The Academic Approach to Customer Success

Welcome to The Gainsight Gamechanger Podcast, a space where we recognize and celebrate people who change the game of customer success and product experience for their companies, customers, teammates, and partners.

The Customer Success philosophy has become the ally of many businesses from all around the world, and has settled as a preferred framework for millions of entrepreneurs and their teams. So much so, that students are currently showing growing interest around CS courses and lessons for their education, which only highlights the impact of our industry in the business world.

In this episode, Bryan Hochstein, the Doctor of Customer Success, joins us to share his insights as a researcher, academic, and CS advocate, to help us navigate the industry through a different lens. Listen to learn all about the four themes that are most relevant for the industry to this day, and what it really takes to incorporate the CS philosophy into educational curriculums in the US and globally. With adequate efforts, not only will Customer Success keep growing popular in the professional field, but could unleash its potential and become more relevant in the academic world, to give birth to an entire generation of passionate practitioners.

Jump straight into:

(01:09) - On Bryan’s background and diverse career - “My approach to that really was what I now realize was a Customer Success approach.”

(05:21) - Bryan’s academic journey and perspectives on the CS philosophy - “It was the answer to a lot of questions I had about sales.”

(08:21) - The four key themes circling in the CS industry and how they could impact practices - “Proactivity is key to this actually working right, and not everybody does it right.”

(14:33) - The importance of addressing the “customer health” concept - “It’s a state of complete engagement, experience and value of the well being, and not merely the absence of business problems.”

(20:12) - The cultural and maturity differences of CS on a global scale - “People do things differently based on the cultures where they’re working, even for the same company, but that’s pretty much just good marketing.”

(26:45) - The integration of the Customer Success Philosophy on education - “Universities are needing to be much more responsive to the job demand of the business communities around them.”

Resources

Connect with Bryan via LinkedIn

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Hosted by Adam Joseph, The Gamechanger Podcast is a show brought to you by Gainsight. For more information about all of our episodes, please visit https://www.gainsight.com/podcasts.

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