When Ming Zhang, VP Customer Success at LineSlip Solutions reached out to me to be featured in my newsletter, I immediately accepted.
He is an industry expert reading my weekly notes every week since when I started almost 2 years ago!
In this exclusive interview with me, he provides wisdom, guidance, and learnings that will help you in Customer Success.
So here we go. The stage is yours, Ming!
Where are you from?
I’m a first-generation Chinese immigrant. I currently live in the Boston area with my family and three kids.
I recall the day when I landed in Hawaii two decades ago. I only had some pocket money to go around. I cherished a hope to build my version of the American dream in this promised land of freedom.
Why did you join my newsletter?
I’m an early joiner of your CS Café.
I did it because I knew you on the LinkedIn network and enjoyed your insightful posts.
Also because your newsletter could serve as a more structured approach to the CS community and keep track of CS trends.
It turned out that I enjoyed all the 42 editions published thus far!
They each appeared precise and concise with a common interest to the general CS audience.
The edition #42 on the 7 reasons for joining a startup, appears to be a boost for any job seeker.
An avid reader of newsletters, I see your CS Café hitting my inbox every Sunday, at 9 a.m. ET sharp. This is when my quality time of the day starts.
The weekly 3-minute read will go a long way because I can distill wisdom from every edition.
Your newsletter is a goldmine that will continue to impact our CS community and will help us reach new highs for many years to come.
Your career path:
I progressed my career from enablement to consulting, culminating in customer success. It’s an evolving pathway as enablement feeds into consulting as a critical component. And consulting in turn operates at an account level in customer success.
All this sums up the customer-facing leadership experience I built and enjoy.
How do you see yourself in 1 year? 3 or 5 years?
I’m privileged to build and drive Customer Success at an early-stage SaaS startup.
My goal is to create the best work environment to involve, engage and set the CS flywheel. This includes a CS framework with playbooks in motion.
It’s bearing fruit right now, and I’m looking forward to reaching new highs in the next couple of years.
How do you see CS evolving in the upcoming years?
Customer Success was new as a function 10 years ago and it’s been the fastest-evolving since then.
There are times with moments of firefighting we can attribute to the growing pains.
Today, we see an enriched CS community as a trend-setter rather than a follower in business. And we’re raising the bar at all times.
In the upcoming years, I expect to see an AI-driven version of the CS motions.
It means what sits on the tech stack is a unified platform we can leverage to automate the CS journey. But also to personalize customer engagement through predictive analytics.
Here, automation and personalization are not paradoxical.
But rather a duality acting together to ensure time-to-value and time-to-revenue.
What’s your top challenge at the moment?
Top of mind is achieving the maturity level of operational efficiency.
This is a common challenge in CS, especially during the current economic uncertainties. A well-architected CS platform will be a key part of the solution, in my view.
If there was one thing you could remove immediately, what would it be?
The clock, because it’s what I fight every day to get more things done in an ever-shorter life.
What are you most passionate about?
I enjoy giving back, adding diversity to our CS community, and aspiring CS professionals at different episodes of their careers.
What are your top 3 priorities at the moment?
Reflect and give a strategic look at where I am today from a professional perspective. And see where I could make more impact as part of the career progression.
Help standardize and exemplify the CS motions in the ever-growing CS communities. Leveraging today’s AI-driven tools to help operationalize those motions.
And on a personal note, find other voluntary opportunities. Contribute more to local communities with a shared sense of purpose for the greater good.
Any interesting facts about you? Talent, hobbies, etc.
I’m a Mandarin speaker besides English.
I also have extensive travel experience, domestic and international.
Besides, I love creative writing. It stimulates my creativity which reflects my cross-cultural experience.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
Stay true to yourself, and embrace empathy in all social interactions.
Where can people find you? Social media profiles, etc.
Happy to connect on LinkedIn.