Cara Benecke: The Future of Customer Success Management in the Age of AI

Speaker A: Welcome to Customer Success with Fahim Wahler, Norway's first and only customer success podcast. I'm Fahim. I'm um, the CEO and founder of Customer Catalyst, an all in one customer success platform. I've spent the last decade in SaaS helping teams drive real results through customer success. And on this show I will sit down with top CS leaders from around the world to share practical insights, strategies and tools you can use right away. From best practices to the latest tech, we make customer success simple, auctionable and inspiring. Welcome to another episode of Customer Success with Fahim Waller. Today I'm excited to welcome Cara Beneke to the show. Cara is an accomplished customer success leader currently heading the CS and support teams at Workflex. She's recognized as a top 100 customer success strategist. She's also a sought after speaker and advocate for remote work. So uh, Kara, welcome to the show.

Speaker B: Yeah, thanks for having me. Faim.

Speaker A: Really, really excited to speak uh, with you today. You post a lot of great content on Linked. Actually our first, first notice here. So I'm really happy to talk to you today.

Speaker B: Thank you. I'm trying my best to actually post something interesting so thank you for that.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think I found it interesting. It's not so, so easy to find time to post on LinkedIn all the time, but I think uh, I think you have a lot of valuable stuff to say. So uh, before, before we dive into today's episode, uh, could you please just introduce yourself a little bit to our listeners? Maybe a little bit about your role at workflex and of course a little bit about yourself.

Speaker B: Yeah, sure. So um, yeah, my name is Cara, I'm head of customer success and support at workflex. Workflex is a startup scale up. We're a uh, compliance software and uh, yeah I've been with workflex since the very beginning. So one of the first employees and have set up the entire customer success strategy and team and also took over then support and yeah, very fast, fast growing company so I'm never really bored. My, my career didn't start in customer success I think with a lot of people that are now in customer success starting the same. I actually started in marketing and then uh, yeah came into retail sales, key account management. Did that for uh, almost eight years and then um, yeah sort of hopped into the startup world and then made my way to customer success and that's where I am today.

Speaker A: Really interesting. I actually saw a post you did today Kara, with uh, I think you said you wanted to be a brand Manager and then you found your love for cs but it looked like things worked out in the end for you.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I think it's also quite normal. I'm still surprised how nowadays we expect from 17, 18 years old to decide what they want to do the rest of their life. So I think you have to find your destination in the end.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And customer success. You know, I talk with a lot of customer success managers and customer success leaders and it's not, it's not like you know, any of us. I think uh, Anneke Zuber said it, uh, said it uh, in a great way. It's not like anyone you know, did go to school to become a customer success manager.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker A: So it's like we have to find our way uh, ourselves. And I started with sales actually and I think that has helped me a lot. But Mark marketing is really, really interesting. It would also be interesting to hear about, you know, how we have set up your function at workplace. We don't need to go in complete detail but I think a lot of our listeners are, are interested in, to talk with, you know, customer success leaders in the, in the frontiers. Right. Who actually do the work. So I think that's really, really looking forward to speaking with you today. Um, yeah, you know, when it comes to customer success there's a lot of things happening. You, you obviously, you know, you're a sort of speaker. I saw you spoke at the Artist Circus event. And women in customer success. What are your thoughts about you trends in our field in customer success? Is there anything you're exciting about, anything that's happening you want to talk about?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think a no brainer is definitely AI. Right. And I think it's not just relevant for customer success but probably all of departments. And our co founder said something very interesting last week. He said AI is not going to replace you at work, but somebody who knows how to use AI is probably going to replace you. So I think we really need to make it part of our job no matter what. And that's quite challenging uh, because not everybody's super open to AI. So currently for example at workflex, we are really pushing it from the leadership team.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: It's sort of our new uh, task, you know, to get adoption with an AI and um, it's a little bit of a behavioral change as well for us. Right. So I think there's a lot of vibe and buzz around AI but what does it really mean for me as, I don't know for me especially as a head of customer success, but Also for the csms, what does it really mean like to my, from my day to day, is it just using ChatGPT to write my mails a little bit uh, better or is it really using AI tools to get reporting, to get insights or whatever. So I think that's definitely something. If you don't adapt to AI, you're definitely going to be behind. If not, you're already behind in the present if you're not using it.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, completely agree. Do you have some concrete examples of how you're using AI at Workflux? You use some sort of you know, note takers or uh. It was interesting to hear.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. So we use nothing for sure and we've also seen it saves us a lot of time right to not take notes. We also use AI within support. Maybe it's not so much customer success but obviously we have a support agent that we train, etc. Which also saves us a lot of time and resources. Um, we also use things like Lovable for reporting and creating our own AI agents, uh also for internal things. We're launching AI agents for clients on different kind of topics, use cases. Um, I'm a huge fan of AI when it comes to getting like a good insight of what the customer's health uh, score looks like or health looks like in general, getting information from support tickets but also emails, meetings, etc. So I think that's also very, very strong tool. Yeah, we're just looking all the time like non stop what kind of tools or AI tools we can use.

Speaker A: Yeah, actually using Lovable as well. Yeah. Ah cool. To uh, create your own AI agents. That's, that's, that's really interesting. I think there's a lot of potential in the you know, the agentic future of AI to actually get an AI who can you know complete tasks and not only be a, you know um, with chat, I use Chat GPT every day obviously to, to help me with stuff. Same here. Yeah so it's like that's a, that's a no brainer. I actually tried to, I uh, didn't try. I made uh, just a simple custom GPT, just a ah, customer success GPT. So that's, that's some fun stuff. But I think the agentic way um, forward is really interesting. I haven't seen a lot of um, for customer success AI agent but I'm really looking forward to see what develops over time. Well that's interesting. So yeah obviously uh, AI is ah, uh a big one. One of the things that I've noticed is when Automatization and AI is becoming a huge thing. How do you feel about the role of the customer success manager and head of customer success? Do you think that's, uh, obviously we don't want to be replaced. I think that puts, I wouldn't say pressure, you know, forces the customer success managers to maybe, you know, develop in a different way. What are your thoughts about, you know, the role of customer success in the, in the AI age?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think, uh, and I mean, we just talked about a previous the podcast. Right. So I think especially in Europe, we were a little bit behind with customer success. When you compare it to America, for example.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, you were saying Nordics is still a little bit behind when it comes to Germany, etc. So I think one important point, uh, within customer success is that it needs to be a revenue driver and they need to be linked to revenue and so still see customer success managers that are measured on NPS scores or health scores. And I think we definitely need to change that. It's changing. Right. So, um, a lot of customer success leaders are measured with revenue numbers. And I think we were always a little bit scared of being measured of revenue numbers. I mean, you come from sales, I also come from sales, so I did marketing, but another eight years sales key car management. And for me it was clear when I built, uh, customer success at work flex and I want to have a seat at the table. I need to, you know, have the big number as one of my targets as well, which is revenue. Right. If you don't have impact on revenue, you're never going to be important. You're always going to be seen as a cost center. And I think that actually also starts with the customer success managers themselves. I feel like sometimes they don't feel like they have an impact on revenue because they're so busy with onboarding clients with tickets even I get very allergic when I had a customer success managers do tickets. But yeah, they're just running behind, you know, putting out fires, et cetera. So I think if you really want to be successful as a customer success team, you need to find a time to be able to have an impact also on those big numbers like, like revenue, net revenue retention, et cetera.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's a common thing with amongst, you know. Yeah, pretty much all the customer success leaders I've spoken with, uh, the last couple of years is, you know, tie customer success with your reven. And I think I feel like my, my audience probably gets a little bit tired of me talking about, you know, the commercialization of customers.

Speaker B: No, no, that's the truth.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's, it's, it's fine that we just, we just have to hammer that uh, you know, that, that message home. But it's uh, yeah, I completely agree. It's what I've been saying for the last couple of, couple of years. And I also talked about this in its previous podcast episodes. I was also called, you know, accused of being too commercial from one one CS leader. But for me it's like it's a no brainer. Right. You have to have some sort of commercial. You'd have to tie, tie customer success to some sort of commercial aspects. And obviously, you know, different, uh, customer success teams might do this different. For some customer success teams it's not right that the customer success managers owns all the revenue responsibilities and maybe they don't carry their own quotas and stuff like that. But for some CS teams it might be more reasonable that they actually own all the customer success. Uh, sorry, the commercial responsibility. I think it also depends on the complexity of the problem product you're selling. So if it's a fairly uh, you know, non complex product, maybe this is more suitable for the customer success team. You know, highly complex system that creates, that needs a lot of sales expertise. I think it's wise that we have some key account managers or even maybe some sales reps to help you. But I think it's important to have that discussion.

Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. And I was really surprised because I used to be a key account manager within retail. So I used to sell detergent and fabric, uh, conditioner to UK supermarkets like white labeling. And I was back then sales and custom success in one person. Right. So I had to hunt and I had to farm and I was super surprised when I came into the startup world and the software SaaS World and I was like, you serious? So once they've created a relationship and agreed to work together, it goes to a different person. Like what?

Speaker A: Okay, you were shocking.

Speaker B: Yeah. What a cut in the relationship. Right. But um, it's in the, in the end both teams uh, of revenue team sales and customer success, so they tied up to revenue. Right. And, and I think that's something. I don't know, I'm really curious. Maybe you also have an opinion of if that is maybe going to change at some point where we don't have sales and customer success divided anymore. But we're actually going this key account management approach where we're like, okay, no, no, no, you close it but you keep on expanding it. Right?

Speaker A: Yep, yep.

Speaker B: And so I don't know what your thoughts on it on it are, but I think it. Sometimes I see like there's a huge, it's a huge. Yeah, could can be quite dangerous when you have that point of contact change and to get the momentum right in both teams, both think long term and keep on working on expansion.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's a classic uh, that's a classic issue in customer success. So I think to answer that, I think it depends really on the organization. For me, what I found in the last 10 years working in customer success, it's difficult to find all of these qualities in the same person. So if you want to have a commercial person person and this person also has to be, you know, really customer friendly and have the technical background and be a strategic advisor, it's difficult to have all this packed up in the same person. But I see some obvious, you know, benefits with. Let's say you are a, uh, customer success manager at the, you know, a SaaS company and you are actually closing the client. You are onboarding the client and you also do the follow up with the client. Just you know, obviously have a lot of, a lot of good things about it. But uh, I just find it, I haven't seen this done in, in uh, in a lot of companies. I think there's, there's some reason for it. Right. So it also comes Back to the KPIs. How do you measure this person?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Should they, you know, have a quota for the. How many new bookings do they have? How many clients are they getting in? Should they have some onboarding? Should they have some, like you said, NPS or you know, some sort of satisfaction score? So it's, it's difficult to have all of this in the same person, but it's an interesting conversation to see if maybe this is, you know, as the customer success, you know, world is maturing, maybe this is something that uh, you know, it blends more and a lot of the, you know, clients I have worked with, with in my consulting practice has been, you know, how do we fix the relationship between sales and customer success? To have a smooth handover from, from sales and to customer success, you know, that issue completely disappears if that's the same person. I don't know if I answered anything, but it's interesting to, you know, to think a little bit about and have uh, a conversation about.

Speaker B: Yeah, and I've just. And I mean it goes both ways, right? It goes customer success being more revenue driven, but it also goes sales being more long term oriented and not only on Closing. So I've read, um, I think it was a couple of days ago that HubSpot, for example, their sales managers and their commission is measured on long term revenue. So if there's a down sale of a customer that they close will also go in as a negative in their quota, which I totally love. Right. Because that definitely also solves a lot of issues of you know, sales overselling, thinking long term, et cetera, et cetera. So and I think that's, that's probably going to, going to happen. Right. The KPIs are also going to be more intertwined, more put together. So both are actually working more in one direction rather than having those silos that we obviously, you know, they still exist. You know, they're never 100% gone. But I really loved the approach when I read it from, from HubSpot.

Speaker A: From HubSpot. That's interesting. I saw a similar case with a, uh, customer I worked with a couple of years uh, ago. What they did there is that, you know, the, the key account manager or the new seller, uh, is more uh, correct to say, you know, responsible for the contract for the first year. And after the first year, you know, the CSM's responsibilities obviously creates a lot more, you know, you can't just sell something, just okay, I have my commission. I don't want to speak to you no more. You have to actually, you know, think long term. So that's interesting that HubSpot does this. That's uh, really interesting. Obviously the, you know, the sales and custom success, you know, cooperation is something that a lot of customer success organization here in Norway and in the Nordics as well. I'm sure this is important, uh, obviously.

Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. Totally agree.

Speaker A: I was wondering about, you know, if you could tell me a little bit about how you are because you have set up the customer success, you know, function at workflex. Do you have some, you know, some key learnings there? Just some, something interesting. Maybe something that works, worked great for you, maybe something that hasn't worked so great. It would be really interesting to hear some uh, some insights there.

Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. So I think one key learning was you cannot do it all at the same time. So obviously when you set something up, there's so much to do, so much you want to do, but you know, you have to go step by step and you really have to tell yourself, slow down. Step by step, do the most important things first and then you can start doing other things. So the way I started was what is the most important thing for customers that make them successful and that made them stay with us. So I went into like data analysis and had a look at you know, why the clients churn, why did clients renew, rider, clients expand. And it turned out that one, the most important thing was onboarding. Like if the client was onboarded. And we are a tool that is used for international business trips and international remote work trips like vacations.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: So it's sort of like benefits but also more compliance part when it comes to international business trip. So it's something that the employees use but our main point of contact is usually HR or global mobility. So if they have implemented the tool well enough within their own company, chances are very, very low that they're ever going to let us go because they could straightaway see the extra value. So and that was what I concentrated on. I tried to you know, perfectionize our onboarding, make it more efficient. Worked on a very, very long time. It's probably the first two to three months. I only looked at our onboarding.

Speaker A: I think that's smart.

Speaker B: That's definitely something. I think what was also we were quite lucky because I did sales and customer success. I had uh, a hybrid role before. I then moved into only customer success. And that was very good because that meant you know, I understood the sales people and there wasn't really a silo in the beginning. Uh and also because I come from sales, right. I straight away it's set it up like a sales function even or revenue function.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: And I think that made it really, really close. So for example we don't just have a sales wins channel where we push, you know, when we close a new clients we have a sales and CS win channel because it's, you know, we always see it as one revenue team. And, and I think that that makes us also very strong because we closely uh, work together. Also have a lot of fuck ups. Definitely that's part of it. That's part of it. You know, it's part of it. Exactly. And I think one other learning I really had was you know, make, make Bo like it doesn't have to be perfect. Start with something. I think product teams have a rule like if you don't launch it and you're not embarrassed about what you launched and you're already too late.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: I wouldn't maybe go that far because we know we're a little bit more. But uh, just do it, do it and then you can reiterate, you can improve it. Be sure, make sure that you're close to your customers to get feedback and yeah, those are definitely learnings that I, that I had during the first couple of months.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's really interesting. And I find, uh, yeah, I completely agree. Just, I also, you know, set up customer success departments from scratch and obviously helped other CS teams as well with their customer success, uh, emotions. And yeah, I think there's a lot of, you know, I don't know if I should call it share, but it's, it's insecurity when it comes to customer success. There's a lot of, you know, information. There's a lot of influencers, there's a lot of, you know, different opinions. How should we do this? And for.

Speaker B: Oh, yes. Yeah.

Speaker A: For Nordic customer success leaders, I feel like, you know, a lot of you have a lot of great customer success leaders, obviously, that they are doing a lot of, you know, cool stuff at a really advanced level. But I feel like the majority is, you know, it creates some sort of insecurity there. Where should I start? Do I have the right, uh, you know, should I segment my customer base this way? But I read a blog post about this. You know, how should the onboarding. It's for me, you know, when I talk to clients and what has worked for me as well is, you know, just keep it simple. Just go back to what is customer success actually about? You know, you can, you can add a lot of fancy health scoring, you know, optimization, AI can, you know, playbook success plans. You can do a lot of fancy stuff in the end, but just start with something simple. Just look at your customers. How does a, uh, successful customer, uh, look like for my company? What defines success for them? Right? And just have some. And you have to duplicate that process with all of your customers. Just, just start with that and then we can talk about how you can do it even more advanced. Because I think a lot of, you know, CS team start maybe on the other side of the spectrum. Like, you know, let's just go with the CS platform. Let's just go with optimization with AI. Right. But I always advise customer success. Uh, people I talk to, you know, do the basics right first and then the, you know, the rest will naturally follow. What does success look like for your customers and onboarding? I think it's really smart that you're focused on onboarding. That's a lot of, you know, obviously a lot of research that this is a really important stage. So, uh, yeah, that's interesting. How do you, um, when it comes to, you know, the customer journeys and, you know, segmentation strategies, stuff like that view, uh, there's something interesting there. Or was it like onboarding was the most important for you?

Speaker B: No, obviously. So I also laid out the customer journey. So, you know, so, like, okay, what touch points do, uh, our customers, uh, currently have? Like onboarding, adoption, expansion, renewal, and for example, we have very strong advocates as well. So I knew that already from sales because they were always my reference calls that I asked, you know, to get new clients. Yeah, exactly. But now definitely super important thing. I mean, I also do some consultancy, right. So that's the first thing that I do. The exercise when we lay out customer success is like, okay, let's have a look what your customer base looks like. Let's have a look. How would we segment them? Like, is it by ARR revenue, is it by size, is it by use case? Uh, you know, what makes sense. So that's one of the workshops I usually then do. And then I do the customer journey with them. And the most surprising thing, I don't know if you've seen it as well with your consultant project. The onboarding everybody knows about. So everybody has an onboarding process. Renewal also sometimes. But where they're totally lost is adoption. Uh, there's nobody who takes care of, like, making sure that the client gets the value, keeps using the product, etcetera, and so forth. And, uh, that's really worrying. So when I first found it out with a couple of projects I did, I was like, the most important part. I mean, onboarding is very important, right? You set the stone and the path a little bit. But adoption, which is the one of, you know, adoption. I mean, the renewal already starts when you're in adoption, sort of, and they already start with an adoption if they're going to, you know, keep going with you. A lot of CS teams don't really have playbooks, rules, you know, look at any indicators, et cetera. So that's what I also try to map out in the customer journey. Okay, what are triggers or what are, uh, metrics, KPIs that make me know that the client is successful in that phase, like onboarding. What's the KPI? I don't know. For example, usually our onboarding takes a month. You know, if it takes longer than a month, then it's already assigned. Ooh, this client is running behind an adoption. What is it?

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker B: What are triggers where I can see there's potential expansion? Are they adding more users? Are they, you know, um, depends a little bit, obviously on the product that you sell. But that's also definitely something that I would recommend everybody to do when you set up a customer function to really go and have a look at it from the customer side, from the customer's perspective, and then, you know, find the KPIs within the company that, uh, can define if the customer's successful in each stage.

Speaker A: Really interesting about the adoption. I feel I, uh, laugh because I feel the same way. There's a lot of emphasis on the onboarding stage and rightfully so. It's obviously important. What I have found is the renewal phase hasn't been, at least for, you know, the clients I work with hasn't been. And a lot of the contracts are auto renewed, so it's not a huge thing for the customers I have worked with. But you know, in the, let's say you have a customer lifecycle stage that's called, you know, value realization or growth stage, that's obviously, you know, the people, you know, understand what that is about. But adoption. Yeah, that's true. It's, you know, I feel like, uh, maybe a lot of customer success teams are like, okay, we are done with the onboarding phase. Yeah, everything went well. Yeah. So now we can move on to that. Right. But how do you actually get, you know, the adoption of the product up? That's not so simple. Do you have some, some tips there? Because what I've seen is obviously to have some sessions with the customer, have a roadmap with the customers. This is, you know, the stages you need to go through in order to have this adoption. I think a success plan is a great way to achieve this as well.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Yeah. What are your thoughts about that? How do you, you know, get customers to use the product more?

Speaker B: Yeah, very good question. Right. And, um, I also feeling like customers become more complex every time.

Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah.

Speaker B: I think a very important part also of the onboarding is to define together with the customer. What does success mean for them?

Speaker A: Yeah. Right.

Speaker B: And, um, I mean, you just mentioned it, success plan. But sometimes it's not even necessary to make a real success plan. Sometimes it's just, hey, what are your, you know, KPIs that you need to hit and how can I help with my product? So you hit your KPIs.

Speaker A: Great.

Speaker B: Because I feel sometimes clients also struggle with the success plan because they don't really know what it is and what is it it gives them. So I always like to put it like, hey, um, if you use this product, like, how would it make your life better or your work life better and how can I help you achieve this? I think that's definitely something that you Also set the tone within the onboarding and that you have to keep track of. Right. And then obviously you're not going to be able to call every client and say, hey, I've seen that you haven't used my product for a while anymore there. You need to then find a good way with your segmentation. So let's say you maybe have some low touch and high touch customers. Obviously with high touch, yes, you probably need to reach out, you know, because they're too big and too important for your company. But with low touch, I think there's a great way to set up sort of like a digital customer journey. Right. We see the usage drop, you have certain triggers. Hey, then you know, we write an email and we ask, hey, how are you doing? What is going on? Do you need any help? Hey, here's a customer, uh, success story from a customer in the same industry who've done this abc. So it's, it's really becoming that educator and trusted advisor then to show them what the real value is. And also, and maybe not a lot of CS leaders will agree with me on that there. You can also straightaway see if the customer really was a good fit. Yeah, yeah, right. So sometimes and I also said that to my team, if you then see the customer's just not a real fit and they didn't understand the product, stop wasting time. Time like chances that you're going to get them on a higher usage are so low. I rather want you to concentrate on clients than that really. Got it. You know, and, and you can push the usage and you can expand and etc. Etc. Than trying to find ways how to make a bad customer, uh, or a Bedford customer, you know, renew because in the end it's going to be a customer that is just going to, you're going to spend so much time on without any real value and then we're back again to revenue. Right. So set your priorities right and you know, put your time on where you know, you can drive revenue and it maybe might mean, you know, if you see this customer is definitely going to churn, there's nothing I can do. Well then you know, let them churn.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's uh, I think that's an honest thing to say and I obviously, obviously agree to some extent because you know, if it's a bad fit from the start, you know, customer success starts, you know, with the sale in my book. So it's difficult to have great customer success if uh, they have been over sold or the product doesn't do what it's actually promised, you know, it's. Then it becomes nearly impossible for customer success to, you know, deliver extra value. So I think, I think that's a really important, um, thing there.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I mean, obviously I'm saying, you know, let them go. The task, obviously you have then is go back to sales and say, hey, you know, know this customer wasn't a good fit. Let us have a look at what ICP you're actually attacking.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And let us see if we maybe need to redefine something. But we see with certain customers, they're not a fit, they don't really have a real pain point and, you know, go back to the root of the problem, obviously, and try to solve it. So then hopefully it doesn't happen anymore.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's correct. You know, it also comes back to the LTV to CAC ratio. Right. The lifetime value to customer acquisition cost ratio. So. So I think what you're saying resonates with a lot of people, but it's. Yeah, it's kind of hard. Yeah. Just let them go. It's kind of cutthroat. But, uh. Yeah.

Speaker B: Was it a bit harsh?

Speaker A: Right, Yeah, I understand what you mean. It has to, you know, they have to see value or else it becomes difficult. Just, just finishing up. Obviously we have talked a lot about, you know, practical, practical, uh, tips. But just a quick close. Closing up this episode. Do you have some advice for csm? CS leaders just want to succeed in customer success. Just like you had have. Do you have some, uh, final words there?

Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. And I speak to a lot of customer success and they, they ask me the same questions like, what do I need to do, Kyle, to, for example, get promoted or get into a leadership role? I had a manager once and, uh, was in a, uh, uh, I was a brand manager, so I actually had my dream job. I was a brand manager for Helen's Mayonnaise. But I had so much on my plate that I couldn't do everything. And my manager said, back to Nui Cara, you're going to be a good manager if you know which 20% can fall off your table. So priorisation is the most important thing. And I see it with customer success managers. We always get more accounts, we don't get any headcounts. Everybody's full of stuff, everybody's coming, reactive. And I think customer success manager cannot hear it anymore. Be strategic, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I totally get it. Right. So what I would definitely give as an advice to customer success manager is, is Know how to set your priorities. If you're not clear on them, talk to your manager and ask him or her and say, hey, I have so much on my plate. I think I'm going to concentrate on A, B, C. Do you agree or would you change anything? And then you make sure you have at least 10% out of your time where you work on things that really make an impact, not just for you and your role, but for the entire department and customer success. So something that you work on that just makes your customer success department either more efficient or more successful to really stand out as a great customer success manager. So that could be tasks like, I don't know. I've realized that every time we send a newsletter out with our, uh, new product features, clients have a lot of questions, right? So I'm going to sit down and review the questions and I'm going to make sure we have a better template or a better way of communicating our product newsletter so the questions don't come back. This means we save X amount of time. We become more efficient. So start working on things like that to really make yourself stand out and, you know, make your, make your department better. And, and don't just look at your own KPIs, but look also at what impact can you drive within the company.

Speaker A: Wow, that was a, uh, really strong way to close. Kara, thank you so much for sharing your experience and I really appreciate you taking the time time. Thank you so much.

Speaker B: Thank you for having me.

Speaker A: Javi, thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to subscribe and, uh, share this episode. See you next time.