In a recent episode of Mehtaphysical Musings, Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta spoke with Lauren Kenndey, Head of Customer Success (CS) at Glean. Kennedy is a CS OG, and she’s passionate about the intersection between people, technology, and the ability to solve problems through communication and product development. Kennedy shared her take on what’s changed in CS, what’s stayed the same, and how generative AI is changing the whole game. Let’s dig in.
ICYMI, watch the full episode below.
Data Is Key to Intelligent Decisions
One major focus for Kennedy is using the data around customer success to make intelligent decisions and partner cross-functionally with other departments.
Kennedy says, “Gainsight was a game changer [in terms of] there actually being data around Customer Success.”
A major takeaway of our recent Evolution of Customer Success Report is that the strategic value of customer success is higher than ever. 61% of survey participants said they are responsible for revenue growth. As Customer Success becomes an increasingly strategic function in an economy that demands efficiency, arming CS leadership with the data they need to make intelligent decisions is more critical than ever.
“I would say living in the data as much as possible, both for decision-making on your own team and partnering cross-functionally with other departments, using the data wherever it exists is just such a powerful way to make intelligent decisions,” says Kennedy. She then recommends asking CSMs to “jump in and fill in more” data as you go.
AI for CS Is Still a Journey of Constant Discovery
As an enterprise search technology, Glean has always leveraged AI. But, in the last few months, AI has changed a lot. Generative AI is radically transforming how we do business and develop software.
Kennedy and Mehta agreed that no one has figured it all out yet. It’s still constantly evolving, and so are our use cases for it. But one thing is clear: The potential for generative AI to revolutionize how we drive customer success is endless.
There are many ways that Kennedy’s team at Glean is using AI, but she’s most excited about leveraging the technology to make smarter Customer Success Manager (CSM) work assignments.
Kennedy says she’s working with her engineering team to develop “a bot to help assign accounts to CSMs when new accounts come in.” She says, “Leaders are always having to think about: what’s their current bandwidth, what’s their location, their time zone, their segment of customers … can AI help me with that?”
Gainsight Essentials at Glean
They also discussed how Glean leveraged Gainsight Essentials to rapidly grow from start-up to scale-up.
Gainsight Essentials is designed to help you start and scale your journey at the pace that suits your needs—and your customers’ needs—most efficiently and effectively. With CS Essentials, you can get a comprehensive view of your customer overall health and likeliness to renew based on activity, sentiment, and more, and get early warning system of trends and risks so you can act early to reduce churn and empower your team to scale with proven actions that deliver outcomes.
Kennedy says automation and robust customer health scores are both key differentiators that helped her CSMs become more efficient.
Gainsight Essentials helped Glean’s CS team “move away from the job part of the job and towards more strategic motions,” says Kennedy.
We’ve certainly come a long way from relying on spreadsheets, as companies like Glean are leading the transformation of the CS function to be more efficient, strategic, and impactful.
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