Presentation by Kristen Hayer, CEO at The Success League. A deep dive into setting the right metrics and goals to help your Customer Success team succeed. Presented at the Customer Success Silicon Valley Meetup on August 6.

1. Metrics & Goals
Goal-Based Success Management
Kristen Hayer
CEO, The Success League
August 6, 2015

2. “Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we
must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is
no other route to success.” -Pablo Picasso
Goal-Based ManagementCompanyMetrics
These are the big-
picture pieces of
your company’s
business plan and
strategy. Ideally
you drive the
success-related
components of
the plan.
SuccessGoals
The goals you
create for your
team should push
your team toward
achieving the
company metrics
that are related
to customer
success.
IndividualGoals
Manage the
individuals on
your team to the
goals you have
built for your
group. A rep
might be
responsible for
hitting both team
and individual
goals.
The more your team becomes accountable for company
metrics, the more power your team has to help customers.

3. Ask Key Leaders:
• What experience do you want our customers to have?
• What functions should the success team be tackling?
• What tells you the success team is doing a good job?
Success For YOUR Company

4. • Churn or Retention – companies call it different things,
but this will always be a part of the financial plan.
• Expansion Revenue – depending on the stage of your
company, this may or may not be a part of your financial plan.
• Professional Services Revenue – if you are a service
delivery organization or if there is a service you can monetize,
this should be in the plan.
• Referral Revenue – if the customers your team manages
drive referral revenue, you should own this number
Financial Metrics
Tip: If you’re not familiar with Excel, take a class. It will help
you understand and start to drive your company’s plan.

5. Building A Plan
You can break things down in a way that works
for you and your team, just make sure they add
up to what is in the financial plan.
Line items that are flat in the business plan
are an opportunity for you to look for
ways to improve performance.
Some metrics might not be in the business plan but are directly related to something that is. If
you gain agreement that they are important to measure, add them to your plan.
When you’re done building your plan make sure it matches
the financial plan and has the support of key leaders.

6. Metrics vs. Reality
1 • Build a Realistic, Alternate Plan
2 • Review your Plan with Finance
3 • Review your Plan with Leadership
4 • Get Involved with Planning Next Year
When you’re new to a company or have been promoted from a front-line
to leadership position, you probably didn’t have input into the plan. If the
business plan is very different from what you can achieve, do this:
Be Bold. No executive wants to underachieve. If you
have solid reasons for your alternate plan, you’ll gain
support.

7. Specific – A goal to “reduce churn” is not specific enough. A goal to reduce churn by 2%
this quarter is. Statements like “reduce churn” or “improve revenue” make great company
initiatives but terrible goals.
Measurable – I’m going to tackle this one on it’s own slide, but basically if you can’t
measure something, it shouldn’t be a goal. For example, “improve customer engagement”,
without a series of surveys and tools, is not a measurable goal.
Achievable – If your company has only ever had a 50% renewal rate, increasing to a 95%
renewal rate in one quarter is probably not an achievable goal. A goal to increase to 60% may
be more realistic.
Relevant – This is where history sometimes gets in the way. If you’ve always given your CSM
team a goal of 40 calls a day, that’s great, but if that goal doesn’t help you achieve your
metrics, maybe it isn’t relevant any more. All goals should tie to metrics in some tangible way.
Time-bound – Goals should reflect the timeframe for the changes you expect to see in
your metrics. For example, you might want to have monthly goals related to expansion revenue
and quarterly goals related to customer satisfaction.
SMART Goals

8. Goal What You Control
• Control – things like how many customer go through
training, how many customers are put on agreements, how
many upgrades are sold
• Influence – things like the overall churn rate, customer
satisfaction scores, how customers adopt new features

9. What Is Measurable
Tip: Don’t go crazy with the goals. People can only really
think about 3-5 goals at a time. Choose impactful ones.
Tools
-CRM (like
Salesforce)
-CSM (like
Totango)
-Admin System
-Survey Tools
-Finance System
Methods
-Consistent with
Company Metrics
-Consistent with
Industry Norms
-Accurately
Reflect Customer
Health
Alignment
-Leadership
Support
-Finance Support
-Consistent with
Internal Reporting
It is important to consider what and how you measure things as you’re
creating goals for your team. Here are a few items to make sure you’ve
thought about:

10. Clear Goals
Make sure you communicate clearly:
• What are the goals? How do they impact company metrics?
• What is the timeline for achieving the goals?
• Where can everyone see the team’s results?
• What action plans are already in place?

11. The One-on-One
Goal: Drive Individual Achievement
• Make reps bring you their results to date
• Create an action plan
• Pick a time and stick with it
The Team Meeting
Goal: Communicate Results and Changes
• Share team and company results
• Use this time to learn
• Reward performance
Regular Meetings
I use 15Five for my one-on-one meetings. It is easy, guides
the conversation, and lets you keep a meeting history.

12. Sharing Results
“When it is obvious the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals,
adjust the action steps.” -Confucius
1. Visible and Up to Date – whiteboards, leaderboards,
dashboards are all great vehicles
2. Tied to Company Metrics – it isn’t enough to communicate the
results, you need to communicate why they are important
3. Unbiased – communicating unmet goals is tough, but if you
have to be willing to take both the wins and losses.
4. Intelligent – it isn’t enough to say that you hit (or didn’t hit) your
goals. You need to be able to explain why.
Tip: Communicate results both down and up within your
company. Don’t assume people know how it’s going.

13. The Success League
Kristen Hayer, CEO
Kristen@TheSuccessLeague.io
Q & A