Podcast appearances and mentions of allison pickens

In this episode, we bring you snippets of several conversations that focused on Customer Success. Listen as John Kaplan and John McMahon talk with Sasha Anderson, the Global Head of Customer Success at Canva, Dan Barrett the Executive VP of Customers at MongoDB and Allison Pickens Co-Author of the Customer Success Economy. [00:00:13] Sasha Anderson on Customer Success and Consumption Pricing[00:06:30] Dan Barrett on Customer Expectations and Value Demonstration[00:16:35] The Importance of Customer Success in Reducing Churn with Alison PickensDon't miss the full episodes featuring our guests: Allison Pickens: https://revenue-builders.simplecast.com/episodes/mastering-the-art-of-customer-success-with-allison-pickensSasha Anderson: https://revenue-builders.simplecast.com/episodes/optimizing-a-customer-success-teamDan Barrett: https://revenue-builders.simplecast.com/episodes/the-right-hire-for-customer-success-with-dan-barrettAdditional ResourcesForce Management's Customer Success Playbook: https://www.forcemanagement.com/driving-renewals-and-nrr-with-customer-successEnjoying the podcast? Sign up to receive new episodes straight to your inbox: https://hubs.li/Q02R10xN0Check out John McMahon's book, The Qualified Sales Leader: https://www.amazon.com/Qualified-Sales-Leader-Proven-Lessons/dp/0578895064

In this curated episode of the Revenue Builders Podcast, John McMahon and John Kaplan on the Revenue Builders podcast as they dive into the intricate world of churn with special guest Allison Pickens. Former COO of Gainsight, Allison shares her insights into scaling a company and understanding the nuanced reasons behind customer departures. From measuring churn metrics to the importance of responding to external factors, this episode provides valuable lessons for businesses aiming to enhance customer success and retention.KEY TAKEAWAYS[00:00:54] Superficial Understanding of Churn Causes: Alison discusses how some companies may view churn too superficially, attributing it to external factors like a change in company leadership or losing to a competitor.[00:01:44] Strategic Response to Churn: Emphasizing the importance of responding appropriately to churn events and considering them as opportunities rather than inevitable losses.[00:02:48] Honest Evaluation: Encouraging companies to be honest about what aspects of their operations can be improved and aligning strategies with company goals.HIGHLIGHT QUOTES[00:00:54] "One way in which they might think about it too superficially is they might note things, root causes that are outside of their control."[00:01:44] "When your customer gets acquired by another company, that is not an obvious churn or like an inevitable churn reason. It might be an opportunity to expand your deployment to the larger company."[00:02:48] "What's important is just being honest with yourself about what you can improve and what you can based on the strategy of your company at the time."Listen to the full episode with Allison Pickens through this link:https://revenue-builders.simplecast.com/episodes/mastering-the-art-of-customer-success-with-allison-pickensCheck out John McMahon's book here:Amazon Link: https://a.co/d/1K7DDC4Check out Force Management's Ascender platform here: https://my.ascender.co/Ascender/

Gaurav Sharma has already started and sold multiple businesses. His latest venture is shaping up to be his largest venture so far. It has attracted funding from top-tier investors like Amit Agarwal, Allison Pickens, Sequoia Capital, and Base10 Partners.

Your existing customer base is a vital part of your future sales pipeline. Today's conversation with Allison Pickens explores how to reduce churn and ensure that your retention revenue pipeline stays full. Allison is an experienced investor, board director, and customer success expert. She joins John Kaplan and John McMahon today to discuss the importance of viewing customer success not as a separate activity from sales, but as an integral part of the sales process and, ultimately, the value of your solution. Allison shares strategies for assessing customer health during economic uncertainty, harnessing the power of AI for customer success, and aligning customer success with your overall sales objectives.Here are some key sections to check out: 00:56 Introducing Allison Pickens: Investor, board director, and CS expert01:48 Why has customer success become so important?06:43 Why are companies slow to adopt customer success?10:48 Importance of understanding the customer's ROI15:18 How do you monitor and manage customer health?25:55 How do you measure customer success?29:38 The importance of strong product documentation and user support35:33 Understanding the root cause of churn42:25 How can CEOs and founders learn from churn?48:53 Injecting CS into the businessAdditional Resources:Connect with Allison Pickens: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allison-pickens/Get Allison's book The Customer Success Economy: https://www.amazon.com/Customer-Obsessed-Company-Competitive-Advantage/dp/1119572762Make QBRs more valuable for your customers: https://forc.mx/3Ukt7PbTaking care of customers in a down economy: https://forc.mx/43esCuc QUOTESAllison - You need to invest in supporting your customers: “The revenue model has shifted and because you can't just sell a customer and ignore them after the fact, you actually need to pay attention to them in order to generate revenue for them later. You now need to invest in actually supporting them. So I think that, you know, we go where the revenue goes.”Allison - Not taking customer success seriously will cost you getting left behind: “Nowadays, I would say that we're in the late majority stage of the adoption curve of customer success that, actually, if a company hasn't really started taking customer success seriously, they will probably be left behind in pretty short order.”Allison - Documentation is a product itself: “I think the best companies think of documentation as a type of product in itself where they release updates to documentation in a structured way. They think about the impact of a new release on past documentation and past documentation that was written and ensure that it's kept up to date.” Check out John McMahon's book here: https://www.amazon.com/Qualified-Sales-Leader-Proven-Lessons/dp/0578895064

Airplane, a San Francisco, CA-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) development platform, closed a $32 million Series B funding round led by Thrive Capital with participation from Benchmark, bringing the startup's total raised to $40.5 million. I interviewed Ravi Parikh, Co-Founder at Airplane. He is also the former co-founder of Heap. Ravi is on a mission to automate the harder part of admin tools in applications. This is the behind-the-scenes code necessary to run your applications. Airplane has a sales and PLG led motion. His former founder background helped with current capital raises. Segment co-founder Calvin French-Owen, Confluent co-founder Neha Narkhede, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch, Airtable co-founders Howie Liu and Andrew Ofstad, Allison Pickens from The New Normal Fund, Behance founder Scott Belsky, Jaren Glover, Gokul Rajaram, Liu Jiang, Comma Capital, and several others also participated in the round. The funds will be put toward growing Airplane's team while expanding its product to new markets. Founded in December 2020 Staff of 20 $40.5M Raised Sub 10M ARR SLG + PLG Developer Tools Ravi Parikh's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raviparikh2/ SaaS Fundraising Story: https://www.thesaasnews.com/news/airplane-raises-32-million-in-series-b Join my SaaS community here: https://www.thesaasacademy.com/offers/ivNjwYDx/checkout Follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benrmurray

100 episodes of Operations! We are so grateful for the brilliant Operators who have been so generous with their time and their lessons on this show.After 100 episodes, we thought it was only fitting to look back at the top 10 lessons we've taken away from our guests, 5 from our first 50 episodes and 5 from the latest 50.So whether you've been with us from the beginning or you're just checking out Operations for the first time, you're getting the best of the best in this one.Our 10 lessons come from the following guests:Brett Queener, Partner at Bonfire Ventures (Episode 3)Sylvia Kainz, Director of Global Productivity Partnerships at Airbnb (Episode 9)Melanie Fellay, CEO and Co-founder at Spekit (Episode 26)Rachel Haley, CEO and Co-Founder at Clarus Designs (Episode 39)Karen Borchert, CEO and Founder at Alpaca (Episode 19)Allison Pickens, Former COO at Gainsight (Episode 72)Greg Callahan, Partner at Bain (Episode 73)Mallun Yen, Founder and CEO at The Operator Collective (Episode 74)Marcela Piñeros, Global Head of Sales Enablement at Stripe (Episode 77)Erol Toker, Founder and CEO at Truly.co (Episode 90)Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends! You can connect with Sean on Twitter @Seany_Biz.

What does it mean to create category? A lot of companies say they are creating their own category, so we wanted to talk to someone who is an expert in it.That expert is Allison Pickens, former COO at Gainsight and now an investor and advisor through her work as the Founder and General Partner of The New Normal Fund.In our conversation, we talk about how Allison and the team at Gainsight created the Customer Success Category, why she believes it's all about elevating a community of like-minded people, and we end up discovering that the next wave might just be tailor-made for Operators like us.Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends! You can connect with Sean and Allison on Twitter @Seany_Biz @PickensAllison and @DriftPodcasts.

This episode features Tanya Strauss, Director of Customer Success Strategy and Operations at ServiceNow. Prior to her current role, Tanya worked at Gainsight, at the forefront of creating customer success as a category, alongside Allison Pickens and Nick Mehta. So, surely we are talking about Tanya's time at Gainsight and the whole experience of working for a company that is creating something truly large - a whole business industry. However, Tanya has a unique career story. She developed a successful career in services (consulting) prior her maternity leave. She returned to the workforce only eight years after. That situation is, obviously, full of opportunities and challenges and Tanya is sharing her experience and lessons learnt: - What are the challenges of returning to work after a career break, especially for women? - Where to even start from? - What resources to look for? - Are your skills relevant in a fast-paced tech world? - How to recreate the next chapter of your career? Connect with Tanya - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanyastrauss/ Other resources mentioned in this episode: - Allison Pickens - https://www.linkedin.com/in/allison-pickens/ - Nick Mehta - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickmehta/ - shout out to Diana de Jesus and her story in Episode 18 https://www.linkedin.com/in/dianadejesus/ - Check out the other episodes: Apple Podcasts https://lnkd.in/eKUstVb Spotify https://lnkd.in/eK25M-Q Connect with Women in Customer Success Podcast - https://www.womenincspodcast.com/ - https://www.linkedin.com/company/womenincspodcast/?viewAsMember=true - Instagram @womenincspodcast

Allison Pickens, former COO at Gainsight and co-author of “The Customer Success Economy: Why Every Aspect of Your Business Model Needs A Paradigm Shift” joins Venrock Partner Brian Ascher to discuss the new and increasingly important function of customer success for SaaS companies. They discuss how customer success differs from customer support, how working with customers has evolved, what startups should consider when making their first customer success hires, and common mistakes companies make when rolling out new programs. Recorded pre-pandemic, Pickens also shares how startups can make sure all functions are working together to support customer success with several examples that are relevant in today’s remote working environment.

Allison Pickens, COO at Gainsight, is an internationally known thought leader on driving subscription revenue growth and scaling teams. As the Chief Operating Officer, Allison is focused on generating excellence in company-wide strategy and execution, as well as new corporate development opportunities and evangelism. Allison was named one of Fortune’s Most Powerful Women and a Top Customer Service Influencer.  She studied at Yale and Stanford so we know she is wicked smart.   Allison built and scaled Gainsight’s post-sales functions, including a global team of more than 180 team members across Customer Success Management, Professional Services, Support, Customer Marketing, Value Consulting, and Customer Engineering. She also built Gainsight’s Corporate Development (M&A) function and is General Manager of Gainsight PX, an acquired business. Before that, she built Gainsight's Sales Development and Business Operations teams. Gainsight understands that business success relies on customer success.  Their business model is to help businesses connect with their customers and build deep relationships.  They practice that in-house too. Their culture is built on humanity first. They focus on creating and codifying their company values where it can live in their business daily.  They believe in leading by example and, if possible, finding the best fit for each employee, understanding that it may change over time. Instead of tossing talent, they appreciate their gifts and work with them to keep the relationship alive.  Or, they help them find another place where they can flourish.     For more information about Allison and Gainsight: Company Website Gainsight on Twitter Allison on Twitter Allison on LinkedIn   Get 2 free months of Bonusly   iTunes - Subscribe, Rate and Review Find us on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify and anywhere you listen to podcasts

On this episode of the Scaleup Valley podcast, our CEO, Mike Dias, speaks with Allison Pickens, the COO of Gainsight, about her journey scaling up this customer success platform.

In this Voice of Value podcast episode, Allison Pickens, COO of Gainsight, discusses technology in the human experience. The post Episode 18: Speaking the Truth – Technology in the Human Experience appeared first on Ecosystems.

Values need not just be posters in your office walls. How can you integrate them into your decision-making process? Let us get the answers from Allison Pickens, COO at Gainsight. She is an international speaker, blogger, and host of The Customer Success Podcast. In this episode, she talks about how your role models help develop you … The post Ep. 75 – Integrate Your Core Values With Allison Pickens appeared first on COO Alliance.

Allison Pickens is the COO @ Gainsight, the company that provides everything you need to turn your customers into your biggest growth engine. To date Gainsight have raised over $184m from some of the world’s best VCs in the form of Lightspeed, Bessemer, Insight Venture Partners, Battery Ventures and Salesforce Ventures just to name a few. As for Allison, in her 5 years at Gainsight her list of achievements in endless from running all functions that drive value for Gainsight customers, now a 150 person team, to building out the corporate development function to being the right hand to the CEO. Allison is also an Entrepreneur-In-Residence at Bessemer Venture Partners and sits on the board of RainforestQA. Before Gainsight, Allison started her career in NYC with stints at Bain and The Boston Consulting Group. In Today’s Episode We Discuss: How Allison made her way into the world of SaaS with Gainsight from her start in finance at Bain in New York? What does a strategic plan really mean to Allison? What is included in it? How should it be structured? In terms of ambition, how does one set ambitious enough plans to be a stretch but not a stretch too far? How does one tie their strategic plan to their financial plan? What is the right way to communicate this throughout the organisation?    Why does Allison believe product marketing and customer success are the new sales and marketing? What have been Allison’s biggest lessons on how to effectively measure adoption? Who is accountable to this number? CS or product management? Does Allison believe that marketing needs to be held accountable to a number directly tied to revenue?  How does Allsion respond to the common negative of “services revenue”? What is an acceptable ratio of services to software revenue? How can one approach setting up a services team for scale? Why is having such a great CS team actually bad for product development in the long run? How can one mitigate this? Allison’s 60 Second SaaStr: What does Allison know now that she wishes she had known at the beginning of her time with Gainsight? How often should CS check in with their customers? What does that look like?  If on a tight budget, how should one staff a CS team? Read the full transcript on our blog. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Allison Picken

As a CCO at a young company, how do you assess the work that needs to be done to begin the CX transformation? In today’s episode, we’re revisiting conversations with two CCOs who have implemented CX programs from the ground up: Chelsie Rae Lee of SnackNation and Allison Pickens of Gainsight. Both women became CCOs of their companies during a time where no formal CX work had been instituted.  

Leading with Conviction featuring Amanda Richardson by Allison Pickens

Allison Pickens is the COO of Gainsight a customer success and product experience platform. Allison is a speaker, blogger, and host of The Customer Success Podcast. She is also a Board Director and advisor to several companies. She was named one of the top 50 people in sales and business development and top women in SaaS. She joined Gainsight in 2014, and helped grow the company and build the sales and development team. She has always been passionate about organizing and building teams, and that is a big part of her role today. We talk about skills needed for women to make it to the c-suite in one of the roles of CEO, COO, or CFO. Allison shares how she learned to rely on her individual skills and how important it it so recognize the talent in others. We talk about technology, team building, what success means, the importance of perseverance, and more in this episode. Show Notes [03:20] It would have been hard for Allison to anticipate the adventure she's been on. [03:40] She has always loved organizing groups. In school, she was president of the athletic committee or the spirit team. [04:26] She also started a women's leadership initiative in college. [04:37] Organizing communities is something she's always been passionate about and today, it's a big part of her role. [04:59] She likes technology and gets excited about the future. She's also been entrepreneurial and likes building things. [05:49] Requirements for c-level positions vary a lot by company. [06:11] Being able to learn quickly has helped Allison. Learning is a skill, and life doesn't always teach us how to learn quickly. [07:30] Early in Allison's career, she had to quickly switch client engagements, and then later on, sectors and opportunities in the investment world. [07:39] Her schedule is really busy, and she's focused on different challenges every day. This leaves her with small windows for learning. [08:37] She mostly learns through dialogue. Although, she is also a visual learner. [09:31] Problem solving is a huge part of her role. Being able to dive deep and then surface up is important. Looking at patterns is also important. [11:45] They're also parallels between different fields that can help you learn. [12:31] Type B can step back and connect the dots. Type A runs around and does everything. [16:29] Allison loves focusing on teams. In Lacrosse, you win with an interconnected system. It's not about any one person. A great team has these connection points. [19:20] Signals that people can be team players includes whether they listen or if they interrupt during the interview. The way they resolve issues in another key. [20:38] The greatest challenge is to mobilize different skill sets and push everyone ahead. Find the balance with yourself and your team members. [23:17] Allison is not an early adopter. She doesn't adopt a technology unless she sees a clear path with it making her life better in some way. She does understand the tools she uses for work. [25:04] Going for a hike is a great way to get grounded. [26:00] She is active on LinkedIn. It helps her share content. It's also a great way to stay connected with people she works with in a variety of capacities. [27:55] Alison is learning about herself all the time. One of the things she learned on her career path is that she can persevere. Perseverance and just showing up is a really important factor when it comes to success. [30:33] Allison is working on structuring her day in a way that is effective for her. [33:06] Allison has had some fear with sharing personal stories, but people have been extremely supportive and appreciative. [36:27] Success is having deep relationships that create meaning for her and other people. She wants to follow her values and build communities of people that inspire. [38:21] Be brave, because you might be braver than you think you are. Links and Resources: Allison Pickens on Twitter Allison Pickens on LinkedIn Gainsight Website Gainsight on LinkedIn Gainsight on Twitter The Customer Success Podcast

Allison Pickens is a Chief Operating Officer at Gainsight, a customer success SaaS organization, whose role is also inclusive of CCO responsibilities. Allison shares how she united the entire organization to embrace a CX transformation, and the skills she believes are required to ascend beyond a typical CCO role, which helped bolster her organization's success and external credibility.

You want outcomes? Allison Pickens, Chief Customer & Corporate Development Officer at Gainsight, has outcomes. In fact, she is perhaps suggesting the ultimate customer outcome a customer could have after using your product. That outcome? Getting promoted. Think about it. Someone...an actual person bought your product. They stuck their neck out. Convinced many other people in their organization that buying your product was a good idea. The your product is a promise to make some meaningful improvement. People agreed and green-lighted the project. Looking back...someone is going to ask, "Was that a success?" If it was, perhaps your customer now looks so good, he or she ought to be promoted. Right? So, how many of your customers have been promoted? I think that might be the ultimate customer outcome. Put that in your dashboard and smoke it.  Get on the email list at helpingsells.substack.com

Subscribe to Selling With Social Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Google Play Why is customer success so important for sales organizations? It’s because 50% of the company's job is getting a new customer, the other 50% is keeping that customer - and keeping them happy. That customer happiness is what enables them to become a customer who keeps on giving via renewals, upsells, and referrals. Said that way, it's easy to see how customer success is a critical part of every company's growth engine. Allison Pickens, CCO at Gainsight is a pro at making customer success a high priority throughout entire organizations. Listen to this episode of #SellingWithSocial to learn how the Gainsight team fuels customer success in their own organization and for many of their clients. This podcast is being brought to you by The 10th Annual AA-ISP Leadership Summittaking place this April 3rd - 5th, 2018 in Chicago, IL. Register Now by using the Vengreso only discount code "Leadership1095" for your deeply discounted rate. Customer Advocacy And Customer Success Begins During The Pre-sale Process People often refer to the customer success team a “post-sale” team. But really, the CS team needs to be involved in presales, especially in enterprise deals. That involvement might mean quantifying the ROI the customer is expecting to achieve from using the product or service, or it could be clearly describing what the customer can expect to experience once they are actually using the product. The CS team can speak about the onboarding process in the same way the sales team might talk about a roadmap for a product. It’s part of what convinces a prospect that now is the right time to buy. Insights like these are exactly why I invited Allison to be on Selling With Social, so don’t miss this opportunity to learn how to improve your customer success numbers. Listen now. Customer Advocacy Is The Natural Outgrowth of Customer Success Allison Pickens says that if customers are not transformed into advocates for your company, you will have a pipeline problem. That’s because an effective pipeline must include an intentional focus on growth via customer success. In this episode, Allison describes how to leverage customer success efforts and turn them into natural customer advocacy opportunities. Her advice includes best-practices, the use of systems to keep your finger on the pulse of existing customer health, and an explanation of how customer advocacy actually begins in the pre-sales process. You won’t want to miss this one! This podcast is being brought to you by The 10th Annual AA-ISP Leadership Summittaking place this April 3rd - 5th, 2018 in Chicago, IL. Register Now by using the Vengreso only discount code "Leadership1095" for your deeply discounted rate. What Is The Right Structure To Maximize Customer Success And Advocacy? Once an organization is dedicated to making their customers as successful as possible, a system has to be put in place to ensure it actually happens. When I asked Allison about the right structure to use she shared very practical advice. First, she says you need to make sure that a senior executive is in charge of leading the customer success department so there can be a voice at the table to keep customer success front and center. Next, you need to identify and establish a variety of specialized functions unique to your organization that work in concert to help customers be successful with your products and services. Finally, be very clear about who owns renewals and who owns expansion. There is not a definite “right and wrong” on that last one, but it's certain that without clarity about it, you will have major problems. Allison shares a ton of great information on this episode, so make sure you budget some time to listen and learn. How Can Customer Success Organizations Prove Their Value? Customer Success Teams want to be able to prove their impact on growth retention and net retention, but what’s the best way to do it? In this conversation, Allison suggests that CS teams prove their impact by putting their reputation and efforts on the line in a financially tangible way. Here's how... when it comes to budgeting time, commit to a higher growth retention target in order to get a larger budget. Then, use that budget to hire the A-players who can make good on your commitment. Imagine the reaction of the board and management when you make that kind of commitment. You’re talking their language - higher profitability and increased bottom line. Then imagine the confidence they will have in your customer success team when you deliver on that commitment. Do you see how you can powerfully prove your impact on the success of the organization? Outline of This Episode [1:49] What you need to know about Allison Pickens, guest on this episode [5:43] What is “customer led selling?” [8:50] How this approach can be implemented broad-scale [11:26] Should companies bake in customer referrals as part of the contract? [13:29] What’s the best way to create a customer advocacy program? [17:43] Who within the organization should handle customer advocacy? [21:01] The benefits of having an idea of the health of your customers [23:20] How are CSM and Sales Managers supposed to work together? [27:31] The growth of customer success directly relates to renewals and growth [30:41] What is the right organizational structure to maximize customer advocacy [34:09] Customer success teams need the recognition they deserve Resources Mentioned Gainsight The Customer Success Podcast NameDrop SalesForce Sangram Vajre CMO of Terminus Allison’s all-time favorite movie: The Matrix Social Business Engine Podcast - Bernie Borges The 10th Annual AA-ISP Leadership Summit - April 3-5, 2018 - use the code “Leadership 1095” Connect with Mario! www.vengreso.com On Facebook On Twitter On YouTube On LinkedIn Subscribe to Selling With Social Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Google Play Join Mario at The 10th Annual AA-ISP Leadership Summit - April 3-5, 2018 - and use the code “Leadership 1095” to get a Vengreso-only discount.

There's a new C-level role in town: the CCO, or Chief Customer Officer. This episode (based on a previous event) is all about the rise of this new role, why it's so important -- and what the actual scope and function of the role should be. a16z's Matt Levy, partner on the exec talent team, discusses with (CCOs all) Allison Pickens of Gainsight; Krista Anderson-Copperman from Okta; and Hatima Shafique from Databricks why it is that the Chief Customer Officer is becoming more prevalent across a number of different kinds of companies; what the strategic value of a CCO is (and how it's actually very different from a VP of Customer Success!); and finally, the career pathing of the Chief Customer Officer.

This week, Aly talks with Amaan Nathoo, Head of CS & Sales at Bonjoro. He provides a way to tackle the issue of customers who seem to ignore your emails by using personalized videos to provide value. He also talks about his approach to onboarding and CS in general and how customer success teams should work with sales. Who Should Listen? This episode is perfect for CS teams who need some inspiration to spice up their onboarding or customer outreach programs. Key Takeaways - The power of personalization. - How to get started shooting video. - How to measure results: Videos vs Emails. - The relationship and handoff between Sales and CS. - Why customers are the best source of CS learning. Resources - Find Aly on Twitter: twitter.com/AlyMahan - Amaan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/amaannathoo - Autopilot Blog: http://blog.autopilothq.com/ Customer Success podcasts that Aly recommends: - Successly Live with Adam O'Donnell - Customer Success Conversations with Adam Joseph - Reduce Churn Live with Kevin Capp - The Customer Success Podcast with Allison Pickens, Gainsight - CSM SuccessCast - Last but definitely not least!

Allison Pickens, Chief Customer Officer at Gainsight, joins me, Jen Spencer to discuss customer success, aligning vendor and partner relationships and more on this episode of The Allbound Podcast. Jen: Hi, everybody. Welcome to The Allbound Podcast. I'm Jen Spencer, and today I'm joined by Allison Pickens, who is the Chief Customer Officer at Gainsight. For everybody who doesn't know Allison, she's been recognized as a top 50 sales leader. She's an Ivy League graduate. She's worked for and advised multiple SaaS companies and has been featured on a variety of podcasts, and even hosts her own. So I'm very happy to have her here with me today. Welcome, Allison. Allison: Thanks so much for having me, Jen. Jen: Oh, I'm so glad to have you here, and I think it would be great if we could just get started with you sharing a little bit about Gainsight and what you guys do.  Allison: Absolutely. Gainsight is a customer success platform, which means that we help you orient all the different departments at your company around the successes of your customer in order to generate higher retention rates, higher expansion rates, and stronger new business through really strong advocacy from your customers.   Jen: Awesome, such a critical element in any SaaS organization. One of the reasons I'm most excited to have you here today is because there has been so much talk in the SaaS industry about customer success and about the intersection of customer success and channel partners. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about where you think customer success can really meet the channel in today's modern SaaS market?   Allison: The topic of aligning with your partners around the success of your customer is one of the hottest topics in the customer success industry right now, everybody is talking about it. I don't think anyone has figured it out quite yet. It's probably one of these trends that will fully emerge, I think, a few years from now. That's probably when we'll see it really widespread. But there are a number of companies that are at the forefront, pushing on their vendor relationship, and the way that they describe their vision for partnering with their channel involves a few elements. So one of them is developing, first of all, a shared sense of accountability for the outcomes of your client, which is a new thing. Expecting partners to be accountable for customer success is a new thing, so that's the first pillar. The second one is they're realizing that in order to work more effectively with their channel partners they have to have a shared 360-degree view of data on their customers. And then, from there, the third element is they want to make sure that they have a shared definition of target for those metrics. What are the KPIs that matter, and what thresholds do we expect our channel partners to achieve with their clients? Finally, the fourth one is about having shared, prescribed playbooks for each stage in the customer journey. As a vendor, what do you expect your channel partners to do at each step?   Some of the leading companies out there that are thinking about this are actually training their partners on these playbooks and ensuring that there's strong buy in. So that's what the vision tends to look like. Again, some of the leading companies in this area are pushing on a few initiatives to try to get to that end stage. One of them involved is first defining the return on investment that your channel partners should expect from investing in customer success. For example, in the SaaS industry and increasingly in other industries, folks take it for granted that you should make your customers happy. If you're a channel partner with a razor-thin reseller margin, it may not be obvious that this is an investment that you should make.   So customer success organizations are helping them put together that ROI model to justify that investment. Secondly, vendors are thinking about, "How do we make sure that we're prioritizing which channel partners we work with to start?" Some channel partners are boutique firms that don't have a ton of resources. Others are large with a robust executive team, and sometimes they have a customer success executive on staff. As you think about profiling your partners, it's worth identifying what are those major attributes that would define a partner that would be most inclined to be successful working with you on this and piloting this customer success initiative so that eventually you can roll it out to a much larger percentage of your channel partners.   Vendors are also thinking about, "How can we develop that shared view of data on our customers? For example, how can we share the upcoming renewals that a channel partner should be focused on? How can we make sure that they're aware of the Net Promoter Score ratings that the end customers have submitted?" So actually, at Gainsight, one of our big focus areas this year when we think about our product roadmap is allowing that type of information sharing to take place.   Finally, on the KPI side, a lot of vendors are thinking about, "How can we actually encourage our partners to think about a customer health score as being a primary measure of customer outcomes that they should aim for?" And even some companies are pushing the envelope and starting to think about, "Should we have dynamic margins for paying partners that are contingent on different levels of health score?" So this is a provocative idea. I haven't seen anyone roll it out yet. I think we're going to see some major changes in these dimensions over the next couple of years.   Jen: It's very exciting. I love how Gainsight is really at the forefront of driving this message and working with these best of breed organizations who are focused on aligning those partners with customer success. You actually recently wrote a blog called "Aligning with Partners on Customer Success." and we're going to make sure we include that in the show notes here. And in it, you talk about the shared responsibility for positive customer outcomes between a partner and the vendor. For a CEO who might be listening to this podcast, or maybe a board member, or somebody who is really thinking about the overall success and health of an organization, can you share your thoughts about the value in aligning those vendor and partner relationships?   Allison: It's hugely important. For so many organizations, they can only afford to hire customer success managers for a portion of their customers, that's the reality. We'd all like to say we've got infinite budget to invest in customer success, but there are real pressures that we have from our executive team and our board. So, especially for large enterprises, we typically see them start to assign customer success managers to their largest customers or maybe the strategic ones mid-market. But often the SMB customers are covered by resellers. So if I'm thinking as a board member of one of these large companies, one of my questions might be, "How do we make sure that we drive up our retention rate in spite of not having people assigned to some segment of our customer base?” And for that reason, actually working with your channel to drive higher retention rates, higher expansion rates is a very powerful initiative. I expect that a lot of executives are going to be focused on this going forward.   One of our clients actually is a really fast-growing SaaS company, and they've grown largely through working with channel partners. They have a pretty small sales team, so their partner organization internally is very critical. They have invested heavily in partner success managers, as well as the partner account manager team, which is focused on helping these partners drive more sales and deals. So, apart from that, they're thinking,"How can we make sure that these end customers are achieving certain milestones along the customer journey?" And the partner success managers are working really closely with the channel partners on that.   Jen: Do you have any specific recommendations for the customer success professionals in these SaaS companies who are beginning to work with partners to help drive customer success, any tips, tricks, feedback you can provide for them?   Allison: Jen, that's a great question. I would say check out the blog post that I wrote together with Chris Doell from Cisco OpenDNS, we've laid out a recommended playbook for steps that you can take right now to start aligning more effectively with your channel. The key is you don't have to boil the ocean from the start. You can pick just a handful of partners that you want to pilot this new initiative with, and they can help you actually prove out your model, iterate, and ultimately roll it out to more partners. I'm a big fan generally of the agile approach to operations, and I think, especially in customer success where we're often figuring things out for the first time, it's especially important to run thoughtful experiments so you can learn very quickly and ultimately, decide on the best practice for your company.   Jen: I think that's really great advice. Being able to really test and prove something out is extremely valuable, especially when we all seem to be going a million miles a minute in all parts of our business. Looking at channel as a whole, I'm wondering if you could comment on some of the biggest challenges or maybe even mistakes that you've seen leaders make when they're growing their channel and maybe the impact that's had on customer success perhaps? Just based on your wealth of experience, what can we learn from?   Allison: I would say don't underestimate how valuable customer success can be for the channel. I mentioned earlier a lot of resellers are struggling with razor-thin margins, but the reality is that many of them are also trying to build services businesses, which tend to have much higher margins, maybe in the 30% or 40% range. So what that means is, if they can develop a customer success program where they become more embedded with their account, the likelihood that they will be able to sell more services actually increases, because given that they're really close to these accounts at this point, they'll be able to identify new opportunities where they can add value and charge for it. Additionally, of course, there's the other value prop which most vendor-based customer success teams tend to see, and you can drive up net retention by a meaningful amount. We see as vendor organizations rise in maturity from stage to stage as we track it at Gainsight, they will experience an 18% point increase in net retention. That's super powerful, and I would imagine that, especially as we start to collect data on this, we will see a similar trend in partner organizations that start to adopt customer success best practices. So I think the key is for us to educate our channel partners on the real nature of this ROI and then start to collect the data afterward.   Jen: Gosh, I can't wait to see that data. That's going to be amazing. One more question for you, and it's pretty simple. What's the most exciting thing about working in a customer success environment?   Allison: For me, the most exciting thing is seeing how many people are succeeding in their careers and achieving new levels of success because the customer success industry has taken off. There are so many people that I've met who were previously in other functions, who perhaps were customer success managers in the really early days, 5 or 10 years ago, who are all now actually in leadership roles, thriving, building large teams and building careers for other people. I think that the career momentum in this space is really powerful, and ultimately I think that's been embodied, especially lately, in the instance of customer success leaders becoming CEOs. We're actually seeing Chief Customer Officers become CEOs. I think ultimately that's such a strong mark of the importance of this function, and also a sign of the really dramatic career growth that a lot of people are experiencing. I find it really inspiring.   Jen: I agree with you as well. It's an exciting time. It's a really innovative space, and I can't wait to see what comes next. This has been so great. Before I let you go, at the end of all our podcasts I ask a couple of more personal questions just so we can get to know you a little bit better. So, I've got four more questions for you if you're ready, really quick.   Allison: Let's do it.   Jen: All right, so first question is, what is your favorite city?   Allison: Honestly, I would say my favorite city is San Francisco. I live in San Francisco, and I really do love it. I think the open-mindedness of folks out here and the innovative spirit are unmatched, and I feel grateful to live here.   Jen: Absolutely, I agree. Question number two, are you an animal lover?   Allison: I am, I love animals.   Jen: Do you have any pets at home?   Allison: I don't, no. I travel a lot to see clients, so it's a little bit tricky to take care of a pet. But I often think about getting a dog actually. If I did get a dog, I would say it'd be a labradoodle. I just think they're adorable. They're fluffy, they're energetic, they're happy, and at some point, I would love to have one.   Jen: Oh, they are adorable. Okay, question number three, Mac or PC?   Allison: Definitely Mac. I used to work in finance actually, and for that PCs at the time were actually far superior to Macs. But nowadays, now that I'm no longer in spreadsheets all day, I'm very happy to be using my MacBook Air.   Jen: Awesome. Okay, last question. Let's say I was able to offer you an all-expenses-paid trip. Where would it be to?   Allison: I would really love to go to the Galapagos. I've been reading a lot about animals lately. I'm actually reading this book that's about how it's very difficult for us as humans to assess accurately the intelligence level of animals. And when you look at the research, it shows that animals are actually a lot more intelligent than we give them credit for. So, over the years, as you mentioned, actually I've become a big animal lover, and I would love to go to the Galapagos, where you can see all sorts of species that you can't find anywhere else and just really appreciate them.   Jen: Oh, that sounds wonderful. Well, thank you so much. Thanks for sharing a little bit about yourself, your insights about customer success and channel partners. It was so great having you. If any of our listeners would like to reach out to you personally after the podcast and maybe connect with you, learn more about customer success and channel, what's the best way for them to reach you?   Allison: You can reach me at my profile on LinkedIn. Feel free to add me to your network. I accept pretty much all customer success-related invitations that I receive, so feel free to connect there.   Jen: All right, wonderful. Make sure you add that personalized invitation. Let them know that you heard Allison on the podcast, so she has a frame of reference. I think that's always helpful. But, again, thank you, Allison. Thanks, everyone else, for tuning in, and we'll catch you next week with an all-new episode.   Allison: Thanks so much, Jen.   Man: Thanks for tuning in to The Allbound Podcast. For past episodes and additional resources, visit the resource center at allbound.com. And, remember, #NeverSellAlone

Allison Pickens carries the customer success torch as the VP of Customer Success & Business Operations at the category leaders, Gainsight. Allison’s organization @ Gainsight includes all post-sales functions: CSMs, Support, Onboarding, Services, and Operations. Prior to Gainsight, she started her career in management consulting for Fortune 500 companies while at Boston Consulting Group and later worked in private equity investing at Bain Capital.  Allison decided that she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to work at Gainsight when Bain Capital led the Series B. In Today’s Episode With Allison You Will Learn: 1.) So let’s start with managing customer churn and I think the first and most important thing is assessing what is regrettable vs non-regrettable. How do you approach this? What is the internal post mortem? How do you identify why they churned? Is there a blame game that follows? How do you instill ramifications but not fear? How do you then look to fix the original problem that caused the churn? 2.) To do the above we need to have a great customer success team so iw ant to talk about the process of building this out and with CS being a new category this is an aspect a lot of founders are addressing at this time. So starting with the obvious? When do you need a customer success team? Where in the organization should the team sit? What's the playbook for rolling it out? How big does the team need to be? Does this vary on sector or funding availability? What are the levels of seniority within the team? What's your budget? How do you account for the costs of your team? What teams sit within the customer success umbrella? 60 Second Saastr produced by Nick Mehta: What surprises you most about customer success now vs a year ago? Importance of fast iterating team? Fave SaaS material, book, blog, podcast? What element of the journey have you found most challenging? Carrying the CS torch? What is it like do you feel the pressure? 3.) Now I want to finish today by discussing the segmentation of your customer base, so at what point in the company's life do you begin segmenting the customers? Why is it important to segment customers? How do you decide the best way to segment them? Should these segments align with the sales team?   If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings Saastr Allison Pickens

Building your initial Customer Success team can be challenging and time consuming without understanding how to properly manage the process. This week on the Bowery Capital Startup Sales Podcast, we are joined by Allison Pickens, the VP of Customer Success and Business Operations at Gainsight, who sheds some light on exactly how she setup and manages the Customer Success team at Gainsight. For those of you that don't know, Gainsight provides a Customer Success software solution and also manages a community of Customer Success leaders. Today, Allison spoke with us about all the do’s and don’ts of establishing a customer success team. In the episode, we cover how to define CS, when to create a customer success team, how to manage your first hire, and even some common pitfalls to look out for. We also discuss the goals of CS and how it should fit into a company to maximize its positive impact. We hope you enjoy learning about “Building your Initial Customer Success Team”. For even more information on Customer Success, visit Allison's blog where she posts weekly on the topic! 

Building your initial Customer Success team can be challenging and time consuming without understanding how to properly manage the process. This week on the Bowery Capital Startup Sales Podcast, we are joined by Allison Pickens, the VP of Customer Success and Business Operations at Gainsight, who sheds some light on exactly how she setup and manages the Customer Success team at Gainsight. For those of you that don't know, Gainsight provides a Customer Success software solution and also manages a community of Customer Success leaders. Today, Allison spoke with us about all the do’s and don’ts of establishing a customer success team. In the episode, we cover how to define CS, when to create a customer success team, how to manage your first hire, and even some common pitfalls to look out for. We also discuss the goals of CS and how it should fit into a company to maximize its positive impact. We hope you enjoy learning about “Building your Initial Customer Success Team”. For even more information on Customer Success, visit Allison's blog where she posts weekly on the topic!