In this episode, Kerri Brown, Head of Customer Success Strategy Execution at SAP discusses the importance of staying curious, promoting an internal common language to support changes within an organization, and how leveraging Totango has helped to exceed her customers' expectations.
This episode of CS No BS features an interview with Kerri Brown, Head of Customer Success Strategy Execution at SAP. SAP is one of the world’s leading producers of software for the management of business processes, developing solutions that facilitate effective data processing and information flow across organizations.
Kerri leads a global team of customer success strategy and execution experts to centralize and unify end-to-end customer engagement roles and processes across all geographies and functions including Sales, Services, Engagement & Renewals.
In this episode, Kerri discusses the importance of staying curious, promoting an internal common language to support changes within an organization, and how leveraging Totango has helped to exceed her customers' expectations.
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“When we first launched Totango, we had a lot of customer success professionals who'd been with us for a while, and they were definitely domain experts. And so the idea that we would institute a tool that would tell them what to do and when to do it was something that they had to understand. “Why? I already know what my job is. Do I really need a tool to do it?”
Well, no, you don't need a tool to tell you. Of course, we know that, but what you do need is everyone orchestrated around the same customer experience in order to deliver upon the expectations of our customers.” - Kerri Brown
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*(04:50) - First steps of a CS initiative
*(08:02) - Getting aligned
*(08:54) - Biggest CS challenges
*(15:28) - SAP’s culture of innovation
*(22:50) - Doman experts vs CS professionals
*(26:32) - SAP’s CS model
*(33:48) - Make it about the customer
*(37:53) - Quick hits
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Connect with Kerri on LinkedIn
Kerri: When we first launched Totango, we had a lot of customer success professionals who'd been with us for a while, and they were definitely domain experts. And so the idea that we would institute a, a tool that would tell them what to do and when to do it was something that they had to understand, you know, why?
I already know what my job is? Do I really need a tool to, to do it? And the to to tell me? No, you don't need a tool to tell you. Of course we know that. But what, what you do need is everyone orchestrated around the same customer experience in order to deliver upon the expectations of our customers.
Narrator: Hello and
welcome to Cs No Bs, your practical playbook for net revenue retention. The Holy Grail of Customer Growth, hosted by Jamie Bertasi, COO and President of Totango. Today's episode features an interview with Kerri Brown, head of customer success strategy execution at SAP. SAP is one of the world's leading producers of software for the management of.
Business processes, developing solutions that facilitate effective data processing and information flow across organizations. Kerri leads a global team of customer success strategy and execution experts to centralize and unify end to end customer engagement roles and processes across all geographies and function.
Including sales services, engagement and renewals. In this episode, Kerri discusses the importance of staying curious, promoting an internal common language to support changes within an organization, and how leveraging Totango has helped to exceed customer expectations. But before we get into it, Here's a brief word from our sponsor.
Don't get stuck waiting on a rigid time intensive build for your customer success software. Start right away and see immediate value with Totango, The industry's only composable customer success platform. Enjoy a modular platform that enables easy iteration and optimization to drive predictable scale up growth.
Start for free at Totango.com. And now please enjoy this interview with Kerri Brown. Head of Customer success strategy execution at SAP.
Jamie: Okay, Kerri, so tell me, as the head of customer Success strategy execution at SAP, what's the most important part of your job?
Kerri: I, for me, the most important part is always finding that intersection between, uh, customer experience and employee experience.
I mean, that's what got me into see us in the first place is really noticing that both are equally important because of how some biotic they are. So for me that, that's really where I like to start. Every question problem project initiative is, you know, where is that sweet spot between the. Great,
Jamie: so our listeners can get just in a, before we kind of delve into that so our listeners can get a sense for how big your job is.
Can you tell us just how many customers does SAP.
Kerri: That's a great question. One of my favorite ways to answer that question is, you know, just hop in your car, drive down the average, you know, street in, in any city or town, and you will be hard pressed not to pass an SAP customer. So 70% of the world's revenue runs on SAP solutions on SAP software.
So, It's massive. It's massive. And we have, you know, it's a global company. We have about 110,000 employees globally, and, and my team is really responsible for how we all collectively execute in order to deliver on the, the mission and mandate of, of that our customers expect. So
Jamie: it's just a staggering number, right?
70% of the world's revenue runs on SAP, 110,000 employees. I mean, it's just mind boggling in terms of trying to wrap your brain around that.
Kerri: It really is. It, It is. And it, it's actually one, one of my, you know, favorite ways of trying to explain it to my friends or family who aren't necessarily in the technology industry and Sure.
You know, certainly, you know, maybe don't think a lot about customer success, but just, you know, again, get in the car. You pick them up from the airport and you drive by, you know, marquee names, you know, That's one of our customers. That's one of our customers, you know. It is staggering and humbling really, as well, and
Jamie: super impressive, right?
I mean, wow. You know, just in terms of, uh, all the companies accomplished. So that must make customer success super challenging at SAP. And I guess it's a, it's a lesson for the rest of us who are trying to really, uh, Scale our businesses to the hope eventually to achieve the kind of scale that you guys are operating on, um, or at, at this time right now.
So in terms of that, I mean, you mentioned already that you know, you really, um, kind of are thinking about that combination or the, the juxtaposition of the employee experience and the customer experience. So let's talk more about. So when you launch a CS initiative for like this large scale of a group of the customers, you know, what's the first step that you
Kerri: take?
Well, I think one of the things that's, that's most important is to really identify, you know, where are you versus where you wanna be and, and what are the gaps, you know, between kind of the, the two, the, the current and the the two B state, which can be. Quite an undertaking when you think about how SAP has, has grown.
So right. SAP's roots are in on-prem and you know, of course the, the, our future and the future of technology in general is cloud. So a lot of it. Is about, you know, not just thinking about that intersection of employee and customer experience, like I mentioned, but also, you know, what, what have we done historically versus how do we need to transform?
Where are we going and setting. Clear vision for, um, our customer success approach, our methodologies that allows us to really accelerate the transformation of SAP's legacy to our future. And it is a lot, especially when you think about a lot of our growth has come through acquisition, and so each one of.
Acquired companies has come to the table with some great practices. You know, that's why SAP acquired them because they had become, you know, a, a real niche player or a specialized player within, um, the cloud landscape. And then you, um, you wanna leverage the best, um, uh, of those companies, but also bring them all together to create a holistic and consistent experience as one SAP for our customers.
It's a lot and it's also really fun and challenging and and interesting. Right. So if I
Jamie: was to kind of then kind of pair it back to you, what I'm hearing from what you're saying, I mean, first of all, huge challenge, right? As you mentioned, you've got customers, you know, the company is migrating from this legacy state to the future state, and I know that's gone really well and super fast.
You're constantly growing by acquisition and growing and bringing on very successful businesses who have their own way of doing things. Basically you're telling us, but yet, you know, you wanna drive one experience for the customer, right? So if a customer's buying from SAP, let's say they're buying from five or seven different BU's or business units at SAP, you want that customer to have one customer experience.
And it's just so, so interesting to consider because many of us who are involved with smaller companies, you know, we don't have that problem because we have. You know, one or two or three products, Right? Not entire businesses that you're trying to kind of bring together for this, as you described, a holistic experience.
And so basically, I guess what you're saying is, you know, it's all about getting everybody aligned with that clear vision for the where you wanna go.
Kerri: That's exactly right. And, and frankly, um, you know, to bring it kind of full circle and about our, our relationship, I mean, that's really what Totango allowed us to.
Foster, cultivate, accelerate is that if you have a process, you know, and it doesn't really matter what the process is, it can be, you know, something as simple, as simple as how do you transition the information that was gathered during the sales cycle to the customer success team so that they can, you know, make good on the promise.
You need technology to foster that, right? You need a system, um, that, that brings all of those groups together, that allows to be, you know, allows us to even gather that information historically, because as we know, right, customers change, account, teams change. And so Totango has done a lot of.
Standardization work for us. Okay. So
Jamie: let's get into it more then. So tell me what is one of the biggest CS challenges that you've had to solve? You know, really
Kerri: a hard one. Well, I mean, I think we could use the implementation of Totango and not because it was hard. Um, it, it actually, I think you well know, right?
We did it in, in about six months. So that's really swift. Um, especially having done implementations myself in my early days. Um, Success factors. You know, implementations can take a, a long time. The challenge though, I think that we had was that we, we knew we needed technology to facilitate all of this.
Mm-hmm. , but how do you get everybody on the same page in terms of what those processes are? How do you really, um, once you get those processes established within a system, how do you really drive change management and communication? Um, in order to. Um, have everyone kind of re I'll say respect the process.
Leverage the, the, the solution that we've, um, invested in. So I think with most things it comes down to change management and communication. Those always end up being the biggest challenges, especially when you're talking about an organization of the magnitude of SAP. So tell our,
Jamie: you know, our listeners, like some, just some tips, things that you guys have done, you feel are really, really, um, successful around change management and
Kerri: communi.
Sure. I mean, I think first of all, you need to get really clear on, um, who needs to know and what do they need to know? And I know that sounds simple, but that's the thing that I think a lot of people struggle with and cause them to hesitate in, in moving forward is, you know, really getting super clear on that.
What's in it for me? Message. You know, I'll say, when we first launched Totango, we had a lot of customer success professionals who'd been with us for a while, and they were definitely, you know, domain experts. And so the idea that we would institute a, a tool that would tell them what to do and when to do it was something that they had to understand, you know, why I already know what my job is?
Do I really need a tool to, to do it? And the to, to tell me. Well, no, you don't need a tool to tell you. Of course we know that. But what, what you do need is everyone orchestrated around the same customer experience in order to deliver upon the expectations of our customers. So really helping people step out of, um, kind of their own vantage point.
And looking at it from the customer's perspective or the, the perspective of the greater good that cannot be, um, overdone really, or overemphasized when it comes to change management. Right.
Jamie: And so, um, I guess to kind of put a finer point on that, if I'm a, if I am a SAP customer and I'm buying from various business units and there's not one.
Like, uh, concerted in clear customer journey and customer experience that you're trying to drive holistically, then you're going to end up in this world where the customer has all of these various touch points and so forth that are. They're not synergistic, let's just say
Kerri: that's right. Then you unduly burden the customer, which, you know, no customer, you know, myself, when I'm a customer, I don't want to be burdened.
I don't want to retell my story to, um, to the company that I'm doing business with over and over. I expect the company to come to the table and know who I am, know what I'm trying to accomplish, and that's absolutely where we started, you know, on this journey. You know, know your customer. Yeah,
Jamie: it must have been, uh, a staggering effort to really define your journey.
Right for your customers because you know, this is definitely one of the things I think I do see people really struggling with is they want to achieve the business outcomes associated with customer success. Meaning a high retention rate in upsell, so a high net revenue retention percentage, you know, ideally over 120%.
It's all great, but when it comes to the details of actually making that happen and truly. You know, doing something more than just kind of assigning resources against it, but truly like orchestrating this detailed level customer journey. It's hard, It's hard work to really understand what you, what you want your journey to be and what it currently is.
So how did you guys approach that? I have always been very impressed by your actually level of detail at SAP, despite your size, you know,
Kerri: and. Yeah. I mean the, the interesting thing about, I guess the, how of how we did that is, is that, you know, we, we have a lot of really passionate, um, employees. Everyone has a, a perspective on how we could do it, how we could do things better, but in order to really accelerate and, and.
Have a going in position. The, the folks that we brought together to implement Totango were, you know, it was myself, um, Shelby Zada, and a couple of other, you know, key players within our organization who had the great expertise of, of actually delivering to our customers from a variety of different vantage points.
In other words, we had people. Engaged, who had been in professional services, who had been in the support organization, who had been in premium, um, delivery functions, who had been in adoption functions. So having that knowledge and expertise around the table allowed us to take a kind of a broad. Swath of all of the customer journeys that had been developed by, you know, previous acquired companies and kind of distill them down to the moments that matter most to our customers based upon what we experience.
So kind of going back to that, you know what I said at the beginning, that that fine balance between. The employee experience and the customer experience and really focusing there and also continually stopping ourselves from over engineering. You know, we, we had a, a line that I, I, I probably shouldn't share here, but about how prescriptive do we want to, to get and how, how much do people need to.
You know, pinged, or how often do people need to be pinged about their day job? You know, not, not multiple times a day, certainly, but, you know, there are certain, again, moments that matter that, that we really needed to focus on. And that's, that's what we did. And I, and in large part just benefited from the expertise of the, of the team.
Jamie: Great. So one of the things that you know, you see with SAP for sure is that you have a culture of innovation, right? You guys are not LA or you're out there, you know, charging forward. So how does that work alongside the culture of customer success? Because even when we look at, you know, the SAP organizational structure, customer success is right up there at the top as a very core tenet of, of the, uh, of the values of the.
Kerri: Yeah. You know, it's interesting when you look at, for example, ts I and, and, um, the content that, that Tsia puts out in terms of, you know, what are organizations doing in, in terms of innovating, um, customer success. It's very rare that, um, you know, that, that we're not in lockstep with what are noted as being key themes.
And, um, you know, it is that constant. You know, striving to do better, be better, learn, evolve, grow. I mean, I think it's just part of the kind of growth mindset and how do you main kind of build off the legacy of SAP that has gotten us to where we are now, but also remain relevant and a, a market leader.
You know, for, you know, the, the foreseeable future. So it's just part of, I think, who we are naturally.
Jamie: Yeah. I think, you know, one of the things that's been most impressive to me working with you guys over really the last, almost five years now, has been the, um, constant iteration. The fact that the team really looks at the success box, really looking at what's working, what's not working, and that each month puts out a new.
Ongoing every month for all these, all these years and just constantly improving. I think that's just super, super impressive.
Kerri: Sure. I I mean, you're absolutely right. The, we, we get a, the demand is, is significant. The, the number of requests that come in from the field in terms of, you know, changes that they would like to see is, is significant.
And so, you know, we, we have. I think, uh, a, a well orchestrated model that's an equal partnership between the business, um, process owners, and then our IT organization. And really those three groups come together in as a meeting of the minds and, and really. Talk through, hash through what it, First of all, does this make good sense?
Is this helping to improve the customer experience? Does this not unduly burden the, the front lines our, you know, our customer success managers and, and the like, and then. What is the, you know, kind of the, the best path forward to help realize the, the change that's being asked for in a way that is in keeping with the SAP strategy and our overall customer success transformation, um, you know, vision.
So I do think that that kind of conglomeration or the meeting of the minds of those groups, Is kind of the, the underpinning the success of, of how we're able to, to continually innovate, iterate, and also remain true to what we're trying to accomplish.
Jamie: You know, it just really demonstrates as well as this kind of culture of customer success, like we were talking about within SAP, right?
That it's, you know, as you mentioned, you have the three groups, the business side, the process team, and then the IT team all working together, and then requests and feedback and. Coming from not just those groups, but from the field themselves. I think it, it really demonstrates that commitment to the customer, to that unified customer experience and vision and really executing against it, which is super impressive for the rest of us.
So then I guess the question is, how has this uptake of customer success at SAP, how has that really had an impact on the various functions, and maybe even as on the company as a.
Kerri: Yeah, absolutely. We have made a tremendous amount of changes in our customer success function over the last few years. Um, you know, starting about the time that we began partnering with Totango, we had nearly all of our customer success functions were disparate, meaning we had these various lines of business that were the, the cloud companies that we acquired.
they had their own customer success functions, and of course they were all doing, you know, great work, but specifically focused on. You know, that specific area of the business. So we've, you know, since brought them all together. And then, you know, maybe the next major evolution was we brought customer, customer success expanded even further to include those customer success type functions or customer engagement types, functions, what some people refer to as post sales together with sales.
And then we've most recently brought services in. So basically what we now have is, Holistic function that is really. All of the people who are responsible for delivering on the promise that we make to our customers during this, the sales cycle and beyond in one group. So, um, that is rather massive. And, you know, going back to what I was talking about with.
Tsia, you know, again, something that it seems like a lot of different, um, organizations of, you know, generally speaking, you know, smaller size are also kind of looking at or struggling with or debating. And it certainly has made sense for us. It's, it's, you know, helps to streamline and, and, you know, reduce silos and reduce, you know, that handoffs and, and really make things more kind of warm transitions versus, you know, kind of cold handoff.
Right. You know, one of the things that I've
Jamie: seen, you know, we just had our, uh, customer success, uh, teams event, or last week, and it was, uh, you know, real success. But one of the things I've really seen in the market then, even here at Totango when I look at it, is the fact that at a certain point you have to have specialization on the team.
So you, you get, the company gets, and the number of customers gets to a scale point where you cannot have just, you know, one person who is responsible for all of these cu customer success, let's call it functions, right? So whether that is onboarding, um, driving adoption, driving the renewal, uh, driving expansion for the customer, upselling the customer, answering the support tickets, delivering the, delivering the professional services, right?
All of these things that. Have to come together and as you're just describing the SAP in like a really seamless fashion for that customer. And so I think sometimes in smaller companies, people think that they're gonna hire one customer success manager who's gonna miraculously do all these things, and that might work when you have a really small number of customers.
But as you get bigger, and certainly you guys know this better than anyone else with your just incredible scale, that does not work. And so at the name of the game, at the end of the it is to figure out who are all. People, what are all those functions that for that cus to deliver for that customer that need to be super well orchestrated, right?
And kind of come together And you can see even with you guys as you're talking about how many things you've kind of moved into this function or this area that you kind of call customer
Kerri: success. Yeah, that's absolutely right. And what I, what I find interesting about that whole evolution, and as you were mentioning, you know, basically, do you have generalists or do you have experts, or do you have both?
And then you know that the debate that I see in the CS profession, especially with organizations like you're talking about who are trying to evolve, is do you hire. Domain experts or do you hire CS professionals? Because certainly it has definitely, you know, evolved to become a, a, a profession over the last decade.
And so, you know, what, what do you do? How do you balance that? And then, you know, the, what kind of experts do you engage for fee and which, what kind of experts do you engage? For free or as part of the, the LICENS or service because you know that that's going to help the customer achieve their, their business outcomes.
And I, you know, it's, it's fascinating and back to your, you know, points earlier about, um, you know, SAP's can, you know, continued evolution and, and innovation. This is something that we talk about all the time. And again, I don't think we're unique. I think these topics came up during the Totango customer advisory board, you know, last week or.
Yeah, I think it was last week. Um, you know, and it's, it's interesting and I do think it's, you know, something that will continue to, will all, will all debate and evolve, you know, again, for the next decade. So, Kerri,
Jamie: where do you guys aim when you think about that, you know, domain expertise versus customer success?
More general skills.
Kerri: Yeah, I mean, it's a great question and the pendulum does swing back and forth and I, you know, in large part it's we, we aim to find that sweet spot in order to meet customer expectations. And I'll give you a very specific example. So I came from our Success Factors line of business, which is really you.
Human experience management or hr, you know, management software. And so if you want to have a CSM of, you know, some manner shaper or variety, that can have a, a meaningful discussion with a C H R O. That's not going to be the average csm, right? You need a domain expert. You need someone who comes from the background of HR who can talk about succession planning, compensation management, you know, these kinds of topics that are near and dear to the decision maker.
You know, the CHRO's heart. The average CSM can't do that. So that's why the pendulum kind of swings, swings back and forth because you actually need both. Which then I think informs the conversation about experts because not only do you need those kind, both ex uh, both types of experts, but you also, um, Often need technical experts, someone who can help the customer understand that, you know, hey, maybe if I implemented the succession software, you know, three or four years ago.
But our strategy as a company has changed, you know, a couple of times that the solution can evolve with your business. And so, Will a domain expert know that detail that maybe an administrator that that reports to the C H R O a few levels down needs probably not. So you need it all, but how you deliver that in a scalable manner and in a manner that allows you to, um, maintain operating margins and, you know, all of the things that really matter in a cloud business are.
Why the pendulum swings. I don't think anyone in the technology industry has this figured out yet. At least that's my, um, you know, kind of take on it. And so yeah, we'll, we'll evolve and grow, um, as, as the world evolves and grows. Great.
Jamie: So you guys have, you know, when, in the time that I've been working with you, I've seen, you know, over these years now, you, you'll have, um, new strategies that will come in, in terms of guiding everything you're doing with customer success, right?
So there's, and there's various methodologies that are kind of put out there by industry groups as well. I know laces the kind of current thing at SAP, which is I think land, op, consume, expand, you know, and I know these things evolve as you are. Thinking about this and as you're maturing, um, the customer success, uh, practice and the mindset, you know, truly trying to drive the outcomes for the company.
So maybe talk us through the model that you're currently using and what the different phases are, and like why has SAP adopted a model like this?
Kerri: Sure. You know, and I, I'll maybe I'll, I'll pivot a little bit and say that our model is basically very much akin to the the TSA TS i a model of layer, you know, which is land adopt, expand.
So it's essentially the same thing and, and, um, and we are evolving again and, you know, frankly, and do in large part, to what I consider to be a, a great sign, which is our frontline employees, CSMs account executives want to be able to talk about this model with our customers. But I, I'm pretty sure most customers don't wanna be landed.
Right, Right. , So how do you kind or consumed? Or consumed, Right, exactly. So how do you have customer-centric language that really gets to kind of the same intention, but nonetheless. The model is, is very much akin to Tsia. So land is really about, you know, customer acquisition and, and how do you understand what the customer is trying to accomplish and match what their business outcomes are to the solutions that we have to offer.
And then transitioning them into, you know, adopt where we are. Formally welcoming them to our family and helping them, um, to accelerate the implementation and, you know, ultimate consumption of the solutions that they've purchased so that they are getting, you know, good ROI and, you know, receiving the, the, the benefits and the outcomes that they expect.
And then ultimately, Growing, expanding and renewing, um, the relationship in, in perpetuity. So, you know, our, again, our model isn't really that different than, um, you know, the average technology, um, company. But to your point earlier, we're in a constant state of innovation and constantly looking at, you know, does this still make sense?
Does this language help us, you know, foster the, um, experience? We, you know, we want to our, our customers to, to receive. And why does SAP have a
Jamie: model or use a model? Why not just, you know, kind of not
Kerri: define. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think it goes back to foundational elements of, with, with no model, you have people doing, you know, kind of what they think is best, which sometimes is a good idea and other times maybe a, a full departure from, you know, what we actually want to deliver.
So it's, it's back to the very beginning of a model, a process. A tool helps the people deliver in a consistent manner. So, you know, that's, again, if I go back to my, um, implementation consulting days, I mean, that's the first question that you ask when you're engaging in implementation, what is your process?
And you know, when, again, when I was in those roles, it was staggering how many c. Don't have an articulated process that, or at least that's unified, consistent and can be, you know, well orchestrated in technology. So, you know, that's why, you know, if you want to have a technology help you, then you've, you, you have to have a model.
Yeah, exactly.
Jamie: And I think this is what we see people using the success box really for too. From the perspective of, okay, if this is, you know, our customer journey and this is our model that we're trying to scale up, you know, how do we actually execute against what we see as the best practices? Maybe, you know, customer success person over here a is doing a fantastic job and I wanna make sure that, that that uh, approach or.
Innovation is really spread across the whole team. So, you know, kind of building those brush practices in and so forth and getting that kind of standard delivery. Right. Just like you're saying with implementation in your experiences early on at SAP, it's not like every implement, or every single project manager, every single technical team goes to the customer and does it a different way.
You know, there's an approach, right? That's, that's been taught to the team about this is the s is the SAP. So I think, um, you know, a lot of that innovation has come from, uh, all of the great work that, uh, you know, you guys have been doing with Totango and then of course all the other customers as well too, which is to the, all these thought leadership, you know, kind of concepts and ideas that you're, you know, always kind of putting out there with the, the ongoing, uh, iteration and so forth, which is fabulous.
Maybe tell us, um, something that, um, You know, has been really hard. Maybe give us a little bit more of a challenge that you guys faced when you were trying to implement any of the models that you've had over the
Kerri: years. I, I think one of the things that, again, kind of can't be overemphasized is the desire a csm, for example, to be able to explain the methodology that we're using to a customer.
So it's, it's an interesting. You know, kind of shift in perspective, because I think a lot of times when you think about customer success methodology, you're thinking about it in terms of this is the way we orchestrate ourselves internally. This is kind of what's happening behind the curtain. This is not something that we share with our employees, or sorry, with our customers because it's.
You know, kind of we'll say back office stuff, right? The inside out version.
Jamie: Mm-hmm. .
Kerri: Mm-hmm. , Yeah. The inside out. But the, the reality is, is that in order to develop a really good working relationship, and it doesn't matter if you're, you know, we're talking like, you know, one on one between like you and I, or if it's, you know, two large, you know, businesses trying to work together.
Each need to understand each other's, you know, kind of approach. And so my point really is, is that I do think this is maybe the next challenge that we all will face, which is how do you empower and um, and, and give. CSMs, the tools to help them articulate the customer success methodology in a way that helps the customer know why we are doing, you know, certain things like a QBR for example, why and how it's mutually beneficial, that it's not just, you know, the CSM doing data gathering, but it allows us to kind of orchestrate.
Experts and you know, and you know, all of, all of the other folks that come together in order to drive customer success. So I do think it is, it that is a ch has been a challenge for us and that is a challenge that I think all companies, you know, technology companies in particular will be, you know, focused on, in, in the future.
You know, how do you make the customer experience more transparent to the customer basically.
Jamie: So your advice is really to take that kind of like, you know, inside out view that many of us have when we're talking about customer success and the handoff between this function and that function. And really make it customer visible.
Make it all about what the customer is trying and be
Kerri: able to articulate Exactly. Mm-hmm. , flip it around and make it about the customer. And, and don't be shy about, you know, sharing what it is and where, where you are and, you know, making it a part of the qbr. I don't think that any of us have really gotten there.
I mean, we say, we say these things like you just mentioned, you know, it shouldn't be inside out. It should be outside in. Great. How do you bring those two models together in a way where we're all speaking with common language? And, you know, that I think gets just, is something that I'm always cognizant of because I do think change management and communication and language matters.
And when you're trying to basically achieve outcomes together, if you're not on the same page, if you don't each agree on where you are, hard to get to where you wanna be.
Jamie: Tell us some exciting ex uh, customer success success story from.
Kerri: Just the, the bringing together of, of one customer success function in my mind is a huge success.
You know, especially when you think about, you know, SAP just celebrated its 50th anniversary, so we've got a very. You know, a deep history of doing things in certain ways and certain groups existing, and so just the, the, the, the fact that we have a group of leaders and a group of employees who have all come together with one goal in mind.
Customer success and been able to bring all of them together under one leader who is, you know, our, um, our board leader responsible for customer success. That's huge. That's really huge. Was it easy? Is it done? No, you know, it's kind of back to, you know, what you were saying earlier, We're in a constant state of innovation and we're always looking at, you know, now what can we do?
How can we make this better? How can we improve, you know, onboarding? Or how can we improve just the, the um, basically, Eliminate handoffs. So there are no handoffs that it's really one team always aware of, you know, what's going on. So, And I guess lenient into
Jamie: the technology for that piece and Absolutely.
Kerri: Absolutely. Mm-hmm. . Great.
Jamie: Okay. So what would you say maybe for leaders who are thinking about trying to, Okay, I'm gonna really make my, uh, figure out what is my model at my company and really drive, you know, Like this singular focus as you have at SAP, which is obviously so impressive at such scale.
Kerri: Well be, be curious, I mean, is always a good place to start.
You know, just be really curious about, you know, what's currently, what are people doing currently and how much of that can be the kind of the, the foundation of what you are going to do in the future. And you know, I think leveraging models that have been developed, for example, by tsia is a great place to start.
If you don't know where to start. You know, talk with your peers, but always, you know, be be curious, be bold. Make some, you know, bold decisions. Do things in a kind of a trial and error, um, mindset. You know, the growth mindset, meaning don't be scared to try something new. That's how innovation happens, right?
And will it be perfect the first time? No, it won't, but you will learn tremendously from those, you know, maybe missteps or side steps and just being in a position of constantly. Looking back and saying, you know, how can we be better? How can we, um, evolve This, I think is, is paramount, especially when you're in a profession like customer success, which is new, you know, and, and growing and evolving.
And so it hasn't been figured out. It, it might seem like it's been figured out, but we're, you know, technology is changing every day and, um, you know, just leverage it to its fullest. Okay,
Jamie: Kerri, I'm gonna ask you now the quick hits questions, okay? All right. All right. All right, Kerri. So, hey, what's something you read, washed, or listened to recently that you can't let
Kerri: go?
Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown. I'm a big Brene Brown fan, and that book in particular, I think really has all kinds of great nuggets for, you know, how to be a better human and how to be a better leader. All right.
Jamie: And what advice would you give to someone starting out in your role today?
Kerri: Be bold, Be brave.
Learn, Um, grow, fail fast. Don't, don't be afraid to put yourself in, in the path of something new. You know, if there's a new opportunity, raise your hand. Jump in and, and be the one to help figure it out. , and
Jamie: obviously that's something you've been able to do at SAP in a big way, and look where you are now.
Right. That's my favorite part. All right. And if you weren't working in tech or customer success, what
Kerri: would you wanna be doing? Well, I think at this point I'm gonna say I would like to be teaching yoga in Costa Rica because why not? All right.
Jamie: I love that. I think I'm gonna sign up
Kerri: for the. I would love to have you
Thank you. Soon as it happens, I'll, you'll be the first to be invited. All right,
Narrator: that's it for this week's episode of cs. No Bs with your host, Jamie Berta. If you enjoy today's episode, please leave a rating or review and tell a friend. This podcast was created by the team at Totango, Design and Run Best in class customer journey.
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