How Customer Success can help you reach your long-term goals

Before coming to GoCardless, I worked as a business development manager in a charity, working mostly on Direct Debit donations. I wanted to bring my attention more on ongoing relationship management whilst using my knowledge of Direct Debit, which is what led me to becoming a customer success manager (CSM) at GoCardless. 

My key responsibilities revolve around working closely with some of our largest customers to ensure that they are getting as much value as possible from the product. I also identify opportunities for them to expand with us. My day-to-day varies quite a lot, which is what keeps it interesting. I’ll usually have a client meeting or calls, some of which will be quarterly business reviews, others will be monthly check-ins, and some will be about best practice sessions and education. 

Proactive vs. reactive customer support

People often think that customer success managers are part of the Support team. The main difference between the two functions is that Support is typically a reactive function dealing with incoming queries, whilst the Customer Success team is more proactive, working on a long-term strategy with our customers. However, we sometimes have to deal with urgent issues which can be challenging. Balancing numerous requests without asking too much of our customers is an ongoing task but the longer that you work with clients, the easier this is to manage. I love being able to build a relationship with our customers and help them through their entire GoCardless journey. 

One thing about my role that surprises people is the cross-functional nature of it. I have the opportunity to work with virtually every team across the business, which is great because you get to know so many people and learn so much. Our team are fantastic and we love taking part in team socials after work, most of which inevitably end up in the pub.

Helping customers become advocates

I work very closely with The Guardian, having built a relationship with them since I joined GoCardless. Following their experience with GoCardless and our Customer Success team, they have gone on to recommend us to other organisations. 

To me, this illustrates that the service and product value that we deliver to The Guardian on an ongoing basis is of such a high quality that they have become an advocate for GoCardless. This is incredibly powerful and we are very proud to count the Guardian as one of our customers.

I really enjoy seeing our customers achieve great success with GoCardless based on the advice, best practices and recommendations that we share. Seeing them achieve their goals is hugely satisfying and I love being a part of such a rewarding and interesting process.