How Customer Success Managers Support Meeting & Event Success

Do your employees know what your customers want? And if they do, how do your employees work to prioritize and address your customer’s needs and goals? How does your company actualize a customer-first strategy?

Customer success managers, also referred to as CSMs, may be the answer. These individuals are hired specifically to build relationships with and better understand your customer base to address their long-term needs.

Let’s take a deeper dive  into what a customer success manager is, and specifically why they are essential to an event management company.

What is a Customer Success Manager?

A customer success manager is like a mentor for customers. A CSM forms direct, personal relationships with customers and guides each customer through the sales process and into the support phase. For instance, after an event management software purchase, CSMs provide their customers with relevant and timely value plans, answer any pressing questions, or resolve any issues so that customers can achieve their goals and successfully grow.

Customer Success Manager Job Description:

At Stova, this is our guiding job description of what a customer success manager is:

“The CSM’s job is to ensure that customers will achieve success with our products. The CSM will work closely with the Strategic Account Manager helping them understand areas for their client to be more successful using Stova based on the client’s specific objectives. The CSM’s primary role will be to ensure that their customers are fully engaged and getting the value that they expect. The CSM will be measured by client retention and satisfaction of their key accounts.”

What Does a CSM Role at an Event Management Software Company Include?

At Stova, our CSMs are primarily responsible for:

• Onboarding reviews for existing users and products
• Being the customer’s advocate
• User utilization/adoption review
• Helping to build relationships between customers & the support team
• Providing recommendations on event builds and template
• Sharing tips for success
• Post-event reviews
• Strategy planning for upcoming event
• Communicate client relevant product enhancements

Customer success managers at an event management software company are integral in helping customers understand how to optimize the use of the technology to fit their event’s needs.

“This role is beneficial to a software company because it directly ties back into customer retention and builds customer loyalty,” Alanna Palladino, an Stova customer success manager, says. “Our clients trust us and because of this, we are able to have more open conversations focused on their satisfaction. CSMs act as an internal champion for clients so feedback and requests are presented to key stakeholders.”

Customer Success Manager vs. Account Manager

Although many people confuse these two titles because both customer success managers and account managers work with customers to ensure their product satisfaction or to offer them new products, the two roles are very different. Account managers sell customers products, manage renewals, upsells, and their sales account. On the other hand, customer success managers, work with customers to keep them happy by mapping out their goals and identifying helpful product features.

“A customer success manager works in tandem with the Account Manager to create the Account Team, with CSMs acting as the main line of communication focusing on the day to day of our clients, ultimately building a relationship and trust,” Alanna explains. “Through constant communication, we are able to learn all about our clients’ events and needs, while proactively mitigating risk. Happy clients lead to higher retention and less turnover.”

What’s the Best Part About Being a CSM?

Alanna says: “As a former event planner, my favorite part of the job is learning how other organizations are running their events and what their current processes are and how to fix their pain points. Through my past experiences and product knowledge, I am then able to brainstorm and find ways that Stova can help make their meetings/events run smoother and become more of a critical part of their business.”