About AgentSync
In short, what does AgentSync do?
Could you share the top challenge the company solves for its customers?
AgentSync builds a modern insurance infrastructure that connects carriers, agencies, managing general agents (MGAs), and producers.
We provide data intelligence and streamlined onboarding and compliance management processes that reduce costs, increase efficiency, and get insurance agents ready to sell in hours instead of weeks.
About You
Can you tell us about the journey that led to your current role as VP of CS?
Right out of college, I started at Accenture in a consulting role in a combination of implementation and strategy roles.
I also had visibility across multiple industries. Like most consulting roles, I was customer-facing for the entirety of my time at Accenture.
After Accenture, I briefly spent time at a boutique consulting firm based in Atlanta. It was there that I realized that I wanted to actually operationalize the solutions I had designed.
I ended up at a cybersecurity company called Secureworks where I was directly supporting the service management team. At the time, Secureworks was more on-prem, platform as a service-style business and so my work was more focused on driving process improvements from a traditional IT Service Management (ITSM) perspective.
Secureworks decided to migrate to a SaaS model and created its first iteration of cybersecurity software.
I was asked to design, build, and staff the first CSM function there. I ultimately asked to lead the function and about six months in I knew I really enjoyed Customer Success.
My passion rotated toward a horizontal CS focus rather than a verticalized industry specialization.
This led me to other positions at Typeform and now AgentSync.
What inspired you to pursue this career path?
My inspiration came from building the function at Secureworks and realizing that I found my professional calling.
The ability to solve problems for customers and showcase how the software ultimately helps the customers reach their goals is really rewarding.
I'm glad that this is my career.
Key Achievements
Could you share one or two of your proudest accomplishments so far?
One of my proudest accomplishments is creating a CS function where the Gross Revenue Retention (GRR) was in the low 80s and after a year the GRR had improved to 91%.
Being able to connect the actions my team took to direct customers’ results is something where I have a lot of pride.
Driving Customer Success
What's one strategy you found to be most effective for driving CS?
There is a lot of focus on Gross Revenue Retention (GRR) and Net Revenue Retention NRR as measures of success for CS.
But those are lagging indicators.
What is most important is that to drive true customer success we must focus on the actions we can actually control.
To that extent, I ensure my team members understand the goals/success criteria that each customer has in buying our software.
Without that, there is no way to prove if our software actually delivered against what a customer deemed to be most important to them.
What are the CS strategies you implemented that made a massive impact on your teams and the company?
Each framework I've designed is grounded in answering these three questions first.
I ask my team members to describe these in detail:
What does a 'gold' standard customer look like?
If you were the buyer of our software, what would be most important to you?
What are the attributes of a customer who is highly likely to renew?
By starting with these 3 questions, we can start to pinpoint attributes to build a methodology.
For example, if a 'gold' standard customer has daily usage of XYZ-defined features, then we can simply review each customer to see if they've achieved this parameter.
If the answer is yes, fantastic.
If the answer is no, then we need to support and align with the customer on daily usage.
Obviously, the art of CS is in helping a customer understand why daily usage is in support of achieving their goals/success. This is purely just one example.
Building a Customer-Centric Culture
How do you infuse a customer-centric culture within your teams?
We frequently ask ourselves:
"What would the customer experience look like if we did this?"
"If we put ourselves in the shoes of the customer, how would the change impact them?"
Any specific practices or initiatives that help you focus on customer needs?
There are so many but one that is really important:
Capturing customer product feedback, sharing with our product teams, and then ultimately being able to share that we released a new feature in response to their request.
Team Empowerment
How do you motivate and empower your teams daily?
Employees are motivated by different things, so a leader needs to understand the drivers behind each individual.
For example, I've had team members who are extremely motivated by their compensation.
Others get the most joy from being called out in NPS verbatim as the reason for a high score.
So, as a leader, we must design avenues where the rewards match their needs.
From an empowerment standpoint, it is important to allow team members to share their ideas for solutions.
We are all adults with a plethora of experience and perspectives. No single leader could know the answer to every problem.
Allowing team members to be integral to solutions and having a seat at the table helps them feel more empowered and ultimately in control of their careers.
Are there particular tools that help you boost team performance?
I've used Catalyst and Matik at two companies.
Catalyst, when implemented well, enables a true 360-degree view of a customer. No need to have 500,000 tabs open to do your job.
Matik enables the automatic creation of presentations, so a team member doesn't need to dig into various sources to plug data into a slide. This is a massive time saver and enables consistent delivery across the team.
About AI
Your take on AI and Customer Success
There is a time and a place for AI.
I've seen team members use ChatGPT to help draft a sensitive email. Those one-off use cases are helpful.
That said, really great customer success is truly a mix of Art and Science.
We can be prescriptive about a methodology we want our teams to follow (science), we can use a health score, and have AI surface recommendations (science).
But the best CSMs understand that underneath it all, relationships and human interaction matter (art).
AI cannot replicate that aspect.
I also manage a support team and I see AI being an amazing tool to surface answers to support questions from our curated help content without having any human intervention.
Are there any AI tools you/your teams are using, like automated note-taking, meeting summaries, etc.?
We currently have Gong, which has great summarisation, but we are also exploring Update AI, which is more purpose-built for Customer Success.
The note-taking and summaries I've seen created by Update AI could be a massive time saver for all CSMs.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
How do you promote collaboration between customer success teams and other internal departments like Sales, Marketing, or Product?
To have the most collaboration with Sales and CS, the teams must be aligned on the same goals/outcomes.
Oftentimes, the motivation/alignment comes from the compensation plans. If the plans are not complementary, then the collaboration will be lacking.
For Marketing, Customer Success benefits most when there is a product marketing and customer marketing function.
With budgets being consistently cut in both functions, this often can be challenging. However, when these teams exist, it can be incredible.
CSMs can leverage incredible product and customer marketing content to ensure customers are up to date on the latest features, use cases, and how-to on their product.
Furthermore, CSMs can share feedback with marketing on what customers are asking for the most in terms of content. Together, these teams can impact/influence customers!
As with anything, it's important to understand the "What's in it for me" (aka WIFM). If this understanding exists, it makes collaboration much easier.
Product and CSM relationship is critical.
The classic new feature, strategic roadmap vs customer needs tension, is real. It will never go away.
Leaders on both sides must understand the nuance of the challenges each is trying to solve.
If there is empathy, it can help smooth this natural tension. Where the most success is in this relationship is where there is compromise.
Ensuring Customer Success - Proactive Customer Engagement
What proactive approaches do you take for customer engagement?
If we've successfully identified what our customers' goals and success criteria are, then we have a perfect mechanism for tracking and proactively reaching out.
If we feel we are lagging on a goal, then we can reach out for a discussion regarding the goal.
Furthermore, and this is not true for all SaaS businesses, if we see a drop off in certain usage metrics, we can proactively reach out to understand the changes in the customer's business that would necessitate the change.
How do you identify and address customer needs before they become urgent?
Aside from having metrics to monitor, one of the easiest ways to understand customers' needs is to ask open-ended questions.
Questions or statements that start with "What”, "How", or "Tell me more" open the door for a conversation regarding the customer.
It can illuminate business challenges, nuances in your software, etc., that could signal a challenge before it becomes urgent.
Measuring and Iterating - Key Metrics
What key metrics do you track for measuring success?
% Green customers - CSM Sentiment or Health Score or both.
% Customer Goals Captured
% Customer Goals met
% Executive or Quarterly Value Reviews Held
If you have a health score, there are other metrics within the health score that can be reviewed and closely managed.
How do these metrics align with your overall business objectives?
All of the metrics my team uses are in support of GRR/NRR as the lagging indicators of our success.
Continuous Improvement
Can you share your approach to continuous improvement/feedback loops in your customer success strategies?
One of the reasons that I love a good health score is that you can look at each input in the health score, create an action plan to address low scores on each input, and then measure if the action taken actually improved the health component.
If yes, then you know the action is working. If not, then it's time to rethink the action.
This is just one example.
Going back to what I mentioned earlier regarding the three questions:
If the product shifts, then it is always important to rethink the answers to those questions and the associated methodology that was developed.
Any specific learnings from challenges or failures that led to positive changes?
At a previous company, we had a health metric that wasn't improving with the action performed.
We adjusted the action and then began seeing positive results. It was rewarding to see the impact of the change!
Advice for Aspiring Customer Success Leaders
What practical advice would you give to those aspiring to leadership roles in customer success?
First, you are the CEO of your career. That in and of itself is not practical.
However, sharing with your manager that you want to be a leader and asking what skills you may need to become a leader is the first step to making it a reality.
No one will know you want to be a leader unless you share that information.
Likewise, you cannot get coaching on important leadership skills unless they know you want to be a leader.
Learn about business financials. This advice is actually important for those already in CS leadership positions.
I've heard many leaders say they want a seat at the executive leadership table but if you do not understand how your team's costs align on the P&L nor do you understand the revenue your team is accountable for, you will not get a seat at the table.
Any specific insights from your career that others could follow in their professional journeys?
There have been a lot of key moments in my career.
However, the one that has enabled me to have the most success is when I spent some time reading Finance & Accounting for Nonfinancial Managers.
I received this advice from a COO I used to work for, and it has helped me immensely in my career. I took the time to read the book and compare it to the public balance sheet for the company I was at.
I was fortunate that I worked at a public company.
However, even at private companies, you can ask to review this information or even pull down the balance sheet from any public company.
They are typically found on the Investors page of any public company's homepage.
The reason this mattered so much is enabled me to have intelligent and productive conversations with my finance partners. It also enabled me to challenge my team being categorised as COGS (Cost Of Goods Sold) vs CAC (Cost of Acquisition).
This skill set is incredibly important!
In The News: CS Layoffs
What's your take on the layoffs that hit CS organisations primarily?
My first reaction is disappointment.
My practical reaction is that CS leaders didn't do a great job of sharing their impact on the business's financials/bottom line.
As you can see, there is a bit of a theme here with these past few answers!
If the CS team were driving results in a cost-efficient manner and were optimised for the specific business, it would make it easier to justify the continued investment in the function.
What's Next for You
I'm relocating with my family to Colorado for my position at AgentSync.
I am thrilled about this opportunity and can't wait to start the new year (2024) in Colorado!
Professionally, I desire to be a Chief Customer Officer.
This is no secret with my boss (CRO at AgentSync)—see my comment earlier about ensuring your manager understands your career desires!
I'm continuing to hone my skills in balancing customer needs with operational excellence.
Hobbies and Recommendations
What do you enjoy doing outside of work?
I have two young boys, 7 and 4 years old. I spend a lot of time with them.
They are wild, so we do lots of outdoor activities.
I'm looking forward to the opportunity to live in Colorad,o where the weather is more temperate than in Atlanta (i.e., less unbearable heat and humidity).
The access to trails and the mountains excites me, and I cannot wait to hike my first 14'er with my entire family. I've already done two!
Any books or podcasts you'd recommend?
From a CS and Leadership perspective, I really enjoy the Gain Grow Retain podcast as well as the B2B Leadership podcast.