The present is human, but tech helps us more each day. In the future—it will skyrocket. Sabrina Ronningen sat down with us to share what those coming times will look like.

Masha

Thank you so much for taking the time, Sabrina. What's your role right now? I know you're at LinkedIn. What's your role? And what was your path to Customer Success if you don't mind sharing?

Sabrina

Absolutely! So I'll start with the career path question. It's completely nonlinear. [Laughs] Most people land in Customer Success once they realize they have a passion for helping customers… or better said helping a third party person or entity achieve the highest level of value in partnership. So I'd say that my journey certainly follows that path. We'll talk about my position at Glint: My role at Glint was in the leadership of global client programs. I led a team of CSMs around the world, across North America, EMEA, including some client connections in APAC. The Glint LTS Global Clients Program partners with customers to achieve the highest level of value and optimization in their partnership with Glint, the employee engagement solution at LinkedIn.

Masha

That is so cool. How big is your team if you don't mind sharing?

Sabrina

The last team I led while at Glint was the inaugural Glint, Global Clients Program CS team as a part of LinkedIn Talent Solutions. This team was composed of highly tenured CSMs on the cusp of CS leadership. The team was introduced last summer, so it's a fairly new team.

Masha

Congrats!

Sabrina

Thank you so very much. While I was there, we were seven strong and growing. I’ve led much larger teams in my tenure, however.

Masha

Awesome. And in terms of and I guess, there are probably different ways that client success and client leadership is organized at LinkedIn. But would you mind sharing sort of how you're organized in terms of, you mentioned, you're leading a team of CSMs, so that's who kind of reports up into you. Where do you report up into, especially considering like, there's Glint, there's LinkedIn, there's Microsoft, like, how does that work? Right?

Sabrina

Yes. At the time and as a part of that fiscal year, we aimed to work across business lines in order to increase dialogue and customer impact. We were typically consulting with customers at the highest level, usually with the C-suite (i.e. CHRO). What's top of mind at this level are overarching business strategies or full-on global talent strategy. With that in mind, we wanted to meet our customers where they were in partnership with us with the most salient information & insights cross-solution area as a team. I reported up to and through senior leadership as a part of LinkedIn’s Talent Solutions business.

Masha

Gotcha. Okay. Very cool. And I guess maybe, in your journey through client success, how have you seen it be that the Customer Success teams are organized, you know, structured organizationally in the best way? And what is the worst would you say?

Sabrina

I believe in data supported approaches, so it's currently hard to say what's worst and what's best. I like to think of CS delivery models as an evolution that’s dependent on the size and maturity of your business and team. So let's picture a loose maturity model. Many Customer Success organizations in the SaaS or software space, when they're just getting started, are really lean on how many members are on the team. You're often lean on resources, you're also lean on and building processes. With that, there is typically a more consolidated and indexed, light or high touch, approach. When I say consolidated, I am specifically referencing when Customer Success Managers wear many hats and are not only driving usage optimization in the partnership, but they're also holding light sales and operations roles as the core relationship owner for the business. As a Customer Success team evolves, that's when we start seeing splintering into alternative Customer Success roles. You’ll start seeing roles and titles like Technical Success.. An arm of CS that's specifically focused on onboarding and/or technical setup. Or perhaps you’ll see a renewal based team of Account Directors or Renewal Specialists… a team that bridges to sales but still potentially a part of Customer Success that manages all contracts and renewals. At that point in evolution, your core team of Customer Success Managers can then focus strictly on the relationship, optimization, usage, impac, etc.

Masha

Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. I love the idea of kind of plotting it on the maturity model.

Anwar

What would you say is the trigger for that second shift towards more of a proactive, more splintered team? What kind of triggers have you seen?

Sabrina

I think it's tied to growth and business maturity. Once your Customer Success team is large enough and your set of customers is large enough, you find that your focus as a Customer Success manager in driving value and all the commercial or technical work is a lot for a single individual to manage. Literally the size of the org, the segmentation and how you must deliver to customers mapped to ROI, the growth of the org, the revenue of the org are all taken into account. Most Customer Success Managers in the SaaS space manage million to multi-million dollar portfolios. As your Customer Success organization matures, there’s natural specialization that happens that’s healthy for career pathing and driving optimal client experience. At that time, it becomes more important to take that account team approach, with subject matter experts that can really hone in and focus on the things that will drive the customer relationship forward in the most optimal way.

Masha

That's really cool. Thanks for sharing, Sabrina. How have you seen, I guess the role of and maybe the function as well, of Customer Success and customer experience client leadership evolve in the last couple of years?

Sabrina

Oh, that's a great question. And actually my favorite question about Customer Success to answer. [Laughs] I feel like it's my favorite to answer because I've been on this client-facing, client consulting, journey for the entirety of my career. I started out in a client-facing role where I too helped customers with talent management strategies and the implementation of talent acquisition processes, recruiting, and beyond over the years. At that time, I would have never thought of my role formally as Customer Success. However, it was Customer Success. We were all doing this role, a lot of us, and we didn't even realize it or officially name it ‘Customer Success’. To have the role coined Customer Success was a breakthrough for folks like myself in our industry. Over time, I've seen it evolve in a way that we're starting to think less about ourselves, right? Allow me to better define ‘ourselves’ here. I'm saying we're thinking less about what we may think we know leads to a successful partnership based on our organizational capability and more about what our customers and client partners perceive as real ROI and impact on the way they do or think about business. That's step one. Step two is in customer intelligence. The only way that we can really drive to any outcome in client partnerships at scale is to have an acute awareness not only of what a single, isolated, customer is asking of us, but to also have Customer Success data at scale across all of your customers. This is the core of customer intelligence, and only then you’ll be empowered to build a team of the right size and capability, you’re able to focus efforts and build the right programs, you can then build structures that support both your team and customers at scale. Customers, team, data, insights, intelligence…in that order.

Masha

That's amazing. You mentioned ROI. And I just want to maybe drill in a little bit on that. Does ROI, or maybe revenue, mean the same thing as value to you?

Sabrina

Not at all, they separate topics! So again, I think the definition of customer ROI in itself is changing within the Customer Success space. ROI used to be 100% about usage metrics. We’re evolving to consider our customer’s key points of interaction both on and off our platforms. How frequently and deeply is what we provide baked into client-side processes internally be it usage, insights/metrics, stats. I would say now we're seeing a ROI revolution within customers. ROI isn't really about some of those standard usage and adoption metrics that we like to think of, though it is an input to it. ROI is really the tie between the platform, the platform's capabilities, in conjunction with a customer's OKRs and business strategy. So in my eyes, I feel like the return on investment for any of our clients is how the value tracks to the organizational outcomes and even the return on expectations... and if it supports, elevates, and drives to those outcomes seamlessly.

Masha

Makes a ton of sense. Where do you see, if I were to hand you a crystal ball, and maybe you've got one already, what are some of the early signals of trends that you've seen evolving, let's say over the next five years for Customer Success organization, the Customer Success role? What do you see?

Sabrina

AI. I know ‘AI’ as a term usually sounds like jargon—one of those techie terms. Right now and historically most of our measurements in Customer Success have been incredibly manual and self reported by CSMs. I think our Customer Success platforms, the way we go about data analysis, having AI to support that to predict a churn, to predict the direction of the market, to predict the needs of your clients based on trends, based on real Customer Success data, is our future. We're better about partnering with Rev or CS Ops. They are incredibly bright data scientists pulling together some of these correlations, but do not always have the bandwidth to test every hypothesis or do advanced correlations. There will come a time when there are platforms that are doing that advanced work for us. They'll provide multi-dimensional correlations that can paint a full picture of what is actually a growth or churn profile for a client. How do you know what customers are going to grow based on how they're interacting with you and your teams? How do you know what customers are most likely to churn? As it stands today, we’re leveraging light operational data to know how to resource these different client profiles without a full understanding of how this truly impacts our company burn rates. AI will enable CS teams and operations to become tighter, leaner, and more effectively service our customers. We've leaned into Customer Success sentiment to help drive these motions, as well as some standard adoption and usage metrics to help tell that story for us. There's going to be a time when technology and software will be able to support us in such a way that CS will become incredibly predictive. When I say incredibly… I'm saying seeing and predicting the future of business health six months to even a year out based on trends and what we know about our customers. Considering this, customer intelligence is at the core of our future, business success, and Customer Success as a function.

Masha

Wow, that's inspiring. Sabrina, you mentioned, this is interesting because you use the term "supporting" when you talk about AI when you talk about technology. You talk about it being a support to the Customer Success function. And I'm sure that, you know, some folks talk a lot about the humanizing, because they're worried about maybe these more techie type of approach is kind of taking away from the core of Customer Success being that kind of relationship piece. How do you see that? How do you balance that tension?

Sabrina

It's a fantastic question as well. There is a human element that we will not be able to take out and away from Customer Success. We've all experienced those interactions, where all we want to do is get on the phone with somebody to solve that challenge that we're having at that moment. I believe that will never ever go away. Again, thinking about AI and how it supports a Customer Success Manager, we're still going to need that sort of gut instinct of a really good Customer Success Manager to get down into the weeds and understand what's going on with any customer. The CSMs are the ones that are there to help curate those outcomes we're looking for in the partnership. I feel that customer intelligence is fantastic, but it's only a piece of the equation and what really makes a successful Customer Success function.

Masha

Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. What would you say is the most and, you know, it's the cheeky question, what is the most controversial opinion that you hold about Customer Success that you wish, you know, other folks would just hurry up and catch up to already?

Sabrina

It's probably the customer intelligence piece. Everyone in the Customer Success space leading up to this moment that we're in have all been guilty of this. We've created and tested programs that are siloed and incredibly unique to us in the Customer Success space for the businesses that we operate in. There's far more in common across all businesses than we realize when it comes to Customer Success. We're starting to see that more with leaders such as myself and many others out in the market speaking about Customer Success and openly sharing research, data, and tips. Everyone in Customer Success is having this magic moment right now, where light bulbs are turning up, like, hey, we are more alike than we know, much more alike than we realized. I believe customer intelligence has the power to further unify us and is a potential business driver I would strongly urge the entire Customer Success industry to watch. It will increase our visibility as CS leaders to know what is right for our business in terms of operations, and empower us to turn that data into stories for our business, customers, and for our CSMs to better partner with our customers. 

Masha

That is so interesting. Do you think it's doable? Like is this a dream and a wish? Or is this like, no, you know what, people just need to wake up and like, do it. Because we hear a lot about, you know, best practices in sales organizations, and you know, the whole rev ops kind of discussion, right? And there is starting to be some rumblings around CS ops, definitely, and some platforms that are coming through. But one of the things that we hear is, you know, there's kind of a uniqueness to each organization and then to each customer relationship within the organization. Do you see that? Like, is that another tension that we just have to hold? A dichotomy you have to hold in mind? Or do you not see that as a tension?

Sabrina

Yes, I don't necessarily see it as a tension. I see it as a catalyst for something that's beneficial for us all. Like I mentioned, there is that human element that makes customer experience special. Each and every SaaS organization will have to maintain that. The theory is that if we can curate our actions using customer intelligence, which is not necessarily standardized, we can all approach how we're building and going about Customer Success across every SaaS company in a sequential way. Today this is happening via word of mouth from CS influences and with the rise of Customer Success CRMs. I personally thought this wasn't possible! I didn't think it was achievable at all until recently. I was on an endeavor to learn more about the customer intelligence and AI space. Shockingly, there aren't many platforms that can combine all data for insights linking to action really well. I was introduced to a platform named Involve.AI while at Glint. You may not know much about Involve.AI yet, but they're truly onto something. The Involve.AI platform is able to look across many points of customer data to surface customer insights and provide prescribed action. The ‘so what’ in the data is the piece that has been missing within the Customer Success industry. We do not only need the data, there's ample data, but what we need is those data to tell stories that can be prescribed as actions specific to our clientele, and specific to our teams. So that piece that you mentioned, Masha, about us being unique and me saying, we need to maintain that human element, that piece of converting those insights into action, that's where the human element matters. Without humans, all we have are data.

Masha

Yeah, and that's the toughie, eh? That's where the magic is.

Sabrina

I agree.

Masha

Anwar, do you have an additional question for Sabrina? Because I wanted to ask about if there was a story that you wanted to tell us about sort of Customer Success life that we hadn't asked you about that you wanted to share?

Anwar

I want to know that answer too. [Laughs]

Sabrina

Yeah, so you know, lucky for us in Customer Success, we are quite vocal as people. We're usually people that love interacting with people. So there are ample Customer Success stories out there, but I've seen firsthand where we have been able to go in, consult at the C-level in an organization, and see measurable change time over time year over year. We talk a lot about how Customer Success is driving value in the market, but what I want to talk about is how Customer Success is such a fulfilling albeit demanding role for every Customer Success Manager. As CS leaders, we don't talk about this publicly often enough. There's something to be said about the type of person that is a Customer Success Manager. They are patient, they are kind, they are so driven to solve problems and to overcome barriers. Customer Success Managers often give an instant boost to internal company culture, not only due to their positivity but the stinking hard work that most Customer Success Managers are really good at and are there to do as a part of the team. I have yet to meet a single Customer Success manager that isn't willing to go above and beyond either internally or externally to make things come to a conclusion or any sort of documented result. The best Customer Success Managers are at their core happy and passionate to no end. CS leadership often talks about customer stories, outlining the impact that we're providing within our partnerships, but we don't openly discuss the CSM ‘secret sauce’... the profile and the person that's helping to drive it. I just want to give a shout-out to all Customer Success Managers out there because they're the friendliest, open, most driven, organized, and skills-smart people that contribute to SaaS businesses. As a CSM, you have to really be educated across multiple facets to be good at the job. From light data analysis, reporting, product development, technical (sometimes coding), facilitation/public speaking, marketing and positioning… a CSM touches it all with joy.

Masha

I love that. That's actually exactly why we're doing this blog series. We also see that Customer Success folks are like not as elevated and appreciated as they very well should be.

Sabrina

That's right!

Masha

Maybe, okay, you know what, I forgot to ask you actually, the most like basic level question. [Laughs] Which was, what does Customer Success actually mean to you? And how do you know that it's working?

Sabrina

Yes. It is really matching or finding that path to helping your customers and clients achieve both their individual objectives and organizational objectives in partnership with you, your business offerings, and your company. This is at the core of Customer Success. The closer you can get to that strategy, the closer you can get to those OKRs, the better off you are in helping your customers achieve success. So that's what Customer Success is. It is actually client impact. 

Masha

How do you know that it's working?

Sabrina

Hmmm, how do you know that it's working? Back to the customer intelligence topic. Yeah? You know that it's working, when you have a strong grasp on what matters to your customers and you can explicitly guide that vision to value. Secondarily, you need to be able to understand what that means for your business. I think having a customer intelligence platform can translate your clients’ vision to value back into your organization. There aren't many platforms out there that can do this without the help of a dedicated ops person. Lucky for us, there are platforms emerging that can help.

Masha

I love this vision to value translation. We talk a lot about value to revenue, and it sets but this is like, the pre-step. Right? And you have to, you're totally right, and you have to align the customer side, but also your company's side, that mutual vision to value, right?

Sabrina

Correct.

Masha

I love that. Okay, last cheeky question, Sabrina. If you could have a Customer Success related superpower, what would yours be?

Sabrina

Wow. Gosh… Not a toolbox? Just one? [Laughs]

Masha

Just one! We can put in requests for the toolbox, too.

Sabrina

Just one is... oh, goodness! It would be focused on my team as humans more than anything. If I could have a Customer Success superpower, it would be to elevate every single member of my team or the teams that we work with cross-functionally, globally, to better map the vision to value motion we talked about, not only on the client-side, but internally. You know, I feel like every Customer Success Manager and leader is on a permanent mission for cross-functional and internal alignment or realignment based on what we're hearing from the customer. So, if I did have a special power, it would be just to whip up that alignment at all times, in all ways, both internally and externally.

Masha

I love that. You're such a leader, Sabrina.

Anwar

I do have a question that's related to that.

Sabrina

Go for it!

Anwar

So I love the superpower. I guess, considering you don't have that superpower, how do you currently achieve that?

Sabrina

Lots of internal dialogue. It's in meeting folks where they are, being transparent. Being open to receiving and acting on feedback. The feedback loop is so important. There’s a myth that, oh, once I know someone well, feedback becomes easier. Wrong! I don’t believe that's true. Feedback is one of those skills that you constantly have to grow, foster and work on regardless of the depth of the relationship. You really have to lean into transparent communication, lead with compassion, and be open, honest and constructive at every interaction. So those are the skills that I think it takes to be on that train of influence and working toward alignment, knowing that alignment is for the greater good. 

Anwar

I like that. I like how you're coming at it from an angle of people with people as opposed to throwing tools at it.

Sabrina

Yes. We like humans! [Laughs] I wish I could confidently say that there is a platform or system that could do this. But no, we are all human. We are all here. Sometimes we have aligned objectives. Sometimes we don't. That does not change how we have to strive for and achieve alignment as a team, and as a company when we go to market.

Masha

I love that. Sabrina, this has been incredible for us. Thank you so much for taking the time.

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