Ep 70 | Katrin Loodus

Irina Chismash: Welcome to Mastering CS Candy Leader Insights, the podcast where we dive into the world of customer success with industry leaders. I'm your host Irina Chismash and today I'm joined by Catherine Lodus, customer success manager at uh, Cyberbit, a cyber security training platform for hands on scenario based learning. Katherine, I'm really happy to have you here. Thanks for joining.

Catherine Lodus: Thank you for having me. More than happy to be here.

Irina Chismash: You've been at uh, actually Rangeforce, now Cyberbit for over 10 years.

Catherine Lodus: Yes, that is true.

Irina Chismash: Moving through content support and now into a uh, full CSM role. Help me understand where you are today. What does your role actually look like? And, and how's life after the acquisition?

Catherine Lodus: Yeah, of course, yes my journey has been quite the journey and yeah, uh, I've been with the organization for over 10 years and I was actually the fifth employee in the organization. So I've been there like since the very beginning and it has been an interesting kind of path for me to see the beginning of the organization and now seeing it uh, being acquired by Cyberbit as well. So in a way my life hasn't changed too much after the acquisition because I'm still doing the same job and I'm still in the same environment but definitely there are like organizational sides and branding side and I would say even resource uh, wise side that is more abundant than it was before. And so my everyday work as although I've been in different teams in the organization I feel that I am now primarily focused on the CSM side which basically means that on a day to day basis I talk with the customers, I have regular checking calls with them, I generate QBR reports and maybe that which is uh, since we were quite a small organization we did a lot of like additional works and since I have the technical background and capabilities as well, I partially helped out with the support queue as well and I even have the capability to do the provisioning and the uh, licensing ah, side as well. So all of the kind of procurement related topics as well. So I would say that primarily my life is still very rich in the tasks that I do but my main focus is still building the relationships with the customers, helping them to understand our product and supporting them to achieve their goal, their organizational goal and the readiness program that we are offering as a product as well. Yeah, I would say these are the main things.

Irina Chismash: So you for sure have a lot of the, a lot of things that you are, that you are covering. I want to know in this setup what keeps you the most busiest, where do your main focus and Energy go into, I don't know, one normal working hour?

Catherine Lodus: That is a very good question. I would say my primary focus today is to handle one very large account that is my main priority in the pool of the different accounts that I have and just helping them onboard the users on the platform and supporting them in their kind of processes that they have to. And of course in addition focusing on all of my other customers as well and just making them introduced to uh, the new branding and all the cyber features and functionalities that are now coming to the platform. So just helping users through to get accustomed to the new platform, to the new branding and yeah the new process that we have on the organization. But I would just say that basically I'm the main contact for my customers and that is my primary focus as well. Just covering different topics while doing that.

Irina Chismash: Most CSMs coming from the outside, you've lived inside a company for a decade. I'm curious, what does knowing the product that deeply change about how you work with your customers? What's your advantage? It means you need to have an advantage.

Catherine Lodus: Yeah, I do want to think that I have. Yeah, definitely. Uh, yes, I've grown out of the organization in a way from a different role into the CS role. And I think the main kind of advantage that comes with this is that I have a full understanding of the product. So I know all of the people in different teams, I know their kind of primary tasks and that gives me a very good kind of overview. And whenever like a customer has a problem or they have a question or an issue, I can like, okay, I know whom to turn to. I get responses really quickly and that gives me the opportunity to respond to my customers quicker so that they can make maybe time critical decisions that because they have the information sooner that where in a larger organization there might be situations where they're like waiting for an answer for a week or A2 or etc. It depends on the organization. And I think since I have the technical background and I've been in different layers, I can already when they're describing their issue or they're describing their question, I can already map it out in my head like, oh, okay, I know how this is done. Okay, this is probably going to happen in that time frame. This is probably not going to happen in the next quarter. Even so it gives me more like active information to understand what would be the correct answer for them so that it would actually help them achieve their goals. So I think that definitely helps me a lot.

Irina Chismash: How do you measure whether a uh, customer is Genuinely succeeding when success means their people are better prepared for something you hope never happens.

Catherine Lodus: Oh yeah, that is a very clever question. I think our product has been built up in a way because uh, we have been struggling with that because we are offering blue team defense training, which means that usually what people think of it is that you have these modules and then you complete a lot of modules and the number as if it's showing like you're being successful. But, but over the time we've understood that it's not only doing the modules that is a confirmation that you're doing really well, but instead we actually measure. We have this product feature called Live Fire Exercises which are actually real life based scenarios where they have a, like a virtual environment where they get in there and within four hours they actually are presented live attacks of specific threats that are maybe common in their organization or in their everyday life as well. So they are under this time pressure to actually defend and mitigate against the different real life attacks happening in the environment. And this gives what I've heard from the customers as well. This gives a really good understanding how people are uh, actually behaving when they are under attack because it might never happen in their organization. And the platform that we have built is that it's measuring their technical skills, but at the same time there is an opportunity to measure their soft skills. And I think a very large part of, in the cybersecurity field is that it's not only technical, you need to have the social skills as well for that to work well under a pressure. So I think having that kind of combination and a uh, report produced after that just gives you a really good understanding. I think we are going to do well with this specific threat. But now we've actually been tested against it and we understand that these are leadership and initiative problems that we are facing. This is communication problems we are facing, this is the technical sides we're lacking. So I think that is a really good measurement of whether they are actually successful when they're on the platform, whereas they can just think that maybe they are. So it's a really, it's a real life kind of scenario and I think that is the best reflection of their actual success as well.

Irina Chismash: Speaking of this, I know that at some point you experienced a uh, personal social engineering incident and you described it on your LinkedIn summary and that experience made cybersecurity real for you. Now I'm super curious and I know that our audiences as well, what happened and how do you leverage that story in your day to Day CS work or do you even leverage it? Does it help? Did it help in any way that experience when it comes to the CS work that you do?

Catherine Lodus: Yeah, definitely. I can't disclose too many details, of course.

Irina Chismash: Tell us only what are the things that you can tell that you can share publicly.

Catherine Lodus: Yeah, no worries. Yeah, it happened I think around 15 years ago already and I've been in the, in the IT field for quite some time now. And yes, it was a situation where I was targeted uh, as a social engineering attack and I was not aware of it at all and but some kind of like this, I don't even know what the correct wording would be but I became aware that something was off with the discussion that I was having with somebody who was communicating me. Everything seemed like normal on the paper but something, some kind of alarming bell went off and that since I was a in a position that had access to like very sensitive data, I was like skeptical, maybe more than I should have, but which kind of saved me. So in the last minute I was like oh my God, this sounds really weird. So I need to double check it. And thank God because after that if I had clicked on that specific link there was an actual threat that they would get access to my organization and to the sensitive data. So it was a really close call for me. And after that I was shocked and definitely started to look into the cyber security and social engineering part. And the second part of your question was if I can use it in my everyday work and with my customers. I think with the rising of AI, especially now that we have fakes and you can replicate the voice and everything is the artificial is becoming more real than the real at one time. So I think now more than ever this is a topic but more relevant to my customers as well. And just to bring attention to the fact that it's not always the technical things that need coverage, it's also the social part. And I think people are the kind of the weakest link in that chain of cybersecurity. So bringing that awareness to my customers I think has helped a lot make it make the story and make the connection more relatable as well. So yeah, I can definitely use it in my everyday work.

Irina Chismash: You brought AI up and I want to ask you how do you leverage it and what are the use cases that where you are leveraging it on your day to day CS operations? Because I know that you mentioned wanted to using it for those tasks that are repetitive. So at least your declaration is I want to help it to free up the time and spend it where I more need it rather than on, um, manual things. Now I'm curious, how does this actually apply in real life?

Catherine Lodus: Yes, AI is definitely a very popular topic these days in my everyday work. I would bring out perhaps, uh, the example that I just had recently. I was putting together a QBR report and our platform provided some of the data and I had these additional resources that also provided additional data. But when I was taking that information to the customer, they said that it's really good, but we're still lacking the exact data that we need out of that. Usually when we don't have AI, I would have to analyze all the data, take it out, use the spreadsheet and all of the uh, Excel formulas, etc. Think out a way to present the data in a way that would help the customer to. So instead what I could do is I could take the full like raw data, put it into AI, tell it like, hey, I have this data, I have uh, this need and could you please analyze it for me and produce the uh, version that the customer was asking for? And it did. And I shared it with the customer and they were extremely happy about it. And it actually took me like an hour to put it all together and it gave them so much more value on a day to day basis. And if I compare that having the same report, having done the analysis, I think it could have taken me a week, maybe even two just to put it together. So I found there was like such a huge amount of time spent. Not spent, saved. Um, yeah, saved over the time, for example. Then another example is that when we are going to customer calls, we are gathering feedback on the platform and they can explain some of the features, for example, that are missing. And I know that I understand what they're trying to explain, but if I take that to the like engineering or product team, uh, I usually when I describe it, I try to do as well as I can, but there's still the communication because we are a multicultural organization. English is not my main language, so these kind of communication blockages can make things more blurry. So what we recently did, we had this AI workshop where we were introduced the AI tool that can generate really easily these prototypes. You basically put a prompt in there and it will give you a prototype of the things that you can take an image of the platform, then tell it like, hey, please add this button here, please edit this part here, please. I want uh, this page to also do that X, Y, Z functionality. And out of that I can actually show the Product team, hey, this is what the customer actually is. Meaning if you click here they will see this result. And it makes like there's a saying that one picture says more than thousand words ever can. So I think that is a really good example because it takes away so much of the confusion, the lack of kind of communication. And yeah, I think that is also something that helps me a lot, especially to save time. And all of the time that I can save up I can use to focus more on the customer strategy, customer helping, etc. So I think these are like two examples that I can bring out.

Irina Chismash: Yeah, those were very great examples. And I wanna, I wanna ask you because I know that your background is complex and there are several things that you also did in the, also did in the, in the past, but I, it was the ah, NGO work. I know that you were also a uh, teacher in a previous life. I want to know how did those experience shape what you are in this moment? And I want to understand it in the context of um, does it make you, or does it make you be a, uh, better csm? And in the era of all of those AI things where the CS role changes, what are those skills that regardless of the um, evolution of technology, will need to be present to be a good csm, to be an awesome csm? And I know that there are a lot of questions into one, but basically I want to ask you what helped you from the past experience be what you are now and what's your recommendation? Or what are, what do you think the skills? What are the skills that would still be needed regardless of how AI and technology evolve?

Catherine Lodus: That is a very good question. I love that question. Uh, yeah, my background, this has a lot of different roles as well, like even in the organization. So I think having this variety is something that I really enjoy throughout my entire career. And definitely I would take some wisdom out of all of the roles that I've been in. And I think from the lecturer and system analyst roles, I would take the capability to understand what lies underneath the requests that my customers might have. I'm going to parallel that with the AI part as well because some people are saying that AI is like giving the results that is not usable, it's too simple, et cetera. Some say, oh my God, it's the best tool ever, right? So it's, and for me the understanding is it depends how you're using it. And one important part of that is how you write your prompt. So the question already determines what is the answer you're going to be Receiving and I think the background that I have with the system analyst who needs to always think outside of the box needs to understand the customer with very minimal words. I think that has given me the creativity to understand like okay, my customer is expressing this but what are they actually meaning behind that? And having that kind of open mind and just creativity really helps a lot. And with the lecturer part adding it there here as well, what I received from that is from the academic world I actually got structure. So it seems as if it's conflicting like how can you be open minded and then at the same time have structure. But I think when you actually combine these two strengths you get something really good because using the structure to give your creative ideas today I ah prompt for example it can give you back so many interesting, innovative um, approaches that you might not have come to when you just didn't know how to ask the correct questions. So I think when you were asking like what would be my recommendation moving forward to have that spark and still be very have that awesome CSM experience. I think people should never stop learning and stop being like curiosity. You need to be curious towards life, towards the role that you're in. Because I think AI is powerful tool but it's, it will not substitute human mind, the creativity, the kind of inspiration etc. So I think as long as the person is still interested in working with people and you can never learn about too much about a person, it's just endless. The work is endless. So basically just having the creativity and the willingness to learn, I think this is going to be a huge advantage moving forward when the technology be substitutes so many mundane tasks uh, and automates a lot of the work. So yeah, that was something that I feel that has I received from the previous roles that I can apply today. But I think it will be something that will help me moving forward as well and whoever is going to do that the same way.

Irina Chismash: So yeah Catherine, this was a genuinely uh, different conversation and I loved how your path into CS came from so many directions and somehow how each one left something behind that you are still using in your day to day current role. Thanks so much for joining me.

Catherine Lodus: Thank you so much for having me

Irina Chismash: and to everyone listening, thanks for tuning in. Until next time, stay curious, keep learning and mastering customer success.

Catherine Lodus: Thank you. Bye.