Guiding Principles
Zendesk mission is to ensure that customers are realizing the value of their zendesk investment through adoption, optimization, growth, and improved CX operations. Ultimately, efforts compound to
increase customer GRR (Gross Revenue Retention) and customer satisfaction.
Scaled KPIs for 2025 ():
- Quality
- 4.3 Avg CSAT, ensure quality from the customer perspective
- 4 Avg rubric score, drive customer outcomes and value across the team
- Book coverage
- 30 unique success plans per Qtr
- 50 total meetings per Qtr
- 70% completion of high risk CTAs
- 80% of Book of Business (BoB) touched per year
How is Quality assessed? Five key areas are evaluated for quality:
- Introduction
- Discovery
- Value Delivery
- Administrative
- Relationship Building
Within these areas, there are scored sections that result in a total area score. These area scores are averaged for an engagement quality score. All customer engagements will require a CSAT survey which will soon be improved and automated. It is expected to score a 4.
1:1 Engagement
Anatomy of an engagement
- Identify Customers for engagement
- Leverage CTAs
- Preparing for engagement
- Review the CTAs to determine reason and type of engagement
- complete pre-discovery
- Discovery
- introductions and expectation setting, aligning on goals
- use this info to build a SP
- Success plan delivery
- communicate recommendations
- provide a clear and agreed upon success plan
- Follow up + gainsight admin
- follow up with customer via email
- complete tasks in gainsight
A CTA is a starting point for your engagements, is a feature that helps manage customer interactions and drive specific actions based on customers health and engagement. They are essentially reminders or tasks to take action ensuring a proactive engagement. In Gainsight, you can look at all your CTAs inside the cockpit. They are evaluated based on:
- Proactive renewal conversations
- Insufficient product adoption
- Low engagement
- Cross-functional support
- Onboarding a customer to Scaled Success
Discovery
Discovery allows CSMs to gain a deep understanding of the customer’s goals, challenges and requirements. It helps identify the customer’s desired outcomes and ensures alignment between their objectives and the capabilities of Zendesk.
Meeting checklist for discovery:
- Account info
- Utilization metrics
- Customer Data
Discovery is a fundamental step in driving customer success and ensuring long-term satisfaction and loyalty (retention).
Some general categories for questions:
- Get to know them, who are they? who are you talking to? this will determine how to deliver your message
- Strategy and goals, understand their goals and objectives.
- Products and workflows, important to know what products the customer has and why.
Discovery is useful when you leave knowing:
- Short and long term goals
- Use Case
- Measures of success
- Pains and blockers
- Sentiment
Using data to inform Discovery
Data never tells you the full story. Rather, it’s a starting point. A foundation that helps you get your head around who the customer is, what their deal is, and perhaps how you can help.
As a CSM, we’re concerned with:
- Keeping the customer healthy
- Preventing churn/contraction
- Helping the customer to grow
- Expanding into additional areas
Churn: Step 1, are they using their seats? How many seats are they paying for and how many are they using? how to check? Gainsight > Utilization > Support Agents.
Expansion: what makes a customer a good fit for advanced AI? good intent model? how to check? Gainsight > Summary >Product Entitlements
- 1,500 + new tickets in the last 6 months
- <2 self service ratio
- 40% one touch ticket percentage
What makes a customer a good fit for premier? how to check? Monitor > Customer Context > Tickets:
- 10+ tickets with advocacy in last year
What makes a customer a good fit for Assist?How to check? Head into Monitor > Overview > Stats
- Large number of Macros
- Larger number of Triggers/Automations
- Large number of Views
Engagement
engagement models, choosing always based on customer needs:
- Two-touch
- 60 min total, bi-annual
- discovery 30 min and recommendations 30 min
- One-touch
- from 30 to 60 min, bi-annual
- combined discovery + on the spot solutioning + robust follow up
Engagement types:
- Onboarding, is a pivotal time in the customer lifecycle and it’s our opportunity to assure them that they made the right decision in choosing Zendesk. If we see low utilization within their first 30 days, we call this onboarding risk.
- new customers within 30 day purchase
- Adoption, For customers to see their ROI they must truly adopt Zendesk
- customers with signs of low utilization
- Retention, Enhance customer retention by ensuring customer sees value, addressing issues promptly, and aligning your efforts and recommendations with your customers’ objectives.
- retain customers at key milestones and indicators
At the end of your engagement you will deliver a Success Plan Success Plans offer personalized recommendations through both a strategic and tactical lens. These documents are high-level enough for a VP stakeholder and easily actionable by an Admin.
Cross Functional Partners
Collaborating across teams for the best Customer Experience:
- Renewals
- Responsible for commercial Renewal conversations and in quarter forecasting
- Loop Renewals in via Z2 whenever a customer mentions adjusting their contract at renewal, churning or contracting
- Sales
- Responsible for overall account management with a focus on expansion and new business.
- Work to build relationships with AEs that you share the most accounts with through regular 1:1s and joining their team meetings
- Advocacy
- General support issues, technical escalations, responding to customer tickets
- Use this guide to understand when and how to escalate an advocacy ticket in Z2
- Services
- Provide paid services to customers who need extra support implementing Zendesk, reconfiguring, launching new workflows, building integrations etc
- Refer to this hub to understand how Services can help your customers
Career Progression
How can you own your career progression:
- Be introspective. Identify what you enjoy about your current job, what you want to do more of and what interests you. Find your motivation and fulfillment.
- Determine roles/teams that fit those interest areas and start networking, whether the next step is on the Scaled team or on another team. Ask your manager to make an intro if they have the connection already.
- TELL everyone (your peers, leaders, cross-functional partners and their leaders) what you want to do next, when people have you in mind they will insert you into opportunities to get you there!
- Work with your manager and others to build an assessment of the skills and relationships needed to
get to the next step, have a clear, actionable plan to achieve those goals and hold yourself accountable to taking those actions
what is needed before taking that next step?
- At least one year in your current role.
- Exceeding expectations. Engagements quantity and quality, customer delight, a trusted resource. Raise the bar.
- A business need, ability, or justification. Promotions aren’t automatic, but they’re influenced by performance and impact.
- Good standing in the business, within the org and across the team.
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