Hi, Markus here. Welcome to a new episode of the Customer-Value-Led-Growth Newsletter.
I help CSMs to show their C-suite what they are really capable of. To grow from invisible to irreplaceable with the CSM Operating System.
The first and only training program that integrates with your tight schedule. 2-minute micro lessons and 1 task per day. Giving you small wins that add up to big results.
Stuck in Time
I keep reading how much has changed in CSM in the past few years. But the biggest problem did not. Proving your ROI to your leadership was the biggest struggle back in 2020 when I started writing about CSM.
And almost 6 years later, it still is. It has potentially become even worse. Because now you have another “competitor”.
In 2020, you had to prove that the product, customer support, and the customers’ own initiatives were not enough to create the outcomes that translate into renewals and expansions.
Now you have to add AI to the equation, making it even harder to make your work visible and your impact undeniable.
In today’s post, you’ll learn why your leadership does not recognize your impact and how to change it.
The wrong Metrics
If you have been following me for a while, you are aware of my aversion to traditional CSM metrics. I consider them inaccurate and misleading at best.
But even if they were correct most of the time, they would still fail at one thing: Providing attributable evidence of your impact.
Most CSM teams are still reporting the same 3 things:
Activities: Calls made, sessions run, QBRs delivered
Sentiment: CSAT, NPS
Outputs: Features adopted, tickets closed, usage trends
Because that’s what you are supposed to. But activities show that you were busy. Sentiment shows how customers felt. The output shows that customers were using the product.
None of it proves that customer renewals and expansions would not have happened without you to your C-suite.
For what they know, the 17 calls you held with the customer over the past 12 months were not about strategic initiatives but about which button to click in what order.
This is another symptom of the CSM identity crisis. The profession wants to be seen as a growth engine, but reports on metrics that label it as a cost center.
The Evidence Trail
No amount of doing more of the same will change your leadership perception. You need to build attributable evidence that renewals and expansions would not have happened without your contribution.
This evidence trail consists of 4 elements:
The Before: Where did customers start in terms of performance?
The After: What have customers accomplished?
Your Actions: What have you specifically done to drive these improvements?
Revenue Impact: How did it affect the customer account value?
Here’s an example:
The customer started with a 33% annual employee turnover, equaling 978k hiring costs
12 months later, it has been reduced to 20%, respectively, 547k annual hiring costs
You helped the customer rebuild Process A, implement program B, and run 3 training sessions that enabled them to solve problem C
As a result, the customer renewed at 100% of the initial price without negotiating and purchased a 25k expansion to solve the next problem
If it were not for you, none of it would have happened. Cause and effect become undeniable due to specific evidence.
Have you made your impact impossible to ignore yet?