Chief Customer Officer for Xactly Corp demonstrates advanced best practices for Customer Success.

Joining us on SBI TV is Bernie Kassar, Chief Customer Officer for Xactly Corp.

 

Bernie pioneered the field of Customer Success as one of the first SVP’s of Customer Success five years ago. And in today’s show, Bernie gives seasoned advice for revenue growth executives who have launched a customer success and are looking for ways to accelerate the impact.

 

Below is a summary of the show segments and topics covered. Click on the timestamped link to visit that section of the interview.

 

Segment 1: The Customer Journey Touchpoints

 

  • Segmenting your customer base. minute 3:56
  • Resourcing deployed against the top 10% of the customer base. minute 5:37
  • Long tail customers. minute 7:56
  • Reallocating head count and deployment. minute 8:55
  • Splitting between people and technology. minute 10:30 

     

Skip to minute 8:01 to hear Bernie’s advise on segmentation in the customer base:

 

“The best way to visualize it is if you look at a pyramid, the base of the pyramid is where a lot of your customers can sit. As you go up that pyramid, if you’re segmenting by spend, that would be your long tail. …” 

 

Segment 2: The Customer Success Team

 

  • Focus points and org design relative to how to set up the team. minute 14:02
  • A simpler way of thinking about those who don’t have a buyer journey. minute 15:57
  • Scoreboard and your team. minute 20:21
  • Hiring profile. minute 24:05 

     

Skip to minute 14:32 to watch Bernie give details on the focus points of customer success:

 

“It goes back to the point of really understanding your customer journey, because once you have that figured out, you can then figure out where you’re having issues and create either a department that’s focused on it or resources that can intervene…” 

 

Segment 3: The Journey

 

  • Setting a baseline around customer success and starting off. minute 30:28
  • Advice for customer success leaders who are frustrated that they don’t report to the CEO. minute 33:16
  • Mistakes to avoid. minute 36:40 

     

Skip to minute 31:21 to listen to Bernie discuss his hiring process:

 

“I think the very first thing is you need to get whoever is highest on the totem pole that cares about Customer Success to start carrying a flag. It was really easy for me to be successful, because it was such an important part of our core values…” 

 

Matt and Bernie leveraged the How to Make Your Number in 2018 Workbook to guide their interview. Click here to download this fabulous workbook, and turn to the customer success section under the sales strategy category.

 

Interactive Workbook Revenue Growth Diagnostic

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Matt Sharrers

Leads the firm's focus on the CEO’s role in accelerating revenue growth by embracing emerging best practices to grow revenue faster than the industry and competitors. 
BIO
ALL PEOPLE

Matt Sharrers is the CEO of SBI, a management consulting firm specialized in sales and marketing that is dedicated to helping you Make Your Number. Forbes recognizes SBI as one of The Best Management Consulting Firms in 2017.

 

Over the course of nearly a decade at SBI, Matt Sharrers was an instrumental early partner guiding SBI as the Senior Partner. Matt’s functional responsibilities included acting as the head of sales where he led SBI’s double-digit revenue growth, and was responsible for the hiring function to build SBI’s team of revenue generation experts.

 

Prior to joining SBI in 2009, Matt spent eleven years leading sales and marketing teams as a Vice President of Sales. Matt has “lived in the field.” As a result, he is the foremost expert in the art of separating fact from fiction as it relates to revenue growth best practices. CEOs and Private equity investors turn to Matt’s team at SBI when they need to unlock trapped growth inside of their companies.

 

 

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