Customer Success

Over the last 9 years I've been lucky to work with a few people that have had remarkable success in their careers.

I often think about what qualities have made them so successful.

Apart from the usual set like hard work, discipline etc.
One particular quality stands out and really does translate into career success.

It’s a love for customer success.

Every so often you come across people that truly have an insatiable desire to help customers.

Building customer relationships, learning about customer problems, their needs, helping them transition from whatever problem they are in, into a state where they appreciate the working relationship and genuinely like the team and person(s) who are giving them that service.

Managing customers initially feels like it might tricky to get right, but its important to remember that there is a person… a human… on the other side very much like us.

Yes it sounds boring but there is something about helping customers succeed that in turn helps you grow your career.

Servicing customers is challenging when we are at the lower rungs of our career journey.

I can attest that as we climb that ladder, customers themselves are of a higher quality (no less demanding), but they appreciate when work is done right (and with sincerity) to deliver the outcome they want.

Helping customers succeed also often means they want to work with you again.

Employers will want to keep you, train you, help you with opportunities, because they realise you are a higher value asset to the company.

Also as with anything this is tied into other aspects of career growth like building strong people networks. You will be surprised by how good a reference you are to someone because you helped customers succeed.

ALWAYS remember, in business if there is no customer, there is no business.