The Customer Success Playbook
Welcome to “The Customer Success Playbook,” a fresh podcast initiative spearheaded by Kevin Metzger and Roman Trebon. Immerse yourself with us in the dynamic realm of customer success, where we unravel the latest insights, inspirations, and wisdom from recognized leaders in the Customer Success domain.
Our journey began with a simple yet profound belief: that meaningful conversations can significantly impact our professional trajectory. With this ethos, we’ve embarked on a mission to bring to you the voices of seasoned and revered professionals in the field. Our episodes have seen the likes of Sue Nabeth Moore, Greg Daines, Jeff Heclker, James Scott, David Ellin, and David Jackson, who have generously shared their expertise on a variety of pertinent topics.
We’ve delved into the intricacies of Profit and Loss Statements in Customer Success with Dave Jacksson, explored the potential of Customer Success Platforms with Dave Ellin, and unravelled the role of AI in Customer Success with all guests. With Sue, we navigated the waters of Organizational Alignment, while Greg brought to light strategies for Reducing Churn. Not to be missed is James insightful discourse on the Current Trends in Customer Success and Jeff’s thoughts on Service Delivery in CS.
Each episode is crafted with the intention to ignite curiosity and foster a culture of continuous learning and improvement among customer success professionals. Our discussions transcend the conventional, probing into the proactive approach, and the evolving landscape of customer success.
Whether you’re a seasoned veteran or a newcomer to the industry, our goal is to propel your customer success prowess to greater heights. The rich tapestry of topics we cover ensures there’s something for everyone, from the fundamentals to the advanced strategies that shape the modern customer success playbook.
Our upcoming episodes promise a wealth of knowledge with topics like CS Math, Training, AI, Getting hired in CS, and CS Tool reviews, ensuring our listeners stay ahead of the curve in this fast-evolving field. The roadmap ahead is laden with engaging dialogues with yet more industry mavens, aimed at equipping you with the acumen to excel in your customer success journey.
At “The Customer Success Playbook,” our zeal for aiding others and disseminating our expertise to the community fuels our endeavor. Embark on this enlightening voyage with us, and escalate your customer success game to unparalleled levels.
Join us on this quest for knowledge, engage with a community of like-minded professionals, and elevate your customer success game to the next level. Your journey towards mastering customer success begins here, at “The Customer Success Playbook.” Keep On Playing!!
The Customer Success Playbook
Customer Success Playbook S3 E20 - Terinee Pooler - Driving Feedback Through The Company
erinee Pooler shares invaluable insights on transforming Net Promoter Score (NPS) feedback into actionable organizational change. The episode delves into practical strategies for ensuring customer feedback drives meaningful improvements across companies.
Detailed Analysis
The conversation explores several critical aspects of NPS implementation and feedback management:
Customer Sentiment Integration Pooler emphasizes the importance of combining NPS data with broader customer health metrics using a red-yellow-green system. This comprehensive approach provides organizations with a more nuanced understanding of customer satisfaction and engagement levels.
Communication Workflows A standout practice highlighted is the systematic follow-up with every survey respondent, regardless of their score. This proactive approach maintains customer engagement and demonstrates commitment to feedback incorporation.
Cross-Organizational Impact The discussion reveals how NPS data can effectively influence various departments, particularly product management. Pooler shares experiences from her healthcare SaaS background, illustrating how structured feedback processes can lead to meaningful organizational changes.
Success Metrics and Recognition An important insight emerged about balancing improvement focus with celebration of successes. The conversation emphasizes the significance of acknowledging positive feedback while addressing areas for enhancement.
The episode concludes with a preview of an upcoming discussion about AI's role in NPS programs, suggesting exciting developments in feedback collection and analysis.
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You can also find the CS Playbook Podcast:
YouTube - @CustomerSuccessPlaybookPodcast
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Metzgerbusiness.com - Kevin's person web site
Kevin Metzger on Linked In.
You can find Roman at:
Roman Trebon on Linked In.
Hello and welcome back to the customer success playbook podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Metzger, alongside my cohost, Roman Trebot. This is our Wednesday show, One Big Question, and we're again joined by our guest, Tarini Pooler. Roman, I'm excited about diving into the one big question, but do you want to start with some of the icebreakers?
Roman Trebon:Yeah, we got to do the ice breakers. It's Wednesday before we get into the one big question. We got to do these these get to know your questions, right? So, Kearney, welcome back. We didn't scare you off Monday. You came back to the Wednesday episode. All right, let's start with this. If you can visit any place in the world that you've never that you haven't yet been to, where would it be and why?
Terinee Pooler:If I could visit any place in the world, um, I would choose Paris, France. I've always wanted to go there since I was a young child, um, and I wanted to see the Eiffel Tower, eat croissants, and like, um, ride in like a gondola and everything. So that's one place that I have to go to. Before essentially die, but
Roman Trebon:I will tell you though, that's an awesome place. I've been to Paris and we actually do good numbers. Our podcast gets a lot of, uh, listens in France. So for our French audience, invite tyranny over, show her the, uh, show her the city. And, uh, you'll have a great time. All right, Kev, what are you? That's
Kevin Metzger:because of Sue, Sue, Sue Nameth was like our second or third guest. On the, uh, on the podcast and she organizes the France, uh, customer success club. Yeah, forum. Yeah. Yeah. Forum network. So yeah, we,
Roman Trebon:that's why we have a, so, so Terry, we have a French audience, so you're not a unknown when you go to France, when you visit, so it'll be great. Yeah.
Terinee Pooler:Love it.
Kevin Metzger:All right. So let's go on with our second question. Um, we've talked about croissants. So what's your favorite place to eat in Atlanta?
Terinee Pooler:Oh yes. So I have a bit of a sweet tooth. I love bakeries. So my favorite bakery in Atlanta is Piece of Cake. They're local. Um, here they make the best friend of the cake. And I always like try not to keep myself from going multiple times a week, but every now and then it's always good to have a nice cupcake.
Roman Trebon:Oh, piece of cake. I've not been in Canada. I'm low. We're local to the Atlanta area. So I know what I'll be looking up on Google maps after we record this episode. So, uh, thanks for the recommendation there. Last one, Tierney, if you could have dinner with any historical figure, who would it be and why?
Terinee Pooler:Oh, wow. Um, any historical figure. So. My, I would say person that I would choose would be Michelle Obama. She's always inspired me, um, just in her journey through the white house and what she was able to do after. Um, so I've always been kind of following her and really look up to her. So that's one person that I would love to sit down and have dinner with.
Roman Trebon:Yeah. And go to, go to piece of cake afterwards. Get a nice, nice slice of cake after that'd be awesome. That would be awesome. All right. So now, now that we've got to know you a little better, I think it's time to jump into our one big question. So, uh, you joined us on Monday and you gave us your number one tip for implementing a net promoter program. Now we want to talk about like, what are the best ways to ensure that that feedback you collect from customers and clients, how do you ensure that it gets acted on? That the feedback, the customer share actually drives change across the organization.
Terinee Pooler:Yeah. So I believe that, you know, once you get the feedback from the net promoter score, a really great way to kind of implement the feedback to the overall organization that you're a part of, um, I would say two things. One would be to the customer sentiment. So as you're gathering, um, you know, NPS data, like one to 10 feedback from the customer as far as like, Hey, I really enjoy the product or Hey, I love my customer success manager. They have been very thorough through the time I've had a relationship. Um, Yeah. I think following up with like a customer health, which is red, yellow, green. That's more of, um, a good basis is to be able to, um, gather that customer sentiment overall from more than just a net promoter score, but also the overall health of the customer and essentially, you know where they want to be. So, for example, if someone shows up and says, Hey, well, as you manage a client and they are a detractor score. Yellow health. Um, I think that tells a tale to the overall organization of where that client stands. And as you continue to manage the client, be able to show that feedback to leadership if you are the CSM and be able to gather overall picture of your own book of business that you're managing. So I think being able to show that value really makes an impact. Um, overall for your book of business and for the organization.
Roman Trebon:And it sounds like communication important, right? I, I know as a customer myself, when I, Kev, I don't know about you, how often you're filling out a survey or giving feedback to a company. But my number one pet peeve is if I do it. I just want to hear back, right? Like, even if it's, even if it's as simple as, hey, we've heard you and that's not on the roadmap or we're not going to take that on. And at least I know it got listened to. Right? So, even I think even, I don't want to say bad news, but even, even new, any news is better than no news because I can tell you in my experience and Kev, I'd love to hear yours here before we get into, as we dig into this further. If I, if I give you my feedback, Okay. And I never hear anything, or I don't see any change the next time you come asking, I can tell you who's not going to be responding. And that would be this guy right here. So, Kev, thoughts on that? Kev, you're on mute as we do the podcast. It's going to be off mute here, buddy. I don't know how that happened, man.
Kevin Metzger:Apparently, I hit some buttons somewhere. Very somewhere. I, if I don't get. Feedback if I, if I choose to participate in a survey, which I'll be honest, it's, I'll, I'll participate in surveys when I am really involved with something. I am really happy about something, or I am really on set unhappy with something. I tend to avoid surveys. I tend to avoid doing them. Don't like doing them. However. I do like to use them if I and if I can get the feedback and and then not only do I want to be able to use that feedback to go back to the customer. I want to make sure I'm communicating it across the organization and I want to take the time to set up escalation meetings to make sure that you know the executive team sees. Where our customers are struggling and to see where our customers are are are happy and so that we know how to make make changes. I think, uh, last week we were talking with the, um, we were talking about, uh, product management. We can get a lot of information out of those net promoter scores that allows us to feed information back to product management. Have you have you had any examples of that or anything where you saw you got really great feedback?
Terinee Pooler:Yes, I have, I think, and I'll, I'll give a practice as well. So when I worked in healthcare SAS, um, when we would get our net promoter score surveys back, um, my manager always advised us, even if the score was a promoter or detractor or kind of like a neutral, um, scoring, it's a call or contact every single customer and go through the net promoter survey in detail, and also be able to provide the feedback. For ourselves, for that customer because we also have experience with managing the client. So, um, the client may be agreeing or may feel that, Hey, I love this product, I love my CSM, but if we're judging them, it could be this is a great customer, however. Trying to contact them could be, you know, we have to maybe go through different channels to reach out to them, um, in a, in the overall span of a quarter or, um, multiple times a year. So we had an opportunity to receive feedback and give feedback to kind of create an overall experience of where the customer health was. So as far as me being, um, receiving great feedback, I have, um, I think. Because of that one tip and my manager gave me as far as calling every single person, or at least when you're on the phone with them, whether that's through zoom or a QB are to always bring the survey up to make sure that, um, uh, you're actively engaged.
Roman Trebon:Yeah, no, it drives engagement and you touched on something, Tony, that I think is important. And I need to be intentional about this as well. Sometimes as we get feedback, I'm, I always focus on like, what can we improve? So like when I get the comments or there's a score, like I, my, my, my attention goes to that, but like. You know, you get like 10, a lot of times you got to make sure you're communicating back to those CSMs, that team that does all that great work, right? Like, you almost like you take it for granted sometimes that you like, you get so locked into like the negative. Sometimes you don't celebrate the success, right? Which I think that's a great tip from you, right? Making sure you're communicating, celebrating those wins. Talk calling up clients, making sure it's present, right? I'm sure the more you did that, Tierney, the more engagement you got from your, your clients moving forward. So awesome stuff. That was our one big question of the week. All right. You're coming back, Tierney, right? Friday. We got you back Friday. Yep.
Terinee Pooler:I
Roman Trebon:love it. Well, on Friday, you're going to give us a peek into how AI may play a role in gathering and actioning NPS moving forward. So, uh, Kev, you always love these AI episodes on Friday, Friday, AI Friday. Right. So Friday, right. Yeah. So, uh, you'll be, so Terry, you'll be back to our audience. Make sure it was, you know, make sure you subscribe to our podcast. That way, you know, uh, if we release in the morning or in the afternoon, you'll get a notification. You'll know that the new episode is here so you can tune in. Please like our episode comment on it. Give it a rating that all helps us find more and more listeners. We really appreciate it Um until next time kevin keep on playing
