Customer Success:

-Dictionary.com

Customer Success: When your customers achieve their Desired Outcome through their interactions with your company.
–Lincoln Murphy

Customer Success: Helping other people be successful at their job.
-Me

I love my job (Customer Success @ Workpop).

A huge part of why I love my job is because I’m able to do what makes me happiest, helping other people be successful at their job.

I get to do this on two fronts, interacting with customers and with my team.  Ultimately, this is what keeps me motivated at work.  There’s always something I can do to make someone’s job easier.

Working in Customer Success, which is more proactive post sale and implementation services (at Workpop), I have the luxury of working with the customer.  We view ourselves as a trusted partner that is helping the customer’s business run more effectively.  We work collaboratively with our customer to understand their business needs and then address those needs.   From the start, we’re able to really understand what a difference our product is making in their work life.  Hearing, seeing, and really understanding this difference makes it easier and more compelling to continually work on making sure they are successful.

At Workpop, the Customer Success Team also manages customer support issues.  While Customer Success is innately proactive, customer support is usually more reactive.  When managing customer support requests, we are usually interacting with customers who are having problems. Something is not working as expected and often times users are frustrated or upset. Instead of internalizing these negative emotions of users, we try and focus on the issue itself.  The user has a problem and it’s our job to solve it.  We become problem solvers who are able to offer solutions.  Instead of viewing customer issues as a barrage of negativity, we approach them as problems to solve.  Then at the end of the day, we don’t feel emotionally drained, we feel accomplished.  We helped all those users do the job they set out to do.

As the CS Lead at Workpop, I also need to ensure that our team is successful.  I’ve helped train our newest reps and have enjoyed working towards making their jobs easier.  Creating tools and resources, like macros, documentation, and processes, to make their transition into the role go smoothly so they feel knowledgeable and empowered.  Ultimately, you hope (and I know) that you’ve hired intelligent and driven people.  With that being said, I enjoy laying the groundwork for them.  I want to set the team up for success by making sure that they aren’t just “pushed off the deep end” with no guidance, advice, or expectations. With a strong foundation, they’ll be able to grow and contribute to the team.  Knowing you helped someone along towards feeling confident in suggesting growth ideas for the company, customer, and team is an amazing feeling.

Ultimately, what keeps me most motivated in my job is that I truly enjoy all aspects of it.  Work doesn’t seem like a chore or a task when you’re doing things that encourage and excite you.