SaaS Therapy

Todd Kirk joins Jan Young, a trailblazer in the customer success world, to discuss the importance of customer success leaders understanding the language of business and connecting their work to revenue. She emphasizes the need for CS professionals to have business acumen and be able to speak the language of the executive team. Jan also highlights the importance of viewing the customer journey as a...

Hello! Welcome back for a short recap from Tuesday's episode with guest Donna Weber. Ask yourself: In my role as I communicate with customers, what does a Level 1 experience look like for my customer? What does a Level 10 experience look like? Did you know that less than 30% of SaaS vendors charge an implementation fee? If you want to give customers a Level 10 experience, is there a cost that...

Donna Weber, a leading expert in customer onboarding and success strategies, joins Todd Kirk and Casey Trujillo on SaaS Therapy. They discuss the importance of onboarding and the challenges organizations face in executing a successful onboarding experience. Donna emphasizes the need for a holistic approach to onboarding that involves cross-functional teams and aligns with the customer's journe...

Todd Kirk and Casey Trujillo talk all about playbooks in customer success! They challenge the idea of blindly following a playbook and emphasize the importance of thinking critically and adapting to each customer's unique needs. They suggest that customer success managers should act as coaches rather than players, guiding and empowering customers to achieve success. Takeaways Customer success...

Say hello to Debra, one of the podcast managers who is usually behind-the-scenes. Stepping in for Todd who is out of town for today's check-in, Debra addresses all of the highlights from Tuesday's episode with the Jasons. Listen to hear clips & commentary from Tuesday's episode about playbooks, vanity metrics, and customer relationships in customer success. Takeaways CSMs should fo...

Meet Jason & Jason, co-hosts of The Jasons Take On in today's podcast collaboration. Todd Kirk and Casey Trujillo join Jason Whitehead and Jason Noble, the co-hosts of The Jasons Take On podcast to discuss the evolution of customer success. Learn some of the challenges of scaling impact in customer success, the need for expertise and methodologies in customer success, and the shift towards...

Listen to Casey Trujillo recap Tuesday's episode with Dave Derington. What kind of metrics should you be focusing on in customer education and customer success? Casey summarizes Dave's thoughts on vanity metrics and how customer education impacts the bottom line. Takeaways Find ways to move on from vanity metrics to business outcome metrics. Customer education deserves a seat at the table...

Listen to Todd Kirk and Casey Trujillo's conversation with Dave Derington, a thought leader in customer education. They discuss the challenges and misconceptions in customer education, the importance of focusing on learning outcomes, and the principles of effective customer education. Dave shares insights on shifting from traditional teaching to customer education, the need to measure business...

Join Todd Kirk as he gives a short recap of Tuesday's episode with Debra Wilson, head of marketing at Brainstorm. Debra's conversation shares insights on how to handle customer dissatisfaction and breaches of trust. She also highlights the significance of building a positive relationship with customers before anything goes wrong. Learn how you can put her insights into action in your role!...

Debra Wilson, head of BrainStorm's marketing team, joins Todd Kirk and Casey Trujillo to discuss how to handle difficult conversations and recover from a breach of trust with customers. Learn about how to master these difficult relationship dynamics by better focusing on the customer, handling emotional feedback well, and working through challenging situations together. Debra shares strategies...

In this SaaS Therapy short, Casey discusses the power of AI and shares a case study of a manufacturing organization that wanted to make their employees aware of AI. Casey emphasizes the importance of setting proper expectations about AI and communicating its benefits to users. Takeaways: AI is only going to get better, so it's important to let customers know that the current use cases are just...

How will AI impact customer success? Hear from Casey, Todd and guest Guy Galon, a seasoned customer success executive and strategic advisor about the role of AI in CS automation, onboarding, and support. Join the discussion on the importance of finding the right balance between human and AI capabilities. They also discuss the potential of AI in generating content and improving customer engagement....

Todd and Casey are joined by Vicky Kennedy, an expert in customer education. They discuss the shift in market and the needs of companies when it comes to customer education. They also explore the challenges faced by both customers and SaaS vendors in providing effective education. Vicky emphasizes the importance of developing an education strategy before choosing a learning management system (LMS)...

Let's talk about the challenge of reaching the end users of a SaaS application and ensuring they are using it effectively. Casey Trujillo shares a personal experience of running a challenging race as a metaphor for the difficulty of reaching the last mile. The main takeaways include the importance of understanding end users' needs and goals, simplifying the adoption process, and leveraging...

Value ownership in a SaaS relationship is a shared responsibility between the customer and the SaaS vendor. Listen to Todd Kirk and Casey Trujillo while they discuss the challenges of customer churn and explore the concept of value ownership, including how it shifts throughout the customer journey. They identify three main challenges that SaaS vendors face in empowering customers to achieve their...

Todd and Casey are joined by Mark, a customer success leader with over 20 years of experience. They discuss the importance of coaching in the workplace and how it translates to supporting customers and employees. Mark shares his approach to coaching, which includes game tape playback, team meetings, and peer-to-peer coaching. Takeaways: Leaders should focus on growing other leaders and nurturing i...

Welcome to Season 2 of SaaS Therapy! Today, Todd Kirk interviews Heather Wendt, a community strategist at HigherLogic, about the importance of building a customer community. They discuss how a community can expand the reach of customer success teams, foster organic and transparent communication, and provide a space for customers to collaborate and share insights. Heather emphasizes the difference...

Welcome to the last episode of Season 1! For today, Casey reviews the top five learnings from Season 1. The learnings include the importance of having meaningful conversations with customers, hiring the right people at the right time, addressing the last mile problem in customer engagement, understanding the impact of executive usage on renewal, and the difference between a coach and a champion in...

Today, Todd and Casey delve into the current challenges in the SaaS industry, focusing on the concept of the 'last mile' and its relevance to customer success and education. They tackle issues like customer churn and software underutilization, emphasizing the importance of innovative solutions in SaaS companies. Takeaways: The last mile accounts for a significant portion of the overall cos...

Enjoy this special episode from last week's live podcast recording event hosted at Silicon Slopes! In this episode, Todd Kirk talks with our guest, Greg Daines, who shares his research and industry knowledge on the importance of shifting from a reactive to a proactive mindset in customer success. Greg emphasizes that customer results, rather than customer satisfaction, drive retention. Their c...

Todd and Casey are joined by Kat Kennedy, a General Partner at Kickstart Fund to discuss growth, challenges, and opportunities in the SaaS industry. Kat reminds listeners of the importance of staying committed to a vision and surrounding yourself with the right people. Kat Kennedy discusses the different stages of a startup and the types of people needed at each stage. She emphasizes the importanc...

Join Todd Kirk as he recaps Tuesday's episode on the importance of data in building and maintaining customer relationships. He explores the different perspectives on bad data and how it can be used to inform decision-making and drive growth. There is power in saying 'no' and value in negative feedback in both personal and professional development. Takeaways Be intentional about deliver...

Have you heard the story of how negative feedback transformed Instagram from a gaming app to a photo-sharing platform? Todd and Casey discuss how bad data can sometimes be good. Negative feedback can be valuable in shaping successful products. They emphasize the need for honest feedback in building effective business relationships and the role of data in driving improvement. Takeaways Data, whethe...

Todd Kirk reviews a conversation with Dave Blake, CEO of ClientSuccess.com, about the importance of embracing vocal customers and the value of Net Promoter Score (NPS). Todd emphasizes that NPS can be a valuable tool when used correctly to understand customer sentiment and experience. He advises against using NPS for individual performance evaluation and suggests having the survey come from someon...

What role does the Net Promoter Score (NPS) play in customer success? Join Dave Blake, the founder and CEO of Client Success, as he shares how NPS can be used as a tool to understand the customer experience, rather than the sole predictor of customer retention or churn. Dave shares best practices for implementing NPS, including the frequency of surveys, the importance of genuine feedback, and the...