Customer Success Summit 2016 Breakout Session Presented by: Dan Riordan, President & COO, ThinkHR

1. Making Customer Success a
Core Part of Your Business
From Day One

2. Be Intentional
No Illusions

3. MANY OF OUR ASSUMPTIONS
ARE
WRONG
Wow….I love Cauliflower

4. Dan Riordan
• B.S. Electrical Engineering Not
my passion
• 6 Start-ups.. Seen it all
• Current: scaled from 15-100 and 8
figures in ARR run rate
• “Question everything” is my motto

5. “Customers buy on hope, they renew on experience!”

6. “It is impossible to begin to learn that which one
thinks one already knows.”
Epictetus
• $1M – Started Customer Success
• $6M - Became intentional
• 8 figures and scaling - our entire company revolves around CS

7. Create a Rhythm
of Success
• Company
• Employee
• Customer
Trust, Intentionality, Leadership in all you do

8. Lack of trust comes from lack of good communication

9. “Chief enemy of forward momentum is
confusion”
Company: Intention
• We set our company mission and values purposefully
• We use the OKR process to drive clear communication of goals &
objectives
• The basics matter: How we recruit, interview, on-board etc. is all
purposeful

10. Company Branding
• Why do you do what you do?
• The basic issue: more jobs than people
• Office environment is strategic for productivity, collaboration, and growth
• What would happen if every candidate sat in your company for an hour and just listened?

11. • Intelligent technology
• Help people complete processes,
tasks, and make better decisions
• Employee value prop
Company

12. Employee
Trust
• Without trust and safety = self preservation
• With trust, speed goes up, costs go down
• Trust allows vulnerability
Intention
• Employees must make progress
• 66M millennials in workforce
• 2/3 will change companies by 2020*
*Deloitte
2016
survey
Neglect
Lack of communication
Undeveloped skills
Change jobs

13. • Lower turnover
• Shortened time to fill new roles
• 76% of candidates want to know
what makes it an attractive place
to work*
Employee Experience
Leads to:
*LinkedIn
Survey

14. Employee’s Role
in CS
“9% of customers lured
away by competition, 60%
are thrown away by
employee indifference!”
Journal of Marketing

15. “Management acts on leading indicators of
good news and lagging indicators of bad news”
- Andy Grove

16. Customers
• CS is the game changer
• CS puts us on the leading edge of bad
news
Intention
• Drive for small wins, day one
• Behavior modification in small steps
• No illusions around engagement

17. Customers
Branding
• Technology has disrupted it all
• Everybody has increased visibility
into your organization

18. 5 Ideas to Put into
Practice
1. Clearly stated “why”
2. Progress: Ensure your employees, clients, etc. are learning
3. Ask questions: Don’t assume, teach
4. Be present: “The concept of always being reachable makes
us present nowhere”
5. Trust: Low-trust society; build a high trust workplace

19. Q&A