🚀Entering Tech #20: How to become a customer success manager

Q. What does a customer success manager do?

Customer success associate is a helping hand; they assist customers with requests and concerns. The goal of customer success is to ensure that customers receive maximum satisfaction and issues get resolved. They also answer inbound calls, follow up on issues that have not been served, escalate when necessary and also provide tech support. Sometimes it’s just holding the customer’s hands and taking them to their desired destination, as I would say.

Q. Is CX different from customer service?

I like to say customer success includes proactive roles where you anticipate the users’ needs and wants, and solve those problems ahead of time, while customer service is more reactive. In the latter, the business waits for users to report problems and then tries to solve those problems—think of every failed bank transaction you’ve reported, or every time you’ve DMed an internet service provider for network issues.

Q. What are the hardest and more enjoyable parts of being a customer success manager?

One of the hardest parts is how overwhelming it can get; it can be difficult to find balance. With CX, you’re dealing with people on several fronts: numerous customers with different feedback, and the teams you’re working with to solve these problems. 

You’ll also have to maintain composure in all situations, even when customers are visibly agitated. In these situations, it’s also critical to know how to calm and reassure customers.

For the enjoyable parts, I’d say gaining more knowledge about the product is the number one for me. Because customers have varying complaints, customer success teams must be knowledgeable about all parts of the product. You basically have to use the product consistently so when customers describe problems to you, you’ll know where to push these problems. Another is getting positive feedback and reviews, those tweets that highlight the value of the product or how the team solved a problem swiftly, pure gold.

Q. Is CX something you stumbled upon or is it a role you chose?

I suppose I stumbled into it. I finished NYSC and I had zero corporate experience but I found an internship that required zero experience, and that’s how I got here. I did have to take several courses to move from intern to executive, but I started off with zero experience in CX and worked my way up from there. 

Learning on the job is actually how you learn the most. After all the courses and reading, learning on the job allows you to apply those courses in real-life situations.

Q. What are the misconceptions people have about CX?

The first is that just about everyone can do customer success. That’s false. 

CX involves managing people and their expectations, it involves managing human beings at their best and worst. If you’re not great at this—human interaction—then CX is probably not the job for you.

There’s also the misconception that CX ends when the customers’ needs are met. I’ll go one step further and say CX’s job is only done when you exceed your customer’s needs, because a customer whose needs are met and exceeded is sure to brag about your product to their network and this means more sales. 

People also think there’s no career progression in CX but that’s also untrue. I started out as an intern and now I’m an executive, anybody can do it too. There are different paths in CX, and it all depends on the person and the company. 

Q. What resources should someone looking to become a CX manager consume?

Read books and take courses—some will be listed in this newsletter. 

You should also connect with like-minded people and communities. There’s @Cxperts, @ConTechAfrica and @nontechintech on Twitter and IG. Both have Slack communities that help newbies find resources they need to grow.