5 Customer Success Themes from Pulse in Amsterdam

My experience at Gainsight Pulse!

I had the pleasure of attending my first Gainsight Pulse conference in Amsterdam! It was amazing to be surrounded by so many incredible Customer Success professionals and the learnings were many. I found 5 themes especially interesting and wanted to share them with you. 📢 I would love to hear your top takeaways from Pulse or your thoughts on these topics in the comments! 📢

1) AI

It wouldn’t be a conference in 2024 if AI wasn’t a central theme. There were many angles on this and it is clear that most companies are trying to figure out the best way to use this. For Customer Success, making your teams more efficient and have more time to spend with customers was the biggest theme. The central question seems to be: How do we move admin and repetitive tasks off the plate of our teams so they can spend more time providing value to their customers?

2) Leadership:

This was one that I was very interested in digging into and went to a few sessions in this track. There was a focus on Human First leadership in the age of AI which I think is a very important topic. The two takeaways I had was that we need to set our teams up for success with AI platforms, systems, and playbooks to ensure they can achieve the asks we put in front of them. The other, is a classic leadership lesson of going to bat and fighting for the things that your team believes in. Being willing to go to your leadership and cross functional partners and make the asks that you and your team believe will drive impact for your customers and business even if other departments don’t believe.

Thank you, Lara Barnes, Dominique Duquennoy, and Jessica Bobbitt for your wisdom on these topics!

3) Community:

I am a big fan of community both personally and professionally, so I had to attend a couple session on this topic. In both the ones I attended they gave great insight into what makes a great post in an online community environment that will help to grow and engage your community.

Fine: Ask a general question to the group

Good: Share an example and then ask a specific question about people’s experience

Great: Share an example, ask a specific question about people’s experience, and then tag in users that you know would have an interesting answer to the question.

This means that the community manager must take the time to get to know the users and be actively engaged in the community. This was another big point, that if you want a strong community, having a strong community manager is important.

Thank you, Björn Schulze and Richard Millington, for your wisdom on these topics!

4) Accountability:

With the current macroeconomic climate, accountability was a key topic as this is something that has become more important. While more CS teams are taking on revenue numbers, there are clearly other ways to be measuring CSMs based on your key goal. One interesting nugget on this front was one company who brings the macroeconomic situation directly into their teams goals. Therefore, they can see how they did vs market and helps to contextualize strong or weak performances and allows the team to be focused on outperforming the market where they know this is taken into account.

Thank you, Bridget K. Deiters, for sharing your wisdom on this topic!

5) Digital CS

With the rise of AI, Digital CS continues to be a big topic. This point was made a few times throughout the conference but I thought it was a really good reminder. Digital doesn’t mean totally self service. It means the lowest value tasks are automated so people can do only the highest value activities.

Thank you, Marek Schumann and Agnes Gierulski for your wisdom on these topics!

Another huge shoutout to Nick Mehta and the Gainsight team for an amazing event!!

Other Posts About Pulse:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/anikazubair_pulse-was-so-epic-that-my-flight-home-got-activity-7264366770386300929-wKqk?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ashwinrichard_sallystoewefanclub-activity-7264256899741581313-ukwI?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/saahilkarkera_its-never-too-late-to-post-about-gainsight-activity-7265363578507902976-3AF2?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/angelika-m_pulseeurope2024-customersuccess-digitalcustomersuccess-activity-7263941296245915648--b4G?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/joannaapostolov_customersuccess-gainsight-gainsightpulseurope2024-activity-7262961588570058756-Sxlq?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/janine-zappeij-072b78131_pulseeurope2024-customersuccess-csm-activity-7262854528255873025-dOcE?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

👋Hey, I'm Ezra, a Manager of Customer Success at LinkedIn and Customer Success enthusiast!

📈 I write about the latest trends in Customer Success, my life working in the CS department for LinkedIn, and my volunteer efforts with the Customer Success Network!

#️⃣ Follow me and the hashtag #CustomerSuccessMonthly to stay up to date on my monthly newsletters and weekly posts.

🔗If we're not connected, let's connect!