Secrets to continuous improvement
And a tip to improve the relationship between marketing and customer success
Going into last week I realized that I had was involved with two webinars on the same day. I started to question my own sanity but knew why I had agreed to do them. They were topics related to customer success that were near and dear to me and they involved people that I either knew well or wanted to learn from. I also picked up an amazing idea that you may find useful as well.
The secret to continuous improvement isn’t all that complicated. You need to go out of your comfort zone and find opportunities that will take your knowledge to a higher level. For me, this usually involves sharing what I know with others and learning from those around me. It means being vulnerable, helping others and asking for help. If you don’t do this your performance will peak and you will even stagnate. In some circumstances this is ok but if you have aspirations for leadership roles and/or are looking to advance your career you will limit yourself if you limit your personal growth.
Inspiration comes from all places
After I finished the second webinar, I was wiped. Beyond addressing the live questions that came at us in rapid succession the experience was somewhat emotional. I was invited to be on a panel that had Canadian customer success professionals from across Canada. As a Canadian living in the US that can’t see his friends and family in Canada right now, this was extra special. It was also nice seeing people that I hadn’t seen in a number of years since leaving Toronto as well as witnessing firsthand how much the CS community in Canada has grown.
When the event concluded I took the time to thank the panelists and inadvertently started an email chain. One of the panelists picked up on a goal we have around G2 Crowd reviews and gave me a great idea. He said that his marketing team created unique landing pages for each CSM and created a contest to make collecting G2 Crowd reviews more fun. This was such a great idea as it addressed the issue of reviews being submitted anonymously and the challenge of attributing the review to CSMs. Having a CSM-specific landing page solved this problem. I immediately sent this idea to our marketing team and they are working on a plan to implement this. They were very excited.
Who knew that the best insight from that webinar would be in a follow-up email exchange? I also have a follow-up meeting with a CS leader in Toronto who wants to brainstorm ideas on a pooled CS model for SMB clients.
The other source of inspiration was from my CS team. We need to keep evolving our communication approach and I sought out feedback on how we can improve our meetings. The ideas were excellent and we will be making some immediate changes to make our meetings more effective.
Putting in the extra effort and taking additional time to either participate in events or collect feedback can be difficult. It means that you may need to make sacrifices. It means that you may hear some tough feedback. You also may do certain growth activities and not see any results from them at all. That shouldn't dissuade you from continuing to push and continuing to look for ways to improve. Keep at it - you never know where the next great idea will come from.