Humans of CS vol. 02: Travis Perkins | biggest takeaway for CS from 2023

Biggest takeaway for CS from 2023:

Cash is king, and AI is a business must. Retention and, more, expansion became the main focus of CS, leaving behind some of the traditional metrics such as NPS and CSAT. AI in CS, like in many functions, became an imperative. While we’re still in the early days, CS teams leveraging AI for note-taking and follow-up have become table stakes, while many teams are using AI for greater personalization at scale.

Tips for CS that you’re bringing into 2024:

Don’t shy away from owning a revenue number. CS has in the past shied away from really owning an expansion number and driving expansions to closure as it was believed to be an anti-pattern of a trusted advisor. That’s just not the case. Understanding our customers' businesses, their pains, needs, etc., helps us craft the right solutions and smoothens the commercial experience.

Become financially competent. You don’t need to be a CPA, but understanding how businesses think about burn, fundraising, hiring, etc, and the terms used within will help you navigate the buying/expansion process.

Your best productivity hack for CS teams:

Businesses are asking employees to “do more with less”. To over-delight and deliver on the promise that comes from a well-oiled CS team, time management is critical now more than ever. For this, I recommend CS teams leverage the Eisenhower matrix. Have your team create these weekly (Fridays for the week ahead is perfect), then review/complete a team matrix during weekly kickoff meetings on Monday, review/complete a team matrix. This helps spread the load across the team while keeping each individual’s matrix relatively intact as it considers what everyone is working on, leading to a more productive team.

Predictions for CS trends in 2024:

MORE AI (obviously)! We will see a continued increase in point solutions “powered by AI” with a slowing around midyear when we begin to see some of those solutions turned into features of larger end-to-end platforms. While the usage of AI to automate repetitive tasks will increase, customers will desire more “real” human interaction; thus, the need to meet customers where they are will become a business imperative.