Five leadership lessons in re-launching a global CSM Organization
“Readjustment is a private revolution. Each time you learn something new, you must readjust the whole framework of your knowledge.” Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living.
IBM has had a Customer Success Management (CSM) Organization for the past 5 years. I’ve led it globally for the past 2 years. Mid 2020 we needed to study the design. Our software business accelerated to containers running on IBM Red Hat OpenShift with a subscription-based business model. While it’s not “SaaS”, the CSM motion of ensuring customers are using and getting value from this software works the same way. My GM and I spent 4 months redesigning the CSM organization which launched in January. I wanted to share the leadership lessons that I have learned now that we are 90 days into the mission in the event you are doing something similar.
1.) Overcommunicate the design
When a function or mission is already in the business, and it’s your job to re-define it, there’s a lot that goes into helping everyone understand the new mission. You need to reach down to individual CSMs, managers, and executives, across to your product management and development teams, over to sales, and up to senior leadership to clearly articulate the Customer Success design. The design should be a simple plan that states why you are changing the design. Simply describe what your CSMs will do, the portfolio they cover, the customer coverage model, the CSM and executive compensation model, the KPIs you will deliver to the business, and your leadership structure.
You will believe that you sound like a broken record, but it’s likely the first time that someone has heard you explain the new mission and the role. Don’t lose the passion and excitement when it’s the 100th time you’ve explained it. In a very large company, you will need to reach many people through multiple forums: blogs, virtual communities, and calls. Sometimes 2–3x times with certain people who can’t seem to get it or don’t agree with the new model. Not everyone will be happy with the design. They don’t have to agree with it. Listen to the concerns. Agree to disagree then commit.
2.) Invest in a Centralized Customer Success Practice
When you show up at any Starbucks in the world, you get a very similar experience. The coffee smells the same, looks the same, and tastes the same. The experience in the store is very consistent. I was striving for that same consistency when our CSMs show up to help our customers. It builds trust between the customer and IBM. In order to get that consistency and scale, we created a Customer Success (CS) Practice within our worldwide team. The CS Practice built and operationalized our adoption “playbook” which includes adoption phases with methods and assets. Our playbook is integrated and automated into Gainsight so it just part of the way our CSMs work.
3.) Customer Success Onboarding and Training
For 110 years, IBMers did one of two things: built (HW/SW/Services) and sold (HW/SW/Services). The idea of getting software used via a new role (CSM) required setting up new job profiles, banding, and training. There was a ton of collaboration with HR to make this happen.
When launching an organization with people coming from different backgrounds, you need to set up onboarding, learning paths and mentoring. Our CSM onboarding is a 9-week program with executive sponsors staying with CSM cohorts throughout the 9 weeks. Each week is laid out with customer success and technical training, hands on experiences with our software, and opportunities for mentoring and shadowing.
Our learning paths are 2-fold: (1.) How to be a CSM (2.) Product training from beginner to expert. The portfolio we cover is very technical — think of it as re-architecting your IT platform with containerized software and shifting legacy workloads to the cloud. Because of the deep skills needed to drive deployment and adoption, we set up environments for our CSMs to get their hands dirty by installing, configuring, and setting up the software. We want them to experience what our customers experience.
We have 2 IT professions for our CSMs: Technical Specialist and Architect. These are longer, more intense programs but many of our CSMs are embracing these professions.
When you hire great CSMs, they will be curious and want to stay competitive. Figure out what your onboarding and training program will look like.
4.) Be accessible
I quickly learned that one of the most important things was to be accessible at all layers of the organization and across geos. Your team wants to get to know you. You need to get to know them. They have questions. You have answers. Create safe spaces for transparency and radical candor on topics. Build relationships and get to know the team. What motivates them about the role? Where can we do better? Where are they stuck? Listen and ask for feedback. Spot check the process, design, and customer engagement. You may not like what you hear but you need to be open to what’s really happening on the ground so you can address it. If you ask for feedback, you are going to have to digest it, prioritize it, and do something with it. Your organization and culture will be better for it.
5.) Be a role model
Everyone is looking to you for clarity and setting the cultural tone. What values do you want to instill? What behaviors are you and your LT (leadership team) modeling? You can’t outsource culture. You have to get input, distill it, and then guide and direct it. When you see behavior that does not align with the culture of your organization you need to redirect. Our cultural values align with radical candor, growth mindset, entrepreneurial spirit, and career growth. It’s not about the words, it’s about the actions that we carry out that align with those values. If we say we embrace radical candor then we need to empower our teams to challenge leaders and each other and to have the hard discussions. In most cases, performance and engagement will improve. Your cultural values will be different but whatever you decide, you need to model those behaviors day in and day out.
