The Reality of Career Growth: Everyone Does CS ft. Ejieme Eromosele (Success In Black)
This is a recorded panel/interview (podcast/YT) featuring Ejieme Eromosele (also recorded as Asia May Aramicelli) with hosts John Johnson, Christy Falterusso, Josh Schachter and Mickey Powell. The conversation (Jan 2024) covers: Ejieme’s founding of Success in Black (summer 2020) — a Slack community (~450 members) for advancing Black talent in customer success; her CS career (consulting at Accenture/PwC, Managing Director of Customer Experience at The New York Times, VP of CS at Snaps) and the Snaps→QWIK acquisition (2021); and her current role as GM for EMEA/MEA at QWIK — a conversational CX platform using messaging channels and AI for agent assistance. Topics include building CS teams, specialization and ROI frameworks, M&A experience and negotiating equity, and community-building and sponsorship needs for Success in Black.
Questions this video answers
Summer 2020 (in response to the George Floyd murder / Black Lives Matter moment).
About 450 members (plus additional allies/advocates).
2021.
Nespresso and Volvo.
London (she said she lives in London).
Chapters
Unturned is presented by Update AI.
Right. It's like, one thing to really, like, be in your CS zone, but this is sort of like the. Everyone does cs, right? I think the CS leader should take it upon themselves to put a CS lens at their peers. Right? So think about being more customer first for how your marketing team is handling things, how your sales team, how your product team. So if they're not already doing that, I would implore them to do that and take a sort of, like, team first approach here, because I think that is exactly what sets you up for that next opportunity. Look, what do you think about customer success? So they didn't have a CS team at the time, and I was like, why don't you have a CS team? Do you not value customer?
Great question, great question. So you asked them a bunch of questions. They told you the right things at the time. After this was all done, did they deliver on everything they said they would?
Happy Monday.
Oh, you're starting us off. Oh, okay. New year, new you, new mc.
Josh, did you get your new microphone?
I did. Josh, how do I sound? Do I sound buttery?
No, you sound great, but I can't see it. I wish you looked more official. Like, put it in the shot.
There we go.
It's so pretty.
I know, I know. John, over to you.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Please, please, please.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Unturned Podcast, CS and bs. With the crew we are calling in, it's. It's the new year 2024. We're happy to be here. I'm John Johnson, principal customer success manager at User Testing. I'd love to introduce the rest of my. My guest hosts. Who's next, Christy? Who are you?
That's tough, by the way, John. Is it? See, now you understand, isn't it?
I was gonna say no.
Well, because we're digital, like, there's no, like, body language to be like, yeah, you go.
Yeah, you go. I'm like, now you understand? When I started off the show, when I start off the show, that's the hardest part of the show is like, who's gonna go next? Because I don't want to sit there and say everybody's names. But then it's like, there's no round robin. Who. You don't know the order. I mean, we should.
All goes by.
I mean, doesn't it? I was gonna say John, me, Mickey, Josh.
That's been my experience. But I also love that we're, you know, we're eight days into the year and we still haven't introduced our guest.
Eight days.
Who is this? We have somebody else with us in the room.
Wait, and now you're just skipping the. Okay, Chris.
Yeah, we know who Mickey and Josh is.
Yeah.
No, no, no, hold on. John, you have to do it the right way. Stop.
Yes.
Okay, I'm gonna go. And then Mickey's gonna go, and then Josh's gonna go.
Christy's excited about this. Christy, do you have a new. Does Christy have a new spiel?
Yes, she does.
I think somebody. Mr. Spiel over the holidays.
I don't have a new spiel. My spiel is literally the same. Hi, guys. I'm Christy Falterusso, chief Customer officer at Client Success. I've been in the customer success industry for the past 12 years, building, scaling, and transforming customer success. I am thrilled to be your co host here on CS&BS.
Oh, my gosh. It's just full of saccharine and sass. I love it. It's just so good. All right. And Mickey's going to come really far below. Who are you?
Mickey?
Oh, yeah, my name is Mickey Powell. I'm the head of Go to Market at Update. I spent the last 10 years holding way too many positions in customer success and operations. Excited to be here with the crew and our amazing guest and looking forward.
To a great conversation until we get.
You didn't say anything about AI, though. Mickey. That feels weird and off brand weird.
He is.
He's a living embodiment.
I try to. I try to just keep it, you know, I try to tone it down because if not, then I'm just gonna go too far and. Yeah, it's too much.
Then he hears from me after the episode.
I always do.
Who is me?
Who are you? Who are you?
Yeah.
Who is me With a new microphone?
Yeah.
Yash.
I'm Yash. Josh Schachter, founder and CEO of Update. AI the least knowledgeable.
The reason that we're all here. I'll be honest, like, I give you a lot of shit, but the reason that we're all here is because Josh decided to get this group together. And it's been a wonderful almost year. I'm just excited.
It's one of those things he regrets a little bit every time we get back on this podcast. Yeah, Right.
Yep.
Only. Only when it takes us to four minutes. Four minutes to get to our guest's name.
But this has kind of been the theme. Are you going to introduce our guest?
Yeah, I'd like. I'd like to introduce everybody to.
Are you sure you Want to do that?
I know, I know. I know. Your first name to Ejame.
All right, we can work with that. Okay. Yeah, that's workable.
What are we giving him? Does he get a B? Like, is that a B, C plus?
We do. So factoring that in, I think he would get, like, a B minus. What?
B minus?
Like, on the lower end.
Yeah.
She's being.
Because of the conversation that we had before we started recording.
This is true.
That's why I wrote it down.
That's why I got the money.
I wrote it down.
I made sure to write. To write it down, like, phonetically.
Agent May.
Yeah.
Okay. You should let me.
How do you pronounce your last name?
Aaron Maselli.
Oh, I was totally off.
Yeah, I mean, you. I mean, it's more phonetic than my first name.
What's your middle name?
That.
Which one? I've got several.
What's your full name? What's your full name?
My full name is Asia May Aramicelli, but I'm Nigerian, so usually the father's family gives a few names, the mom's family gives a few names. So I have, like, three or four middle names. Yeah, I'll go. I'll go with an easy one. My least favorite, but it's English, is Beatrice. Yeah.
Oh, that's a good name.
Yeah, it's just like an old woman name, kind of.
It's like Gertrude.
I get it.
Yeah. It's like a 20s.
Yeah.
Like.
Yeah, I get it. Drink some champagne and listen to some jazz.
Exactly. I mean. Yeah.
I was gonna say, is that what Beatrice is doing? Because I want to hang out with her.
Maybe it's. It fits. It's suiting.
Yeah. Asia May.
Hello.
General manager of Emea of Quig Quick. And you're gonna.
Quick.
Quick. I just. You know what, Josh? I didn't take my phonetics lessons this morning. Quick with a Q. Oh, man. And then she's the founder of Success in B Lack.
No. Okay. That was on purpose.
I mean, obviously.
John, I got it.
She's the founder of Success in Black, and we want to learn about both of those organizations, about your career growing into both of those.
Well, I also think this is one of the first guests that we've had that we've all, like, met.
Right.
Like, in person.
Nope.
I hope that is Josh's first time after he butchered the name. So.
Pulse.
I was at Pulse this year.
Were you at Pulse this year?
Was there, yeah.
She was on stage. I cheered her on. She won an award.
Oh, I didn't get Wait, I post.
Her at the awards, but I was on stage. Yeah.
Yeah.
I didn't get to go to the sessions. I remember I didn't have a legit. I wasn't. I wasn't legitimized.
Christy sneaks in, I get kicked out.
I got arrested for B and E.
No, but I. I remember it was one of my favorite sessions that I sat through. Was. Was you speaking? What? It was one of the last days, wasn't it, at the end of the session?
Yeah, it was like the closing keynote. They've got like 30 people around, Robin. Yeah, I love that. Yeah.
I do have to say, though, if you're. If you're attending sessions at Pulse, you're not doing it right.
Yeah, I sit in the lobby, attend the session.
I only attend the sessions I'm speaking at.
Well, I was flying in from London, so I live in London now, so it was like last minute. And I wasn't even gonna go because I'm like, this is a 12 hour flight and I can only do like one day. And it's like insane time difference, but whatever. I, like, showed up and it was great, but I then, like, turned right back around and flew back out. So I was.
I want to talk about your career and customer success, but I actually want to jump because I just want to. I think it's a really interesting angle. As part of who you are, what you do, is your founding of Success in Black. Can you tell everybody that may not be as familiar with that organization, with the group, what you guys do? And then I want to kind of get into, like, you know, how you do it and the mission and all that stuff.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. So Success in Black is a platform to advance diversity, equity and inclusion and customer success. The first, I think opportunity that we're tackling is helping folks that look like me. So black professionals do three things. So find out about these roles and opportunities, because I do think it's a great gateway drug into tech. So make them aware that these opportunities exist. Give them resources to land their first roles. And then for those ICs in these roles, giving them the resources to, of course, advance. And then for more senior leaders, giving us a platform to kind of, you know, amplify our voices and then also give back to more junior talent. So I founded it in the summer of what I like to call Black Lives Matter. So that was summer of 2020. There's a lot going on that summer, if you all remember back, but is when George Floyd is murdered. And there's a lot of just like corporate activism about how to help the different dimensions of black talent in different kind of functions and different areas of work. And so, you know, people were reaching out to me, like, how do I help black people and customer success? And there really wasn't a platform to advance that, so I created it. And now we're a little over 450 members strong. Even more allies and advocates that, you know, support our mission and yeah, it's a great, great community.
Yeah. So what's the setup of it? You said allies. Members. Allies, yeah.
So. So our members, our members, we show up in slack. So we got a slack kind of community where, you know how Slack works. There's different channels for different topics. We've also sort of grouped folks at the different stages they are in their customer success journey. So we have a specific channel for leaders. We have one for those transitioning into CS so they can get more focused help and resources. But we also have a broad network of partners, sponsors, allies that give us their time, their energy, their resources, their advocacy, their to help people land jobs and get promoted and get paid more.
What are some of the discussions that have come up in those forums in recent months or since you started?
So, I mean, I think it's a professional, but also like a place to show up personally. So we've got things like holiday memes in one channel to very serious topics like how to navigate the conference circuit or when people might be behaving not so professionally. So it kind of crosses the spectrum. We obviously get a lot of folks that are looking to transition into CS and looking for how to tweak their stories and their resumes and the transferable skills to land that first role. We've been getting a lot of asks from our leaders in terms of what's next for them, especially as the world of CS is changing and they're being asked to take on more traditional revenue and sales roles. So, you know, how can they start to learn sales chops as their scope of work is expanding? So it really runs the gamut. Yeah. To be able to do that work.
I love that. I have a question. Follow up on that. Actually, I know we're working on a collab with you at CS Insta, so I'm just so thrilled that we're actually getting some, you know, some traction around some of those conversations. You guys have a similar. I think the idea of breaking into CS was a big topic, you know, a year and a half ago, two years ago. It's like every teacher on LinkedIn was.
Like, oh my Gosh, I want to be a customer.
Health insurance and double the salary, please.
Right?
Yeah.
I'm curious what. We're having some of these internal conversations about folks that we brought into the industry and they're like, hit their first year, right. And that feedback cycle of like, oh my God, I'm totally prepared for it, or I'm totally unprepared for it. Like, I'd love to hear what the conversations are. Mostly the follow up, like how we talk about supportive communities and it's more than just, hey, here's a job, see you later. You know what's been the feedback of folks from your community that broke into cs, maybe their first time coming out of other groups. You called it a gateway drug into tech, which I love. You know, just get a taste and then maybe kind of find your path. I really love that model. Right. I'd love to hear a little bit about how your community is kind of finding their way in tech out of where they came from before.
I mean, I think everyone's experience is very varied just based on how varied customer success looks at different types of organizations. Right. So, you know, one member comes in mind and she's like, it is my dream in life to be a customer success manager. This is the only thing I want to do. And we're like, okay, great. And she got her first role and then she's like, oh, now I want to be an implementation manager. And now she is. Right. I love it. Totally fine. Right. But you know, I think that people have an idea of what they see and I think we're all probably to blame in a good way of really glamorizing and proselytizing customer success in terms of like this amazing career. And it is, but it may not be for everyone and you get in the role and it's, you know, the maturity of the organization, the maturity of the CS team, the product, the customers you're selling to, like, there's many different dimensions that can make your experience look very different from someone else's. So we are getting a little bit of the, oh, it's not exactly what I thought it would be, which I think is fine and normal. But we're also getting a lot of folks that are like, I love this, but the role has changed in a year and it's now becoming more of a sales job. And I still love it, but now I need to like, learn this new set of skills and almost transition into this new role, if you will. Right. So, yeah, we've been getting just in general a lot of good feedback. I mean, I think at the end of the day, the hope is that the community can be a support network and kind of like a safety net for people to go and ask questions if they're not feeling it or, you know, ask for more help as they're kind of really like getting their feet into their roles.
So how do we help?
How do you help? So success in Black. The membership is free. I'm keeping it that way up until I maybe can't afford to keep it that way anymore. So the way that our allies and advocates help is by, you know, giving us their platform, telling others that we exist. This year though, I think we're really focused also on getting funding to keep our lights on. So for example, you know, we want to move off of the free Slack license so that we can keep all of Our history beyond 90 days in Slack because there's a lot of goodness in there that we want to make sure everyone has access to now that we have 450 members and we're very active. Our Slack license is very expensive. So I'd love to be able to support that and pay for that. Shout out.
History is important.
If y' all are listening, hit me up. We should talk. But yeah, just in general, I think, you know, being able to, yeah. Help us pay for kind of like the tools and the tech to keep the lights on. This year we're doing a big push on in person. So, you know, we had a great meetup at Pulse and it just felt so, I don't know, soul affirming to see people IRL and to you know, get to kind of, you know, be in person together. So we're sponsoring a few in person meetups in places like London and New York and San Francisco and Atlanta.
When is yours in New York? I want to hear more about the New York one.
So we have. We don't have a date yet for New York, but I would like to be there. I'm a New Yorker, so I'm like, I gotta be at the New York one. Right. So that's probably gonna be in the back half of the year. But yeah, more to come on that.
Let's coordinate on that. I would love to.
We're looking for sponsors and collaborators, all of our in person stuff. So yeah, really like get funding to help keep the lights on. You know, kind of the tools and resources. Give us your platform to help advocate and partner with us on getting some of those in person meetups.
How does somebody join the network?
Yeah, so you can go to successinblack code, and there is a member application form. So fill out some details, and then we'll be in touch on your acceptance.
I love that.
Yeah, we'll add that to the show notes as well.
Awesome. Thank you for folks that listen.
I love that.
And yeah, keep us posted on the events too. Yeah, I love that people are getting in person. I got to hang out with Amber before your meetup.
Okay. Which one? The DC one.
Was it Pulse? Amber Monroe in San Francisco.
She's everywhere. She's everywhere.
We also met in dc, so we also had dinner in dc, so she literally is everywhere. And I love her. She's kind of like my in.
Yeah. And she's helping with the collab too. There are two big events we did last year where a bunch of folks met up. So obviously Paul's from San Francisco, but then also turn zero shout out to them. Sorry, they brought us over.
I want to hear about Quick. I want to hear about Quick. John, you gotta.
You love how Josh protects me. It's okay.
I am protecting the listeners of this show. As lovely as I'm sure your peer and friend is, nobody gives a shit that she met with John. So let's go. We want to hear about Asia May's background and the amazing things that you've done and how you went from leading CS to being a general manager and why QWIK is misspelled and all these other cool topics. So brand, probably. All right, so you're. So you. You are the general manager of amea Europe, Middle East, Asia. Is that it? I always forget that.
Middle east and Africa, where I'm from.
And so you're the general manager of that giant part of the world, and you went from being the VP of CS into that role. So I want to pin that part of the conversation to learn about that growth, because this podcast is being listened to by people who want to grow in, you know, even beyond cs and follow those footsteps. Why don't you first start by just introducing QWIK to us? Because, you know, on your website, it's a lot of AI, it's a lot of cx. So I think it's relevant to our listeners.
Yeah. So QWIK is a conversational customer experience platform. We believe that the world is best served by humans talking to humans, but that sometimes AI can help us do that more efficiently and effectively. So we're a platform for customer service and customer experience professionals who want to speak to their customers. So we're truly a B2B 2C platform, and we connect them on messaging channels. So think about WhatsApp, that's big in the rest of the world, but things like Apple Business Chat or even sms or Instagram DMs, and then we add a layer of automation to handle sort of the simple tier one tasks as well. So we've got amazing customers across the world, really focus on enterprise customers. So here in emea, I'm proud to have, you know, brands like Nespresso and Volvo as some of our customers as well.
So I'm part of this like dental membership club in New York called Wally. And they sent me this whitening kit, tooth whitening kit and all they did, they sent me like a padded envelope with a syringe and a dental tray. And I'm like, well, how do I actually do this? So I texted this wallet number, how do I actually whiten my teeth, what you just sent me. And then the next day they sent me a text message back with instructions and stuff like that. And so that could have been through.
Exactly. Cool. That's one example. Yeah.
And so. And so you're less for customer success, so to speak. It's more for the. To see end of things.
Exactly.
Consumer function. Okay, that makes sense.
Would you, would you consider Meta's WhatsApp business unit a competitor?
No, we are WhatsApp customer, so we build on top of that channel. So for a lot of big brands to be able to maintain and manage a support channel like WhatsApp actually takes quite a bit of infrastructure, plugging it back to all the other internal systems, maybe connecting the other channels. Right. So we kind of come in as that like sticky layer in between that simplifies that. So a lot of our customers use us for WhatsApp because they don't want to have to manage additional channels for service.
That makes sense.
And how are you guys leveraging the latest AI? You've got AI accounted. You've got it 536 times on your homepage.
I love it.
Did you really, did you go count them all, John?
No, it's not that many. We don't even have that many words on there probably. So, I mean, we were doing this AI stuff before ChatGPT kind of blew up the world with what they're doing. But the way that we're incorporating, let me say this next generation of AI, is that we're now able to do a lot more effectively and more efficiently. So in my region in particular, multi language support is very important for large multinational companies to be able to provide support 24 by 7 in dozens of languages. Is pretty challenging. With this next generation of AI, we're able to do that a lot faster and simpler. So we're incorporating that both from an end customer perspective and also from an internal agent. So customer service agents use our platform or are able to suggest the next best thing that's faster. Kind of read what the customer is saying and just offer the agent assistants so that they can help kind of resolve your question faster and more effectively.
Awesome. I want to talk about your career in customer success. I think, Christy.
Yeah.
And I want to know. And I will let Christy leave, but I just wanted. I want to know how and why you're such a badass. So, Christy, badass to badass. Take us away.
There you go. Let's do it. Let's get the women.
We would get our own show. I won't try to poach you for another podcast, but what would that show be called, Christy? Actually, May. I just launched a podcast. It's going to be going live in February called She's so Sweet. But sweet is spelled S U I T E as in C suite. Interviewing just C level women and amplifying their voices and their journeys and hearing their stories and offering advice to other women who have aspirations of eventually growing their careers. So consider this your formal invite to come and join me, but I will send you an email separately. But all things aside, I.
Can I.
Can I start at the beginning before cs? I'm actually more interested in the consulting journey. Because you started off in consulting, right? You were at Accenture.
I was at accenture and then PwC. Yep.
Can we start there? Because, Josh, you were in consulting too.
And like, no past.
I don't want to talk.
Want to talk about consulting?
No, no, I don't want to talk about your thing. But I do think that the foundational knowledge, work, and experience you get from being consulting does really do something for your career trajectory, especially in tech and in customer success. So I'd love to hear a little.
Bit about structured, which are good things.
Considering the work that we have to do.
I mean, you don't need business school. But, you know, now that I'm many years removed from my consulting time and the trauma has sort of like worn off.
The cumulative years was. It was like five, six years. Five, six years.
Almost 10 years. I did four and a half. Oh.
Because it's right. Okay.
And yeah, another, you know, four and a half, almost five years of PwC. So now that that's been many years behind me, I'm very appreciative of the training ground. That was consulting. Right. And I think that, you know, it gives you. I mean, I think you said it, Josh. Like a structured way to kind of like, think about problems. And especially for the roles that I've taken since then, I was Managing Director of Customer Experience for the New York Times. Brand new role. Didn't know what the hell I was doing. I could very quickly structure the ambiguous into something that was tangible and valuable. Same with working in early stage startups. Right? Like my first role in CS was VP of cs. We were transitioning from being an agency and, and doing kind of bespoke Facebook activations to a SaaS model. And so I had to come in again and be like, what the hell are we doing? Not doing these things in a more structured way. So I thank God for the consulting experience because my mind can kind of operate in the Legos, just all over the floor. But very quickly I'm trying to kind of like, put them together and I think that's a great skill.
I love Legos.
We could talk about your love for Legos another time, Mickey. Okay, so then you step into this role, you're kind of outside of that. You go into this. Managing Director of Customer Experience at New York Times. What does that even mean? You know, I think we are in tech. So, like, what does customer experience at New York Times look like?
That. It was my job to figure it out, actually. So it's 2015, the New York Times had this like premier strategy document called Our Path Forward. And it was like, look, the New York Times is no longer going to exist as a business unless we figure out how to make money from all these millions of people that read our journalism. So their business model prior to that was primarily driven by advertising revenue, right? So large advertisers would, oh my gosh, buy an ad in the paper that obviously moved to online. But then of course, the Googles and the Facebooks of the world started to dominate online advertising. And why would I spend money with a singular domain like the New York Times when I could get broad reach on a Google Ad network, right? So they were hemorrhaging. So they were like, okay, our path forward is we need subscribers, we need individuals to pay for the New York Times. And so they came up with a set of like 8 to 10 roles. This role was one of them. And they were like, we need to figure out what a subscription subscriber experience means. Like, who are our actual customers and how do we serve them across marketing, product and the newsroom. So that was essentially my job to be like, what is a subscriber experience? How can we measure the value of a subscriber? Because again, back then, individual subscriber pays what, like $15 a month? Right. Like, you know, an advertiser is paying millions of dollars. Right. So it's like, how do we scale, scale the subscriber opportunity and put in kind of the, the muscle, the process, the operating model around it. So, yeah, I came in and I helped them do that. It was fun.
What was the big takeaway from that role?
The big takeaway was I like the subscription business and, and you know, I'm just passionate about, you know, the times mission of the, you know, the higher order mission was, you know, educating citizens of the world. Right. And informing citizens of the world. And like, that still always resonates with me. I'm still very passionate about that. But, you know, I also learned that I wanted to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond, and so that sort of made me start to look at tech and made me start to look at startups.
Okay, so that brought you to Snaps, right? You went to the VP of customer success role there. And so you went there not having any customer success experience and stepped into a VP role day one. So no one's fancier than you. How did you, how did you do that?
You know, I did not have that same experience. Well, I mean, I think the difference, or not the difference, I really played up my consulting experience. Right. So consulting is like customer success, except you don't have a tech platform to be able to kind of honestly anchor against. Right. So thinking about desired outcomes like that's all we focused on. Right. Was the so what and the now what. So I think it was very easy for me to kind of like thread that needle to this is what I could help the organization do. I also spent a lot of time in my consulting experience working with customer service leaders, which is what the platform focused on. Right. So I kind of knew the buyer, I knew their challenges, I knew how to drive value and how to kind of talk about driving value. So I think that also contributed. And my CEO believed in me, I.
Guess, a little bit about. About how you. You built out that program, the. The cs, you know, program within Snaps, and then. And then it was acquired. Right, by qwik. Yep. And you went over qwik and then I want to learn about your transition from, yeah, CS over to being the managing director.
Yeah. So building out the CS team at Snaps is really about just, you know, first understanding what value meant in the product that we were delivering. Right. So I spent a lot of time like understanding like what is a product, what problems are we trying to solve, the customers that we do have, who are seeing success and why, and then really started to organize the team around the activities that I believed would lead to better outcomes. Right. So, you know, we were super small. You know, CSMs were doing all of the jobs and wearing multiple hats out. So we had six csm, two directors, four csm, so six on the CSM team across New York and la. And so first step was to, you know, start to form a little bit of specialization. So, you know, we were building bots on Facebook back when these are the early stage, kind of like Facebook messenger bots. Right. And CSMs were conversational designers, solutions, architects, CSMs, project managers. Right. They wore all the hats. So the first step was to sort of start to carve out like, okay, we need a more specialized bot designer.
So they were helping to design the product is what you're saying in many ways.
Well, the product was a SaaS platform, but because we're B2, B2C, the product was also a customer facing bottom. So yes, they were helping to design that kind of end user experience as well. So yeah, kind of starting looking at specialization, started to then say, okay, where's the higher leverage activity that we could be doing? And it was really in kind of this consultative guidance of here's how your bots are performing and why, here's how we can improve them. Right. Like that's where the value was. Right. People were spending millions of dollars. These bots, they didn't know how they were performing, they didn't know how to make them better. So that's where we focus the CSM's time.
Because educating them on the ROI, educating your user, your customers on the ROI.
Of what they're paying for, what's happening, why it's happening, how they can make it better.
So tell us about that. I think that's great. What did you guys do? What was the framework you set up? You're a consulting person. What's the framework that you set up to accomplish that?
Yeah, the first step was just like, do we know why the bots are. Some bots are better. Right. So we partner with our product team very closely to say, let's run some experiments and see, okay, this is the outcome when we do, let's say a simple quiz experience where you ask user 3 to 5 questions and then they have an end result. And then we would analyze, drop off and we say, okay, this is why most users would Drop off. At this step, the optimal quiz length is three to five as opposed to seven to 10. Right. So we ran six, several, I think iterative, kind of like sprint based tests so that we knew what we were talking about and then we could be confident in advising our customers on the best course of action. So I think that was the biggest kind of like unlock is like we were building the plane and try to fly it at the same time. But we really needed to take a step backward and help CSMs like really understand like this is how to drive value. This is what matters. Okay, go talk to your customers about that. That was activity.
When you talk to your customers, was this done at scale or was this done more on a one to one basis? So are we talking.
We focus, we have enterprise customers. So yeah, we're not a scale. We've never really been a scaled team and we had customers like Calvin Klein and Marriott. Right. So they demand that one to one attention. So we did spend a lot of time with them. Each CSM at that time had about 10 to 15 accounts, upwards of 2 million in ARR PER. Right. But yeah, we were focused on enterprise so we, you know, it wasn't kind of a scaled approach at that time.
So this is. We have insights of how they're using the product.
Yep.
And some best practices of what we can share, how the entire portfolio uses the product. Yeah, let's schedule a call with them, with the decision makers and with the users and, and share with them their usage compared to best practice.
And yeah, I think the difference too is that because their customers were using this product day in and day out, we have the reverse problem where our customers would be saying oh, we want to meet again because this thing happened and we want to understand what's going on. Right. So it was almost like a reverse pull and push. I see a lot of CSMs talking about my customers don't want to talk to me and I can understand, I can see a world where that exists. But I think maybe we were lucky or unlucky. I mean we had the opposite problem where it's like the CSM's time then could totally be sunk on one customer. Right. Because they were very demanding. So it's like working then to put some guardrails in place and some structured touch points and milestones as opposed to just being kind of like there to support their every need and every call.
Well, I do know a platform to help you save time in your customer success meetings, however. That sounds like a really good point product. Well, it's a great product. It sounds like a really good problem to have. It sounds like you were actually delivering value to your customers, and that's why they were lining up to have more meetings with you.
Yeah, they were talking to specialists, right? Like, you know, knowledge experts. So they wanted to tap that.
Can we talk about the acquisition? Josh, I know you had a thought there. Was it more important?
No, never.
I want to talk about the acquisition. And the reason why is I want to know from your perspective, how you navigated through that. I hear some of them go really well. Some go really poorly. And so what was your experience going through this M and A, leading that team, leading that function. And. And how did you manage through it?
This is from Snaps to Quick, right?
Yeah.
What year was this in?
This is 2021.
Okay, so we're still pandemic.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, post right now. We're still in it. I mean, the good thing is we had done one or two. They were a partner of ours. We had done one or two deals with them. So we kind of, like, knew the major players, kind of knew how they worked. But then when it was time to say, okay, like, this is actually happening with most acquisitions, there's, like, a set of people that are kind of the, like, key people. Right. It's like, okay, before we actually sign anything, and it's actually part of the diligence of do we want to acquire this company. You meet with some key executives. So, you know, there were like four or five of us. I was one of them. So I got to meet with our CEO now our CEO and our co founder, and just, yeah, spend some time and say, like, you know, talk to me. It was interesting because they were acquiring us. But what I appreciated about the process is they let me quiz them because I said, look, you know, what do you think about customer success? So they didn't have a CS team at the time. And I was like, why don't you have a CS team? Do you not value customers?
Great question.
Success, right? Like, if I were to join on, which at that time, it wasn't a given that I would join on, I could be like, yeah, give me a package. Like, I'm good. If I were to join on and they wanted me to join on, like, how would you ensure that I was, you know, successful and I had the resources that I needed, right? So it was a good conversation because they said the right things at the time to make me confident that it would be a good relationship. Aside from that, though, I think, you know, I did spend A lot of time, like negotiating my compensation, my equity package, which, you know, I had never done before. And I took the opportunity to really empower myself to, to take that seriously and to do that. You know, it was a huge decision to move over to this new company for me personally. And so, yeah, I hired a woman to help me in that. She's great. I'm gonna drop her name because she deserves all the cred. Her email or her website is Stock Options Council. And so she coached me on, yeah. How to think about my equity and how to negotiate a better package. So I was very happy at the end of the day because I was able to do that, which, you know, I think a lot of people don't, don't think about as that process.
That's awesome. Good for you. Listen, so you asked them a bunch of questions. They told you the right things at the time, after this was all done.
Yeah.
How much of what they told you did you actually experience? Like where, where is the truth lie in here?
Or.
Or did they deliver on everything they said they would?
They were pretty transparent. They're like, look, you know, we tried customer success, but we didn't know what we're doing. They're a bunch of engineers, right? So CEOs, ex engineers, CTO. Right. And they're like, yeah, like, we believe in it, but like, we don't know how to do it. We're engineers. We're like, just use the product. And I was like, and, and the product we can tell was built by engineers who are running the company because it's not that intuitive. Like you need, you need people to help people learn how to, how to do this. So they were honest and I think self aware. And so what I ended up in was what they sold me.
Okay, I love that.
How has your past leadership in CS helped you in your role right now as a general manager? Manager, Owning a P and L?
Yeah, Great question. So when I ran cs, when I first ran CS at Snaps, we didn't have any commercial ownership, so we weren't even doing our renewals. Over time. I wanted more revenue responsibility, and so I asked for it. And so started by owning renewals, but I didn't want CSM to own renewals. So then I carved out an account management team. So from, I think a year into my role as VP of cs, I also had account management. So I also was selling. Right. We were doing renewals. Then I started to do expansions. Then with the acquisition, actually, one of the ways that my role expanded is I owned all of our renewals and a large majority of our expansions. And so the way that my CS experience helped in this new role is that CS leaders have to be cross functional anyway and dynamic and work with product and work with marketing and work with sales. Now all of those functions I own, right? So I'm the go to market leader. I'm owning marketing events, demand and lead gen partnerships, sales, customer success and account management and having to I think be a good partner as a CS leader and looking across your peers and understanding. Okay, let me put myself in the shoes of product for a second which I think all CS leaders should be doing. You know, really set me up for this role because I already had a point of view in how marketing could be more customer focused and customer led. Same with sales. So yeah, it really helped, I think set me up for, for the right opportunity.
So if you're, if you're the head of CS at a company now and you want to make that next step to being general manager, your talking points are that coming from CS helps you be close to the customer so understand what the customer wants and then also have a kind of a wider visibility purview into the point of view of all the other cross functions.
Because you're, I think that CS leaders should, and if they're not, they should, you know, take a look at what they're, you know, can they see the forest from the trees? Right. It's like one thing to really like be in your CS zone but you know, this is sort of like the, everyone does cs. Right. I think the CS leader should take it upon themselves to put a CS lens at their peers. Right. So think about being more customer first for how your marketing team is handling things, how your sales team, how your product team. So if they're not already doing that, I would implore them to do that and take a sort of like team first approach here because I think that is exactly what sets you up for that next opportunity. And that next opportunity could be being a CRO. It doesn't necessarily have to be a gm, right. But it's. How do you get more cross functional in terms of your, your area of ownership and your scope.
What could you think of? Go, go ahead. Oh, that was, I hear like a little frustration from.
There was like this little micro frustration.
No.
Well, because I was going to say I love the idea of leaning into your CS background to help you in this new role, but I don't know, I actually think it was your revenue and your business experience in the consulting that actually set you up better for this. So would you agree or disagree?
I think it was all of the above. Look, I mean, I think that my consulting experience, for sure, like we talked about at the start, right? Like, you know, I came here with no team, no anything, and it's like, okay, stand up. A new business, right again, coming into the ambiguous and trying to create something from it. But I do think, because I knew our product, I knew our customers, I knew the challenges that they faced, and now it's okay. Let's put a lens of multiple markets on top of that. I think that also helped me get the role in the first place and kind of gain the trust of my CEO enough to get the role. I don't think that our sales leader could have done it. I don't think that our product leader could have done it. I think that because I was a CS leader and we have to blend head and heart, know the product, but know your customers really also set me up for that.
Okay, fine.
Fair management.
Because I'm, I'm like, so jealous of it. Like, I'll never do it now because I'm old. But, like, if I was young, I feel like that experience, I'm not, I really don't want to go. I'm not trying to move backwards. I want to, like, sleep and eat and spend time with my family. I hear nothing but horrible things about.
Actually, you know what? I. No, but, no, no, I actually agree. I think that when Asia May was a consultant, you know, this is your early 20s, right? This is your 20s, you were a consultant. And I, I do think, listen, they're more creative, there are more fun, they're more diverse, blah, blah, blah, things you can do in life, in your career. But if you want to give yourself, join BCG today. If you want to give yourself like the ultimate or Accenture or, you know, if you want to give yourself the ultimate foundation. I do agree. Consulting, as. As much of is my thing still working here.
I just want to look at this, like, screen. Is someone screenshotting this right now, please? Yeah, no, but I agree. It's that foundation that you're going to get in consulting. And I think if you're willing to make that investment early in your career and do that, I think you're going to learn. So, like, I just feel like that's such a strong, strong foundation for any, any career path.
I agree.
I guess that's why I'm a little jealous.
But you've ended up just fine, Christy.
Yeah, I'm doing okay. I'm doing okay.
All right.
What's been the biggest challenge of becoming a gm? Coming from customer success as opposed to coming from product management or marketing or sales or other functions.
I think the biggest challenge is not knowing some of the what levers to pull for demand and lead gen. Lucky for me, in account management, I had gone through like all of our sales training and you know, I knew all our sales methodology. But I think my biggest challenge, two parts marketing. Because I'm like, y' all are just throwing shit at the wall. Sorry, can I curse on here?
Yes, you can.
Yeah, you can.
And I'm like, that's weird. And then partners. So one of the things is that a lot of. Even the new business that we close right now in the US is driven by inbounds and partner referrals. Having come here with no infrastructure for anything, we don't have inbounds and partner referrals, right? So now I'm like, how do I get inbounds and partner referrals? And so the marketing piece is just like a black box that I'm still picking and trying to learn more about. So I do wish that I had a bit more just experience. Like I'm learning, right? You gotta learn fast and try things. But it just seems very nebulous. Not a lot of playbook. Sounds like SaaS is also fast moving, right? Like, you know, two years ago you could like send thousands of emails and like, you know, X percentage would respond. X percentage would talk to you. X percentage would close. Right? Like those numbers just like aren't working anymore for anyone. Right? So I think it's yes, I don't know. Marketing, but also the dynamics in which lead and demand gen are evolving or like everyone's trying to figure it out. So it's really challenging.
Sounds like you need a CSM who sits in between you and marketing and plays translator towards outcomes.
Yeah, I guess. We just hired a new marketing leader, so today was her first day, so I'm excited to partner with her. But yeah, there's a lot of. A lot to unpack there.
And you mean what's next for you? Right? Obviously not tomorrow, not next week. I don't assume that you're interviewing actively today. Unless you are, tell me separately. I'll help you. But like, where do you, where do you want to grow your career to next? Right? Like, you're in a great spot here. You've done a lot. What's next for you as you think about your future?
You know, good question. I'm also an angel investor. I get a Lot of personal satisfaction from working with very early stage founders who, you know, more like, precede. Right? So, like, have an idea, have a little bit of a product seed and just helping them think about, you know, their customers, even when they barely have any. Right. And it's like, well, let's think about that. And, you know, I get asked a lot about, you know, the first CS hire, right. How, you know, product experience, should they be, versus industry experience, do they have, you know, more experience having done customer success before. Right. So I get a lot of pleasure and joy out of that. So I might lean into that a little bit more. Just like advising early stage founders on thinking customer first and customer led. But aside from that, I mean, my focus right now is to grow this business. You know, I've got a lot of things I still want to accomplish in this role. I think I'm gonna have a ton of learnings that, you know, will hopefully help me in my next thing.
That's awesome. Well, you've had such a tremendous career and honestly, you're watching your journey is inspiring and I love that. We've had our conversations going since early days of Success in Black, and, like, you've grown that into a wonderful venture. And I don't know, personally, I'm just kind of like in awe of you and all you've done so far. And I know there's only greatness to come.
Thank you.
I've never heard you so humbled, Christie, as on this episode.
Because I, like, I got to, like, I feel like I had a front row seat to watching her over the past couple of years, and all she's done with the Success in Black, before she went to London, before she took on that new role, like, I don't know, we. We've our conversations go back a bit, so the past couple of years, to see that exponentially, like, grow her to where she is today. I know, it's pretty inspiring. I love it.
That's great. John, you've been so quiet and it's creeping me out. I want to give you the last word to wrap us up here. Happy New Year, everybody.
More from Ejieme
Clare talks with Ejieme Eromosele about perfectionism and leading with emotional intelligence