Berlin’s transformation from an emerging tech city to a global innovation hub has created a fertile ground for Customer Success to flourish. With its dynamic mix of startups and established enterprises, the city offers a unique perspective on customer engagement, retention, and long-term value.

Startups in the city lean on Customer Success to drive growth by cultivating loyal customer bases early on. Meanwhile, established companies bring a wealth of experience, focusing on robust retention strategies and scalable solutions. This mix allows Berlin to set new standards with Customer Success strategies that balance innovation with reliability.

During our CS Snack Event in Berlin, we discussed pioneering methods that emphasize agility, adaptability, and deep customer insights and elaborated it in a Start-Stop-Continue framework.

We assembled a varied panel of Customer Success Management professionals, along with moderators – Katarina Markus, Shannon Jaritz, Maximillian Richter, Jacek Rolnik, Giovanni Serriteli, Steven Lewandowski, Lena Zimmermann, Erik Roa and Andreas Tollschein.

Proudly hosted by Giulia Perini and Francisco Almendra Leitao and collaborated with SoSafe.

Here are the topics we covered:

1. Efficiency & Prompt Engineering (AI)
2. Customer Success Enablement
3. GTM Alignment with Sales & Marketing
4. Value-Based Communication & Stakeholder Management
5. Client Change Management & Tooling
6. Communities, Playbooks, & Automation
7. Customer Marketing (Cases/Multi-Threading)
8. Team Structure & Compensation

Below, we will share our learnings from the above topics:

1. Customer Success Enablement

Nowadays, retaining customers and maximizing their lifetime value is essential and often more important for businesses. Not only is increasing LTV critical, its also more cost-efficient rather than finding and acquiring new customers. With this, Customer Success Teams have been more in demand. 

During the Berlin session hosted by Katarina Markus, we explored key elements in CS enablement, highlighting the steps needed to create a mature, integrated CS function that can thrive across both startup and mature company environments.

Step 1: Deep Product and Technical Understanding

CS teams need more than a superficial understanding of the product. The need for a deep technical grasp is paramount. This means going beyond surface-level knowledge to understand core functionalities, typical customer pain points, and advanced troubleshooting methods. 

Technical knowledge empowers CS teams to solve issues directly, reducing reliance on other departments and speeding up problem resolution. Investing in technical resources, training, and tools can help equip CS with the expertise to act as effective front-line problem solvers.

Step 2. Cross-Functional Collaboration and Communication

One of the foundational elements of CS enablement is the ability to collaborate seamlessly with other departments. CS teams need easy access to product insights, engineering support, and marketing initiatives to offer customers accurate, up-to-date information and solutions. 

Establishing channels for regular communication, such as collaborative meetings, shared project management tools, or cross-departmental Slack channels, ensures that information flows smoothly and that CS is well-informed and aligned with other teams.

Step 3. Establishing Robust Processes and Customer Journeys

Well-defined processes form the backbone of an efficient CS team. This starts with mapping out a structured customer journey that includes clear milestones, such as onboarding, adoption, and renewal phases. 

Each milestone should be accompanied by specific CS goals and actions to guide customers through each stage. Beyond the journey, CS enablement involves creating internal processes, such as workflows for handling escalations, documentation standards, and regular feedback loops with customers. These processes allow CS teams to operate predictably and provide consistent, high-quality support.

Step 4. Focusing on Business Impact and Automation

A mature CS team looks beyond customer engagement metrics to measure the business impact of their efforts. This means tracking metrics such as customer retention rate, lifetime value, and expansion revenue. 

Automation tools can enhance this by streamlining repetitive tasks, such as follow-up emails, data collection, and milestone tracking, freeing up CS teams to focus on higher-value interactions with customers. Investing in automation also helps CS teams scale without sacrificing quality, especially important for growing businesses looking to optimize resources.

Step 5. Aligning on Common Goals

Successful CS teams share a unified goal with the broader company. Whether the focus is on customer retention, satisfaction, or upselling, aligning on a common mission ensures that CS actions are directly contributing to organizational goals. 

This can be facilitated through shared KPIs across departments, which encourages a unified focus. Aligning CS with sales, marketing, and product development is essential in creating a holistic customer experience that maximizes customer satisfaction and company revenue.

Step 6. Adapting to Maturity: Startups vs. Scale-ups vs. Mature Organizations

The stage of a company’s development has a significant impact on the approach to CS enablement. Startups, for example, benefit from agile, less formalized processes where speed and responsiveness are prioritized. 

In contrast, scale-ups require more defined processes and automated systems to handle larger volumes of customers efficiently. Mature organizations often prioritize sophisticated analytics, business impact tracking, and a finely tuned customer journey. A flexible approach to CS enablement that adapts to each growth stage ensures the team remains effective and aligned with company needs.

Step 7. Process Follow-Through and Accountability

Building a robust framework is only the first step. A strong CS function requires follow-through to ensure that processes and workflows are applied consistently. This can be achieved by assigning accountability to team members, implementing regular reviews, and establishing a culture where process adherence is seen as a tool for success. Accountability helps ensure that the CS team is reliable and that customers experience a smooth, predictable journey.

Step 8. Internal Communication and Training

Finally, CS enablement is fundamentally about keeping the team informed and trained. This means ongoing education, not just on the product, but also on industry trends, customer behavior, and communication techniques. 

Regular training sessions, knowledge-sharing meetings, and access to an internal knowledge base ensure that every team member is equipped to perform at their best. This is especially crucial as customer needs evolve and as new tools or strategies are introduced.

We also discussed a Start-Stop-Continue model, and to simplify, this is a guideline to remember.

🟢START – CONNECT

Collaborate with Sales and other departments to align on strategy

Open communication for a unified approach to customer success

Network to connect internal teams with customers

Normalize a standardized, efficient process

Empower other departments with CS knowledge

Coordinate in-person sessions for deeper alignment

Teach through structured learning sessions

🔴 STOP – HALT

Haphazard recording of calls without consistency

Aimless trainings lacking actionable tasks or next steps

Lack of regular feedback and understanding of other teams’ goals

Team disconnect and missed alignment opportunities

🟠CONTINUE – GROWTH

Goal-setting with customers to align on what success looks like

Remind ourselves that success must be nurtured and sustained

Ongoing positioning, strategy framing, and expectation management

Workshops and tools to enhance soft skills, storytelling, and pain-point identification

Training sessions monthly with cross-departmental collaboration

Highlight achievements with quarterly ROCKs, creating a playbook for proactive engagement

Nevertheless, it is equally important to relate CS enablement to other factors such as Value-based communication, to which will be tackled upon next. 

2. Value-Based Communication & Stakeholder Management

While Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) and Executive Business Reviews (EBRs) are essential tools in the Customer Success toolkit, they are often reactive in nature. To truly elevate customer success, a proactive communication strategy is equally important, and this was highlighted during the session hosted by Katarina Markus. These sessions provide a structured opportunity to align with your customers, celebrate shared achievements, and set a course for the future. 

The Purpose of QBRs/EBRs

QBRs and EBRs are not just regular check-ins; they’re strategic moments to reinforce the partnership between your company and the client. These sessions:

• Highlight Achievements: Sharing recent wins and milestones can reinforce the value your product delivers.
• Align on Future Goals: Understanding your customer’s evolving needs ensures that your product remains central to their success.
• Strengthen Relationships: Engaging both day-to-day users and executive sponsors helps nurture a strong, trust-based relationship across multiple levels.

Let’s break down the key components of an impactful QBR/EBR and how to make these interactions as valuable as possible.

1. Building Your Executive Summary Slide

The executive summary slide is a powerful tool to provide a clear, concise overview of the key discussion points.

2. Structuring the Conversation with Open-Ended Questions

Giving the customer room to share their thoughts is essential for a productive review. Open-ended questions create space for authentic dialogue and give insight into their evolving needs and expectations. Consider starting the conversation with questions like:

• “What recent successes or challenges have you faced in implementing our product?”
• “How well is our solution aligning with your strategic goals this quarter?”
• “Are there specific outcomes you’d like us to focus on in the next quarter?”

3. Creating a Praise-Centered Atmosphere

Start the review on a positive note by acknowledging the customer’s recent accomplishments or their team’s efforts in integrating your product. For example:

• “Your team has shown incredible dedication in adopting our latest features, and it’s clear you’ve made fantastic progress.”
• “We’ve seen impressive engagement levels on your end, which really sets the stage for success in the coming months.”

4. Handling Non-Responsive Customers

Not every customer will readily engage in QBRs or respond to follow-ups. In such cases, consider a tiered approach:

• Initial Follow-Up: Start with an email recap, followed by a call if you don’t hear back.
• Escalate Strategically: If initial outreach fails, involve the Account Executive (AE) to reinforce the importance of the QBR and your company’s commitment to their success.
• Plan for Long-Term Re-Engagement: For persistently non-responsive clients, schedule a follow-up in three to six months. This cadence can help ensure you keep the door open for future engagement.

We also summated a START – STOP – CONTINUE framework. 

🟢 START

S – Shadowing & Sharing Insights

• Organize “Customer Days” where other teams like Product, Engineering, and Design can shadow CS to gain insights directly from customer interactions.
• Regularly share CS insights with all departments to ensure everyone understands customer pain points and successes.

T – Team Champions

• Identify and empower champions within each department who can advocate for customer needs, especially in larger organizations where teams are siloed.
• Champions help bridge gaps, promote CS initiatives, and keep customer-centricity at the forefront across teams.

A – Aligned Goals & Incentives

• Align incentives for AEs, Product, and other teams so they share responsibility for customer success outcomes, such as reducing churn or enhancing customer satisfaction.
• Create shared goals to encourage collaboration across departments, focusing on customer experience and retention.

R – Relationship Building

• Host Customer Success Days and encourage cross-department collaboration to strengthen relationships within the organization and focus on customer needs.
• Build a community by organizing internal events, customer workshops, and sharing success stories to create a sense of shared purpose.

T – Tell Stories & Track Value

• Gather and share impactful customer stories across teams to illustrate the value delivered and motivate employees to stay customer-focused.
• Use storytelling to highlight achievements and build a community around customer success, emphasizing the long-term impact of prioritizing customers.

This START model focuses on making CS a central, influential part of the organization, ensuring cross-departmental alignment and fostering a culture of customer empathy and shared success.

🔴 STOP

S – Stop Working in Silos

• Unify Sales and CS Goals: Stop letting Sales and Customer Success (CS) teams work toward different KPIs and goals. Align both teams around common objectives such as customer retention, satisfaction, and lifetime value. Foster collaboration to ensure everyone is focused on the same success metrics.
• Break Down Departmental Silos: Promote cross-department collaboration by encouraging regular communication between teams. This ensures that both teams have a unified approach when addressing customer needs and expectations.

T – Stop Losing Track of Value

• Stay Customer-Centric as You Scale: As the organization grows, stop allowing the disconnect between departments to make it difficult to track customer value. Ensure that value delivery remains the primary focus by centralizing customer data, feedback, and success metrics across teams.
• Maintain Consistency in Messaging: Ensure every department understands the value they bring to the customer. Avoid fragmented messaging that could cause confusion or undermine trust in your company’s commitment to customer success.

O – Stop Ignoring the Bigger Picture

• Link Departments to Customer Outcomes: Stop focusing only on individual department goals. Create a comprehensive, customer-centric strategy that integrates all teams (Sales, CS, Product, etc.) around shared objectives and long-term value creation for the customer.
• Avoid Overcomplicating Processes: Simplify cross-departmental collaboration. Remove unnecessary complexity in workflows and processes that hinder communication and delay problem-solving.

P – Stop Overlooking Internal Alignment

• Create Joint Planning Sessions: Stop neglecting to have joint planning sessions across teams. Ensure that Sales, CS, and other departments participate in strategic planning to align on customer needs and product improvements.
• Unify Feedback Loops: Stop letting feedback from customers get lost between departments. Create a centralized feedback loop where all teams can access customer insights, track issues, and act on necessary improvements.

🟠CONTINUE

C – Create Personal Connections

• Get to Know People Personally: Continue investing time to understand the personal and professional preferences of your stakeholders. Recognize that different people need varying levels of engagement and communication. Whether it’s more or less time spent with them, tailoring your approach ensures better understanding and deeper relationships.
• Cultural Sensitivity: In regions like Brazil, continue being more personal in your interactions, as understanding cultural nuances plays a big role in building stronger, more authentic relationships.

O – Onboarding & Aligning on Success Plans

• Align on the Framework: Continue setting up clear frameworks with your stakeholders, especially during the onboarding process. Ensure that success plans are already discussed with Account Executives (AEs), defining the “why,” success goals, milestones, KPIs, and stakeholder roles involved.
• Success Planning with AEs: Continue collaborating with AEs to ensure a shared understanding of what success looks like for the customer and that the appropriate steps and metrics are set.

N – Nurturing Cross-Department Collaboration

• Stay in Touch & Hold Common Sessions: Continue creating opportunities for cross-department collaboration and engagement. Hold regular sessions where various teams—such as CS, Sales, Product, and Engineering—can share insights, align on customer needs, and update each other on progress.
• Speak and Understand the Language of Other Teams: Continue building rapport with other teams by speaking their language and understanding their objectives. This helps ensure mutual respect and smoother collaboration, fostering a customer-first mentality across the organization.

T – Tailor Approaches Based on Stakeholder Needs

• Personalized Engagement: Continue to approach each stakeholder according to their specific needs, communication preferences, and personalities. Not every person needs the same level of attention, and recognizing these differences helps prioritize resources more effectively.
• Customized Stakeholder Mapping: Continue developing and refining stakeholder maps to identify who the key players are, their roles, and what they care about. Knowing your audience ensures you are aligning your approach and communication style with their expectations.

I – Incorporate Guardrails and Processes

• Establish Clear Processes: Continue to have well-defined processes and guardrails in place that help guide your interactions with stakeholders. Standardize certain aspects of communication and engagement, but leave room for flexibility when dealing with unique needs or situations.
• Measure and Iterate: Continue measuring the effectiveness of your processes and be open to making adjustments. Having the right guardrails in place without being overly rigid ensures that your strategy can evolve with customer and team needs.

N – Navigate Stakeholder Expectations

• Align on Expectations Early: Continue aligning on expectations with stakeholders from the start, especially during key touchpoints like QBRs and EBRS. Setting clear goals and defining value from the outset helps mitigate future misunderstandings and creates a shared path toward success.
• Open Feedback Loops: Continue to regularly collect feedback from your stakeholders and adjust your approach based on their input. Continuous communication ensures that you’re on the right track and able to pivot as needed.

E – Engage in Continuous Learning

• Share Success Stories: Continue sharing success stories within the company and with your stakeholders. Use these stories to inspire others, show the impact of your work, and build momentum.
• Learning from Others: Continue to learn from other teams and stakeholders. Whether it’s through joint workshops, shadowing, or informal discussions, these opportunities enrich your understanding and improve the way you engage with customers and internal teams alike.

This CONTINUE Model emphasizes the importance of personal engagement, aligning teams and processes, nurturing cross-department collaboration, and staying adaptable to continuously refine and improve your approach to customer success. Meanwhile, this model is also significant in maintaining effective communication, which is the next topic. 

3. Communities, Playbooks, & Automation

Effective communication is crucial for customer success, but determining how often to engage with customers can be challenging. In the session spearheaded by Shannon Jaritz, we thoroughly discussed the topic, allowing us to gain valuable insights from other professionals in the field. 

The right frequency and method depend on factors like customer needs, lifetime value (LTV), deal size, and customer profile. Here’s a guide to help Customer Success (CS) teams develop an engagement strategy that balances automation and human interaction, optimizes health scoring, and prioritizes valuable content creation.

Finding the Right Engagement Frequency

Engagement frequency should be customized to customer needs, with a balance between automated touchpoints and personal check-ins. Consider factors like product complexity, LTV, and the customer’s relationship with your brand. For high-value accounts, more frequent, personalized interactions may be required, while smaller accounts can often benefit from scaled and automated engagement.

Key considerations:

• Cultural Preferences: Tailor engagement methods to fit regional or demographic preferences, adjusting both frequency and medium (e.g., email vs. calls) for the best results.
• Effort vs. Net Revenue Retention (NRR): Regularly assess if the resources invested in customer interactions align with revenue impact. Higher-impact accounts may justify more frequent and personalized touchpoints, while lower-impact engagements can often be automated to save time.

Using Health Scoring to Guide Engagement

Health scoring offers a scalable way to monitor customer engagement and guide interaction frequency based on specific account statuses. A robust health score can identify areas where customers might need additional support and prevent issues from escalating.

Common health scoring factors:

• Product Usage: Track customer adoption rates and whether customers are hitting value milestones.
• Stakeholder Involvement: Determine if a strong advocate or sponsor is actively promoting the product.
• Event Participation: Engagement in workshops, webinars, or community activities can be a positive indicator of commitment.

While health scores provide directional insights, remember they’re not foolproof. Use them to spot patterns and adjust strategy as needed but supplement with qualitative insights for a more complete picture.

Additional engagement tips:

• Customer Office Hours: Periodically test office hours to understand the best frequency and format. Retain only those sessions that offer clear value relative to the effort they require.
• Focused Webinars: Offer targeted sessions on popular topics to address common questions and deepen engagement.
• Paid Consulting Hours: Consider offering consulting as a paid option, especially for complex products or in markets with mature customer bases. This can help add value without overextending the CS team.

Standardizing and Automating Playbooks

Establishing standardized playbooks for key engagement points helps deliver consistent, effective support across the customer journey. Automated and standardized processes free up the CS team’s time for high-touch interactions where they’re most impactful.

Tips for Standardized Playbooks:

• Sales Handover: Ensure a smooth handover by collecting relevant customer information from sales, so customers don’t have to repeat details already provided.
• Onboarding Surveys: Use onboarding surveys to quickly gather critical information while avoiding overwhelming the customer.
• Satisfaction Surveys: Collect feedback periodically to adjust your approach as needed, using surveys as a scalable feedback tool for individual account strategies.

Content Creation and Scaled Success

Content plays a critical role in supporting both digital and high-touch engagement strategies. The right content empowers customers to use your product effectively and reduces the need for repetitive support interactions.

Content Strategy Best Practices:

• Prioritize High-Impact Content: Identify the most essential content and focus on creating assets that address high-impact needs along the customer journey.
• Specialized Roles: Assign content creation to area specialists, such as technical documentation experts or CS strategists, to maintain quality and relevance.
• Overlap Between Digital and High-Touch Support: Many high-touch insights can be scaled through digital resources, such as self-service tutorials or FAQs, to improve efficiency and consistency across accounts.

Recommended Tools for Digital and Scaled Success

Several tools can streamline digital customer success efforts, particularly for scalable communication and efficient inbox management.

Suggested tools:

• Messaging Platforms: Use tools like WhatsApp for a personalized touch in scalable, digital-first communication strategies.
• Shared Inboxes: Platforms like Intercom or Zendesk centralize customer interactions, improving response times and allowing the team to track and manage issues more effectively.
• Inbound Call Management: For certain customer segments, consider removing inbound phone support to maintain better control of written communication. Offer phone support selectively, such as for complex technical issues, while keeping written communication as the default. 

Also, customer marketing is an essential component of creating strong relationships with clients while amplifying the brand’s reputation and impact. 

4. Customer Marketing (Cases/Multi Threading)

In this session, headed by Maximillian Richter, we will explore key strategies around customer marketing, specifically focusing on multi-threading, contractual agreements, story authenticity, and building advisory boards. These elements contribute to both customer satisfaction and enhanced business outcomes.

A. Embedding Case Studies into Contracts

One of the most effective ways to leverage customer marketing is through the use of case studies. The key to making case studies a strategic asset is to embed the agreement to create these case studies directly into your contracts. By doing this, you can make case study creation a default condition, or even better, a condition for receiving favorable pricing. This ensures that you can use the success stories of your clients to build more compelling content, which, in turn, drives your marketing and sales efforts.

Why it Works:

• Win-Win for Both Parties: When framed correctly, case studies should feel like a win for both parties. The client benefits from increased exposure and the validation that comes with being featured as a success story, while your brand benefits from authentic testimonials and real-world examples of how your product or service is driving results.
• Compelling Marketing Content: These case studies can be repurposed across various marketing channels, enhancing credibility and supporting sales conversations with real-world evidence.

B. Story Authenticity

When creating marketing content based on client success, it’s crucial to maintain the authenticity of the story. Customers want to see genuine, tangible results rather than exaggerated or overly polished success stories.

Key Points to Remember:

• Show Real Outcomes: Don’t oversell your product or service by focusing only on the positives. It’s vital to present both the challenges and the victories, giving the story a relatable and trustworthy feel.
• Cultural Sensitivity: Tailor your case study content to fit cultural differences. What resonates with one audience might not connect with another, so understanding your diverse customer base is essential for creating content that truly speaks to them.

A genuine approach in showcasing outcomes ensures that the story feels real, which, in turn, builds trust with your audience.

C. Starting Small with Case Study Requests

Building impactful case studies doesn’t always require a grand, full-scale collaboration from the get-go. In fact, you can start small by asking for something simple, such as a customer quote or a showcase for internal use. This approach allows you to test the waters and develop the case study from there, gradually expanding the content as more success metrics and customer feedback come in.

Starting Small Leads to Big Rewards:

• Less Pressure on the Client: By beginning with a low-commitment request, you make it easier for clients to agree to participate, which can lead to higher participation rates.
• More Room for Growth: As the relationship deepens, you can gather more data and extend the case study into a full-scale marketing asset. This gives you time to develop the narrative naturally and with the client’s full buy-in.

D. Challenges in Building Customer Communities and Advisory Boards

Customer communities and advisory boards can be valuable assets for gaining insights, improving product offerings, and creating stronger connections with high-value clients. However, there are inherent challenges in creating and maintaining these relationships.

Common Obstacles:

• Engagement Levels: Ensuring that members of the advisory board or customer community stay engaged over time can be difficult. It requires consistent effort, regular updates, and meaningful opportunities for feedback.
• Managing Expectations: Diverse customer expectations and varying levels of involvement can lead to challenges in balancing different needs and maintaining alignment.

Maximizing Value for High-Paying Clients: Despite these challenges, customer communities and advisory boards can still be extremely valuable—especially when working with your highest-value clients. If managed well, these groups provide valuable feedback, insights, and marketing assets that can boost your product development and brand reputation.

It’s crucial that senior executives within the company actively support and engage with these boards. Their involvement signals the importance of the group and increases the likelihood of higher participation and more meaningful outcomes.

E. Multi-Threading Customer Marketing Initiatives

Multi-threading involves multiple points of contact within a customer organization to ensure that you’re building relationships on multiple levels. It’s essential to leverage this approach in customer marketing for better engagement and long-term success.

Broader Reach: By engaging different stakeholders, you ensure that your brand is top of mind across the organization, not just with one key decision-maker. This approach can open up new avenues for case studies, testimonials, and ongoing collaboration.

Diverse Input: Different perspectives can lead to richer insights, making your customer marketing initiatives more robust and multi-dimensional.

5. Team Structure & Compensation

Effective customer marketing requires a collaborative approach across various departments. A cross-functional team structure that includes customer success, marketing, sales, and product development ensures alignment and cohesive messaging. Customer success teams can identify high-value customers for case studies, while marketing can handle content creation and distribution.

In this session, also spearheaded by Maxmillian Richter, we’ve discussed how incentives play a key role in motivating the team. With this, the conclusion was to consider tying compensation not just to sales but to long-term customer success, such as creating case studies, participation in advisory boards, or community-building efforts. This alignment of compensation with customer-centric goals encourages collaboration and reinforces the value of customer marketing efforts.

Our  Customer Success Snack events are made to inform and educate CS Professionals all over Europe on the latest trends, challenges, and strategies from which each can benefit. Join our next event!

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