CS STAR answers Flashcards
Built a data analytics function
Needed better insights for decision making, client engagement, predictive health scoring etc. Got the resources to promote from within to cultivate that discipline for the commercial teams alongside the data engineering team.
Situation: We were starved of quantitative measurements of all types.
Task: I was responsible for performance, but had mostly opinions and small sample sizes to base conversations on.
Action: I sought out resources to promote someone with operations and data background to build out the metrics, KPI’s and dashboarding
Result: The impact was quickly felt in customer meetings. We were able to show how strong our performance and cost savings was compared to our competitors while also facing our mistakes - building trust in the people and product.
Made How-to-Demo guide
There was a deficit in knowledge on how to demo based on pedagogical principles. The demo guide oriented the speaker to the correct goals, best methods of communication and set appropriate expectations of success.
Situation: There was a lot of the misled belief that speaking was teaching.
Task: I took it upon myself to write out the theory and structure of learner psychology in a demo environment
Action: Made it a requirement for the CS team to know the theory, and the CSM’s to be able to prove they could practice it.
Result: We were not able to measure the impact of improved demos given the noisiness of the setting, but there was positive feedback about a large increase in engagement. Once they practiced it, the CSM’s believed in the theory
Playbook for onboarding
Set a structure for new clients that included checklists, scoping, discovery process and planning.
Situation: We had been making it up as we went for some time. Myself included. But when I added the CSM function to the team it became important to standardize the quality of the onboarding process
Task: I built 2 playbooks for S/M and Lg/Ent that spelled out the goals, steps, phases and measures of success for
Action: The CSM’s were accountable for updating Hubspot with relevant notes on the template added to new accounts
Result: The quality of onboarding professionalized and enabled CS to drive it forward. And I was able to track the adherence and progress of new accounts only by looking at the CRM, and could discuss the details with the CSM’s and with the revenue team.
Playbook for account expansion
Basic plan for how to approach an org to influence their strategy, get access, speak to the right people, and how to proactively push for a decision. Plus how to vertically expand using consensus, strategic insight, measured results, and referrals. And how to horizontally expand using access, org charts, contact lists and referrals.
Situation: There were only vague ideas and random practices about how to expand accounts. The best practices were not implemented consistently, and therefore the results were inconsistent.
Task: I wrote 2 playbooks for vertical and horizontal strategies and practices, with charts, checklists and preferred timelines based on segmentation principles
Action: I put the structure into play by studying and drilling on the basics, and workshopped the accounts based on the guidelines in the playbooks
Result: The accounts developed proactively and not reactively. The sales team became the drivers of change instead of the passengers. They were able to expand all of their 5 main accounts and (almost) doubled their revenue.
Voice of the Customer
Developed a template for Product team feedback for the CSM’s to complete after every demo. An attempt to quantitatively document the personal reactions of new learners to the tool vs the complaining ecosystem that preceded it.
Situation: Product had no apparatus to gather feedback from the users. While the CS team was on the front lines with new users daily.
Task: We decided that the CS team should be the vehicle that sends that feedback into the dev team. So I proposed to the Product head that we implement a standardized form to be filled out after every demo.
Action: We implemented it rather quickly, and iterated on it a couple of times.
Result: The product team - specifically the support development team improved on their focus areas that was highlighted in the reports. And it gave a voice to the ops teams in a quantitative manner where prior they had nothing but opinions.
OKR’s and KPI’s
Set Key Results in line with the Objectives set by LT, and bi-weekly reported on progress. KPI’s were initial CS-affected metrics that would be a fair and useful measure of CS impact.
Situation: The company overall lacked a strategy and cohesive direction. Including the CS dept which did not have mission critical measurements to orient
Task: I developed some compound KPI’s that CS could directly affect and be responsible for - (Operational Performance, Service Performance, Platform performance, Community performance, Operator Performance)
Action: The metrics were built over time and included in our weekly CS team meetings, and also reported on to the LT on a monthly basis.
Result: The impact was significant. It really focused that team from anecdotal evidence to the measured impacts. Which began the journey towards a more data-driven culture.
AI tool
simply an attempt to improve efficiency and quality of note taking, summarizing and documentation for the CRM hygiene. But with potential to really improve the follow up lifecycle.
Situation: We were spending a lot of time on admin and CRM hygiene - best practices were a struggle to follow particularly when we got busy.
Task: I proposed a solution to LT and then scoped out the possible options for AI aids
Action: After choosing Fellow I kicked off a 3 stage implementation program to slowly acclimate the CS team to using it
Result: Significantly improved CRM documentation, oversight, follow up and decreased admin time
Developed personal growth plans for the team
Helping to highlight the available growth potential of their current role to align with their personal life goals.
Situation: Team had lost focus on the symbiosis of their careers and life goals
Task: I developed a program to help them achieve their personal goals via their career stop at CtrlChain
Action: We worked over their plans individually alongside larger conversations about their lives and personal aspirations
Result: It gave us a structure to better align the types of projects and responsibilities they took on and I volunteered the dept for. So that I could help them to further their careers and goals
Segmentation strategy for customers
Efficiency step to focus team resources on the most revenue impacting customers. Included separate onboarding playbooks.
Situation: We were spending as much time on small and high-churn potential customers as we were the ‘stickier’ or large clients
Task: I made a matrix to articulate the volume time per customer based on revenue potential and likelihood retention
Action: We included the matrix location in all new customer pre-assessments and that indicated the course of action and recommended resources dedicated
Result: Helped CS to manage large amounts of accounts at a standard proportional to the value to CtrlChain
Drilled on Consultative sales approach
Trained people on how to remove their ego, agenda and urgency from client interactions, then techniques on guiding their focus to our solutions.
Situation: The sales and CS I worked with recently spent too much time talking about the product and their opinions on how to use it. There was a need to recalibrate their approach around the customers over themselves
Task: I made a guide on consultative Sales, the pedagogical principles behind it, and best practices
Action: It became a core skill that we would practice on through role playing client interactions and how to guide them using questions vs speaking to them
Result: We got much better engagement on calls which translated into better trust throughout the onboarding and account maturing process
Customer service excellence
Changed the software pipeline into Hubspot for ticketing, made a guide on professionalism including simple rules and standards, trained on handling emergencies and objections.
Situation: There was a large range in the quality of customer service habits and instincts in the CSR team when I first arrived. And despite training on essentials it was still inconsistent
Task: I migrated the email and chat messaging into Hubspot ticketing, made standard email templates and made the HS analytics part of daily standups. Plus lightly role played on written escalation handling.
Action: It really improved their consciousness of speed of response, increased the volume of communication while improving efficiency.
Result: Nearly doubled the amount of messages while decreasing the amount of total time spent writing.
Customer retention strategy
Strong onboarding and kickoff, hyper-care phase, alignment with their needs, metrics and honesty, regularly and transparent BR’s, bespoke analytics for Key Accounts, follow-through on Action Points, Strong customer support, feedback incorporation, maintain high visibility,
Situation: There was no particular retention strategy in place when I started. We were a replaceable partner for our clients. We needed a regime of transparency, contact and accountability where we could highlight our service, price and support levels in an honest & professional way to distinguish ourselves from our competition. The AMs would also lose focus on their past ‘Wins’ and the communication levels would weaken.
Task: I took it upon myself to reorganize the client strategy to orient our interactions around the principles of value for money, transparency, accountability and high performance.
Action: I began a multi-leveled program starting with Customer Service standardization and training. Tackled a segmented onboarding program, lane planning and hyper-care phase. Started building honest operational metrics to measure ourselves by. Scheduled regular BR’s with standardized templates and customized analytics they needed most. Followed through on our promises of action and impact for issues and were honest if we could not achieve them. And finally maintained a close eye on the support and service levels.
Result: After losing a couple significant clients previously we lost zero medium or large accounts after the consistent metric-heavy BRs were instituted. Not only could we routinely point to our performance and cost advantages but all errors or mishaps were admitted to and fixed in a rapid and reasonable manner. Zero churn in the ‘Substantial’ segment of our client base after these steps were taken.
Quantification of savings
An attempt to highlight the cost advantages of our product for increased loyalty from the clients executive mgmt team.
Situation: There existed only rhetorical promises of cost and time savings for our platform for new clients
Task: I assembled an exhaustive list of all the tasks that we were able to automate and made a chart. At the first meetings with potential clients Sales or CS would get them to fill in the chart with estimates of the time their ops teams spent on the tasks per week (or per load)
Action: We were able to then provide them an estimate in savings (based on average wages for their region) how much our automation was potentially saving them in productivity
Result: In our BRs we were able to give clients a number of savings in minutes and euros, highlighting the efficiency gains they were realizing by using our tool.
Drive adoption and usage - Client side:
Trained on Consultative meetings and pedagogical theory based demos. Targeted a range of internal users for demos during the onboarding phase. Collaborated with marketing on a drip campaign to advertise feature utility and new additions. Used business reviews with mgmt to highlight user habits, total usage, savings & performance.
Situation: We were blind to adoption levels (logins only). We had little to no insight on client-side platform usage, user habits or heatmaps, and little to no feedback to the Product team about feature usage.
Task: I decided to improve these things to maximize the benefits the clients could perceive and to give us better insights into how to improve our engagements.
Action: I matured the client engagement practices through training and implementing onboarding strategies to aid in early stage cohesion with many users and build trust. Made a feedback form for Product team. Collaborated with marketing on a drip campaign to advertise feature utility and new additions. Improved business reviews with mgmt to highlight user habits, total usage, savings & performance.
Result: Doubled the ‘active’ the user base, increased the login # by 50%
Drive adoption and usage -Contractor side:
With engineering added C02 integrations. Gave adoption responsibility and targets for usage to the ops team. Set up CSM QBRs. And built the CPP to measure and reward the best performers
Situation: We had a very uncommitted contractor user base. They had always preferred the route of least resistance despite the arguments for greater value to us and them. We were a pure chore for their ops teams no matter how good our business or personal relationship was.
Task: After a long period of fighting against the tides I realized the only real solution was performance accountability and a technical solution over the cultural solution we had tried for so long.
Action: Alongside the head of engineering we added a service called C02 which integrated with the contractors systems and allowed us to get automatic updates. I also delegated BRs to the CSMs along with the CPP and adoption targets.
Result: By the time I had left we had 40% of our loads with automatic updates and had set up our main carriers on the CPP program covering about 60% of our business.
