Customer success, run by someone who has done it for a decade

The quiet churn

From the inside, a growing customer book looks fine until it doesn't.

The accounts. The big ones get attention because they are loud. The quiet ones drift. Nobody can say which customers are using what they paid for, and which are already looking elsewhere.

The reviews. Quarterly reviews happen when someone remembers. They report activity, not outcomes. The customer sits through slides about the product and never hears what it changed for their business.

The handoffs. Sales promised one thing, onboarding delivered another, support answered a third. Every team is doing its job. The customer is the only one who sees all three, and the only one keeping score.

What I have done

I was on the founding team of client success at RightNow Technologies, the customer service software company Oracle went on to buy. Then I ran Oracle's top strategic accounts in EMEA, sold for a Salesforce partner, and spent close to five years on customer experience at Accenture and Adobe.

Along the way I led customer success teams across the globe. I piloted and built the CSM programme for teams in the US and UK, and led teams of up to 50 people at RightNow and Accenture.

• Professional services, RightNow (2008 to 2009). Lead consultant on the US Air Force personnel and finance service transformation, the largest in its history: more than 90 processes for active duty and veteran personnel. Strategic consulting for clients including Sirius XM, Hallmark, Enterprise and US Customs and Border Protection. Analytics and dashboard training, marketing campaigns for Fortune 500 clients, and a $0.5M services upsell scoped and closed with sales.
• Client success, RightNow (2009 to 2012). Designed the monthly operational reviews and quarterly business reviews, with consistently high satisfaction scores. Built the business case and ROI templates that drove renewals and expansion. Ran customer experience assessments and roadmaps for leading UK retail and telecom brands that turned into strategic deals. The Spirit of RightNow award in 2011: one person out of 1,200.
• Senior client success, Oracle (2012). The top strategic accounts in EMEA. Operational reviews, customer experience roadmaps, ROI models and balanced scorecards that proved the value and drove adoption.
• Account executive, Bluewolf (2012 to 2013). Building the EMEA retail business for a Salesforce platinum partner.
• Digital and CX strategy, Accenture Digital (2013 to 2017). Engagement and programme ownership, from strategy through implementation. Full-cycle marketing and digital customer experience across content, marketing and e-commerce, for clients in energy, finance, retail and telecom, cutting cost-to-serve across web, mobile, social and analytics. Led teams of up to 50 and did panel discussions.
• Senior value consulting, Adobe (2017 to 2018). Strategic presales for the digital marketing offering. Value mapping and realisation frameworks for sales and post-sales, turning complex frameworks into material clients could use, and showing what the money spent actually returned.

How I run a customer book

• Every account has a read. What they bought it for, what they actually use, who on their side matters, and what would make them leave. Written down, not held in one person's head.
• Reviews about their business, not the product. A monthly operational review and a quarterly business review, each one ending with outcomes and a dated next step.
• The value is proved, not claimed. An ROI model and a scorecard per account, agreed with the customer, so renewal is a conversation about numbers they already accepted.
• One owner per promise. Whatever sales, onboarding or support said, it lands in one record with a name and a date against it.
• Quiet accounts get a call first. The loud ones will find you. The silent ones are where the churn is.

Work with me

I am looking for a full-time role as a customer success director or operator, fully remote. I also take fractional work. Either way, senior and in the work, not advising from the side. I set up the reviews, the scorecards and the account reads, run them with your team until they hold, and build the team that keeps them going.

If your customers are quiet and you are not sure that is good news, book a call.

What clients and colleagues said

These are recommendations people wrote on LinkedIn while we worked together, unedited.

From clients and colleagues at RightNow and Oracle

Sangheetha provided a tremendous value to me when I was at Nikon. She was our Client Success Manager and as she was not a sales person I could trust that she would give me her oipinion on how to best maximize our usage of RightNow CX with minimal budget impact. She is an extremely competent professional and would recommend her to anyone.

The foundation for success in a client success management role is taking responsibility; Sangheetha is not intimidated by the responsibility associated with the ongoing success of our business unit's most valuable clients. Rather than reacting to day-to-day tasks, Sangheetha takes pride in working to understand the needs of the client and strategically mapping an annual territory plan. As well as ensuring clients are content with existing solutions, she also has a solid commercial awareness that has helped me and my sales colleagues to open additional sales opportunities. Sangheetha has a wealth of knowledge in consultancy, customer support, sales and pre-sales particularly in the retail sector that makes her a valuable asset to any organisation selling into that space.

Always a joy to work with and very helpful!

Sangheetha is a credible and experienced Client Success Manager. Her professionalism and ability to adapt, with a can do attitude makes her stand out. Her friendly yet strategic approach ensures success. All in all a pleasure to work with.

Sangheetha and I have been working on a number of key accounts in the RightNow business and collectively delivered some substantial improvements. Sangheetha is able to demonstrate huge value to a client when they are improving their Customer Experience and establishes great credibility as the 'trusted advisor' on our solution and its benefits. It is great to work alongside someone who really understands how they add value to their customers and colleagues on an account and I have great confidence when asking her to engage in difficult and challenging situations.

Sang has driven continued results in her role focusing on customer success, such as helping customers seek maximum value out of their investment. Sang is a valuable member of our team looking after a challenging and complex FTSE100 enterprise customer. She has an excellent consultative approach, with the foresight and attention to detail you need when assessing operations looking for gaps and areas of improvement. She also works very closely with enterprise account execs defining strategy and executing key objectives. Some successes include turnaround assignments on some of our most strategic accounts. I'd have no hesitation in recommending Sang.

I've worked with Sangheetha on a few different occasions. She has excellent customer focus and a drive to get to an appropriate resolution for the customer's needs. When there are needs that require input from multiple teams she is always on top of it, pulling together the appropriate resources and ensuring great results.

Sangeetha supports client Aurora Fashions (amongst others) in their use of Right Now CRM systems. She demonstrates an excellent knowledge of customer service process and the application of leading edge practice. Her advice and personable approach have proved valuable in improving customer experience.

I have worked with Sangheetha in client situations and found her to be focused on understanding her client's business problems and then seek to resolve then through the application of technology. Sangheetha's clients appreciate her attention to details and the focus she brings to advancing the cause of their business goals and objectives.

Sangheetha is very helpful, approachable and responsive, she combines great communication skills with very good product knowledge.

Sangeetha worked for me as an intern while attending the University of Cincinnati. She collaborated with another developer to build reporting features around a critical 3rd party application. The reporting greatly enhanced our view into the quality and integrity of the application. In fact the reporting data was used to help build a business case to upgrade the application and provide more features to the user community. Without Sangeetha’s good work and persistence, the business case would have definitely been set aside.

Sangheetha's professional approach has been and remains the model for building and deepening client relationships. She calls on her technical expertise to creatively solve problems, but relies even more heaviily on keen listening skills to discern the root cause of issues facing her clients. It is a complete joy to work with Sangheetha.

Sangheetha had a huge impact on my retail clients from the day she started working with them. From supporting the sales cycle, to understanding the client's business and needs, to working with the team to deliver a successful result, Sangheetha makes an impact at every stage. My clients receive enormous benefit from Sangheetha's championship and expertise. And I really value her input and friendship.

To have Sangheetha as a reference and advocate is a phenomenal advantage. She will, at all times, make her clients' needs, requirements and problems a top priority and work towards finding the best possible solution specifically for them. For us, as a business partner, she recommends us to her clients when our solution is an excellent fit and follows-up after introducing us to her contacts. I will work with her anytime!

I had the pleasure of managing Sangheetha while in her role as a Client Success Manager. Sangheetha was new to this role from a professional service background. Sangheetha posseses strong technical knowledge in the CRM space while having a magnetic personality that is critical in a customer facing role. I enjoyed leading and helping to develop Sangheetha's selling and engaging skills. Her do anything attitude along with her ability to accept constructive criticism made her a wonderful employee to manage and have on my team.

From the Accenture and Adobe years

Sangheetha made a real impact when we first met through her campaign management experience combined with her client management skills. She’s someone definitely worth speaking to if you’re looking for someone with the skills to pay the bills!

Sangheetha is a great asset to any team and I would highly recommend her. She bridges the technical and the business extremely well and puts forward very clear arguments that address the realities of day-to-day business needs. Her breadth of experience across different digital and CX platforms is unrivalled. And she's also great fun to work with and have as part of a team!

From early career: Convergys, consulting, graduate school

I worked with Sangheetha while at Convergys and must say, she is not only a delight to know, but also one of those people who works hard to understand the scope of work that needs to be done, and does everything to get it right the first time.

Salai Sangheetha worked in our group providing detail analysis of various monitoring tools. Everyone was impressed with her dedication and work ethic, even while she continued attending graduate school to obtain her Masters degree. I am sure that Salai, will continue to excel in any future endeavor that she chooses to embrace

Salai was a great resource for our cross-cultural consulting training. She served as a Subject Matter Expert for conducting business in India, while helping explain the why behind behavior in daily business interactions. I highly recommend Salai as she was a great pleasure to work with, dependable, flexible and dedicated.

Sangheetha was a great addition, sharing her input and working well with our clients.

Sangheetha and I worked together on the UAT effort for Cox Cable. She was my first point of contact for issue resolution. Sangheetha was a pleasure to work with and was very detail oriented. She always followed through with the issues until they were resolved to the customer's satisfaction. Sangheetha was an asset to the team.

From my coaching practice

I have been following Sangheetha's personal transformation and work for years. When I accepted a leadership position with a toddler at home, I struggled with the transition and my first thought was to approach her for coaching. She coached me and helped me with nervous system regulation. Her techniques help me every single day. Her personal story is inspiring and her work is so thorough. I would recommend without doubt for any female leader to appoach her and try her coaching to bring out a better you.