This blog is part of a series of posts exploring the different companies that have looked for or are currently looking for Customer Success Managers. Learn more about your potential employers, see if their values align with yours and whether you can see yourself working there. This week, we’re looking into Qualtrics, a company owned by SAP, whose core product revolves around surveys and the analysis of data that comes from them.
Qualtrics – Smart, Sophisticated, Survey SaaS
In my Oracle days, a presales consultant I knew moved into into Qualtrics. It was convenient for him, because they just happened to be down the road. During Friday drinks, he snuck back into the office and we caught up.
He had been at Oracle for 10 years, but had no regrets about leaving. While it was owned by a competitor of Oracle’s it operated more like a start up. He had more autonomy to move fast, break things and make an impact.
Let’s dive a bit deeper into what Qualtrics does and how you might support this business as a CSM.
The Software Itself
The great thing about surveys is that they’re a tool as old as time. As such, their use cases vary quite a bit. However, Qualtrics isn’t unfocused. They have seven or eight key segments they’ve broken out into. I’ll choose a few here to look into.
CustomerXM is focused on understanding customers better. Customer Experience (CX) is a field gaining prominence, particularly in the world of tech. Qualtrics shares that the popular use cases of the Customer XM product are:
- social listing,
- digital customer service,
- sales and retention intelligence,
- quality management,
- Voice of the Customer,
- Account Management.
ProductXM is on the flip side of the coin. Where there are customers (demand), there has to be a product (supply). In the world of digital, really digging into what levers will give the best possible output in a highly competitive landscape will the difference between your company/product being #1, or fighting in obscurity.
The main use cases are:
- pricing research,
- concept testing,
- product naming,
- product satisfaction, and
- feature prioritization.
Then last but not list here, who do you have enabling the supply and demand side to come together? Employees! Making sure they’re feeling fulfilled yet challenged, switched on and well remunerated is key to keeping a business operating not only smoothly, but profitably as well.
The key use cases here are:
- action planning,
- employee pulse,
- onboarding feedback,
- exit diagnostic.
Job Description Example
The role we’re going to look into today is for a Portfolio Customer Success Manager, in Sydney, Australia.
Let’s go through each of the dot points:
- be the one who builds connections in your account organizations and turn them into evangelists/champions,
- increase adoption. Pretty part and parcel for CSMs. The main action you want to be enabling at Qualtrics is more research.
- understand and empathise with customers to know exactly why they bought into Qualtrics and how they wish to use it to solve their problem,
- build success plans to provide customers with a blueprint for success,
- create content (PDF, videos, emails, etc) that educates customers on how to get the most value out of Qualtrics,
- be the Voice of the Customer and make sure cross-functional leaders hear them,
- unite the different departments so you holistically build the best possible product for your customers,
- be an SME (subject matter expert) of Qualtrics,
- be a sales enabler, helping with your domain knowledge wherever possible, and
- work hand-in-hand with product to build the product to be better than ever by informing them real customer feedback that you get from your accounts.
Why You Should Go
Their benefits can be summed up as having the stability of a strong parent (SAP), but possessing the spirit of a start up. If you need health coverage but want to do big things and make an impact, Qualtrics is for you.