glad I did. We talked about some real sh!t nobody seems to be saying. --> A lot of people in CS are struggling, either in their jobs or trying to find one. --> CS isn't the job a lot of people signed up for. And in some companies, it's going to get worse before it gets better. --> If this is you, I'm sorry to tell you - this isn't the last time you're going to go through this. CS is in a transition. So I really hope you love it.  If not, there are easier ways to make a living. Life is too short to spend your days in a job that doesn't love you back. Thank you for having me on Dillon Young Jean-Pierre Frost Rob Zambito. You're doing great work. #customersuccess #jobsearch #careertransitions ♻️ Repost if this helped or inspired  🔔 Follow me, Bob Mathers for more  👇 Comment and let's start the conversation

Should we talk about layoffs? Or about how much it can suck to be in a job you don't love? In this episode, Bob Mathers brings the realest, most human 10-minute conversation on the Daily Standup. This was one of the more difficult but surprisingly liberating topics to discuss. Check it out! Link in the comments.

I’ve met hundreds of highly ambitious and talented CSMs. It's sad to see that most of them are not living up to their potential because they are playing a losing game. They are focused on - feature adoption and product usage - customer health, NPS and CSAT - efficiency and scalability because that's what everyone does and ends up in the reactive hamster wheel. Instead of shining bright in the spotlight they - are slowly but steadily burning out - see no personal growth and career opportunities - sit at the bottom end of the salary ladder. Fortunately, there's a way out - Customer Value-Led Growth. A unique approach designed to make your C-suite fall madly in love with you. Here's how it works in a nutshell: 1. Customer Discovery: Understand what value means to customers, how they measure it, and what keeps them from accomplishing their goals. 2. Success Planning: Translating the insights of the discovery into a dedicated roadmap that outlines all the steps customers need to take. 3. Program Design: A tailored mix of content and services built to educate and train customers to solve their problems. 4. Tracking Results: Measuring customer progress with the metrics they care about and detecting deviations from the success path in real-time. 5. Demonstrating Value: Benchmarking your customers' performance with the one they had in the beginning at every opportunity. 6. Monetizing Value: Identifying opportunities to further grow your customers' value and translating them into expansions, up- and cross-sells (plus asking for referrals) It's not easy to pull off. You will not go from 0-100 within a few days. But once your efforts start coming together, you'll never look back. PS: Want to unlock your full potential? Start here --> https://lnkd.in/d4TeAFu8

Our clients are absolutely KILLING IT right now!!! Check out some of our clients’ wins from last week: "L" – landed an Enterprise CSM offer with a $128,000 base salary and $32,000 bonus. "D" – landed a role with $93,000 OTE, negotiated up from $88,000 OTE and transitioned from healthcare 🥰 "C" – got her SECOND offer, this time for her dream company, and negotiated for $110K OTE! "A" – interviewed her way up to an Account Manager role with $100,000 OTE, after she initially applied for a BDR role with $80,000 OTE. "J" – negotiated an offer from $110K to $120K OTE and will be making 34% more than his previous role as a Senior CSM!!! "B" – went from PANICKING 2 weeks ago about not having any interviews to having 2 active interviews this week and cruising her way into a final round! "J" – secured her first EdTech role! "O" – got a call back from her dream company where she wasn’t selected for a role back in February and has officially accepted the offer! "R" – went from feeling SO nervous about a phone interview to being EXCITED about it! There’s something so powerful about meeting people at a vulnerable time in their lives and being able to use the knowledge we've acquired over the course of 10+ years in Customer Success to support our clients with: 🔥 building up a confident mindset 🔥 polishing their job search skills, and 🔥 landing an ideal-fit job in Customer Success But it’s never just the work my team and I do. I mean, the resilience it takes for job seekers to persevere in such a challenging job market?! Extraordinary. That’s why wins like the ones above ⬆️ mean soooo much to us. And that’s why my team and I will never get tired of celebrating our clients' career success 🥳 If you’d like to get 1-on-1 support with your own job search and land your next ideal fit role in Customer Success, DM me here on LinkedIn and I’ll reach out to chat about how my team and I can support you!

They say 'Customer Success is key,' but if that’s true, why are the salaries so out of sync with the value CS brings? Why do most CSMs feel underpaid, overworked & undervalued? Behind the facade that organizations create, the cold & hard truth of CS salaries tells a different story: 1. Misaligned to impact: CS drives renewals, reduces churn & increases LTV - yet salaries don’t always reflect the revenue CSMs nurture & ensure. In most cases Sales gets the glory & the cash; CS gets the leftover budget. 2. One size fits all?: Why are enterprise CSMs & SMB CSMs often paid the same way? Both are different - managing smaller no. of $10 million accounts vs. a large no. of $100k accounts is not the same, but compensation structures are blanket. 3. Lack of fair commission structure: Sales gets hefty commissions for new logos, but CSMs who save these logos on the brink of churning get... a "thanks" or "good job"? Isn't the ongoing renewal/ expansion the thing that really gets you to profits? 4. Salary caps are low: Entry-level CSMs make less that their counterparts in sales & product - but are expected to do more. We treat them as a mix of revenue, product & support team - expecting them to do it all. 5. Location disparity: Salaries vary too wildly by location. In case the role is in-office or for a location, then yes it makes sense to create the parity - but for remote roles that cater to global customers it does not make sense. 6. PM vs. CS salary gap: Product Managers are seen as more “strategic” & earn 20-30% more than CSMs. But without CS ensuring right product adoption & retention, who’s going to buy what PMs are building? Also, aren't CSMs contributing to the product? 7. Overworked & underpaid: The "do more with less" mantra is not doing anyone any good. CS teams are stretched thin & instead of hiring more hands, organizations pile on more work without adjusting compensation. How is this fair? 8. Ignoring industry specialization: In SaaS, in certain customer facing roles deep industry knowledge & specialization matters. Yet, that is mostly a good to have on JD with no direct mapping into salary - meaning a CSM in complex/ deep tech. industry can earn the same as 1 in less specialized sectors. Then why should a CSM spend time & money on expertise? 9. Bonuses aren’t competitive: A $5,000 bonus for a job that saves millions in revenue? How does that even work? Isn't this supposed to incentivize folks? 10. Lack of career paths: CS careers often feel like dead-ends. Even if you’re a stellar performer, moving from CSM to Director or VP is not a clear path. When it does happen, the pay bump? Not nearly enough to justify the extra responsibility. Sometimes you get promoted, but are doing the same role! There is no structure/ clarity/ formula for CS salary; & vague means unfair. Thoughts? Block 1:1 https://lnkd.in/gjQxGq7f for coaching/ mentoring #CustomerSuccess #SalaryDisparity #CSM #CS #CustomerSuccessManager #CSLeaders #Founders #B2B #SaaS

Happy new week @everyone!! Specifically for @Appointment Setters. It's a beautiful Monday morning with shades of a promising week for us. Boost Your Appointment Setting Game with Customer Service Experience! Are you looking to leverage your customer service skills to excel in an appointment setting role? Here are some valuable tips to help you succeed: - Highlight Transferable Skills: Emphasize skills like communication, problem-solving, and time management, which are valuable in both appointment setting and customer service. - Build Relationships: Use your customer service experience to build rapport with potential customers and set appointments. - Understand Customer Needs: Leverage your customer service experience to understand customer pain points and tailor your appointment setting approach accordingly. - Effective Communication: Use clear and concise language to set expectations and confirm appointments. - Follow-up: Utilize your customer service skills to follow up with leads and ensure a smooth handoff to the next step. - Be Proactive: Anticipate and address potential objections or concerns, showcasing your customer service expertise. - Data Analysis: Use data to refine your approach, identifying effective strategies and areas for improvement. - Continuous Learning: Stay up-to-date on industry trends and best practices, combining appointment setting and customer service expertise. By combining your customer service skills with these appointment setting tips, you'll be unstoppable! Share your own tips and experiences in the comments below! #AppointmentSetting #CustomerService #SalesSuccess

This week began with an insightful interaction with Prajakta Kale, MBA. We connected on Monday and spoke for nearly an hour. Prajakta is a seasoned Customer Success professional, working as an Enterprise Customer Success Manager for a firm based in Birmingham, UK. Such interactions always offer new learnings - our discussion covered onboarding processes across organizations, whether a fixed approach defines the customer journey, our respective CS journeys, and my creating an end-to-end article series on the subject. Regarding our journeys, one thing that truly impressed me was Prajakta's transition from being a teacher to becoming a highly skilled and experienced CS professional. She brings 12 years of industry experience, and her insights into different processes are commendable. She has in fact received great appreciation from the board members in the prev org for a post. In contrast, I bring over 9 years of industry experience, starting at Amazon and working in 3 SaaS organizations, where I established and elevated CS operations in 2 of them. ------- On designing the Customer journey, we shared a similar approach. What I believe as a success is to make your customers to be an advocate for your product. That's the ultimate goal I want to achieve, starting from Onboarding, adoption, engagement, and through to renewals. In the course of that journey, it's essential to do whatever it takes to ensure your customer's success, as ultimately, their success is your success. Regarding the details on onboarding, I was curious to understand the process she follows for Enterprises, which aligns with a structured program encompassing various stages, from paperwork to job-specific training. The duration varies based on role complexity and organizational resources. We discussed boosting CV shortlisting for job applications, understanding evolving company processes and candidate approaches. Tailoring resumes per company needs and leveraging professional networks/referrals to bypass screening queues were highlighted as effective strategies. Lastly, for me, being able to publish a series of 20 articles on the end-to-end CS process took almost 2.5 months, but the idea had germinated nearly a year ago. Since then, I had been collating content from my experience and doing research to identify areas I could improve and suggest better practices for those just starting in CS. Almost 3 months ago, when my content was ready, I decided to refine the language to make it easily understandable for everyone, and that's where the rephrasing took place before gradually publishing it. Overall, this was my first interaction with a CS professional to help a peer in the ecosystem while learning from them simultaneously. I look forward to reconnecting with Prajakta in the future to discuss more topics. She deserves a big round of applause. 👏 👏 👏 Prajakta Kale, MBA

Call it new hire's remorse, call it shift shock, call it regret... I've spoken with many Customer Success professionals over the past few months that have said, "this job is not what I thought it was going to be" or "this is not the position that was described to me during the interview." And this is not new. I’ve been hearing this from folks for years. Per Muse, this is not an uncommon sentiment. Muse's survey (linked below) shows 72% of respondents are experiencing shift shock. That number is pretty staggering and, in some cases, avoidable if you do your research. So, Customer Success Peeps, here are some questions you can ask during an interview to reduce your chance of falling into the "buyer remorse" bucket. Outside of understanding the health of the business, to get more clarity on your role, you should ask: * What KPIs will I own? * Outside of KPIs, how is success measured? * How has the team performed to these KPIs and measurements? * What key functions owned in CS may not be made clear from the KPIs and success measurements? * What system(s) does the CS team operate in? * What does the relationship between Sales and CS look like? How about Product? * What are the top reasons for customer churn? * How has churn historically been mitigated? * What part will I play in renewals? * What part will I play in upsells? * Explain the breakdown of my total compensation. Is it base + bonus? Base + commission? Only base? How often does everyone reach their full "on target earnings" potential? (really dig in here) * Who does the VP or CCO report to in the organization? This matters as the top layer of the company sets the tone for the Customer Success organization. * How does the rest of the company view CS in the organization? What other questions would you add?