Welcome to Mastering CS: Candid Leader Insights! In this episode, Irina Cismas sits down with Grant Dutton, VP of Customer Success at Submittable.
They discuss building exceptional CS teams, driving customer retention through proactive strategies, and how to integrate teams after an acquisition seamlessly. This conversation is packed with valuable lessons for anyone passionate about customer success.
What You’ll Learn:
- How to transition from reactive to proactive customer success strategies
- The key steps to building and structuring an effective CS team
- The importance of internal alignment for a seamless customer journey
- How to leverage technology and data to improve CS performance
- Insights into managing team integration during mergers and acquisitions
- Predictions for the future of customer success in 2025
Key insights and takeaways for CSMs based on the interview:
Customer Success as a Core Philosophy: Grant highlighted how his diverse background in sales, support, and client service shaped his approach to customer success. For him, CS is about ensuring remarkable customer experiences and driving value, making it the foundation of all customer-facing roles.
Transitioning from Reactive to Proactive: Shifting from technical support to CS felt natural for Grant, but he emphasized the importance of adopting a proactive mindset. Setting clear expectations and empowering the team to focus on meaningful customer engagement were key steps in this transformation.
Building and Structuring a CS Team: When stepping into his role at Submittable, Grant prioritized building trust within the team and creating transparency across departments. This foundation led to better internal collaboration and improved customer relationships, ultimately driving retention.
The Power of Process: Establishing baseline processes for customer interactions was crucial in moving the CS team from reactive to proactive. By setting clear expectations for outreach and day-to-day operations, the team could focus on delivering consistent value to customers.
Podcast transcript
Irina 0:02
Welcome to Mastering CS Candid Leader Insights, the podcast where we deep dive into the world of customer success with industry leaders. I’m your host, Irina Cismas, and today’s guest is Grant Dutton, VP of Customer Success at Submittable. Grant, welcome and thanks for joining us today.
Grant 0:19
Thanks for having me!
Choosing customer success
Irina 0:20
My pleasure. You’ve done sales, support, client service. What made you decide to dive into customer success?
What was that spark that pulled you in?
Grant 0:32
Yeah, I would say I see customer success as the foundation for all of those. So I think that at the end of the day, like making sure the customers are having a remarkable experience with your organization and they’re really getting full value out of the software that they’re purchasing. To me, that’s kind of the number one goal and it’s the number one metric that I hold myself to.
So I would say, yeah, that was kind of the spark that pulled me into it.
From reactivity to proactivity
Irina 0:54
I noticed that you shifted from technical support to customer success. Was it tough to go from putting out fires to being more proactive or did it feel like a natural transition?
Grant 1:08
Pretty natural. I started my career when I would consider customer success as a customer advocate and that was my first entry into the SaaS world. And so I felt like for me, it was pretty natural going back into customer success, even coming from putting out fires and tech support.
Irina 1:27
I know that you stepped in recently, almost recently, as VP of CS at Submittable. What was your first big priority? Was it more about improving the processes, building up the team, was focusing on customer relationship?
How did you pick up your battles?
Grant 1:46
Yeah. So I would say the number one priority for me was building the team. Along with that came their processes and really the end result is those customer relationships.
So what we saw is after the team really got dialed in, it was really meshing well together. And then we had a lot of processes that supported the customer. The end result was that our customer relationships, our retention rates, all of that went up.
So yeah, I would say it’s a combination of all those three, but definitely the customer relationships were an effect of those first two.
How to structure your CS team and processes
Irina 2:14
I’m curious. I want to dig deeper on those layers. How did you structure your team?
You said that the team was the first thing and then together with the team also came the processes. Let’s start with the team. How did you structure it?
How is the team structured?
Grant 2:33
Yeah. So the team, when I had come in, there was a recent change in leadership. So I think it was really starting with foundation of trust.
I think with that and that attention to results, I think the team had been operating in a silo for quite some time. And so it was really bringing everyone together, sharing a lot of that knowledge, making everything as transparent as possible for the team. So I’d say that was really the biggest goal for building up that team.
With that, I think the team relationships internally got a lot better. I think better with other departments that they work with and things like that.
Irina 3:05
And in terms of processes, what did you focus on? What were the must-have processes that you wanted to either establish or maybe review if they were already in place?
Grant 3:20
Yeah. I’d say it was really a level set of expectations for what does customer interaction look like? What are the expectations around how often we should be reaching out to customers?
How should we be proactive? I think the team was operating in a very reactive mentality before that. So I think setting those baselines and what does this look like and what is your day-to-day supposed to look like?
I think that was really just… Once we got that down and dialed, then I think everything really came together.
Collaboration between customer success and other departments
Irina 3:46
You also mentioned earlier about having more visibility and alignment at the company level. I want to ask you, which are your internal alliances? With what departments do you build internal alliances to have a successful customer organization?
Grant 4:08
Yeah. I mean, we work with every department. So I think it was convenient.
I was already overseeing our tech support organization, which the customer success team works very heavily with. We also worked very well with our professional services organization, with our product organization and putting all that stuff together. I mean, really advocating for the customers with those different organizations and what it looks like when we’re interacting with customers.
That made it just much easier.
Irina 4:36
Okay. And how do you draw the line between proactive and reactive? How does the CS team work with the support organization and also with the professional services?
How does this transition happen from one team to another to make it smooth for the customers and for the customer to not feel that now I’m treating my support, now I’m treating my customer so that you don’t have this… So that remains inside without the customer notice that multiple teams are handling their request.
Grant 5:14
Yeah. I think it comes down to really a united front. So how we speak to customers is pretty synonymous across the organization.
So I’d say that our tech support, how they’re working with customers, even though it may be reactive, it’s always very professional, very courteous. And I think that the customers feel that. I would say a lot of that information is also very visible.
So we are operating out of Salesforce Service Cloud. So a lot of the CS reps are able to see tickets and things like that. We’ll have notifications built into there where once an organization sends a lot of tickets within a short period of time, that will alert a customer success rep.
They’ll be looking through that, very visible, may proactively reach out to a customer and be like, hey, is everything okay? Everything’s going all right. It might just be a change in the team over on the customer side or something like that.
So a spike in those support tickets. But yeah, I would say that across it, even with working with professional services, we may have project managers and things like that that are also working with customers pretty regularly. And I think it’s just that communication internally that’s happening.
So that when a customer talks to their CS rep, there’s no skip. There’s no drop in anything. They understand what’s going on at all times with that customer.
So I think it’s just heavy communication on the internal side.
Customer challenges and how to solve them
Irina 6:26
I also want to speak about your customers. Submittable works with all kinds of organizations, from nonprofits to large corporations. What are some of the typical headaches your customers come to you with, and how does your team help smooth things out for them?
Grant 6:46
Yeah, I would say that it’s, I mean, once they get to us, really the biggest issue they run into is getting their software started. And that’s the same for any of them. But I think a lot of them come from antiquated, kind of clunky softwares.
So they come to ours, it’s very robust, it’s very enterprise grade. And I think for them, it’s getting their internal team aligned and trained on all that stuff. And the CS reps are really helping with a lot of that stuff.
They’re making sure that everyone is getting exactly what they need when they need it. So I’d say most of the issues they come to us with now, it’s just, you know, kind of the usual stuff, hey, you know, we’re waiting on this roadmap item to be developed. And so that’s what we’re really talking about.
And that’s what we’re keeping them really aligned with and really in the know about.
Customer success strategy
Irina 7:29
So you’ve got a pretty big responsibility, if I’m not mistaken, but you are responsible of more than 43 million in ARR, which is not a small thing. And now I’m curious, what’s been your go-to strategy for keeping those customers happy and sticking around? What helped you in 2024?
And speaking about strategy, I want to know, what would you do, what would you continue doing in 2025, in terms of CS strategy to support a company?
Grant 8:03
Yeah, I mean, I think it’s the same things, it’s those remarkable experiences. It’s when they’re reaching out to tech support, they’re getting a fast response, they’re getting an accurate response when they’re reaching out to their CS rep, or their CS rep, better yet, is reaching out to them, proactively addressing needs, keeping them informed of upcoming roadmap responsibilities, anything like that. I’d say that’s the remarkable side of it.
And then on the internal side, it’s being a tireless advocate for our customers. I think that our CS reps do a really good job working with our product and engineering team to ensure that our roadmap is driven by customers and is shaped by customers, and that we’re not missing deadlines or anything, because then that’s a big issue for customers.
Balancing customer requests with the product vision
Irina 8:41
Speaking about these alliances, we’re speaking about the CS being the internal advocate for the customer in front of the product team. I’m curious, how do you prioritize those product requests? What’s the process that you have built so that the voice of the customer is listened?
I know that there’s also the mentality that we want to have a product, or we want to have the customer in the middle of what we do, but on the other hand, we cannot implement every customer request. So I’m curious, how do you balance between being a client-driven organization with the overall product vision and the company directions? Because I feel like there are three parts that have to be aligned.
Grant 9:33
For sure, yeah. I mean, it’s definitely tough, and I think that we try to address as many customers as we possibly can, and it is hard. There are customers that have very specific requests, very specific needs, and how we do try to address that is with our professional services organization, where they can deploy in-the-field customized solutions for customers.
So I think we try to do that nice balance, where I think we take care of most of the customers, as many customers as we possibly can with our internal product team, and they’re working on the roadmap to satiate a lot of those customer needs. And then with a professional services organization, they have a full-stack engineering team, and they can manipulate and change the software and really add tons of cool automations and customizations to the software to satiate those more niche requests that only affect maybe a handful of customers.
Focusing on what matters in CS
Irina 10:20
In terms of every organization has its own CS definition, and depending from company to company, CS means a different thing. In your case, you are running the whole customer journey from onboarding to support and everything which is in between. There’s a lot for the team that you are managing.
So now I’m curious, how do you make sure that the team is focused on the stuff that really matters? Because CS can definitely become busy in a short period of time. They can handle a lot of things.
How do you make sure they move the needle and they are working to what’s important?
Grant 11:02
Yeah, I would say we keep the customer focused really at every conversation. So with every team that I work with, in every department I work with, really the voice of the customer and then the focus of the customer is the number one priority. So I’d say a lot of our conversations revolve around that.
Even when we’re talking about just day-to-day small tactical requests, small tactical options, it’s always about the really ensuring that it’s a smooth transition for the customer, it’s a seamless experience for the customer, and that we’re really making sure they’re getting taken care of.
Irina 11:35
How do you juggle between day-to-day stuff and the supervision that we’re having the big picture? How do you move from one thing, from the strategic approach to the tactical things and in between? Because we all know it, you can’t be either super-strategical and remain only super-strategical or be only on the other hand losing the side of the day-to-day operations.
It’s like losing the contact with the customer. Yeah, it’s tough.
Grant 12:15
I mean it’s definitely, it’s a struggle for sure. I think the most helpful part, I have a group of really amazing managers and directors that work with me and so I think that they can handle a lot of that day-to-day stuff. I still stay connected through, you know, I just still join team meetings and stand-ups and things like that.
But I would say that, I mean, 80% of the day-to-day is handled by them. So I think that really gives me a lot more time and a lot more energy to focus on these big picture strategic items. But I mean, yeah, having a great team really makes the biggest difference.
The challenges of a VP of CS
Irina 12:47
And speaking of you said that some of the things are hard, what’s been your toughest challenge for you lately as in the role of VP of CS and how did you tackle it?
Grant 12:57
Yeah, I mean, we just acquired one of what was our competitor, Wisehive, and so we’re integrating that team. That happened, I mean, only 90 days ago or so.
Irina 13:09
Okay, pretty quick.
Grant 13:10
That’s been pretty recent and that’s been a lot. So it’s an entirely different company with their own systems and their own strategy and their own teammates, obviously, right? So I think integrating that team and making sure that everyone is kind of moving in the same direction and operating the same cadence and it really has the same values.
That’s been, yeah, that’s been definitely, I wouldn’t call it a struggle, but yeah, it’s been top of mind for me and that’s been kind of my challenge and what I’ve been working on for the last three months.
Irina 13:39
And how did you tackle it? And I don’t often have the chance to speak with VP of CS who has been involved either in acquisition or in merge where another topic is companies that become public, so they were listed. So speaking of those acquisition, how did you tackle this challenge of incorporating a new team into an existing CS team?
Grant 14:27
Yeah, I mean, I think it was really outlining the processes that we have, outlining the processes they have, finding out where there’s crossover, finding out where there’s misalignment and going and addressing really that misalignment at first and really making sure we’re mapping the entire customer journey when we’re doing it and figure out, okay, how do we bring these customers over? How do we bring them into our ecosystem while making sure there’s no lapse in their service, while making sure that they’re still having just a great experience throughout the entire time and that they’re getting their needs met? I would say it was really a lot of just charting this out, writing this down, creating a lot of maps and things like that about how does a customer flow through their organization, how do they flow through our organization and how are we going to put those together?
So yeah, a lot of documentation, that was it.
The role of technology is CS
Irina 15:13
How did you leverage technology through this whole process and also in general, how does technology help you in the day-to-day CS operations, not necessarily on your case, but in the case of the team that you are managing and running?
Grant 15:30
Yeah, I mean, I’d say we use a lot of technology in terms of our outreach and stuff. We have those tools, our CRM, I mean, that’s the lifeblood of our organization. That’s where all of our documentation is.
That’s our central source of truth for everything. All of our reporting. I live in Tableau.
I use a lot of data visualization tools and it’s great for aggregating a lot of different data throughout different warehouses or throughout different sources and putting it in one place and charting it. So I’d say I leveraged that quite a bit, just to see the entire picture of something, see any trends that I might be missing, anything like that.
Irina 16:07
And what are the data points that are important and what are the, I want to speak about the must-have dashboards that basically gives you the sense of we are on the right track. What do you expect to see? So on your, I don’t know, with a weekly frequency or with a monthly frequency, just to make sure that the team is moving on the right direction?
Grant 16:33
Yeah, I mean, I would say from the support side of things, time to first response and NPS, those sort of things, or even CSAT, I’ll take CSAT too. I’d say those are kind of my biggest drivers for what I’m looking at. On the CS side, I mean, there’s a lot of customer sentiment that is pulled in.
That’s just anecdotal information. It’s frequency of the customers accessing the software. How much time are they spending in it?
Are they breaking any habits? Like they usually spend three hours a week and now they’re down to one hour a week, things like that. It is also just the retention rate, right?
Like, are they staying? Are they renewing their contract? How many of them opt for multi-year contracts?
Like for me, that’s a really big indicator that they’re invested in the platform. They want to stay. They’re getting the value that they’re looking for.
So for me, I would say those are the kind of the biggest things that I’m looking for on a dashboard. And some of those things are hard to come by. It comes down to just conversations with customers, conversations with CS reps on the tone of the conversations and what their business reviews look like and things like that.
Goals for 2025
Irina 17:36
Let’s have a look on 2025. So looking ahead to the next year, what’s on your radar?
What are the big goals you are aiming to hit in 2025?
Grant 17:51
Yeah. I mean, big goals for us, like as a company, and we’re going to be redefining and making sure that our customers are getting the greatest possible grants management platform and given volunteer platform. So I’d say our CSR products and our GMS products are industry leading, and we’re going to continue to deliver the best features possible and the best level of service possible.
So I’d say from my side, yes, features, as far as advocating that, as far as making sure that customers are consuming them, the customers are getting the training they need on them. And then as far as the tech side of it, I mean, it’s better tech support. It’s awesome tech support.
Irina 18:27
And before we wrap up, what I’m curious, who’s been a big influence in your career and what’s the best advice they’ve given you that still stucks with you up until today?
Grant 18:38
I had a sales director many years ago, um, who’s still a close friend of mine and his biggest lesson that he taught me was that excellence is a habit. And so just showing up every day and putting in a lot of effort, treating it like it’s your first project on everything, um, despite all the challenges and all the noise in the system and all that, I mean, just showing up every single day and putting in all that effort.
So, um, yeah, I would say that’s something that sticks with me to this day.
Irina 19:10
Thank you so much for sharing your insights with us today. And a big thank you to all our listeners until next time, stay safe and keep mastering customer success.
