A customer success masterclass | How to build and scale a CS org | Stephanie Berner (LinkedIn)

Stephanie Berner is a Customer Success Executive at LinkedIn. Since 2018, Stephanie has spearheaded all post-sales functions at LinkedIn Sales Solutions through its period of rapid growth. With a background in building and scaling customer success teams at Box, Medallia, and Opower, Stephanie has extensive experience in delivering exceptional customer experiences across various company stages.
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In this episode, we discuss:
• Common customer success mistakes
• Creating a world-class customer success org
• Tactics for hiring exceptional talent
• How to structure compensation packages
• Where customer success fits into the wider org
• Key early-stage customer success metrics and rituals
• Successful strategies from Box, Medallia, and LinkedIn
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Referenced:
• Aaron Levie: / boxaaron
• Box: www.box.com/
• David Love: / david-s-love
• Gainsight: www.gainsight.com/
• Jon Herstein: / jonherstein
• Jonathan Lister: / jonathanlister
• Ken Fine: / kmfine
• Medallia: www.medallia.com/
• Nick Mehta: / nickmehta
• Opower: www.oracle.com/utilities/opow...
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Where to find Stephanie Berner:
• LinkedIn: / stephanieberner
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Where to find Brett Berson:
• LinkedIn: / brett-berson-9986094
• Twitter/X: / brettberson
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Where to find First Round Capital:
• Website: firstround.com/
• First Round Review: review.firstround.com/
• Twitter: / firstround
• RUclips: / @firstroundcapital
• This podcast on all platforms: review.firstround.com/podcast
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Timestamps:
[00:00:00] Introduction
[00:02:21] Formalizing customer success at a startup
[00:05:01] Hiring ICs before CSMs
[00:06:22] Tactics for hiring standout talent
[00:11:39] 3 questions to ask candidates
[00:15:38] Fail-case patterns among customer success hires
[00:17:49] Considering candidates with non-traditional backgrounds
[00:21:21] Indexing toward a bias for action
[00:24:17] What v1 of customer success looks like
[00:26:03] Key early-stage customer success metrics
[00:28:21] Whether customer success or sales should own renewals
[00:30:40] Where customer success fits into the org
[00:32:14] Why customer success doesn’t report to an executive
[00:33:48] Distinguishing a product problem from a customer success one
[00:35:18] Simple way to deal with customer churn
[00:39:21] Tactics to get customers to give honest feedback
[00:40:58] What happens when customer success and product teams collaborate
[00:44:14] Rituals for zero-to-one customer success
[00:48:23] How to structure an early customer success team
[00:52:01] Structuring compensation packages
[00:54:35] Aligning customer success with the business model
[01:00:14] The role of customer success in B2B software
[01:02:17] Common customer success mistakes
[01:07:44] People who had an outsized impact on Stephanie