Transforming Careers From Zero Experience to Successful CSM

Unlock the secrets to successful career transitions into Customer Success! In this episode of the CSM Practice podcast, we explore how individuals with no prior experience can thrive as Customer Success Managers (CSMs). Discover actionable insights on training, onboarding, and the essential skills needed for success.

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- Effective strategies for training new CSMs from non-traditional backgrounds
- The importance of empathy and soft skills in Customer Success
- Best practices for creating a robust CSM onboarding program

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Hanene Duprat founded Rise International to provide hands-on Customer Success expertise to businesses worldwide, focusing on satisfaction, retention, and growth. With over 15 years of experience in the B2B digital and SaaS sectors, she also specializes in career coaching for aspiring Customer Success Managers, equipping them with the skills to excel in their roles.

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Transcript

00:00 Hey everyone, thank you so much for joining another episode at the CSM Practice podcast where I have the privilege to interview a lot of different people from our business community to see different perspectives related to customer success.
00:15 And today I want to unfold something that's happening quite a bit in a lot of companies where they actually hire somebody with zero experience in customer success.
00:26 Not only that, sometimes they hire people with literally no experience in software or their solution service offering, but often time, they make that CSM.
00:39 And so I brought in an interesting guest today. Her name is Henendupra. She's from Europe. She'll tell you all about her in a second here, but the reason I brought her in is because on a regular basis she works with one of the universities in Europe to train.
00:55 and the tune of dozens of two BCSMs on how to be a CSM. She does that with people with literally no background, so I kind of want to invite her and to say it's actually applying.
01:10 Who thinks they want to be a CSM? What are you teaching them? What kind of challenges do they see? As they're trying to find a position and all those kind of things.
01:19 I think this is going to be interesting for you even if you're not an aspiring CSM because if you're thinking of bringing those people in, kind of like towing with the idea of getting somebody out of love to feel, I don't know, flight attendant background, the teacher background, into the fold as a junior
01:38 CSM, kind of want to know what works and what does them. Where are you supposed to teach them? Where do they shine?
01:44 And so with that, I'm going to unfold that. I hope you enjoy this episode and I think it's going to be super interesting.
01:50 So let me know in the comments below what you thought, and if you had worked with the CSM with literally zero background, tell me in the comments below how did that work file for you, okay?
02:01 So, and then, thank you so much for coming to our show and for sharing this experience with us. Thank you very much.
02:07 I'm very happy to be here. I'm happy also to share my experience with everyone. Hope I would bring good information for people who wants to become the CSM in the future.
02:17 and for those who want to hire CSMs with literally no background, okay? So first of all, what does that do to say, hey, I'm going to train these people?
02:27 What made you think that this is going to be something that could be successful? I think the first thing is just by talking to people in different conferences and events, specific on CSM, I met tons of people, they were like expressing basically their worries.
02:42 I would say lack of confidence in their journey in their career moving to CSM, And I realized it's not because we cannot do the job.
02:48 It's because we didn't have a proper training. We didn't have the reassurance that we can do the job. I started working with the school on training basically all these people who want to become CSM.
02:58 And again, they came from so many different background, different career. And instead by step, I helped them. I shared them to become CSM.
03:06 And we go through all the soft skills you need to learn, but also the tools. So we go through CRM, for example, we talk about the health score.
03:13 So it's a lot of new terms as well, but they are discovering. So you have to go through step-by-step and explain also what's retention.
03:22 What's the role of CSM? Why companies are recruiting also CSM? God, why? Why you? Maybe you can share a little bit about your background.
03:31 What made you feel like I can do that for them? I have led global customer success teams for 17 years.
03:38 in the industry. I have always recruited CSMs, they have never done the job before. So, they applied because we have seen, like, it's about client management, they have seen it's about digital because I worked in such industry.
03:53 So, they didn't know what was the CSM rule. So, every time I recruited, I have always recruited people with different background and different career.
04:00 We had to turn around from scratch about the CSM role within my company. For me, it's something I have done in the past and I have also noticed and I know anyone with a proper source of skills, obviously, and motivation can become a CSM, but we just need a foundation and also someone from the industry
04:17 who can help them basically becoming a CSM and learning your foundation and what the basics that we'll say for them to be successful.
04:24 Was this the same or similar program that you would have done for any new CSM that joined your team? It kind of has almost like the same basic sounds like.
04:32 Definitely, especially in Europe, CSM is a new road. It sounds something that we used to have in the past. The CSM title came like eight years ago, maybe in Europe, so it's still kind of new.
04:43 So there are a lot of people again recruit and we have no background. So we say yes for people aspiring CSM or who wants to become CSM, but also junior or people joining our team.
04:53 We can also use this training to basically make them, I would say ready for the position. Last time we spoke, you said, this is kind of like a can for them.
05:02 How long is this program? How many people sign up? It's a bootcamp, three months and they go through a journey.
05:11 So we go through what is the CSM? We talk about what does it bring to the company? Why companies are requesting CSMs?
05:18 Why they are important for the business? Then step by step we talk about a soft skills. When we talk about John A.
05:25 Mapping, for example, we talk about health school. We talk also about tools such as experts, Asana, I mean the different serums in the market.
05:34 We also do business cases where we give like a challenge and we ask the group of people to basically come up with a strategy with the tools, with processes etc.
05:44 We talk about also the role of the CSM within an ecosystem, the link between the self-seem and the CSM, product and CSM marketing, because to market as well.
05:53 What kind of people sign up? We always talk about OCSM doesn't have to have experience in certain situations. What kind of people aspire to be a CSM?
06:03 What kind of backgrounds do they come from? It's very interesting because there are so many different backgrounds. That's the weirdest thing you've ever heard that surprised you.
06:12 Like, what? I had someone who used to walk in a funeral. But think about that, the link between leading like a funeral like business because he was obviously dealing with clients and the CSM.
06:27 Well, the term that you can link both is care because when you work in a funeral place, you have to be careful with the feeling and the client front of you, they are like going through a big change, massive experience in the life.
06:40 So you have to make sure you can basically help them through that journey. CSM, if you, you can use that for CSM.
06:49 CSM, you are helping your client through a specific genre, like making the most of a tool or the service that you are providing.
06:57 So you actually have very similar soft skills that we'll say, but you can apply. What other types of professions have you seen go through the program in successfully find a job?
07:07 I have seen flyer attendant that was quite successful. I mean, obviously when you're a flyer attendant, You do deal with customers, but it's different to see if there is not a lot of digital activity I will say.
07:20 So that was quite successful and she was brilliant actually in class. I had also a school teacher as well. I had a mum, a mum she raised her kids and decided to think about her career.
07:31 All these people that I'm sharing here are very motivated. They want to learn. It's a big move, it's a new opportunity for them.
07:39 Because we have learned about CSM, someone told them, they liked it, they read, job description, someone talked about the role, etc, and we decided just to write, but it's a big change.
07:51 So because it's a big change, we are very focused. And I know they will be great CSM. Because a care a lot, most of them, I mean, they are here also because they love developing relationship with clients, they love solving problems, it comes all the time, I love solving problems.
08:06 So they will definitely become a great CSM's social. Yeah, I heard a lot of things about hiring from those types of professions.
08:15 Well, sometimes a mom actually works if she has a lot of affinity and empathy, knowing how to care. So I think if you hire from any types of those professions, and you have a good CSM onboarding plan and get the myriad to the terminology that makes sense for your clients and your products or services
08:32 , is I think you're going to have a great person in place. Would you say that the class and the people who go through it when they come from different backgrounds, are they better suited for a higher touch model or literally like a very low touch with maybe dozens of accounts assigned to them?
08:53 I think we can do both differently because that's part of a program. However, I can see that they all keen to be part of the team in charge of a high touch.
09:04 Because of their care and their empathy, it seemed to me like it would work better for higher touch. Yes, we can do both in the sense that we talk about tools, et cetera, t-kating, so we'll go through the entire ecosystem.
09:18 Also, why? Because again, in Europe, sometimes you apply for a CSM role, but actually you do a bit of care within the role.
09:25 And so it's not yet in Europe, I would say structurally in a way that when it returns CSM, it really is CSM or you have to be flexible.
09:33 That's why we also give them like the tools to be able to do some care basically by customer care and mitigating and also be in charge of our touch clients.
09:43 What do you think is the most challenging aspect of becoming a CSM is for them like as they go to your program?
09:49 What do you feel like is the topic that's like hard for them to get the most challenging aspect of the whole good camp process.
09:57 I talked to some of them like who had training and had a job right after. One of the feedback I got is I feel like I know more about CSM and my manager.
10:09 Wow. My training is in France. Actually probably it's linked to the market as well. And again we are evolving. I mean we are progressing.
10:17 We are probably at a different level than in the US. But they are so well trained. And again it's one of the first trainings we have in France.
10:24 So, obviously, we might not know a lot more when there are team members, future team members of future manager. Not on the time now, but because we have a lot of startups, we start building the CSM team.
10:36 We have one to CSM. So we're bringing on someone who has been trained, this person actually probably knows more than them, which is great because they can use what we have learned and help the company basically, putting a CSM strategy basically.
10:51 Yeah, it would be nice like when I graduated from university 1888, the bunch of like the university matched me up with a bunch of other companies that were interested in that Master's degree and I went through a series of interviews because of the opened up the door for me without any experience back
11:10 then. I did a Master's degree in account and sees I interviewed for some of the biggest accounting firms in the world but I wouldn't have access to them if it was in for that master program I went first.
11:22 I suppose this is kind of like the same. At some point you have so much credibility that you build and success that you could showcase for your grads that companies just will proactively ask you, hey, which graduates do you recommend?
11:37 Yes, actually yes exactly what's happening right now. I have recommended and send so many people to different companies. Even people I'm not very close to, but I know they are leading a team and they are looking for in-down or someone junior.
11:52 I will just drop a note because I see so many talents for them. It's a big change. I want to help them and I know I can.
12:01 So whenever I can recommend someone from my class, I will do it and it's already happened. So that's the reward I will say.
12:07 Listen, it's such a treat to be able to impact person's life and then you're also helping all those other companies that are looking for somebody that would be willing to put an investment of literally three months of rigorous studies to learn what it is, how to do it, do role play and come in and use
12:27 all their soft skills that they already have in space. Sometimes the CSMs that we hire internally may or may not have those skills already so.
12:36 Exactly and we need that. I think every company should have a specific CSM training, not just training on how to communicate with clients, how to manage a difficult relationship with clients.
12:46 I mean, or even how to read data, how to analyze data. I think you need someone who can drive this training specific for CSM, a specific to the challenges of CSM because when we look at of score, it's specific to the CSM industry.
13:01 It's all about retention and that's why they need training, dedicated to the CSM team. Where do you get the inspiration or what you should be putting in the program and so if you had to build it again from scratch would you make any changes to it?
13:19 I've had to make some changes. I would probably have my group of people, probably like talking to companies, to CEOs, to VP because of their success, to head of sales.
13:33 I want them to hear from these teams what do they expect from a CSM? I think it's important because sometimes we are here, we train them, but we are still unsure, okay, we'll make the difference.
13:46 Did they learn correctly? We'll be a good CSM, et cetera. And I think if you can learn and read At least listen from over department, not just CSM, they will see the impact they are making in the company.
14:00 What do you think is the future of customer success? Do you think that more and more companies are going to hire people with less experience along as they go through that class and they can talk the language and better understand what's expected from them?
14:14 I think more and more companies will hire CSM. I think we will look more for people without saying background and training in that field.
14:23 Why? Because five years ago, we didn't have these trainings. I mean, in Europe, particularly, so we hired people like with no trainings.
14:31 Now we have all these trainings. We have tools now. We have processes. We have tried a lot of different things.
14:36 We learn also from you, from the US, etc. So now it's a real profession. So now having trainings makes total sense.
14:44 And people need that now. We need to have that before they apply for position. On another side, I will say, I think companies they will look for more and more people with strongs of skills.
14:55 Because of how the market is going, et cetera, we need like people who can solve problems, strong enough in terms of communication.
15:03 Progressively, I mean, instead by step, maybe the role will become mature in the sense that you will have at some point to be trained or to have some background.
15:11 So I think it's good, but people today are starting actually getting trained? So I think what's exciting about this conversation is that it opens up the mind to potentially hire with less experience and impact somebody else's world, but also impact your own company, because these folks are going to have
15:29 ample empathy understanding on how to deal with tough situations. The existing team might not have. And we all know when you add a little blue to a red seed becomes purple.
15:39 So they could actually bring a lot of value to the internal team, let alone the customers in the company. I hope that subliminally, people that listen to this conversation also get some ideas on how they can do new CSM onboarding better, because you already suggested a few topics that they should keep
16:00 in mind that a new CSM on the team may or may not know how to do. I hope, and end that this is a beginning of something, I would love to have you open that training up for my community, the customer method, and see if anybody here that's listening to this video, if you want your new CSM to go through
16:22 a class like that that teaches them everything about customer success, provides them with roleplay, we're going to put something together.
16:29 So if you want to join the wait list, look at the link below, and if you're a completely new CSM or somebody that wants to be a CSM, also check out the link and let us know interested and we'll hook you up with a right cohort and then anything else you'd like to add what inspires you in customer success
16:47 what kind of books do you read that you feel like wow great the you'd like to recommend everybody else to read.
16:53 I actually read books that are not specific to CSM I like to read different books like strength based leadership essentialism as well so being a better leader better CSM a better person, actually, in my professional environment.
17:10 So that's mostly what I read. Otherwise, I love, obviously, watching podcasts like yours. I love listening to a different people.
17:17 You have a different guest listening to their perspectives, etc. Podcasts is probably the content I will listen to on CSM specifically.
17:26 All besides mine. What other two podcasts do you love listening to? If you go on a walk or driving your car, what do you tend to kind of plug in that either relates to CS or just elevates your professional skill set or you as a human.
17:41 There is the CSMN call, which is the CSM podcast in France, in French. The outside ecosystem, like a French ecosystem, is in that podcast, so if anyone's big French will invite them to listen to this podcast.
17:56 The second one is with yourself, which is mix of different content, and it's more about how to get organized. Most of you about mental health, how to select just how to not feeling overwhelmed, etc.
18:07 Hey, listen, honey, and I think the world you're oyster, you're so amazing. You focus on the right things. So lovely.
18:14 I appreciate you coming to the podcast and sharing your perspective. Because I think it's so unique. You deal with so many of those aspiring CSMs and kind of the so I think that's wonderful.
18:30 It was really a treat to have you on our show today. Thank you so much. It was a pleasure for me to be here.
18:37 I hope some people will be inspired by this talk and want to be trained on this. Yes, yeah. Absolutely. I think that's exactly it.
18:45 I hope it inspires some people, inspires and inspires and exactly drop us a link in the comment. Check the links below.
18:52 I'm going to add links to podcast, she mentioned how you can get on wait list for the training whether you're in aspiring CSM or somebody that wants to outsource portions of your new CSM onboarding.
19:06 Hey listen if you just want to learn on how to create a new CSM onboarding program for your new hires think about joining my mastermind the customer method where we teach everything that you need in order to have a best in class customer success program in your organization.
19:24 And then thank you so much again for joining the conversation and the podcast today. Thank you very, thank you for your new vision.
19:32 All guys, if you like this conversation, you like this podcast episode, drop a comment, below, let her then know in the meantime, be glad for me and I'll see you on the next conversation.
19:45 Thank you