Unraveling our role as CSM’s

As CSMs our job has always been divided into two methodologies: customer facing interaction and internally documenting. An easy analogy to compare would be IP networking, internal would be RFC1918 while customer interaction is the public internet. The public internet is the wild wild west that we reign with professionalism and expertise. From my perspective, our customer interaction drives the internal side of our business. We are simply internally documenting the actions being taken externally. It’s not about trust, but about sharing knowledge, sharing experiences and some up-line reporting mixed in. As always, the 80/20 should be in affect. 80% of your time should be on customer interaction, while 20% is on internal documentation. If this is not true for you, work with your manager or myself if you report to me, to flip the equation.

I’ve been fortunate to run through the ranks as a CSM myself and want to take a minute to walk through my vision for success:

• When first assigned as a CSM, I had initial optimism and excitement about “the potential” and “what could be…” I get to shape the experience and the solution to make the customer successful. Although I was officially badged and my paystub came from IBM, I was for all intent and purposes a part of the customers team. I was an extension within IBM to foster change and assist where needed. I made myself an asset, from both a technical and business perspective. The communication between me and the customer was natural and daily. It helped that we all relied on Slack integrations. Just like in any relationship, communication is key, clarify the objectives and outcomes! This should be easy to do with <10 clients, any more than 10 would get unwieldy

That was my interaction for a number of years as a CSM. I’ve found that every service and product in IBM Cloud has specific nuances that can not be anticipated in advance. It is our job as CSM’s to help clients either avoid the potholes or communicate why a pothole exist. I believe this is one of the many reasons it’s extremely important to become more technical. The customer will not derive a CSM as helpful or find as much value on IBM Cloud without the knowledge the CSM brings.

While external customer experience grows our job, the internal documentation keeps our job and is just as important. The internal documentation is broken into two categories: qualitative and quantitative. Historically, I’d say you want to focus on the quantitative (your forecast), but reality is transitioning to qualitative metrics. I’ve found that the Success Plans drives the forecast and are the foundation of our actions with the client. As CSMs, we check the numbers monthly and quarterly, while elaborating daily and weekly on the qualitative. We forecast quarterly, check monthly for accuracy while watching the rating data for IaaS/PaaS for the appropriate transaction that transpire from our investment in our Success Plans. In Public Cloud, we are fortunate to run a consumption-based business. Therefore, we have the opportunity to watch the transactions unfold in real-time. The desire is to focus on the outcomes, over the sale.

All that being said, focus on the “next best action.” In some instances, the Next Best Action is usage neutral, and that is ok, as long as it sets a foundation for future growth.