The Launch Station

We are kicking off Season 2 of The Launch Station with Irene Lefton, a seasoned CS leader who is currently the VP of Customer Success at MentorCloud. She acts as a CS advisor to many startups. She is always featured in the Top 25 and Top 50 CS Leaders lists year after year and is also the co-chair of the CS Network.

Irene is an expert on remote work and has been managing remote teams for the past 25+ years.

In this episode, Irene talks about:

• Remote work, its challenges, and how to make it more effective
• Forming the human connect when working remotely
• Customer relations in the remote environment
• Hiring and onboarding employees in a remote setup

… and more. Tune in!

Irit Eizips, CEO of CSM Practice, one of the world's leading consultants on customer success practice, talks to us about the First Value Delivery framework and how it can be used to identify quick wins for value delivery.

In this episode of The Launch Station, we are joined by Brent Ludwig, Head of Professional Services, Celigo. Brent has spent over 10 years at PLG companies, honing his professional services leadership skills. He has immense experience in building professional services teams at companies like Oracle, Salesforce, Zendesk, and lastly at Gong. He has a degree in computer science and started his career in SaaS as a developer at Motorola.

Brent believes in building his network and investing in the right people for the team.

In this episode, Brent talks about:

1. His journey of setting up PS teams at PLG companies

2. The need for a PS team

3. The impact of having a formal PS team in the organization

4. Tackling the challenges that come up in the process of setting up a PS team

… and more. Tune in!

In this episode, we have with us a celebrity from the onboarding and implementation space; Jeff Kushmerek, CEO & Founder, Infinite Renewals. Jeff has spent over 20 years in the post-sales organization with tech companies, building and launching implementation and professional services teams. He has helped multiple companies to achieve success with customers.

In this episode, Jeff talks to us about:

1. His journey in the onboarding and implementation space
2. Staffing your startup
3. The skills to look out for when hiring for your startup
4. The questions to ask to your first onboarding hire

… and more. Tune in!

You can find The Launch Station here: https://rocketlane.com/podcast

In this episode, we have Sloan Pettersen, Director, Global Client Onboarding at Impact. Before starting her journey with Impact, she studied international business administration. As a part of the initial onboarding team, Sloan was crucial in establishing the client onboarding function at Impact. Today, she is a leader who has accomplished a variety of roles and is focused on getting customers to value in a timely manner.

In this episode, Sloan talks about:

1. Her journey at Impact.com
2. Developing a formal client onboarding function from scratch
3. Tackling the challenges that come up with scaling and automation
4. The client onboarding process at Impact.com

… and more. Tune in!

Binge on our podcast here: https://rocketlane.com/podcast

In this episode, we have Brent Claremont, Director of Customer Onboarding at Emotive. A seasoned leader with 7 years of experience in Customer Success and another 4+ years of experience in SaaS leadership, he was one of the founding CS members of the Sydney HubSpot office. He later took up the role of an Onboarding Team Manager and helped review global CSAT, launch Service Hub and build a career rotational program at HubSpot HQ.

As the recipient of the ‘Top Manager’ award in 2020, Brent sticks to hiring for character and training for skill. He is all for having a unique perspective to challenge the status quo and improve current processes.

In this insight-packed session, Brent gets talking about:

1. The playbook to create your A team for onboarding functions
2. Developing an effective career pathing program for onboarding professionals
3. The career trajectory of a customer onboarding professional
4. Success stories of onboarding professionals who transitioned into different roles

… and more. Tune in!

In this episode of The Launch Station, we are joined by Michael Canzoneri, ex-Confluent, and currently VP of Global Services at Dataiku. Michael drove some of the most disruptive and innovative big data solutions across multiple industries for Confluent. He led multi-year, global transformative projects in retail, aerospace, defense, and oil & gas. Michael also develops strategies and positions companies for dramatic growth.

After studying data sciences at Harvard and Quantum Computing at MIT, Michael went on to do his MBA from Villanova. He talks to us about:

• How professional services are positioned and operated at Confluent
• How the PS landscape evolved at Confluent
• Why strategy is a key element from a PS perspective
• What are some effects of the change

… and more.

Our guest for this episode is Jan Young, a top 50 Customer Success influencer. She is currently the Principal Consultant at Success League, which offers CSM and leadership training, CS program assessments, and consulting services.

She started her career in project management, moved to marketing and has been in CS even before it even became a thing. She has been a passionate influencer in the CS world and in this episode of the Launch Station, she talks about:

• How setting expectations when onboarding customers sets the tone for better customer partnerships
• How accountability makes onboarding easier
• How the momentum has to be carried from onboarding through adoption
• Whether or not you need to charge for your implementation

… and more.

In this episode of the Launch Station, we are joined by Nuno Paiva das Neves, Director of Customer Success at SafetyCulture. He started his career at IBM, then spent close to 14 years at SAP, and for the past few years, he has been in the world of CS.

At SafetyCulture, he focuses on outcomes and business value for customers, right from delivering on pre-sales activities, success engineering, onboarding, and customer health. Being all for making customers happy, Nuno talks to us about:

• How the transition from working at a large corporation to a startup happens
• How the journey from a startup to a scaleup has evolved over the years
• What GTM motions exist at SafetyCulture
• Playbooks and learnings SafetyCulture operationalizes on for onboarding

… and more.

In this episode, we talk to Cori Medler, Director - Customer Success at BombBomb. She leads the team and steers initiatives for retention and expansion of BombBomb's managed customers.

Cori is a powerhouse in Customer Success, as she is who has tremendous experience in the SaaS space. She has been in sales, services, people management, marketing strategies, data analysis, database administration, and so much more.

Here at the Launch Station, she gets to talking about:

• How onboarding and Customer Success has evolved at BombBomb
• How the onboarding journey at BombBomb looks like
• How BombBomb handles change management with enterprise clients
• What are some key concepts that people should research on when trying to effect change management

… and more.

In this episode, we are joined by Reshmi Krishna (Senior Manager, Enterprise Solutions Architect) and Sherrod Patching (Head of Global Technical Account Managers), GitLab.

Reshmi has extensive experience in being an engineer and a solutions architect. She has been in leadership positions for multiple years now.

Sherrod is a seasoned customer-centric technology leader with deep experience in building high-performing global teams focused on driving excellent customer experience and significant revenue growth.

While Reshmi loves to dive into the nitty gritty, Sherrod excels in driving organic and inorganic revenue growth.

In this episode, we have them talking about:

• What pre-sales and post-sales look like at Gitlab, and how they have evolved
• How should the right journey be structured from pre- to post-sales
• How to get  better at handoffs

...and more.

In Episode 11, Michael Hurley, Customer Success Manager at Infor, talks to us about helping your customer success team through major transitions. He’s been a part of CS strategy transformations at notable organizations. He has served in leadership at companies like Oracle.

Here’s what Michael talks about in this episode:

• When a CSM should get involved in the customer’s journey
• What traits and skills he looks for when hiring for his team, and how he assesses them
• How to help the team through organizational transitions
• How to win the team’s trust during a transition

… and more.

In this episode, we have Sridhar Gollapalli (VP - Customer Success) and Sudheer Sharma Goda (Director of Professional Services), Gainsight. Sridhar has over two decades of experience working in the software tech space and has worked with the likes of IBM and Microsoft. He transitioned from engineering leadership roles to customer success at Gainsight. Sudheer has a master's in Data Science and Analytics. He spent 15 years in tech consulting before he joined Gainsight to lead their professional services function.

In this episode, they talk about:

• How the Customer Success function was established at Gainsight
• How the Professional Services team comes into the picture
• How the team decides on who should engage with the customer
• How workshops for customers cut down their go-live time

...and more

In this episode, we have Assaf Barnir, VP of Customer Success at Netomi. Assaf has worked in the software space with the Israeli Air Force, moved to consulting, delivery, and professional services roles with companies such as IBM and Zendesk, transitioning to leadership roles in Customer Success.

In this episode, we discuss with Barnir:

• How the sales process can provide a leg up for the customer onboarding team
• His learnings and takeaways from his career journey so far
• Transformational changes that he brought into the Sales team at his org that had a multiplicative effect on Customer Success
• How his customer-oriented way of looking at things driven his high-impact initiatives
• How to convince the leadership to focus on customers instead of on the dollars
• When to invest in a customer success tool

... and more

In this episode, Chitra Madhwacharyula, Head of Customer Success at Couchbase, talks to us about creating the right offering for customers. 

Here are other subjects she talks about in this episode:

• The right time to think of productizing professional/consulting services
• Investing in your own consultation offerings vs. investing in a partner network to do it on your behalf
• How to decide whether you need to add services as a part of your offering if you have a product 
• How to become a trusted advisor to your customers

... and more.

Is your customer onboarding process enterprise-ready?

In this episode, Vishal Rana, VP - Customer Success at Snapdocs, talks to us about:

• How the SMB and enterprise customer types are different
• Change management for enterprise customers
• Maturity models and how you can use them to help your customers get the most out of your product/offering
• What a typical implementation process looks like for an enterprise customer
• Advice to first-time CS leaders

... and more.

We spoke to Mike Sasaki and Rachel Jugai, who are currently colleagues in the Customer Success division at Mitek systems. Mike has over 20 years of experience across tech and SaaS companies, 12 years of that had him heading customer success departments. Rachel has over eight years of experience as a CSM and is currently a part of Mike’s team.

In this episode, you’ll hear them on:

• What they have learned from escalations through the course of their careers
  
• Communication, processes, playbooks for handling escalations
  
• Escalating customer issues at their end
  
• Differences in handling escalations for larger versus smaller clients
  
• Playing good cop — bad cop during escalations.
  

...and more.

We spoke to Linden Hillenbrand, head of Customer Success & Support at Cloudera. He has over 12 years of experience at GE and Cloudera in both technical and leadership roles. He’s passionate about transforming a company’s philosophy into one focused on customer success and instrumenting the customer journey. At Cloudera, he is focused on positive outcomes for internal and external customers and sees himself as a leader shaping change within the organization, championing the adoption of newer technologies.

In this episode, you’ll hear him talk about:

• The evolution of onboarding
  
• The most effective ways to approach enterprise clients
  
• Identifying and qualifying the right customer champion
  
• The right way to leverage the customer champion to grow your business
  
• Rookie mistakes to avoid while dealing with customer champions
  
• Best practices for Customer Success leaders
  

…and more.

We spoke to Peter Taylor, author, ‘The Lazy Project Manager’. He is a professional speaker and has delivered over 450 keynote presentations addressing over 60,000 people across 25 countries. He was also recently awarded the PMO Influencer of The Year 2020.

In this episode, you’ll hear him talk about:

• Why one needs to be a ‘lazy project manager’
  
• Who owns expectation management — sales or project managers?
  
• The delicate balance of documentation, communication, and getting things done
  
• What the future holds for project management
  
• The impact of tech on project management
  
• Advice for project managers
  

…and more.

For the first instalment of Launch Station, we spoke to Stephan Howsepian, who leads a team of Technical Account Managers (TAMs) at Citrix, delivering premium Customer Success Services to its high-profile customers.

In this episode, you’ll hear him answer questions on:

• What a Customer Success Manager should focus on
  
• The best way for a CSM to deliver value to clients
  
• The ideal attributes and skills for Customer Success roles
  
• Inputs for leaders in Customer Success
  

…and more.