Take two deep breathes, in and out, with a three second pause in between. Close your eyes and imagine you wake up in the morning fully engaged, you feel "on" like nothing in your day is going to deter you from unleashing your full potential. You're actually excited to get in front of your laptop, to walk into your meeting, or handle any situation that would have previously given you anxiety. Any pressure of "not being enough" in the workplace is gone. Your boss has your back, they believe in you, they help you realize what you uniquely bring to the table. You aren't operating out of fear but r ..read more

Often times Customer Success organizations have been born out of companies that are  established with decades of experience. These companies have typically undergone some sort of re-invention to be solely focused on preventing churn (fancy or hideous word for cancellations), helping customers achieve business outcomes within the influence of the companies products and services and to create advocates for the business. This transformation is often times painful, because hey let's face it, change is hard, but there are often many dynamics that make the process so difficult including culture ..read more

Intuitively one might not expect a rapidly improving and expanding technology like virtual reality (VR) to drive us closer to human connection. Yet the Head of Customer Success at STRVR, Rich Wang, presents an incredibly strong and relationship focused approach to his work. In this episode of the Value Realized Customer Success Podcast, Rich’s expertise and distinct strategies are highlighted as he discusses the challenges and opportunities of navigating VR in the customer success world. Some challenges are unique to VR, but surprisingly there are many challenges VR faces that are perhaps over ..read more

Team, Thanks for hanging in there! I'm doing my best to keep the Value Realized, Customer Success Podcast alive. I recently stepped into a new role that requires me to flex my strategic muscles even further. With the current headspace I'm in, I'd like to add value to the Customer Success community in a new and meaningful way.  I'm introducing a new alternative format whereby I invite guests onto the Podcast to, yes highlight their amazing work, but to focus on a specific challenge or problem they're trying to solve. This comes as a more consultative approach to the Podcast. The result o ..read more

In the introductory episode of the Value Realized podcast, your host Nate Fiedler explains the ways context influences how customers, customer success organizations and businesses define value. Nate outlines: The need for context to provide value to your customers How customer success managers can quickly capitalize on this opportunity  What it means for customer success organizations to arm the rest of the business with their insights  Finally, Nate closes with an announcement and preview of what to expect on January 8th, 2019 when the podcast becomes fully launched.   ..read more

Previous research suggests that increasing customer retention by 5% can increase profits by 25% to 95%. However there's a gap between where companies are today and where they want to be tomorrow. According to a recent survey published by UserIQ, 50% of 450 SaaS leaders do not have formal user adoption programs and 70% said improving onboarding was a top priority this year. Customer onboarding is commonly accepted as a best practice with many benefits including increasing customer retention and product adoption. One company in particular is ahead of the curve and has invested thought leadership ..read more

At SaaS companies (or really any kind of company), processes at their best are efficient, dynamic and easy to understand. At their worst, processes create a bureaucratic maze that drive you crazy and provoke you to throw your hands up in disbelief that something so incredibly convoluted is preventing you from doing your job well. There’s a balance to be struck. With Customer Success how do you create enough boundaries to foster productivity but not too much to where it stifles ingenuity? One of the most critical events in the customer lifecycle can plague customer success organizations with in ..read more

A rich dialogue with MetaCX Co-Founder and Chief Customer Officer, Dave Duke, on the methodology and guiding principles behind Business Outcome Management. The conversation begins with historical context of the rise of SaaS and the consequences for Customer Success in the subscription economy. Dave and I then discuss being “customer first” as a core principle, which propels us deeper into how Customer Success organizations can apply the Business Outcome Management Methodology and the impacts other areas of the business may experience.  “Business Outcome Management has the potential to be ..read more

According to Evia, (cited by Small Business Trends) women make up less than 20 percent of U.S. tech jobs, even though they make up more than half of the U.S. workforce. According to McKinsy and Company, Gender diversity is correlated with both profitability and value creation. Like gender diversity, top-team ethnic and cultural diversity is correlated with profitability. In the most crude business terms - more diversity means more money. Which I would hope is not the main driver in campaigns and strategies to increase diversity in the workplace, specifically tech.  Tech and SaaS has an en ..read more

Everything changes when everything changes - so how the hell do you navigate the changing change? In customer success there are varying speeds at which change is occurring. Whether you're moving your Solutions Engineers to your Customer Success Organization (nice call out in the episode, Dave!), building a consulting arm or solidifying the strategic long term direction of your customer success managers or anything/everything in between there's likely a lot going on in your world.  So how do you realize the desired state from all of your changes? I sat down with two colossal voices in the ..read more