ABOUT

Tell us who you are!

My name is Maryan and I am 24 years of age. I am currently a Customer Success Manager at a technology company called Pusher recently acquired by Messagebird. As well as volunteering as an event coordinator for Anaga Network.

So what do you actually do?

I help customers to become successful using our product and service. I walk them through our product and service so that they are ultimately successful in achieving their own KPIs. Sometimes, our customers need us to wow and guide them through the post-sales process. This is what a Customer Success Manager does.

I am also an Event Coordinator for Anaga Network which is a platform that connects Somali students and recent graduates with Somali professionals working in diverse fields and from all walks of life.

What has your career path been?

After leaving university with a degree in Business with Economics, I had no idea what I wanted to do. All I knew what I wanted to do was work in the technology industry - doing what? I had no idea.

At the time, I was going through a lot so I ultimately wanted to do something that I knew I would be good at so I looked within myself and started to compare my personality and natural skills with jobs that would fit the technology industry. I ruled out anything technical and came to realised that maybe, sales would be a great starting point for me.

Once I knew sales fit my personality and skill set I started to apply for sales roles within the technology industry with a leading technology recruiter. I was lucky enough to gain an entry level role as an Enterprise Development Representative at Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu. It was a great company and I enjoyed my time there.

After 6-8months in the role, I started to notice processes within the organisation that I wanted to improve. I truly loved working there and it saddened me that customers weren't getting the service or guidance they deserved so I did my research and found out about Customer Success. Customer Success is the business method ensuring customers achieve success, their desired outcomes while using your product or service.

Once I knew that the company needed a way to help customers achieve success through proper processes it was the only thing I could think about. Due to this being the only thing I could think about, I emailed the CEO about how much I enjoyed working here and what I think they could do to improve. In this email is where I introduced Customer Success. I didn't hear back from the CEO for a month or so. During this time, I genuinely thought I was going to get fired for overstepping the mark but one day, a month later, the CEO was in the office and called me over to say how much he agreed with me. He ultimately gave me the role of building the new Customer Success function from the ground up.

It was a whirlwind and unexpected situation. I was given this responsibility to build out a new strategy. Over the next 11 months I built Customer Success from the ground up and we created a new onboarding process for existing customers. We segmented the customer base so that the sales team could understand their customers better. We even managed to grow existing customer accounts through this guided success-driven approach which led to over $500K of growth that wouldn't have been achieved if onboarding or this new success-driven approach was not implemented.

However, due to the nature of me receiving this new level of responsibility it came with some downsides. It came with hostility from colleagues who I believe didn't trust or believe in me. This hostility led to me not being supported in the way I felt I needed to be supported to develop and change the way the organisation spoke and worked with its customers.

Due to this level of hostility and lack of support, I decided to part ways with Canonical and go elsewhere to develop my skills, as I essentially jumped from working in sales to working in strategy. I wanted to be on the grassroots and speak to customers. Now at Messagebird Pusher, I am able to do that.

What is the best part of your job?

Speaking to customers who are passionate about their company and their own jobs. I get to speak to CTOs and engineers who every day tell me about the cool and exciting projects that they are building with our solution. It amazes me that technology can be used to create amazing tools, applications, and services that we use today.

I am consistently inspired by innovation and I am lucky enough to be part of that however small.

What inspired you to do your job?

Ultimately, it was seeing customers not happy with an experience or service. I have a background of working in customer service so naturally, I always want to solve issues and problems for people. My life-long goal has always been to help people and make them smile. Helping people to have a pleasant experience makes me feel good. You should always do a job because it makes you feel good inside.

One piece of advice for someone starting in your role?

Be you. Be authentic but more importantly, have personality. Customer success is about delighting your customer and guiding them through your product or service so it is important that your energy is positive and you are truthful.

Final words?

I wish this page was available to me when I was growing up. Well done everyone!!

Check out Maryan’s Instagram below!

DAY IN THE LIFE

It's funny because a typical day is never a typical day in Customer Success. You sometimes ultimately become a firefighter, salesman, and support engineer on the same day. 

The thing about anyone who works in Customer Success, we like structure and we like to be organised. The role of a CSM is different in different companies but at Pusher, it's all about Renewals and making sure that customers are effectively using the product and service to maximise their potential.

For example, if a customer is on a higher price plan but I check their usage and they don't meet the criteria to be on that plan, I will be truthful and encourage them to downgrade. The reason I do this isn't about money. It's about longevity and success. Customers need to feel that you are helping them achieve their desired outcome so they don't need to be paying a plan three times their usage. 

Anyway, back to my workday. 

I wake up at 7.30 am, have breakfast, and start my working day at 8.30 am. 

From 8.30 am-9.00 am, all I do is check my Gmail. I star all the "important" emails I need to respond to first. I create a to-do list on which customers that I manage I want to check in on that day. Usually, I have a list of customers who I will need to reach out to in regards to renewal their contracts 90 days out. 

Once I have any idea, from 9.00 am-9.30am I start preparing any new quotes/contracts I need to make for these customers. Usually, most customers are on auto-renewal so they just need an email reminding them when the renewal is happening. 

9.30 am-9.45 am is a company huddle where we usually have a company update either from the finance, commercial, or engineering team. Sometimes the Customer Success team will update the wider company of new deals, new case studies, or just some exciting customer news/feedback we can share with the team. 

Now the majority of my day is customer focussed. I am either emailing customers, speaking to customers via zoom, or working with the support team to solve customer issues. The main aim of a CSM is to help customers achieve their desired outcomes so although we want them to renew with us, sometimes in order for them to do that we really need to understand their needs, take in their feedback and share with the engineering/product team. We hold quarterly business reviews with customers as check-in points to make sure throughout the year they are achieving what they set out to achieve with our product or service. It's a great indicator for us if they are happy or unhappy. 

Lastly, the other part of the role is feedback. We feedback a lot to the wider organisation so that they can produce marketing content, sales content and help with engineering improvements so that we can acquire new customers and help delight existing customers. As a CSM, you will have lots of opportunities to work with other teams which means you are the ultimate voice and champion of the customer internally so it's a big and important responsibility.