Intercom, Inc.

DECEMBER 10, 2020

Few are better placed to explain the concept of customer success than Nick Mehta. Not only is it the name for his own interview series, it’s the evolution of his own thinking about the attributes that leaders need today. In it, he explains why customer success isn’t just a job function but a company-wide priority.

Scale 223

Scale Customer Success Scaling B2B 223

Totango

JANUARY 12, 2022

Being a Customer Success Manager (CSM) can be an extremely rewarding career. A CSM works hand-in-hand with customers, guiding them through the customer journey and fostering a positive connection. 5 Key Customer Success Manager Interview Questions. . Customer Success Managers are leaders.

Interviewing 103

Interviewing Customer Success Management Scale 103

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 25, 2025

SaaStr Annual attracts thousands of high-quality SaaS professionals across functions like engineering, product, marketing, sales, and customer success. Many companies strategically use the event to meet potential hires, conduct interviews, and build their talent pipeline.

Sales Recruiting 195

Sales Recruiting Scale CTO Hire Sales Hiring 195

FastSpring

JANUARY 26, 2024

With years of experience at managing customer success (CS), Jake Dipple knows how important it is to foster collaboration between businesses and their customers. In this episode of Growth Stage, host and CMO of FastSpring David Vogelpohl interviews Jake about his thoughts on: What Customer Success is at a high level.

Customer Success 158

Customer Success VP of Engineering Payments Payment Methods 158

SaaStr

JULY 14, 2024

Hiring and Interviewing Tips: Jason emphasizes the importance of interviewing at least 30 candidates for a role and consulting with an expert in the field to interview the final candidate. Customer Engagement and Onboarding: Jason stresses the importance of early customer engagement.

Sales Hiring 263

Sales Hiring Outsourcing Services Scale Interviewing 263

FastSpring

AUGUST 6, 2024

This interview was edited for length and clarity. The post Avoid Global Tax Headaches With FastSpring: A Customer Success Story appeared first on FastSpring. Set up a demo or try it out for yourself.

Merchant Services 167

Merchant Services Payment Services Outsourcing Services SaaS Payments 167

Intercom, Inc.

MAY 13, 2021

Few people have more experience with this move than Linda Lin , Director of Customer Success at the revenue intelligence platform Gong. Moving upmarket means larger customers and higher revenue, but it’s not without its challenges. For Linda, it all comes down to your approach to customer success.

Scale 177

Scale Customer Success Sales Hiring Strategy 177

SaaStr

JANUARY 9, 2024

The other day I interviewed yet another other great AE who had recently become a Director of Sales. Host the first customer webinars. A new VP of Customer Success has to go visit 10+ customers in person during their first 14-30 days. Ask in the interviews. Things really were easier for many of us in 2021.

Sales Hiring 315

Sales Hiring Interviewing Startup Customer Success 315

ChurnZero

NOVEMBER 26, 2024

This is a guest article by Swati Garg , founder and CEO, Melo Associates , and Lindsay Lynch , senior recruitment consultant, Melo Associates , a recruitment firm focused on customer success hiring for SaaS and tech companies nationwide. For example, “Enterprise Customer Success Manager”.

Technical Review 52

Technical Review Sales Recruiting Customer Success Sales Hiring 52

Totango

JULY 28, 2021

Following best practices for hiring a customer success manager can make a critical difference in the quality of your customer relationships. Customer success managers serve as the face of your company in dealing with clients, playing a key role in ensuring satisfying experiences of your brand. Suggesting upsells.

Customer Success 118

Customer Success Management Underperforming Technical Team Scale 118

SaaStr

AUGUST 9, 2024

From startup to $500M CARR, Spencer Burke, SVP of Growth at Braze, shares how Braze scaled a growth and customer success team. This shifted from doing odd jobs to a deep focus on customer success and scaling teams around customer success. You don’t have to leave as the organization scales.

Scale 296

Scale Sales Hiring Scaling Startup 296

SaaStr

MAY 6, 2021

A CRO owns and directs the strategy over a company’s revenue cycle, but there’s not a set standard for operational or management decisions: in addition to sales and sales development, they might be responsible for customer success, lead generation and pipelines, and even marketing and brand development. Is a CRO right for you?

Sales Hiring 305

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Revenue 305

SaaStr

SEPTEMBER 7, 2023

A few things that always work to drive down churn in the early days — and later: Make sure you have a strong Head of Customer Success … whose #1 goal is reducing churn. Too many early-stage VPs of Sales don’t have a strong “wing person” running customer success.

Sales Hiring 298

Sales Hiring SaaS SMB Churn 298

SaaStr

DECEMBER 15, 2020

You’re going to have to be the VP of Sales, Customer Success, Marketing and probably Product in the early days. There’s endless drama with paying customers. Do 20 customer interviews (more on that here ). . >> If you don’t have the mental bandwidth — you should pass.

Sales Recruiting 363

Sales Recruiting SaaS Interviewing Consulting 363

SaaStr

OCTOBER 7, 2020

But I’ve generally found that candidates who bash their prior boss in an interview tend to do it again at their next gig. in customer success when they were in sales) … usually their heart really isn’t into it. Just a few thoughts of things to look for: Be wary of candidates that bad mouth their last CEO.

Sales Hiring 362

Sales Hiring Scale Interviewing Startup 362

ChurnZero

OCTOBER 25, 2024

There are so many questions to answer when considering how to scale a customer success team. Whatever the decade it originated, if you fast forward to today, this concept certainly crosses many customer success leaders’ minds as they’re considering growing their teams. So, why does any of this matter in customer success?

Scale 52

Scale Underperforming Technical Team Customer Success Scaling 52

SaaStr

DECEMBER 30, 2022

There is too much to do in SaaS — sales, customer success, product, engineering, demand gen, etc. Get those First 10 Customers — However and Whenever. We all get the first customers differently, based on who we are and what our app does. Dear SaaStr: What Should Be The Priorities of SaaS Founders During The Early Stages?

SaaS 290

SaaS Market Research Interviewing Content Marketing 290

SaaStr

MAY 31, 2024

1: How Sales and Marketing Have Shifted Since 2020 Expectations and the types of people working in SaaS have shifted over the past few years, and much more in sales, marketing, and customer success. While different than ‘typical’ interviews Jason notes as leaders, we all need to recalibrate what we expect out of people.

Sales Hiring 307

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Marketing Scale 307

SaaStr

JUNE 12, 2022

There was one thing prospective sales reps would say in an interview that always chilled my spine. But I knew this was the wrong way to build a customer-centric company. There was another one I hated on the Customer/Client Success side. You’ll want people to wear two hats — Sales and Customer Success.

Compensation 298

Compensation Customer Success Interviewing Sales 298

Sixteen Ventures

SEPTEMBER 10, 2020

It’s critical to understand why your customers churn, but if you’re relying solely on the reason the customer gives you for that churn, you’re definitely missing the actual reason. It’s easy to just ask a customer why they’re cancelling or not renewing and to leave it at that. So… is it worth “saving” customers? .

Churn 132

Churn Customer Success Systems Review Outsourced Development 132

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 9, 2023

But if they say in an interview they “don’t really care about money” … well … they aren’t sales people. Maybe OK for customer success. Customer Success: Hiring anyone in mid-market or enterprise CS that doesn’t go visit customers in person. Go find out what they really did for these customers.

Sales Hiring 289

Sales Hiring Scale Startup Marketing 289

SaaStr

MAY 27, 2022

66% of you use NRR as the #1 KPI for your Customer Success teams. Only 46% of you think your sales team is as expert in your product as your customers are. 61% of you have Customer Support reporting into to Customer Succes s. 74% of you are doing weekly 1-on-1’s with all your direct reports. Do better. #35.

Sales Hiring 340

Sales Hiring Pricing Scale Interviewing 340

SaaStr

JULY 29, 2021

Do at least 20–30 customer interviews before you start writing too much code. Otherwise, you often are building for an imaginary customer. You need more folks in customer success. Most SaaS companies invest early in sales, but wait on customer success. You want customers for life. More here.

Sales Hiring 317

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Interviewing Engineering 317

SaaStr

JUNE 4, 2023

It’s time to do them again: First, have the best VP in that role you know interview the VP candidate you want to hire. Have the best CRO you know interview your potential VP of Sales. Ask to talk to 1 or 2 of their customers. Ok so what do you do? A few thoughts. We used to do these things. Go talk to one or two.

Sales Hiring 308

Sales Hiring SaaS Interviewing Startup 308

SaaStr

DECEMBER 20, 2021

We don’t often summarize interviews in other media, but I really liked this piece in FT on the changes Yamini Ragan made when she became HubSpot’s CEO, promoted from CCO. They’re changes you might want to make as well if you focused on SMBs and mid-market especially: #1. But try it.

Metrics 62

Metrics SMB Scale B2C 62

SaaStr

JANUARY 12, 2022

Define your ideal account executive profile and use that when interviewing potential reps. When we interview someone to become an account executive at Databricks, part of that process is going through a mock sales call or meeting. A high growth, high-performing sales team’s success rests on strong frameworks. Key takeaways.

Scale 264

Scale Leadership Sales Hiring Sales 264

SaaStr

JULY 11, 2024

As a startup, most people who come to an interview appear happy. You interview 30 people. If it’s a role you’ve never hired, find someone great at it and have them do your final interview. For sales, product, or customer success, the best question you could ask is, “What would you do your first couple of weeks?”

Sales Hiring 291

Sales Hiring Scale Marketing Interviewing 291

Sixteen Ventures

AUGUST 26, 2020

Everything rolls-up to dollars… time and other resources – and even the negative sentiment in the market caused by churning-and-burning customers – all have an associated monetary value. That’s why we call them Bad-fit Customers. If and where possible, tie these churned customers to negative reviews on public review sites.

Customer Success 130

Customer Success Churn Leadership Interviewing 130

SaaStr

NOVEMBER 2, 2023

Hiring a VP of Sales Who Never Really Understands Your Product During The Interview Process Ok I know some even many will disagree, but I’m right here :). Hiring a VP of Sales That Doesn’t Want to Go Visit Customers In Person This is newer, but common these days. No matter how well they can talk the talk. #4. 100% clear.

Sales Hiring 308

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Sales Interviewing 308

SaaStr

AUGUST 10, 2022

In this SaaStr Europa 2022 session, Matt Jacobson, General Partner at ICONIQ Growth, interviews Miro’s Founder & CEO, Andrey Khusid, to get insight into how he was able to grow the company so successfully. So, to drive adoption, they created more sophisticated sales enablement and customer success.

Sales Hiring 246

Sales Hiring Scale Company Culture B2C 246

Totango

JANUARY 19, 2022

Whether you’ve worked in the customer success industry for a while or you’ve recently decided that this is the career path for you, searching for Customer Success Manager jobs can be intimidating – especially if you don’t know where to start. Top Skills Needed for All Customer Success Manager Jobs.

Customer Success 109

Customer Success Management Sales Hiring Interviewing 109

SaaStr

JANUARY 5, 2024

The SDR Interview We’ve determined the profile we want to hire for dedicated outbound folks, so now, let’s look at the interview itself. It’s usually a simple interview with a hiring manager screen first and then an actual interview panel. Find the candidates who are hungry to break into tech sales for those early hires.

Sales Hiring 316

Sales Hiring Sales Recruiting Scale Outbound Sales Team 316

Trint

AUGUST 24, 2021

I joined Trint in the fall of 2019 as a BDR (Business Development Representative), and I’m now settling into my CS (Customer Success) role, which I started in March. In my role I work alongside my subset of Enterprise accounts and make sure that they are set up for success with Trint. I haven’t looked back since!

Outsourced Development 246

Outsourced Development Interviewing Leadership Enterprise 246

Totango

OCTOBER 20, 2022

Hiring team members with the right customer success manager skills is critical for the effectiveness of your CS team and strategy. We’ll cover these below, along with five best practices to follow when bringing a new customer success manager aboard your team. What Is a Customer Success Manager (CSM)?

Sales Hiring 97

Sales Hiring Customer Success Sales Recruiting Technical Review 97

SaaStr

JANUARY 30, 2023

To solve this, Deel interviewed 200 founders seeking answers to the question, “If you’re open to hiring internationally and remotely, what are your biggest challenges, and what kind of product can we build to solve them? Interview personally and define hiring values to build your team. Listen to your team.

Sales Hiring 278

Sales Hiring Payment Services SaaS Payments Scale 278

SaaStr

JUNE 27, 2020

But if they say in an interview they “don’t really care about money” … well … they aren’t sales people. Maybe OK for customer success. You may like these sorts of folks, their spiel and pitch in the early days, because it sounds aligned and customer-centric. Hiring any reps who “don’t care about money”.

Sales Hiring 363

Sales Hiring Scale Startup Marketing 363

SaaStr

JANUARY 9, 2021

In addition, please note that VCs interviewing their own portfolio CEOs are generally discouraged. 1:1 interviews (Ex.: Customer Success, Sales Ops, VP Product, European Founders). Customer Success. In 2020, we had 60% women and multicultural speakers and we plan to achieve that again this year. Panels (Ex.:

Sales Hiring 232

Sales Hiring Scale Outbound Sales Team Interviewing 232