PRODUCT LEADERS EDITION - ClientSuccess...Monetate powers multi-channel testing and personalization for brands worldwide . Built for speed, the Monetate platform’s easy-to-use interface

CUSTOMER SUCCESSas a culture

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PRODUCT LEADERS

EDITION

Customer Success as a Culture: Product Leaders Edition 2

Content

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

Eric Prugh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Joanna Milliken . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9

Kat Archibald . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Matt Coffman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

RJ Talyor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Ryan Warren . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Susan Marshall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Wade Shearer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29


Dear Reader,

How do innovative product leaders contribute to customer suc-cess in their company? If one thing is certain after we completed the interviews you’re about to read in this ebook, it’s that products, teams, and companies are only as successful as the customer . To the product leaders highlighted in this ebook, their customers are the most important asset they have—they learn from them, grow from them, challenge them, and innovate with them . We’re excited to share with you the unique views and approaches that each of these highly-regarded product leaders hold to in their roles . But no matter how different some of the views may seem, we believe you’ll see a common theme throughout: these companies are innovating around the idea that customer success is a culture .

“We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts . It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better .” ~ Jeff Bezos

How does your own product team (and company for that matter) seek to put the customer first? We’d like to challenge you to take away 3-4 insights, whether from this ebook or from other peers in the industry, and begin implementing customer success as a culture in your company . Already have some ideas? We’d love to hear them!

All the best,

Dave BlakeFounder/CEO, ClientSuccess dave@clientsuccess .com@davecblake


Eric PrughCOO (Head of Product)

As COO of PactSafe, Eric’s responsibilities center around everything customer-facing and the overall operations & strategy of product, support,

and marketing. He’s applying his knowledge in building and growing teams to help take on the growing legal technology sector.

You can’t just deliver exactly

what your customers want.

Customers are investing in

you as an innovator.


PactSafe is a smart contracting platform that empowers fast deploy-ment of legal contracts everywhere a business needs . As COO and Head of Product, Eric is in charge of the delivery of product, us-age, and strategy . Core to his role, he measures his team’s success based on 3 components:

1 . Product delivery including: timeliness, quality, and availability

2 . Customer adoption including % of people who’ve bought it who are using it, speed to deployment, and renewals

3 . Net Promoter Score and likelihood a customer will recommend PactSafe

As COO, Eric oversees the entirety of PactSafe’s customer-facing programs including the product, customer support, and overall cus-tomer experience . “We’re a young company, so I’m on the front lines listening to the questions, garnering feedback on what’s working and what’s not, and being transparent with customers in the hopes that they buy into the fact that they’re on a journey with us,” said Eric .

Eric explained that there are two incredibly important aspects that define customer success to a tech company that are forever linked—product delivery and customer support . “The product will never function exactly as it needs to function, so it’s up to the folks talking with customers to keep them upbeat, to close the gaps, and to provide an experience that leaves them happy . And then if there are gaps in the product, it’s critical that the product team leaves room on the priority list for stuff actually happening in the field,” said Eric .

The entire PactSafe team interacts with customer daily, according to Eric . He gets involved in the sales process, too, to ensure he un-derstands strategically where the product needs to go . “To ensure


customer success both now and in the future, you can’t just deliver exactly what your customers want . Customers are investing in you as a leader, as an innovator, and as a partner,” Eric explained . “So a big part of my customer interaction is listening to themes, listening to the market, listening to the analysts, and trying to find the balance that will lead our customers into the future while providing increas-ing business value today .”

Product decisions are absolutely made with customer feedback in mind at PactSafe . But Eric got a great piece of advice from a manag-er of his years ago, though, that might be considered a little contro-versial . He shared, “It was to never take notes on feature requests in customer meetings, ever . Every customer has specific things they want or are considering—but we can’t develop everything, nor should we,” said Eric . “So the key to building out a customer-driven product roadmap is to talk to as many customers as possible and to listen as themes emerge in the gaps in your product or additional capabilities our customers want us to build .”

“To ensure customer success both now and in the future, you can’t just deliver exactly what your customers want. Customers are investing in you as a leader, as an innovator, and as a partner… so a big part of my customer interaction is listening to themes, listening to the market, listening to the analysts, and trying to find the balance that will lead our customers into the future while providing increasing business value today.”


Eric and his team want to have conversations with customers . He loves getting customer feedback, but he also enjoys sharing his own point of view and hearing customers’ reactions . To him, it’s a dialogue between the customer’s vision for the product and the PactSafe vision for the product . “The outcome for the customer is a win-win when they get to leverage the benefit of feedback from oth-er customers to solve problems they either don’t have yet or didn’t realize they had,” commented Eric .

In his days at ExactTarget (as a product leader), his team found that hundreds of customers took advantage of feedback from the most progressive customers . According to Eric, the important thing is balancing the delivery of the vision with delivering the “blocking and tackling” features that make the power users super happy . Both pieces of the puzzle need to move forward in order to: 1) keep the company alive and 2) keep customers happy and wanting more .

When it comes to advice for other product leaders, Eric has a lot to say from his experience . First, he’s adopted an important method-ology from Ethan Batraski (VP, Product & Design at Box) called the “Cascade Method” that focuses on how the product roadmap maps to the company mission and vision . This is an incredibly important thing to understand and measure .

Eric went on to say, “One thing I love about the Cascade Method is the need to measure both the customer KPI and the company KPI for each of your 3-4 key objectives . Your employees should know what your customers are getting from your product and how it aligns to the company .” Eric went on to say that, “Your customers should be telling you what kinds of results they’re seeing, and those should continue to improve to make your customers successful . Then, the lagging indicator of how well you’re doing will be your company KPI which would usually be company growth, market share, etc .”


And finally, as Eric alluded to earlier, he recommends resisting the urge to take notes on specific product features—let themes emerge by paying attention and understanding the root of a bigger problem . “ . . . then think through how you strategically solve it on a larger level . Build a platform into your product so that you can solve a multitude of similar problems in different ways without a ton of professional services .”

“Your employees should know what your customers are getting from your product and how it aligns to the company. Your customers should be telling you what kinds of results they’re seeing, and those should continue to improve to make your customers successful. Then, the lagging indicator of how well you’re doing will be your company KPI which would usually be company growth, market share, etc.”


Joanna MillikenSenior Director of Product Marketing

Joanna leads product marketing and content strategy for Monetate, a cross channel marketing personalization, optimization and testing

platform. Joanna is also an experienced product leader, having directed ExactTarget’s $300M email product line.

Use your own products and

go through the customer

journey yourself


Monetate powers multi-channel testing and personalization for brands worldwide . Built for speed, the Monetate platform’s easy-to-use interface allows marketers to create, test and deploy an unlim-ited number of personalized digital experiences with limited need for IT or consulting resources . As Sr . Director of Product Marketing, Joanna has 3 major responsibilities:

1 . Ensure customer facing teams can articulate the features, benefits, and advantages of Monetate’s solutions and are armed with world-class materials and customer stories

2 . Help customers understand what’s possible in order to ensure they are maximizing their investment with Monetate

3 . Be the voice of products to the market and the voice of the market to the product team

The vision of the product marketing team at Monetate is to inspire customers to purchase, adopt, and champion the company’s prod-ucts . In order to bring real value to the customer, Joanna and her team need to understand the customer deeply and make sure they are connecting Monetate’s solutions to their real world problems .

Joanna and her team interact with customers across the entire re-lationship with Monetate by supporting the sales organization and actively participating in the sales process with prospective custom-ers . “We want to learn all we can about our customers’ motivations and expectations for our company and products, before they buy,” said Joanna . “A straightforward buying process sets the tone for the rest of the customer relationship .” Her team is also involved in post sales where they conduct win/loss interviews to identify opportuni-ties for improvements in positioning, product messaging, and sales process . Finally, her team also spends a lot of time with current cus-tomers . “We get their feedback on products before we take them to market, participate in onsite quarterly business reviews, lead road-


map webinars, and work 1:1 with customers to develop use cases,” explained Joanna .

“The customer experience drives almost everything we do at Mon-etate,” said Joanna . “We have a team devoted to gathering and syn-thesizing input from customer interviews, surveys, online advocacy and community, services requests, and dozens of other inputs . This insight is shared across the company for every department to use in decision-making to ensure the customer is always front and center .”

Monetate recently did an extensive customer study which entailed in-person interviews around the globe, surveys, and input from their Customer Advisory Board . Monetate used that to redesign their Ser-vices model . According to Joanna, “Customer feedback indicated that we had an opportunity to provide a clearer understanding of our Services offering, including new packages, so we used that in-put to deliver a new model that was on target with customer input .” For the product team specifically, Monetate tries to be very “outside in”, which means they prioritize everything from defects to new fea-tures based upon customer impact .

“The customer experience drives almost everything we do at Monetate. We have a team devoted to gathering and synthesizing input from customer interviews, surveys, online advocacy and community, services requests, and dozens of other inputs. This insight is shared across the company for every department to use in decision-making to ensure the customer is always front and center.”


When it comes to product roadmap, Monetate’s Customer Advisory Board is a critical component . Joanna and her team do detailed roadmap reviews every quarter, and, “Feedback from our Custom-er Advisory Board is weighted slightly differently, especially if they have feedback that we have heard before—we’re more likely to give those items a higher priority,” explained Joanna . “We develop a relationship with our Customer Advisory Board members to get a deeper sense of their problems and the benefits associated .”

When giving advice to other product leaders, Joanna suggests that everyone should “Walk a mile in the customer’s shoes – use your own products and go through the customer journey yourself to un-derstand what works well, what frustrations you encounter, and to better understand requests your customers have for your product and company .”


Kat ArchibaldVP of Product

Kat is VP of Product at Degreed, where she and her team aim to help individuals and organizations find, track, and recognize

ALL learning. She is a problem solver and passionate about making great products that help people lead more productive lives.

With empathy comes amazing

design and incredible products.


Degreed is a community of college students, professionals, and lifelong learners dedicated to advancing their education . When an individual joins Degreed, they get tools to help them track, organize, and get recognized for everything they learn . As Head of Product for Degreed, Kat is responsible for 3 major areas:

1 . Execution of company strategy and mission as it relates to product

2 . Team development (recruiting, training, coaching

3 . Providing context and ensuring product alignment .

Kat takes her role very seriously and one of her top priorities is cus-tomer success . She explained that in order to keep customers a top priority for product development, she’s on the phone with custom-ers on a daily basis . She also works closely with Degreed’s VP of Client Success to ensure that the product is always anticipating and solving for customer problems . When it comes to making product decisions, Kat and her team listen closely to their customers to iden-tify problems that need to be solved . “They [customers] often speak in solutions, and it is up to my team and me to take those solutions, hear the problem behind them, and then solve it in a much better way then they could have came up with on their own .” explained Kat .

“They [customers] often speak in solutions, and it is up to my team and me to take those solutions, hear the problem behind them, and then solve it in a much better way then they could have came up with on their own.”


Instead of asking customers questions about how they engage with Degreed, she does her best to just listen . By engaging with them early and often, she’s able to establish a relationship of trust . They know they can go to Kat and her team with their problems and they will work hard to solve for them, she explained .

One major way Kat is able to gather data points and commentary from customers is through Degreed’s Customer Advisory Board . “We currently have about 12 clients on our Customer Advisory Board . We work to have a mix across company size, industry, etc . So they’re chosen by 1 . Willingness and 2 . Demographic,” said Kat . “We listen to their problems and we work closely with them during the discovery process to ensure that they’re seeing proposed solu-tions early and often,” said Kat . “I love our Customer Advisory Board because it enables us to show them our ideas and to quickly get validation before anything ever goes to development .”

While the Customer Advisory Board is critical and the feedback is incredibly helpful to product strategy, she explained that Degreed puts customers first by not always doing what they say . “We ensure that solving the problem they’ve hired us to solve is #1 . Then by default, our customers are always happy!”

Kat has some great advice for fellow product leaders: “Don’t im-plement the solutions customers suggest right away . Rather, drive to hear the problem that is inciting that solution . Once you can un-derstand their problem, you can find empathy . And with empathy comes amazing design and incredible products .”


Matt CoffmanVP, Product

Matt leads Product at High Alpha, a venture studio focused on conceiving, launching, and scaling next generation

enterprise cloud companies. Founded in 2015, High Alpha represents a new model for entrepreneurship.

Customer experience is extremely

valuable when it comes to making

product decisions


High Alpha is a venture studio that conceives, launches, and scales next generation enterprise cloud companies . As VP, Product, Matt is responsible for organizing and maintaining product roadmap, designing and documenting important, differentiating product fea-tures, and identifying and executing opportunities to accelerate product delivery .

In his role at High Alpha, Matt works with portfolio companies to identify and prioritize product development in ways that align with their customers’ best interests . Each of High Alpha’s portfolio com-panies are unique in terms of vision and strategy for customer suc-cess . Matt commented that, “We try to validate every feature and development task with that in mind . Oftentimes, the best product decisions come after customers interact with the product . We work hard to get a product in customers’ hands—then we work even harder to take what we’ve learned from the customer and build it into future versions of the product .”

Interaction points with customers are often driven by the stage of a product in its lifecycle . He explained, “For example, we will work with our portfolio companies to discuss early stage products with potential customers . In return for early access to the product, the

“We try to validate every feature and development task with that in mind. Oftentimes, the best product decisions come after customers interact with the product. We work hard to get a product in customers’ hands—then we work even harder to take what we’ve learned from the customer and build it into future versions of the product.


customer gives us all sorts of useful information in terms of prod-uct-market fit . Later on, I may help with selling the product to new customers or working with potential customers to determine prod-uct deficiencies or areas for further focus .” According to Matt, these interactions with customers are so useful when it comes to making decisions about how products will be built .

When asked whether Matt and team make product decisions based off customer interactions, his response: “Absolutely—customer ex-perience is extremely valuable when it comes to making product decisions .” This process continues throughout the product develop-ment lifecycle . The High Alpha team starts from the very beginning by validating ideas from customers and asking what they do and do not like about the products’ vision . Then they deliver a minimum viable product (MVP) where they ask customers to tell them what additional features or functionality will make the product indispens-able . All of these inputs help determine the priority for future prod-uct development work .

While every company in the High Alpha portfolio has unique prod-uct vision and strategy, Matt and team carefully track the following metrics and more to best understand how the product is being used:

• Frequency of usage

• Average time spent in the product

• Achievement of some conversion or other goal relevant to the product strategy

• Abandonment

• Error rate or occurrence of errors


In his role working with all High Alpha portfolio companies, Matt en-courages every member of the product development teams to think about how what they do impacts customers . “For example, if we’re focused on a task that has a relatively high amount of effort with little potential impact to customers, we need to ask if we should really be working on it,” explained Matt . “From a process standpoint, we are always working towards a release centered around groupings of functionality we believe to be valuable to our customers . This helps us stay focused on the right work .”

Matt has found that most product people don’t talk directly to cus-tomers as often as they can and should . There is simply no substi-tute for contact where a product leader listens to a customer . “It’s so helpful to understand the perspectives of the people who are making the decisions on whether and how to use your product,” said Matt . “Attend the trade shows, go on the sales calls, participate in customer forums—all of these things add up to a very integrated relationship with the customer .”


R.J. TalyorVice President, Product Management

R.J. is a product and strategy leader who joins Geofeedia after ten years at ExactTarget where he served as Vice President,

Messaging Products. During that time, R.J. was responsible for the email, mobile, and landing page product lines.

The more we talk in our

customers’ language, the better

product we will build


Geofeedia allows companies to do social media monitoring by lo-cation to discover real-time social media content from any location in the world . As VP of Product Management, R .J . is tasked with en-suring that the company has a product that customers actually want . R .J ., along with his team, have many customer interactions ranging from helping to train customers and enable them to empathizing with them when they’re frustrated .

When asked how often R .J . interacts with customers, his response was, “Daily . Literally, all the time . Everyone on the product team is required to have at least 1 customer call every single day . Whether it’s joining a sales demo or just reaching out to a customer and ask-ing them how they like the product .” R .J . went on to say, “Our space is so quickly moving that we can’t go off for a month and build some-thing new because customer requirements will change and move—our customers are changing all the time . Along with that, the more we talk in our customers’ language, the better product we will build .”

At Geofeedia, the customer conversations the team has every day helps bridge product with marketing and sales . The team has a scorecard they publish every week that looks at pertinent metrics, such as:

• How many searches have been completed?

• How many people downloaded the mobile app?

• How many used the mobile app?

• How many sessions did we have?

Those metrics help the team make better decisions that are focused on the customer .


In order to understand how customers engage with the Geofeedia platform, R .J . and team tend to ask open-ended questions to get the customer talking to share authentic answers . He asks questions such as, “Tell me about any new features you have used” or he’ll ask questions about the user experience such as “If you don’t mind, tell me what you’d do on this screen” so as not to lead the customer to the response the team wants to hear .

While Geofeedia doesn’t have a formal Customer Advisory Board, they do have an informal group of customers which is comprised of the top 20 accounts . “Our team is really close with these customers, to the point that we text, email, send screenshots, and talk on a reg-ular basis,” commented R .J . “This group is incredibly valuable to us as we deliver software 1-2 times each week and have 1 big initiative every 6-8 weeks . Having our customers onboard with the product updates is imperative .”

R .J . is a big believer in building solid relationships with customers . In fact, when asked what advice he would give to fellow product leaders, he said it comes down to having such a strong relationship with customers that you can literally pick up the phone and call them or text them at any time . “Many product leaders would say that job belongs to the Customer Success department, but I don’t want to tap the CSM every time I want to talk to a customer—then they just become the gatekeeper . Developing relationships with customers is CRITICAL to product success .”

“Our team is really close with these customers, to the point that we text, email, send screenshots, and talk on a regular basis. This group is incredibly valuable to us as we deliver software… Having our customers onboard with the product updates is imperative.


Ryan WarrenVice President, Strategic Solutions

Currently an executive at Salesforce, Ryan is a highly experienced pre-sales consulting executive with more than 15 years of experience building high performing teams at global scale.

Our job is to define what success

actually is and create a roadmap for

our customers to be successful


Salesforce Marketing Cloud (formerly ExactTarget) connects inter-actions from any channel or device, combining customer data and behaviors to create relevant communications that are delivered in real time, on customers’ terms . As VP, Strategic Solutions, Ryan is responsible for delivering digital and business transformation to Salesforce Marketing Cloud’s 65 most strategic accounts . He leads a senior team of Solutions Engineers, Business Consultants and Creative Strategists who create mutual value between clients, their customers, partners and the Salesforce Marketing Cloud .

Ryan and his team contribute to customer success every single day . “Basically our job is to define what success actually is and create a roadmap for our customers to be successful,” said Ryan . He works closely with customers everyday—and focuses on both existing and prospective customers .

When asked what questions Ryan typically asks of customers, he explained the process is different at a large company like Sales-force . “We try to look at business objectives first—I think that it’s easy to lead with product oriented conversations (such as: how can this feature make your life better?), but until you can capture where the organization is going as a whole, it’s hard to figure out how to best align your company with the features they’re requesting,” said Ryan . “We don’t want to just react to what the organization says—at Salesforce, we put a lot of money and thought in order to get ahead of that . We drive our customers to what they should be doing—even if they aren’t ready yet .”

Ryan believes his customers want the following from his team of strategic solutions consultants:

1 . Give the customer a vision

2 . Expose gaps and opportunities

3 . Solve very specific problems


Putting the customer first is a priority at Salesforce . In fact, just one quick look at their website and you’ll see words like “become a customer company”—and this certainly holds true even at Sales-force itself . Ryan explains that his department puts customers first by aligning the customer’s problems and opportunities with Sales-force’s differentiators . “In order to do that effectively, you have to get in a room and surface those things with the customer, face to face,” explained Ryan . At Salesforce, Ryan and his team look for patterns across the entire customer base in order to make the best recommendations . “The way I view it is a Pay for Performance Mod-el . You work with customers to bring fresh ideas, and you will be awarded in contracts . But you have to be willing to make that invest-ment upfront . If you can do that, it’s a winning formula for both the customer and for your company,” said Ryan .

Ryan’s words of advice to other product leaders or strategic con-sultants is, “From a product perspective, it’s how you package your product . Some organizations will sell everything they have at one time . If it’s a more complex product offering, then sell your custom-ers what they have the capacity to consume at that time,” explained Ryan . “If they can’t consume everything you offer at one time, then bundle your products . Determine your success as your ability to have customers grow along with you . If client isn’t growing with what they have, they’re either looking to your competitors or they’re stuck .”

“We don’t want to just react to what the organization says – at Salesforce, we put a lot of money and thought in order to get ahead of that. We drive our customers to what they should be doing – even if they aren’t ready yet.


Susan MarshallCEO, Founder

Susan is CEO of Torchlite, and a 20+ year technology veteran who’s been deeply involved in the rapid evolution of digital video,

audio, mobile, social and data management technologies.

Bring all of the feedback to the

table, consistently—not just when

it’s time to build a roadmap


Torchlite is an Indianapolis-based digital marketing company that combines people and technology to drive sales . As CEO of Torchlite and a former product leader at Apple and ExactTarget, Susan is all about customer success and believes in a “flip the funnel” approach where customers are at the center of everything they do .

As CEO, Susan has to rely on her team to be the eyes and ears into the customer base . While she spends as much time as she can with customers, she is building out a team of frontline managers and a set of rigorous reporting tools that help her see straight into the business and help her understand what’s happening with custom-ers even when she can’t engage directly .

When asked about the Torchlite platform and how it was built with the end customer in mind, she commented, “Our entire platform was built on the needs of our customers—before we even built our platform we approached potential customers on an agency basis,” said Susan . “While we were working with them [customers] in those early days, we began to understand how to communicate and how best to serve them . Then, we built our product around those con-versations .”

“Our entire platform was built on the needs of our customers—before we even built our platform we approached potential customers on an agency basis. While we were working with them [customers] in those early days, we began to understand how to communicate and how best to serve them. Then, we built our product around those conversations.


Even though Torchlite is in its early days, it has already formulated a Customer Advisory Board comprised of 5 small to medium sized businesses in the Indianapolis area . Because of the close proxim-ity of the companies—something Susan and team designed—they can meet in person and put new ideas in front of them on a regular basis . These companies were some of the earliest adopters of the platform and have been incredibly key in helping to form the road-map . Susan commented that, “they’re very vocal in terms of feed-back, but we want that from them . Our customers are everything to us .”

The customer culture is a key element to Torchlite . Susan and her leadership team instill customer focused values in everything they do . They talk about the performance of marketing campaigns and customer wins on a regular basis to ensure the focus is never lost .

She went on to explain that they take customer success very se-riously and even compensate their employees based on success . Because Torchlite is a network of digital marketers, the better their campaigns perform for customers, the better they get paid . Susan also rewards over-performance with gift certificates and other ben-efits .

Susan has a diverse background ranging from product leadership to Founder and CEO—both in startups like Torchlite to large enter-prises like ExactTarget (Salesforce) and Apple . Her advice to other product leaders is to listen to ALL customers—not just the biggest accounts with the loudest voices that often drown others out . “Make sure to bring all of the feedback to the table, consistently—not just when it’s time to build a roadmap,” commented Susan . “Customer feedback should be provided all the time—not just when changes are on the way .”


Wade ShearerVP, Product & Design

Wade is a product and user experience design leader. Prior to ClientSuccess, he delivered innovative products in home security and automation at Vivint. He also cofounded Front, a product design

conference for user experience designers and product managers.

Creating amazing products

requires discipline, focus,

and the ability to say no


ClientSuccess is a Utah-based software company revolutionizing the way SaaS companies proactively manage, retain, and grow their existing customer base . Wade’s primary responsibilities at Client-Success include representing the customer, articulating vision for product, and leading product discovery experiments .

Wade contributes to customer success in a very direct way . He is responsible for a portion of ClientSuccess customers as their as-signed success manager . He on-boards new customers, gets to know the unique dynamics and needs of their team, and meets with them regularly as they progress through the defined lifecycle . He also provides front-line customer support . As head of product and design, Wade is closer to the customer than anyone else in the or-ganization . While the company culture places the responsibility of success on the shoulders of every team member across all depart-ments, Wade interacts with customers the most .

Interacting with customers every day is important to Wade’s role . He makes a priority be onsite with a customer generally once a week . He talks to customers at length on the phone and participates in screen-sharing sessions multiple times per week .

When it comes to building the product, Wade and team have a very specific product that they are building . He commented, “It won’t be the right solution for everyone . Creating amazing products requires discipline, focus, and the ability to say no . Customers do not own or drive the roadmap, but they influence it substantially—I am confi-dent that any customer of ours that you ask will agree that we work diligently to understand their needs and hope to create a product that will greatly increase their success .” Wade and team continual-ly design, test, and validate new features, learning from customers and experiencing those features themselves . According to Wade, “The key is transparency and a tight feedback loop .”


Rather than asking a lot of questions, Wade believes the key is to watch, listen, and to experience first-hand what customers actually go through using the product . “Customers will never articulate all of their needs . There is often a departure from what people say and what they actually do, and feedback will always be biased . It’s crazy how many executives and product leaders make decisions about products they have never even signed into,” said Wade .

When it comes to measuring product engagement, ClientSuccess is very interested in being a primary-use product, so daily active users and interaction frequency are very important . Willingness to return, do it again, and recommend are key to the team .

As you can likely guess by the ClientSuccess name, ensuring cus-tomers are successful means everything to them—customers are always first . The primary way to keep customers first, Wade ex-plained, is to be a user of your own product . “It doesn’t work for every product or every organization, but it does for most . And most that say that they can’t aren’t trying hard enough . We talk about our customers constantly around the office . The product team gives up-dates to development and sales after every in-person visit .”

Also, instead of features and tasks, Wade approaches everything from the perspective of user goals . His primary driver is providing

“Customers will never articulate all of their needs. There is often a departure from what people say and what they actually do, and feedback will always be biased. It’s crazy how many executives and product leaders make decisions about products they have never even signed into.”


an emotional experience . Every decision must be checked against an emotional value proposition that results in them feeling a certain way . Framed this way, instead of simple statements of transaction, the customer will always be first and everything else—from usability to renewals—will fall into place, explained Wade .

Wade’s advice to other product leaders when it comes to custom-ers is simply: “Talk to them” . Everyone knows that you should do this, but very few actually do it, according to Wade . “This should be a required and a regular part of your team’s product design and development process . And, it should involve the entire company . Everyone should be required to visit with customers at some regular interval . Everyone in the company should be required to take shifts answering phones and responding to support tickets . Get out of the building . Shake their hand . Listen . Watch . Learn .”

Finally, Wade shared a powerful quote from Mike Kuniavsky: “Tech-nologies enhance Batman’s natural abilities, but they do not remove the need to engage with the world directly .” You could stand in front of a whiteboard debating all day, but until you have spoken with a customer, tested a prototype, and validated your MVP, you’re just guessing . Wade went on to explain, “If you sincerely want to be a customer-first organization, then make them part of your organiza-tion . Everyone should know (at least many of) them by name and be able to answer immediately how they contribute to their success .”

“Everyone should be required to visit with customers at some regular interval. Everyone in the company should be required to take shifts answering phones and responding to support tickets. Get out of the building. Shake their hand. Listen. Watch. Learn.”


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We’ve learned how these product

leaders are putting customers first in

their roles—now you tell us:

How do your product

teams practice customer

success as a culture?


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