CSMs: How to Host a Successful Customer Account Review
As the role of a Customer Success Manager has become more and more essential to the ongoing growth and success of both customers and overall organizations, the ongoing responsibilities of CSMs have also evolved. In addition to managing the day-to-day health and support of customer accounts, CSMs are tasked with building a strategic vision for customers and reviewing future challenges, wins, and opportunities.
What is a customer account review?
Customer account reviews can happen on a quarterly, bi-annual, or even annual basis. These strategic meetings are a chance for customer stakeholders (including executive sponsors, primary contacts, and other vital resources) to meet with resources from across a vendor team – sales and strategic account representatives, implementation teams, product teams, etc. – to make sure things are on track. There are three main areas to focus on during a customer account review:
- Challenges: What are some challenges the customer has experienced with the product, the team, or the organization? Talk about some of the customer’s roadblocks and outline potential avenues for overcoming these issues.
- Wins: Where has the customer met or even exceeded their goals on your platform? Highlight key wins, metrics, and data that showcase how your platform has helped the customer reach their strategic goals.
- Opportunities: How can the customer continue to be successful and expand their strategic opportunities on your platform? Discuss potential upsell opportunities, growth ideas, and new ways for the customer to continue to innovate with your product.
Tips for hosting a successful account review
Whether once a month or once a year, getting all of your internal and customer stakeholders in one room (or at least on one call) should be worth it for all involved. Here are some tips for hosting a successful customer account review:
- Make sure everyone who needs to be there can make it. Send out your meeting invite well in advance and include any stakeholders who will find value. Specifically, request attendance from customer resources with whom you may otherwise not have a chance to connect.
- Build a detailed agenda and attach it to the meeting invite. If you’re going to make a big deal about attendance and making it worth people’s while, then they should know what it is you’ll be discussing and what they will be able to learn during this meeting.
- Don’t shy away from tough topics. Account reviews are supposed to be a deep-dive into all aspects of a customer account, including the challenges. Tackle customer issues head-on, but always have an action plan or strategic response on deck to discuss.
- Follow up with clear action items. Chances are that attendees on both sides of the meeting will have to-dos after your review. Send out a detailed follow-up with action items for your internal team and customers to tackle, along with timelines and due dates for accountability.
Want to learn more?
While most day-to-day CSM responsibilities are focused heavily on implementation and maintenance, account reviews are an excellent opportunity for CSMs to explore their strategic side and help customers realize a product’s full potential. You can learn more about hosting strategic customer reviews and meetings with these additional resources from ClientSuccess: