Staffing for "Floating" CSM Coverage

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danielle riley
danielle riley Member
in Customer Success

Hi,

How are some of you managing if you have high attrition or churn in your CS org? Has anyone ever created a justification for a "floating" CSM?

Thank you.

Answers

  • Jason Seals
    Jason Seals Moderator | mod
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    We have an entry level role designed to train up to CSM called a Coordinator. This role has been incredible value on a number of fronts, but one benefit to call out here is that seasoned Coordinators can cover a portfolio in a CSM churn situation. It has made a huge difference.

  • John Patrick Azurin
    John Patrick Azurin Moderator | mod
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    Hi Danielle, thanks for your question and participating in TSIA's exchange!

    @Gavin O'Leary, @Kelsey Hunsinger, or @David Bisciotti do any of you have anything to add to Jason's response?

  • Gavin O'Leary
    Gavin O'Leary Founding Member | Scholar ✭✭
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    Hi All,

    At the moment we don't have a high churn issue to mitigate with floating CSMs, but we have discussed dynamic allocation depending on the segmentation. For our "Top customers" we need to maintain the high touch, substitutes are useful here to cover for PTO and we then have an iCSM safety net who are fully up to date on the full process (and not assigned to a single account). The iCSMs would be the closest to a dynamic CSM.

    Our next initiative is to move the CSMs, iCSM into a CS platform where all activities / tasks are aligned to the customer journey. This will also allow us to plug and play new CSMs if needed as they can continue the engagement based on customer health and phase in their journey. Driving automation as much as possible to keep the key moments that matter in sync with the customer lifecycle towards the renewal dates.

    This is all supported by a strict employee onboarding process to ramp up new CSMs as quick as possible in case we need to backfill or replace. I know this doesn't answer the exact question but we do not currently have a business need for "floating" CSMs.

    Hope this helps.

  • StevenForth
    StevenForth Founding Partner | Expert ✭✭✭
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    This challenge can come up with growth as well as employee turnover in the customer success organization.

    I think the first thing to ask about is continuity in the customer experience. Switching out people, though often necessary, is disorienting for the customer and can lead to a degradation in customer experience.

    I think one manages this by

    • Mapping the relationships
    • Defining and tracking the general knowledge of the CSM
    • Defining and tracking the customer specific knowledge of the CSM
    • Defining and tracking the knowledge that different people at the client have

    This last is sometimes overlooked, but I think vendors have a responsibility to support the growth in customer skills and capability across the touchpoints in the customer journey.

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