Wondering what it takes to move into a customer success position?

Already a CSM, but checking to see if you have these skills?

Read on.

Whether you want to be a CSM or are already a Customer Success professional, these 5 things will make you stand out.

At Wahl+Case we have helped hundreds of candidates land jobs in customer success with companies like AppsFlyer, CircleCI, and many more. Personally, it is one of the positions that I have helped my clients hire the most.

Additionally, I asked Attuned.ai`s Customer Success Team Manager, Miho Breen, what she looks for in the people she hires.

Here are the top 5 skills that get people hired as a Customer Success Manager, as well as strategies for building these skills that you can try today.

*Disclaimer: This is not an intro to what a CSM does. These are specific strategies to get you a customer success job. If you are not familiar with the Customer Success position, please start with our Customer Success Manager position overview.

Alright, let’s get started.

1. Sales Skills OR Technical Skills (or both)

Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed there are 6 pictures in the title card, that is because there are two paths that can lead you to get hired as a CSM.

I grouped them together because you need to have either a sales background or technical experience to get hired as a CSM. If you have both you are ahead of the pack.

Sales Skills

This one may seem a bit counterintuitive because in our guide to sales positions I mention that a CSM doesn’t have sales targets, but part of your role will be to cross-sell and upsell new features and products.

This means you need to know how to use empathetic listening to understand your client’s needs and show them the best ways your solution can solve their problems.

Skill Building Strategies:

How can you get good at sales if you are not client facing? Here are some places to start.

Sales is not just selling. Think back to your week, have you had to ask for a favor? I am betting you did, and so did Dan Pink, Author of To Sell is Human, which gives great strategies on how to improve your sales abilities. Give it a read (or listen) to get started on your sales journey.

Ask More Questions. Sales is more about empathy today than ever before, so you need to hone your listening skills, how do you do that? By asking more open-ended questions! “How do you feel about that?”, “What is on your mind?”, “What else?” You will be surprised at how much people are willing to share. We will dive into this more in the section on coaching.

Learn to Influence. Sales can be seen as exerting influence, so why not read the book on the behavioral economics of just that: Influence — The Psychology of Persuasion. Robert Cialdini wrote this book to raise awareness of the tactics that salespeople are using to influence us, so it is a great place to start!

Technical Background

Many Customer Success positions will be at least somewhat technical.

This means you need to have in-depth product knowledge, so having an understanding of the internal workings of the software will be valuable.

Skill Building Strategies

Ideally, you would be working in a technical role to get experience, but if not, here are some places to build a coding skill set.

Code Chrysalis - We may be biased, because we have worked with Code Chrysalis in the past, but we have helped their graduates get the types of positions you are looking for! Give them a shot if you are looking to get more technical in your work.
Swithup’s Best Coding Bootcamps of 2021 - The top three coding bootcamps as rated by Switchup. What is Switchup you ask? “Since 2014, SwitchUp has been a trusted source for helping people identify their ideal bootcamps”
Youtube - Ok, you probably could have guessed this one. There are dozens of free coding courses on Youtube, here is a playlist of great beginner coding courses to get you started.

2. CUSTOMER OBSESSION

This is the most obvious skill. It is even one of Amazon’s 14 leadership principles.

Customer obsession is not exclusive to working in customer success, but it is one of the most important skills you need to get hired as a CSM.

Think about how you have gone above and beyond for your customers (if you are a b2b tool provider, this can be your direct customers or the end user). Be sure to track the ways you are able to improve a customer’s experience and how you have adapted your service to the needs of your customers.

A big part of the CSM skillset is anticipating the issues that your clients will have and then solving them before they are encountered. This combines product knowledge and empathetic listening into what companies like AppsFlyer and Amazon have dubbed “customer obsession.”

Skill Building Strategies

Although this may seem a bit more abstract, it is important to keep in mind that you can get better at understanding your customers even if you are not directly interfacing with them. Here are some ways you can work on becoming more customer-centric:

Practice empathy. Put yourself in the shoes of your direct customers, what problem is your product really solving for them? How can you solve even more problems or where are their bottlenecks affecting their experience?

Now, work on solving those issues within the scope of your own work. If you are not sure where to start, ask more questions!
The extra mile. If you are already in a customer-facing role, think about how you can go above and beyond for your customers, providing them with the best experience that will make them want to share their story with their community and come back for more.
Internal customer service. If you are working in a back end or technical position, use your product knowledge to make a guide that helps your customers better understand how to use the product or find a way to more effectively communicate across teams to help boost the efficiency of the customer experience.

3. DATA

SQL, R, and / or PYTHON.

This one is huge. You don’t need to be a data scientist, but if you want to get hired you need to have a familiarity with at least one of these tools (the more the better).

It is easy to say that you are data-centric, but one of the most common reasons I saw people getting rejected was because they could not show that they have been trying to get familiar with data and this software.

After a few rejections, I always made sure to have the people I was working with study these tools on their own.

Skill Building Strategies

There are plenty of free resources to get familiar with the basics, here are a few to get you started:

SQL: Codecademy, Udemy, Coursera

R: Datacamp, Coursera, 5 Free R Programming Courses for Data Scientists

Python: Learnpython.org, Top 10 Websites to Learn Python Programming for FREE in 2021, Scrimba

4. COACHING, TRAININGS, AND PRESENTATIONS

As a CSM you will be the living breathing instruction manual for your customers.

This means you need to be able to effectively lead customers through implementation, new features, updates, and any other changes and challenges that they may encounter when using your product.

Skill Building Strategies

This may seem hard if you are only in an entry-level or internal-facing position, but there are opportunities if you get creative. Here are a few ideas to help you get into the right mindset:

Youtube tutorials. Have a hobby that you are passionate about? Start a youtube channel diving into the knowledge you have around the subject. Here is a great resource for how to make videos.
Internal training sessions. Are you an expert at a certain part of your job? Ask your manager if you can hold a training or a series of trainings to help get others on your team up to speed.
Teach your parents. Want to gain new skills (like SQL, R, or Python)? Take some of the courses I mention in the data skills section and then try to teach your friends or family about what you learned.

5. NAVIGATING HIGH-LEVEL CONVERSATIONS

Being assertive and having confidence.

Almost all companies have roleplays in their interview process. In these role-plays, one of my clients was infamous for asking questions that they knew the interviewee would not be able to answer.

On the surface, it looked like she just wanted to see the candidates squirm, but the real purpose was to see how the interviewee would handle navigating such a question from a client. Were they comfortable guiding the conversation back to where they wanted it to be? How would they say that they didn’t know? Would they lie and make up an answer?

Skill Building Strategies

So how do you get experience navigating high-level conversations? Well, what the interviewer was really looking for was the ability to stay confident in situations where they were put under pressure and the assertive instincts to be able to stay on track with what needs to be covered. So here are a few places you can start:

Ask your CEO out to lunch. If you are friends that should be easy. If you have never spoken, even better, you will definitely feel nervous, but that is the exact feeling you are trying to overcome. It doesn’t need to be a serious conversation, just make it a casual chat.
Roleplay the roleplay. If you are working with a recruiter, ask them to have a trial roleplay with you and not to hold back on some of the more technical aspects of the product. You can practice guiding the conversation back to the areas that you are intended to cover. Any one of our career consultants on the AdTech, Enterprise Tech, or Client Facing Engineering team here at Wahl+Case will be happy to help you improve your communication skills!
Talk to your customers or clients. Often when you are talking with a client it will feel like they hold all of the power in the conversation, so practice respectfully standing your ground by being assertive and making it clear why you are the expert and why they should trust your insights.

Conclusion

Customer Success Manager is one of the most in-demand positions with the huge increase in SaaS companies, so if you want to get into the industry these 5 skills will definitely help get you hired.

If you would like to learn more about how to get a job in Customer Success, please get in touch with us here.