What To Do If Your Customer Doesn't Appreciate You (#11)
1 Simple Way To Get More Love and Recognition For All You Do As a CSM
Trivia Time: What film made its debut in 1993, and it also marked Vince Vaughn's debut in a movie? Despite the fact that he was not the main actor, the popular film set in the Midwest discusses hard work, adversity, and believing in yourself.
3…2…1…
Did you get it?
Answer: Rudy
In 1993, Food Network debuted on television, Jurassic Park was the most popular film, and the Dallas Cowboys won the Super Bowl.
Rudy, once it debuted in 1993, also captured the hearts of many families and moved many grown men to tears (including yours truly)
So, today, we’ll do 2 things:
I’m breaking down a psychological phenomenon known as The Labor Effect. You and I will learn how to use this one simple phenomenon during our interactions with customers to get them to appreciate our hard work. Just like how millions of people appreciated Rudy.
And we’ll also meet one of my really smart CSM friends… it’s going to be fun :)
What I’m learning:
Customers can be demanding - "Can you do X?" "This has to be fixed right away" "This is very important"
You try hard to find a solution, but all you hear back is "Great, okay, now we have this problem..."
They don't always realize how hard it was to find the answers they were looking for.
But after learning about the Labor Effect, I think I now know why -
The Labor Effect says that users are more likely to trust and value results when they are shown to them after a delay and along with the work that is being done for them.
Example: One group of trip-booking website users saw the result without the process. The other group waited 30 to 60 seconds and then saw animations of the website fetching information for the user. Users preferred the second site because they could see the work being done.
People like to see reciprocal effort when they enter information.
A quick result indicates lack of effort.
Check out this snippet from educative.io that illustrates with concept popular apps like Tinder & Grammarly:
So, why should you care?
When CSMs tell me outside of work that they don't think their customers appreciate what they do, I usually find that it's because they don't talk about how they're working for the customer and how hard they're trying to get them the answer they need.
They answer the customer’s question, but they don’t show them the work they’re doing to show how they got to the answer in the first place
It's like when your math teachers wouldn't let you turn in an answer without writing down the steps you took to get there.
The labor effect studies have shown that customers don't value the answers they get because they don't feel like any effort was put into finding a solution.
Example of how I embed the labor effect time to time:
I had a customer ask - “your product doesn’t have X. Can you help me figure this out?”
My response: “Correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like you’re asking X. It’s a good question - let me meet with my engineering team to figure out a creative solution, or a creative workaround”
Customer - “Okay, thanks!”
My response after I learned that we couldn’t accomplish what they needed:
Hi team - wanted to follow up on this - in order to add a participant re: [outcome the customer wanted], each team member must have access to license to initiate [Y request]. This was determined after I spoke with our sales engineers and product management manager regarding any creative workarounds.
One of the managers did want me to ask/relay - "Is there a reason why the internal teams use this specific workflow? Is there a reality where Ops switches to [insert our product] to allow for [X] functionality with demos that have been requested? [Your current product] is great; they do a lot. Is the ops team tied to the [X] functionality or did it come with the enterprise package they purchased, and the [Y] system is more valuable in [X product] than the [internal product] itself?"
The response probably doesn’t make much sense when I’ve taken out confidential information, but that’s not the point…
Take note of how I communicate and demonstrate what I'm doing, as well as who I'm bringing in to get the answers they're looking for
Like the main idea in Rudy, Pixar, and The Labor Effect, I'm telling people about the work I'm doing so that my customers will respect me more for trying.
Try using this more and let me know how this small change has affected your interactions with customers.
Meet my Smart CSM Friend - Ella Wade
Meet Ella Wade. A rockstar in the CSM field.
I’m a big believer in where you work does not define your identity.
Ella works for a great company.
Ella is incredibly smart.
I care about how Ella thinks so I asked her Ella 3 questions:
1) Could you teach us a specific process you've implemented within your role that has made an impact on your quota? If you're non quota carrying CSM, can you tell us about a process that has made a positive impact on your ability to excel at your job?
Ella: Hi! Non-quota carrying CSM, my team structure is a little different! Since we are subscription based (non-tiered) SMB SaaS, primarily the work my mighty team of 4 (I am the only CSM, but not in the traditional role sense, and I have 3 leads that report to me) and we focus primarily on webinars and scalable growth education. (our member base grew from ~10k > tens of thousands of members in the ~2 years I've been at GlossGenius).
I think introducing education points for customers considering their industry, learning style, and retention can be overlooked! I did a decent bit of research to find a mid-priced webinar software that would allow for on-demand, semi-live (automated start and video with live chat moderator), as well as live events (both with breakout session and webinar style!) The idea was to use the analytics from attendance, replay, email reminders, etc all with our custom brand voice to match the timing of what works well as well as understanding if the impact of the education drove our customers to activate. By introducing scalable process that 1) can fit a growing audience and 2) can address that audience at a convenient time, it’s been a smashing hit getting more views and members onboarded with less 1:1 work needed!
NLCS thoughts: I love the hybrid approach of utilizing technology to deliver a scalable solution while also incorporating humans. This makes me consider how I can incorporate more of these into my work with Loom and/or Vidyard in order to implement a scalable process without losing the human touch.
2) Do you have a "favorite failure?" A failure that once seemed like a set back, but set you up for success later in life?
Totally! This one relates to interpersonal skills and working with others. When I first started working post college, I had this idea that everyone would be warm and welcoming to a person who was willing to be friendly to them - because why not? I hadn't wronged them! In my first role I learned quickly that many people look to build trust and have initial skepticism about new people, and as a result, were initially closed off. In time I sought to understand and not take things personally, but rather meet them where they are. The same approach can/should be brought to clients!
There is an unmistakable opportunity and responsibility for a CSM to establish value and build trust early on. We have the pleasure of interacting with folks from a variety of backgrounds, with little time to know their story upfront, but a lot of opportunities to understand underlying queues that could better a working relationship. Does this person always respond at a certain period of time of day? Are we accommodating time zones and sending meeting times in their local timezone, utilizing easy email tools like schedule send, and providing established promised response times? All of these efforts introduce a level of respect right from day 1, which has worked for me!
NLCS thoughts: The actions you describe are excellent examples of meeting customers where they are. Thank you for being tactical and providing examples with schedule send, accommodating time zones etc!!
3) Picture your most successful CSM colleague. What skills do they not have that, if they got them in the next three months, would make them one of the best? (This question can help people get ahead in their careers and improve their quality of life by giving them a chance to identify skills that even the top performers are still developing)
Understanding your data :) I think these is a base level of data analysis required for this job, to be able to tell your story and speak to your effectiveness with customers. Rather than stop at a dashboard, I would love to dip my toe into learning how to make a SQL query - since at a start-up we are a little DIY!
NLCS thoughts: Well said, I think our job as CSMs is to become masterful storytellers. When it comes to data, the storytelling helps the data feel alive and ensures that the message it's conveying is meaningful and relevant.
That’s it for this week
Reply back - how can I help you this week? :)
Today, you and I learned:
A psychological phenomenon known as The Labor Effect. We learned how to use this one simple phenomenon during our interactions with customers to get them to appreciate our hard work. Just like how millions of people appreciated Rudy.
And we met one of my really smart CSM friends… Ella Wade
Every week, I dedicate over 80 hours to learning or practicing CS best techniques so that I can distill it all into a <5-minute read for you.
Think of this newsletter as the friend you had in college who goes to all the lectures and takes detailed notes so you don't have to miss out on your fun while I do all the work.
I spend a lot of time making sure I write something that brings value to you.
The best compliment you could pay NLCS would be to share it with one person who would find this content valuable.
If you know any Customer Success professionals who could benefit from this level of transparency, I would love to bring them into our small circle of people who care about Customer Success. Please feel free to forward this article and others from the NLCS (New Laws of Customer Success) universe to grow our tight-knit community one person at a time.
Sending you great vibes -
Ya boi / friend @ NLCS. That’s it for this week :)
