For the past few months, I’ve been playing cricket on turf — that glorious, synthetic paradise where everything feels fast, perfect, and slightly deceptive. The kind of place where you can hit sixes like you’re auditioning for IPL, even if your actual fitness level screams “Sunday biryani league.”

The turf I play on has one weird feature — it’s long, but the sides are ridiculously short. Which means, unless you hit straight down the ground, you get nothing. No runs, no satisfaction, no clip-worthy shot for your Instagram reel.

So over time, I’ve become that guy who knows only one shot — the straight hit. Cover drives? Gone. Flicks and pulls? Forgotten. My entire batting philosophy now revolves around one line: “If it’s round and coming toward me, send it back over the bowler’s head.”

And honestly, I got pretty good at it. On turf, that one shot made me look like a star. Every ball I middled would crash into the nets behind the bowler. I started believing I’d cracked the code.

Then, a few weeks ago, me and my friends started playing once a week on a ground. Not a full-fledged stadium with lush grass or anything fancy, but a decent open ground with proper boundaries. I thought, “How different can it be?”

Turns out, very.

First week, I walked in confidently. Same stance, same swagger. First decent ball I got — I did what I always do. Sent it straight down the ground. Sweet timing, perfect elevation… and it landed neatly in the hands of long-off.

“Okay,” I told myself, “first week on a bigger ground, no problem.”

Next week, same story. New day, same instinct. Ball in my slot, straight hit again… and yes, long-off again. Different fielder, same result.

By the third week, I didn’t even need to check where it landed. The moment I hit it, I just looked straight at long-off and started walking back. He probably has my autograph by now.

That’s when it hit me — not the ball, but the realization.

I wasn’t playing ground cricket. I was still playing turf cricket on a ground. My brain was wired for a smaller world, and the moment I stepped into a slightly bigger one, I struggled. Every time I told myself to adjust, my instincts whispered, “Hit straight, da… it’s what you do best.”

And that’s how life traps us too. We adapt so well to one environment that we forget how to function in another. We find one formula that works and cling to it — until the pitch changes. The same shot that made us look like pros before suddenly makes us look clueless now.

Whether it’s work, habits, relationships, or cricket — what worked in one field won’t always work in another. The boundaries change, and so should we.

So yeah, for the last few weeks, I’ve been that guy getting caught at long-off every Saturday morning. But honestly, I don’t mind. Because it reminded me of one thing — if you keep playing the same shot in life, you’ll keep getting caught in the same place.

Next week, I’ll try a different shot. Maybe play along the ground.
Or maybe I’ll just go back to turf. At least there, I’m still a legend.

I have hated a lot of incredibly good songs just because of listening to them more often during my tough times and have loved a few mediocre songs as I got to listen to them during my happy times. In this blog, I am going to be highlighting 3 songs/albums/music that I love and hate. I am not going to be talking about the technical nuances of any of the music which makes me love/hate it. It is completely based on the kind of feel that it brings in when I listen to it.

Let me start off on a happy note,

Metukudi (https://bit.ly/38RdMj4)

I spent most of my childhood days in Madurai. A few 100 mts from the place I stay, there was a theatre. They used to play the recently released songs on the megaphone every evening once the Matinee show was over. They used to play those songs for almost an hour (Typically from 5 PM to 6 PM). That’s usually the time when most of the residents around the theatre, have their cup of evening coffee/tea. You will be able to see a lot of kids playing around in the streets (I was one among them :P), Aunties/Uncles chit-chatting, grandpa’s /Grandma’s relaxing by sipping their hot cup of tea/coffee sitting in the veranda (Back then we use to call it “Thinnai” in Tamil). This was pretty much a daily affair and this was how we spent most of our evening times. While I am typing this, I am taken to those good old days. Most of the time, the songs that were played used to be from the movie “Metukudi”. Those are definitely the best days of my life and I wish I had a time machine now to go back to those very very good old days. Whenever I listen to those songs, I have a smile on my face and that album has become one of my all-time favorite albums not just because of the good songs it has but for the really good days it takes me to.

OK Kanmani (https://bit.ly/39BVPnW)

As I said earlier, there are incredibly good songs you hate to listen to just because it reminds you of a bad phase in life, and “OK Kanmani” album is one of those. Being an ardent fan of ARR, I hate to say it.

I have this habit of listening to songs while I ride my bike

(Disclaimer: Listening to songs while riding a bike is not something that I would recommend. Kindly avoid doing it).

This was the most played album during those days when I used to travel to the office. I had a tough situation to deal with at my office and I wasn’t used to handling those kinds of situations. I had to put up with all those things and still manage to hang around. There were times when I literally hated going to the office and most often than not, I used to cry like a school going kid before I start to the office. Thanks to all the EMI’s, Bills I had to pay that kept me motivated :P

Things did change over a period of time and I started enjoying going to the office but still, I hate listening to OK Kanmani songs as it takes me to the bad old days.

Extra Innings Theme Music (https://bit.ly/3bLSbuo)

I have always been a great fan of cricket and I ensure that when it comes to Indian matches, I watch the entire telecast right from the pre-match show to the end of the post-match show. Cricket has played a major role in my life. I try to draw an analogy from cricket when it comes to making career decisions and hence I have always enjoyed watching every bit of it. Moreover, the only sigh of relief for me during my tough phase was to watch a cricket match as it makes me forget all my sorrows.

Whenever I listen to this Post/Pre Match show music, I get reminded of all the good days I spent watching the entire match and how it kept me away from all the other negative thoughts.

There are quite a few other songs/albums that evoke nostalgia but these were the ones that I had at the top of my mind.

I am pretty sure everyone else would also have similar likes/dislikes. Pour that in the comment section.

We often keep hearing about hackers stealing data or hacking accounts for ransom.

Do you think that as a layman we are not prone to any of these attacks? If yes, you need to revisit your thought process.

“Human beings are the weakest link in any security chain”

Going by this quote, we should be extra cautious the next time we read our emails, click on some random links, share our passwords etc as it is us who are often tricked and made to fall prey to all these kind of malicious activities.

In this episode of The Weekend Chatroom, I had a discussion with Riyaz Rafi Ahmed who is a Security Engineer at Hippo Video. A person who keeps a tab on the novel ways through which companies and people fall prey to hackers and ensures he brings about an awareness amongst people to take precautionary measures.

As a common man, why should I be concerned about security?

We live in an age where technology is all around us. From our essentials such
as food to interactions with office colleagues, we use technology. Swiggy,
Zoom, Google meet, Whatsapp, Facebook, etc. are the major players in our life
and with or without us knowing, they are shaping the way we live.

Since the internet boom is very recent in India, many people do not know
about the risks one faces while browsing the internet. Being one of the people
who secure the internet, one step at a time, I have seen many people giving
away so much personal information about themselves such as when they leave their home, what coffee they drink, photos with their families, and some even post photos of their home just like that.

The huge value of the internet is to business provides opportunities for
criminals to intervene in our lives at any time they want and just take the stuff
away. Say I want to order a cake from a shop which has an online store. It
would take an experienced developer less than 1 minute to understand how
the store works and easily change the final cake value to 0. That’s a free cake.

So why should you care about security? Because whether you like it or not,
you are being spied upon. Google, Facebook, and every major name you have
heard out there is using your data to drive their business. The moment you
google search “washing machine”, there is a complicated algorithm that runs
and tags you with something which looks like “this user is interested in
washing machines”. And guess what? When you go to amazon to purchase
some chips, in your ads section, you will see washing machines. And when you go to youtube, your recommendations will be linked to washing machines in more ways than you can comprehend.

Multi-billion dollar organisations are running behind your data. Just the very fact that you are interested in washing machines is of really high value to them because they sell that information to other service providers and earn a lot from that.

This isn’t that scary? Well if you are looking for insurance, insurance providers
will know it before you even tell them and increase the prices just for you
because they know that you are looking for insurance. That is what is going on right now and there is proof of it. People are speaking up against it and things do not seem good but the privacy-focused people and GDPR are doing it’s best.

I hope that convinces you why you should be worried about your security.
Because if you were to pay 3x times more for something and another guy who
is privacy-centric is paying just 1x the amount, you’d be irritated or even
angry. It is time to take your privacy into your hands.

Possible ways through which my data can be exposed and what impact does it have?

Everything you do is being recorded via your phone, cameras around, and
many other surveillance devices. This is not that apparent in India as of now
but we will reach there.. eventually. Some of how your data is exposed to
others are

Your mobile phone’s GPS
The solution — turn it off at all times and use it only when necessary; do not give location permission to applications that do not need GPS. Why would a phone cleaner app need your GPS? Think before you click on “grant permissions”.

Your phone’s camera and your laptop’s camera
There are little devices that sell which are to be stuck to the side of your camera and can be used to close it when not in use. And the same can be done on laptops too.

Complicated AI works behind the video feed which your cameras send to
identify the products you use and use that in combination with the audio
input to figure out what you are interested in and look for small pieces of
information that can be monetised.

Social media
The amount of personal information that can be siphoned from social media is enough to fill in a bank application and open an account in your name. Seriously. Especially in India, people are addicted to social media so much that they crave for likes. This craving for likes/attention has also led to them doing unreasonable things such as posting information about themselves which should be kept private. No one needs to know when you check-in at McDonald’s or what coffee you are drinking. It just gives away more information about yourself which is then used to profile you.

Other than this, some other ways are more indirect. If you purchase a UCB
shirt, then your account is labeled and information that you have purchased a
UCB shirt is sent to UCB, your bank account and these entities then send such
information to the major big players like Google, Facebook, etc. Information
travels around quickly and this is the major money maker for these guys.

— — — — — — — — — TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK — — — — — — — — -

Customer Success has been the new buzz word in the SaaS industry. Especially with this pandemic, every subscription based company is looking out for ways to retain their existing customers. This is exactly where the Customer Success team comes into play.

SalesForce was the first company to come up with a Customer Retention team since they saw a good number of customers churning out. The roles and responsibilities of this team later evolved and became The Customer Success Team.

In this episode of The Weekend Chatroom, I interacted with Ramya, who is a Customer Success guru for me. She has an immense knowledge about this domain and I wanted to pick her brain on certain aspects of Customer Success.

This conversation will help you understand more about the Customer Success role.

So here we go!

What are the core responsibilities of a Customer Success Manager?

Broadly speaking, I would say that a Customer Success Manager is responsible for 2 things:

● ROI — Your customers expect you to make them wildly successful. At the end of the day if they don’t see any value or return on their investment, they will leave. I believe it is important to not only create this value but also to measure and track it.

● Customer Experience — As a CSM you should also work on creating multiple delight moments for your clients throughout their journey with you.

What are the metrics that a CSM should always keep a tab on?

Whenever I think of this, the first thing that comes to my mind is Customer Health Score. I can’t stress the importance of tracking your Customer Health Score regularly. But measuring Customer Health Score can be quite complex. There are so many factors that affect the overall health of any customer. The list is never complete and it is also very dependent on your product/company.

Figuring out all the important components of your Customer Health Score is a critical part of how you add value as a Customer Success Manager.

Should the customer segments that you create (High touch/Low touch etc) for effective handling, be based on MRR or can they also be based on other criteria. If so, can you give us a few examples?

Yes, definitely, there are other criteria. All customers are not equal. I think the segmentation criteria largely depends on your company’s goals.

I have come across CSMs prioritising their customers based on various other factors apart from MRR, for example, logo value, demographics, expansion opportunities and also use cases for which the customers bought the product.

We have enough activities prescribed to engage a Unhappy customer but how do we keep a happy customer engaged? What are the things that we can do for the Happy Customers?

Happy Customers are your best advocates. Never miss an opportunity to collaborate with your marketing team and work on success stories of your happy customers. Also, you could look for ways to improve their success with your partnership.

What are the challenges you face as a CSM?

I would say unresponsive or MIA clients on any day. Sometimes they just won’t get back to you no matter how many emails you send. This is a clear indication that they’re on fast-track to the churn zone. It is important to develop strategies to handle unresponsive clients.

I hope this interaction gave you a glimpse of what a Customer Success role is all about. If you have any question, feel free to drop a comment or drop me an email at write2techsapien@gmail.com

I was watching a random episode of KBC (Kaun Banega Crorepathi) where a contestant was put forth with a question. The contestant did not have a clue about the answer but still he did not want to give up. So he adopted a different strategy. Since he did not know the correct answer, he went on to eliminate all the wrong ones. With valid justification, he was able to eliminate the 3 wrong answers and was finally left out with one option. He went for it and got the answer correct.

This is exactly how I see the role of a mentor. A mentor is not someone who spoon feeds you with what needs to be done next. When you are not aware of what needs to be done, they come in as a blessing to eliminate all the roadblocks and eventually pave the way for you to succeed. A mentor doesn’t typically get introduced to you as a mentor. They first get acquainted, then they analyse /understand you and finally help you move in the right direction by sharing their knowledge and experience. That’s exactly how I got introduced to Mr. Ramesh Kumar.

In a world where everyone is running a rat race, I have seen people who want to outsmart the others by pulling them down. People who have been assigned the role of a ‘Mentor’ often tend to misunderstand it and start bossing people around. In such a situation, it is difficult to find a selfless person who passionately mentors people and enjoys when they reach great heights.

Being a mentor of mine, I have always wanted to ask a few questions to Ramesh and here I am.

1. How would you like to be known in the social circle?

To be frank, I have never thought about how the social circle or society thinks of me. The day, I start to think of how they would like to see me, I may start to lose my real characteristics. Yes, we are bound to the social norms. I live within it. However, I try to be true to myself rather than worry on what others think of me. If I am , then I am true to all others.

2. I have seen you volunteering to Mentor people. Why are you so much passionate about Mentoring?

After finishing my collage, without proper guidance, I struggled a lot to land a job. Because, I never knew what I want, so I ended up doing odd jobs. After a couple of years, a friend of mine turned to be a guardian angel and I owe him a lot for what I am being now.

In an office environment too, I struggled a lot and made many mistakes which didn't help me with the progress I aimed.

In simple, my failures have been my experience and wisdom.

I understood like me there are a lot of people struggling out there and looking for a light house. So, it was time for me to give back to the people who need assistance.

When mentees succeed and grow, it gave me great joy and pleasure. That feeling is something I may not be able to express.

3. How important are Mentors in ones life?

If you’re lucky, you’ve had at least one great mentor in your life.

Mentors are those generous people who are open to sharing their knowledge, wisdom, experience, insight and offering their counsel. They are great listeners who understand your challenges and offer different strategies and ideas to not only help you overcome obstacles but excel at them. Mentors will often see something in you that you may not see yourself. Mentors are special person who would have inspired and encouraged you to be the best version of yourself, take risks and not be afraid to chase success.

4. How should one choose a mentor?

“Successful mentoring relationships happen when the mentor and mentee are the right match,” Driscoll said.

“Reach out to someone you think you are comfortable with, who can be a neutral sounding board, and [who] will also provide great advice.”

I recommend the mentees to use the below question as the guidance while selecting the mentor

Address my specific area of interest?

Be both a role model and provide guidance related to dilemmas I may encounter?

Work with me to establish and follow through on identified goals? Be collaborative?

Be respectful of me and my opinions, even during difficult conversations?

Provide feedback and guidance, without being critical? Can communicate clearly?

5. How different is the role of a Mentor and a Coach?

Mentors are successful people who share their hard-won wisdom to provide insight and guidance as an mentee encounters challenges along their journey. Mentors may not have expertise in the mentee’s field, but they understand how to navigate through the challenges in general. A mentor helps mentees consider opportunities for career growth, gain confidence and improve interpersonal skills.

Coaches, on the other hand, often have expertise in the same field as the people they’re helping. They’re usually trained and certified as coaches, possessing strong process management skills.

I am sure, you guys would have enjoyed knowing about Mentorship and its significance. If you have any comments, feel free to share them in the comments section.

Today morning I woke up after a very sound sleep. I was so much excited and I decided to do something different on the day. I finished up with a couple of tasks and then was thinking about a list of things that I could potentially do for the day. I was looking for some motivation and without any hesitation, I opened YouTube (Yeah! That’s exactly where I find motivation) on my mobile. I stumbled upon this video:

Bam! I now had a plan to keep myself engaged for the day. I have never tried a self hair cut before and I was so much excited to get it done.

What if I screw this self hair-cut session?

Well, I did make up my mind for that as well. I had 10 days more for the initial lock down to end and also there were talks going on about extending it further by another 28 days. This gave me the confidence to face the worst.

I took the trimmer and made some initial adjustments to it. I ran it through the left side of my head. Within a second, I knew it was a failure. I ran the trimmer through the other side of my head as well to see if something miraculous can happen and help me match it with the left side. I failed for the second time. Now that the sides were screwed up and pretty much no hair left on the top of my head (No, I am not bald. The density is slightly on the lower end :P), I had no other option than to tonsure.

I gathered the courage to run the trimmer all through my head. To my dismay, the trimmer ran out of charge and this is exactly how I looked.

I had to find a sub task to keep myself engaged until the trimmer was fully charged. I somehow managed to do that. It took 30 minutes for it to be completely charged but seemed like it took years.

Finally, I got my head tonsured for the first time and it does feel great. The tonsured style does look good and I feel it suits me. What say?

Onboarding a customer doesn’t end when the sales team closes the deal and initiates an official handover to the Account Manager or the support team. It is a continuous process that plays a pivotal role in product adoption and customer retention. A bad onboarding process can result in an increase in churn which is definitely not a healthy sign. The initial hand holdings offered to the customers to get the hang of the product plays a vital role.

Every organization has its own way of onboarding a customer. In general, the following are the elements that need to be taken care of to ensure a smooth on-boarding. Let’s see them one by one.

Official Handover

In some organizations, after closure is done by the sales team the customers are left in the dark. They are expected to play around with the product and reach out to the support team when they are in need of any assistance. This is not an ideal way of handling a customer. Once a closure is done, the sales team has to officially send out an email to the customer informing them about the handover and who will be their point of contact going forward. They can keep the account manager in the loop during the handover. This will build the customer’s trust and make them feel that there is someone to take care of them.

Migration

Helping the customers migrate their data from their previous system to that of yours is one of the major factors they look into. “Helping” doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to manually take care of the entire process. It all depends on how easily the data can be migrated. The more difficult it is, the chances of customers churning out are more. Hence, coming up with an effective migration process is of utmost importance. With the technological advancements available these days, writing a script for having all the data migrated shouldn’t be that bigger deal. Reduce the workload for the customers here and you are definitely going to win them.

Demo

None of your customers would be ready to listen to you running them through the entire product capabilities. All that they would be concerned about is how your product is going to solve their problem. So it is better to position your demo based on the audience and talk to them about the features that would come in as a lifesaver to them rather than bombarding them with too much information. I typically handle my demo in either of the two ways,

1. Based on the audience, I will position my demo by explaining the features that would be used by them. Say for example if I am giving a demo to an associate or an entry-level employee, I would explain the features that would help them handle the data entry part. Whereas when I am talking to a Manager/C level executives, I would talk more about the reports and the insights that they can draw from it. Talking about the data entry feature to a c level executive will not make much sense as they would seldom use it. They would be more concerned about the progress which the reports section would be sufficient enough to address.
2. Before I start the demo, I would ask them this question, “Out of the n number of problems you have what is THE ONE PROBLEM that you are trying to solve right now?”. Based on the reply I get to this question, I will be able to gather their requirements and position my demo based on that.

These two ways of handling the demo have helped me in grabbing their attention for a span of 30–35 min which I believe is more than sufficient to explain the features that solve the customer’s problem. Also explaining only the features they require has helped them understand the product better and play around with it effectively.

Follow-up

Now that the demo is complete we tend to become complacent and start assuming that the customers are good enough with the product that they will reach out to us when needed. This is exactly where most of us go wrong. One demo session is definitely not going to increase product adoption. Proactively following up with the customers will be the need of the hour. Monitoring their health score and following up with them proactively by suggesting modules/features that can be used by them to solve their problem will definitely create a positive impact. Following up at the right intervals of time with the right set of information will create a greater impact.

Setting up goals

This might not work for every product but will definitely work for most of them. Once the demo is done and when you notice the product usage to be increasing, you can set up a call with the customer and list down the plan/goal for them for the respective month or quarter. This will help you push them to achieve their goal at the set frequency. You can keep a tab on the progress they make and provide appropriate guidance to help them reach the goal. At the end of the set frequency, you can review the progress made and take corrective measures to refrain from repeating the same mistakes.

These are some of the most effective ways to ensure customer retention. As I said earlier, this is not a one-time effort. It requires consistent efforts to keep the customers happy.

Note: All the measures I have listed down in this blog are from my personal experience and I am not generalizing these to be the only steps that need to be adopted to increase customer retention.

In customer success, NPS (Net Promoter Score) is one of the very important metrics that give you a heads up about the customers who could possibly churn out. Before we dive into what can be done with NPS, let us understand how it is calculated.

There are 3 kinds of customers who contribute towards calculating the NPS. They are,

1. Detractors
2. Passive Customers
3. Promoters

On a scale of 10,

1. Customers rating your product and service between 0 and 6 are considered to be unhappy and termed as Detractors.
2. Neither unhappy nor very happy with your product or service are the ones who would rate it as 7 or 8. They are typically called as Passive customers.
3. The supremely happy customers are those who give your product and service a rating of 9 or 10. They are generally called as the Promoters.

NPS = (Promoters — detractors) / Total responses

As a CSM, It goes without saying that the detractors are the ones who have to be given immediate attention, as the probability of them to churn out is very high. On the other hand, the passive customers and the promoters should not be ignored assuming that they would remain happy forever using your product or service.

A strategy designed to address the concerns of the detractors ignoring the promoters and passive customers can cost you a fortune as it won’t take them much of a time to become a detractor.

It is absolutely necessary that as a CSM, you do have a strategy laid out to keep your happy customers engaged. So what are some of the ways through which you can keep them engaged? Come let’s see them one by one.

Testimonials

You can ask all your happy customers for a written or a video testimonial that you can showcase on your website. This is actually a win-win situation. You can get to post the testimonials on the website and spread the word about your product/service which in turn helps you build your brand. On the other hand, the customers would feel elated about the fact that they are being engaged and their opinion about the product/service is being given importance. You can also request them to review your product on external apps like G2crowd, capterra etc.

Make them feel like family

Before a new product or a feature is slated for a release, organizations offer early access to all its esteemed customers. You can request all your happy customers to be a part of the elite beta testing group.

You can also invite them to be a speaker for conferences and events held by the organization.

Drive product value

As a CSM, you would be aware of the customer requirement and would have also been keeping a tab on their product usage. Based on that, you can ask the customers to try implementing other features of the product that they are not currently using which might add value to the current process they follow. You can also reach out to the customers who had requested for a specific feature, once the feature is rolled out and guide them on using the feature. This will give them a feeling that their requests are being valued.

Look for opportunities

Customers who are happy using your product are termed “Promoters” for a reason. They will be more than happy to spread the word about your product/service. You can identify opportunities within the customer’s organization where you can see your product solving a problem or adding value. Just identify the opportunity and position your product as to how it is going to solve the problem, your customers will take care of the rest.

All the efforts taken to keep a happy customer, happier, shouldn’t go unnoticed. It is important that you list out all the engagement plans executed for a customer and showcase its impact during the business reviews. This will let the customer know about the value you have added to them.

These are some of the plans that you can come up with to keep your Promoters engaged. If you can think of any other ways through which your customers can be made happier, please do drop them in the comments section.

It has been quite a while since I have sat through and watched an entire cricket match. Yesterday (Dec 6, 2019), I happened to witness one of the best T20 matches. There has been a lot of winning moment/incredible inning from a player which has left an impact in me for a few days. Yesterday’s match was one of those and in fact, I would rate it above all.

I know I am quite late to join the party (Of people going heaps and praises about Virat) but nevertheless, I felt yesterdays innings of Virat is one of his best and for me, it stood out from the rest of his incredible performances. Kohli playing an incredible inning is not something new. It would be surprising only if he doesn’t. What made me write about this performance?

People may think that this was just another match where Virat came out with flying colours but that was not the case. This was not a usual match where Virat walks in and puts on a flamboyant show. When the entire team is reeling, we have seen Virat play a completely different game making us presume that he alone is playing on a different pitch. Unlike those matches, there was a phase where he was struggling to time the ball. None of the bottom hand shot that he was trying to play was getting connected as he anticipated. On the other end, KL Rahul was in sublime touch. It’s too easy for a batsman of Virat Kohli’s stature to get intimidated by the way KL Rahul was playing but he didn’t bother too much about it. He hung around. He did not want to throw his wicket away just like how Rishab Pant usually does.

When you know you are not in great touch and you have problems with timing that ball whereas your partner is acing it every time he comes on strike, any sane person would rotate and give the batsman in good touch more of the strike. That’s exactly what Virat did understanding the situation. He gave more strike to Rahul and ensured he hung around. This gave him enough time to asses the conditions and get used to the deliveries. Once he gained that confidence and was ready to go all guns blazing, Rahul gets out. Virat capitalizes on this opportunity, steps up and what happened next will go down as one of the scintillating performances in the history of Cricket.

The bottom hand flick to a SIX!! will easily go down as one of the best shots in the cricketing history and that is still playing in my mind. Rightly as Harsha said, “I will keep watching the replay of that shot for the entire day.”

I have never seen (Or I don’t remember) Kohli struggle as much as he did in yesterdays match. I have always seen him as a do or die, man. He either gets out early or puts on a great display. There is no in-between.

There are a couple of reasons why I loved this particular inning,

1. I am bad at remembering things and I don’t remember any recent innings of Virat where he put on such an aggressive batting display.
2. It is always special to see a batsman growing in confidence in a particular match. His “Never give up” attitude made him hang around when he was not doing well and the way he gained momentum was an incredible changeover for me which I loved to the core. Thanks to a few WI players as well who tried triggering the impulse.

On the whole, it was one hell of a match which I would relish watching.

In the recent past the term “Customer Success” has become a buzz word in the SaaS industry. Since most of the product work on a subscription model, companies are coming up with a dedicated team that handles the retention by addressing the pain points of the customer and ensuring they have a great experience using the respective product.

The scope of the customer-facing role has enhanced drastically in the past few years. A few years ago, there was no clarity in the customer support role. People often use to misinterpret the role of a customer support executive in a product based company to a call centre agent. Trust me, the customer support role had much more to offer in terms of roles and responsibilities. Since customer support in a product company was itself in a nascent stage, a customer success team was not even in existence.

“For me, Customer Success is an extension of Customer Support.”

My interest for the Customer Success role blossomed at that early stage when there was no success role in existence in any company. So what made me fall for it?

I was working for a start-up back then. I was a part of the happiness team (The Customer Happiness Team). Myself along with a few of my other colleagues from different teams joined together for a small project named: Cross Roads.

We wanted to kick start this project for the following,

1. Identify the pain points of the customer
2. Understand their usage pattern
3. Interact with multiple stakeholders and get their feedback on the product and service
4. Collate all the feedbacks and draw useful insights
5. Enhance the product/service based on the feedback received
6. Reduce the churn

This is pretty much the role of a Customer Success team at this point in time but we pulled off this project so effortlessly without knowing that this project would grow up into a separate role and would be called Customer Success across companies.

We had so much fun doing this project. We picked up multiple customers spread across different geographies who had various kind of requirements. We also met a few of the stakeholders who had access to our end product.

What did we learn out of it,

Product Usage: We were taken aback for a second when we were on the site and asked our users to play around with our product. Most of our customers were first-generation computer users and it is only by then we were able to witness how difficult it was for them to use the product. The product was not difficult to use but their reluctance toward the usage of computers made accessing our product look like a herculean task. This opened up doors for a better (Enhanced) on-boarding process.

Usage Pattern: There were quite a few tech-savvy customers as well who found navigating within the product to be very easy. They still had a few repetitive tasks to be done within the product. We sometimes get so much obsessed with repetitions that we do not crib about it at all rather we quietly get it done asap. This helped us automate the repetitive tasks and make it available by default.

Feedback on Service: Most of our customers were going heaps and praises about our service but there were a few who did come up with the problem they faced. This feedback helped us streamline the process. This helped us come up with multiple checkpoints to monitor the health of the customer.

Track product usage: Before visiting our customers, we ensured that we have a thorough knowledge of the modules that they access on a frequent basis. Based on this data, we were able to suggest the right module that they could probably make use of which would make their life simple. There were cases where they weren’t aware of some features available in the product. We adopted different means through which the existence of the product features was conveyed to the customer.

Reduce Churn: The intention behind this project was not just to reduce churn, we wanted to improve the product adoption among the customers and get to know the pain points to address them. As a result of this project, our customers were really happy that there are efforts being made to ensure they have a great experience using our product. When they saw their feedback being incorporated, it built a lot of trust. All these factors eventually brought down the churn rate.

Overall it was a great learning experience. No wonder this small project that we once did grew into an on-demand role. With many customer success tools in place now to monitor the entire life cycle of a customer, this is definitely one of the best customer-facing roles that can create a huge impact.