Aditya Maheshwari’s Post

Most of us get SO busy with emails, messages, escalations, and the day-to-day that we forget the BIG picture. Small things take up all the time. Week after week, time passes and you feel like you haven’t achieved anything at all. Small things will never END but there’s one way to break this route. Start scheduling time for BIG things first.  Small things will find their way later. Think of it like the pebbles and sand story. Imagine a jar: if you pour sand in first, there’s no room for pebbles. But reverse the order, and the sand will always find its way in. How do you ensure you don’t lose sight of the BIG picture? How do you ensure you are doing things that make the most impact? I would love to hear. ------------------ ▶️ Want to see more content like this and also connect with other CS & SaaS enthusiasts? You should join Tidbits. We do short round-ups a few times a week to help you learn what it takes to be a top-notch customer success professional. Join 1250+ community members! 💥 [link in the comments section]

I often see CSMs getting frustrated when their customers reach out to them with technical issues, billing issues, or things that aren’t really in our control. Remember, if your customers are reaching out to you for everything, it’s not on them. It’s on us. We make this mistake all the time. We don’t clearly explain what their role is to their customers. We don’t clearly explain whom to reach out to for what. And naturally, when customers don’t know what to do, they will email you, call you, and bug you. Do your customers and yourself a favor. Next time you’re onboarding a new customer, take a moment. Clarify your role, how you can help, and who else they can turn to for different concerns. It’s as straightforward as that. Do your customers know what to expect from you? How do you do it? Repost so that no CSM ever makes this mistake again! ------------------ ▶️ Want to see more content like this and also connect with other CS & SaaS enthusiasts? You should join Tidbits. We do short round-ups a few times a week to help you learn what it takes to be a top-notch customer success professional. Join 1123+ community members! 💥 [link in the comments section]

I've been into CS and product over the last 5+ years. Here's my take on who talks what with the customer. It is important to clearly demarcate who talks to the customers in a company. I prefer laying down the process as follows- 1.⁠ ⁠CSM- for all things related to product adoption, customer retention, training, MBRs/QBRs. If the org has an Account manager as well, the responsibility is split between CSMs and AMs. The split can be on case to case basis. For support requests, L1 support should be the first line of responders with a defined first (meaningful) response time.  2.⁠ ⁠⁠Sales rep/AE- for all things related to money and contract (including billing, upsell, cross sell, renewals, clawbacks). CSMs may be in cc or may not be, depends from org to org. CSMs should be informed later in case they are not looped in such conversations. 3.⁠ ⁠⁠CXOs- only in case of fire which might lead to a potential churn. These conversations usually have CXOs on the others side as well. An organization's billing or finance team shouldn't talk to customers directly. They're usually not skilled customer facing communicators. For billing related concerns the sales rep should drive the conversation and act as an interface between customer and billing. PS-  1.⁠ ⁠Upsell, cross sell, renewals are a joint effort between CSMs and Sales reps. Needs to be driven in collaboration. 2.⁠ ⁠⁠Churn isn't owned by CS. It is a collective result of everything including CS, Sales, Account management, Product, Billing/ Finances etc. Companies who hold only CS accountable for customer churn, usually end up with employee churn.

There’s one thing that can really set you apart from others. No, not your knowledge. Not your skills. They of course can. This is something else. This is the skill of being able to move fast. Move fast.  Break things.  Learn things. There is a massive cost of inaction. You have to move with a sense of urgency. Messy action >> Perfect motion ------------------ ▶️ Want to see more content like this and also connect with other CS & SaaS enthusiasts? You should join Tidbits. We do short round-ups a few times a week to help you learn what it takes to be a top-notch customer success professional. Join 960+ community members! 💥 [link in the comments section]

There’s one thing that separates great CSMs from the rest. It’s not their skills, their experience, or their knowledge. It’s their conviction. Conviction is the belief that you know what you are talking about, and that you can back it up with facts and logic. Conviction is the confidence that you can help your customers succeed, and that you can persuade them to follow your guidance. Conviction is the courage to admit when you are wrong, and the humility to learn from your mistakes. But conviction is not easy to develop. You need to deeply understand your product, your industry, your market, and your customers. You need to constantly learn and update your knowledge. You need to practice and improve your communication skills. That’s what it takes to be a great CSM or a CS leader. You don’t have to know everything. But whatever you know, say it with conviction. ------------------ ▶️ Want to see more content like this and also connect with other CS & SaaS enthusiasts? You should join Tidbits. We do short round-ups a few times a week to help you learn what it takes to be a top-notch customer success professional. Join 1385+ community members! 💥 [link in the comments section] #Conviction

If I had to boil our SaaS success down to one trait it'd probably be... Focus. And if I had to take another it would be: fast action, quicker improvement. Our journey wasn't all just smooth sailing so far. Every day was filled with hurdles. Just last week I hired a customer support expert because I knew she'd be able to better structure my momentary solutions. And she's been doing a phenomenal job already. But if I had tried to make the perfect plan before taking action, Mailscale would still just be an idea. Mistakes are part of the game. And the faster we act, the faster we can learn from them. Best Yassin P.S. If you're looking for your next 100 customers give Mailscale a try. It lets you send 100,000 emails for less than $200. Get exclusive access here: https://lnkd.in/gA_H3QuZ

Every day, I speak with at least one CSM, and every day I feel like customer success is a very open-ended role. Everything that isn’t anyone else’s responsibility ends up being the responsibility of CS. This isn’t good. For CS to be successful in the long run, we need to make the role more defined. What does that mean? It means everything that comes your way is well defined in your roles and responsibilities, and you have a process to handle it. That would be ideal. Even achieving 80% clarity in the CS role would make a big difference. CS would then focus on clearly defined tasks and wouldn’t struggle to deliver value to customers. I haven’t entirely figured out how to make the CS role more defined, but I think about it every day. How are you helping your CS teams become more structured? I’d love to hear your thoughts. ------------------ ▶️ Want to see more content like this and also connect with other CS & SaaS enthusiasts? You should join Tidbits. We do short round-ups a few times a week to help you learn what it takes to be a top-notch customer success professional. Join 1389+ community members! 💥 [link in the comments section]

In the world of customer success, CSMs fall into a common trap: we act like we have all the answers. Truth is, our world is filled with complexity—products, industries, and domains. It’s impossible to know it all. So, let’s not pretend. Start with the basics.  Sharpen your problem-solving skills.  Understand the core principles.  Know your product inside out. And for everything else? It’s okay to admit when you don’t have the answers. Admitting you don’t know opens doors to learning. But remember, not knowing isn’t an excuse to stop trying. Work at it every day. Aim for that 1% improvement—daily, weekly, monthly. It’s about progress, not perfection. #CustomerSuccess ------------------ ▶️ Want to see more content like this and also connect with other CS & SaaS enthusiasts? You should join Tidbits. We do short round-ups a few times a week to help you learn what it takes to be a top-notch customer success professional. Join 1436+ community members! 💥 [link in the comments section]

After leading many customer success initiatives—some unsuccessful and some successful—I’ve realized one key thing. Cross-team collaboration is crucial for generating value, especially in the world of customer success. As CSMs, we probably understand this better than anyone. We work with almost every function across the company—Support, Sales, Marketing, Product, Engineering, Finance, and more. So, what’s the key to collaborating effectively with such a wide range of teams? Clear communication and empathy. When we make a genuine effort to clearly communicate our goals, and we truly listen to understand others’ goals—that’s when opportunities are created. That’s when real collaboration happens. When we collaborate well, we achieve so much more than we ever could alone. I remember times when simply sitting down with another team cleared up things and opened doors we didn’t know existed. How do you foster effective cross-team collaboration? I’d love to hear your thoughts. ------------------ ▶️ Want to see more content like this and also connect with other CS & SaaS enthusiasts? You should join Tidbits. We do short round-ups a few times a week to help you learn what it takes to be a top-notch customer success professional. Join 1787+ community members! 💥 [link in the comments section]

A big part of communicating properly is providing context - not too little, not too much, just the right amount of context. And a framework that you can follow to provide context is the STAR framework. You would have heard about this framework in the context of building resumes but it can be applied to pretty much every piece of communication you write. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗥 𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸? - Situation - What is the background? - Task - What are the tasks/challenges? - Action - What actions should be taken? - Result - What is the expected outcome or result? STAR framework ensures you won’t miss important details while providing context. How do you provide the right context? I would love to hear. ------------------ ▶️ Want to see more content like this and also connect with other CS & SaaS enthusiasts? You should join Tidbits. We do short round-ups a few times a week to help you learn what it takes to be a top-notch customer success professional. Join 1161+ community members! 💥 [link in the comments section]