Networking for Customer Success in Tech Companies

Anyone who is customer facing should be building close, authentic, long lasting relationships with their customers. It pays off in more ways than you can imagine: repeat customers, references, community champions, content ideas, competitive intel and so much more. Here are 5 ways you and your team can start building those relationships: 1. Amplify a customer’s LinkedIn posts - When your customer posts something interesting, don’t just like it yourself but share the link on your internal chat and ask your team to like it as well. It’s amazing how powerful this is. It’s human nature to look at who is liking your content on any social platform and most people get a consistent number of likes. If you drive 50% more for a customer they will notice that. 2. Help find candidates for their team and jobs for them if they’re looking - In your position engaging with a specific persona all day every day you have amazing visibility and connections into relevant candidates for open jobs and companies hiring. If you let your customers know that you can be a resource for them on both sides of the table you will see how quickly you can start playing matchmaker. 3. Share best practices that have nothing to do with your company/product - Everyone is looking to improve in their job. Everyone wants to know what their peers are doing at other companies. When you hear good ideas from other customers or read about a best practice, send it to them. Just show them you’re thinking about them and are invested in them being successful. 4. Make them look good in front of their manager and/or team - It needs to be authentic and relevant but find a reason to give your customer a shoutout when you’re in a meeting with them. It doesn’t even need to be a big thing but something about how they’re the fastest to roll out your product, how their feature request ended up becoming a game changer for a bunch of customers, how they’re the most productive team you’ve seen at one particular thing. 5. Fight for a feature/bug fix/service that they’re asking for - In short, be the squeaky wheel for your customer. When they ask for something, set the expectation that it takes a while to get that thing done but then go fight for it internally. Each company has their own process for this kind of stuff but if you push in the right ways you can usually get their request prioritized. When it’s done make sure the customer knows you fought for them to get that thing done. The best thing is that these are “free”. Of course they will take time and energy but the return on this work is astronomical. I honestly didn’t appreciate the power of these relationships when I started my career but I now have close relationships with so many customers that I’ve worked with over the years. They’re a sounding board for business ideas, they’re working with companies I’m advising and we’ve become each other cheerleaders. What did I miss? What else are you doing to build relationships with your customers?

If you’re a Customer Success Leader, read this. This is the move that changed everything for me. It helped the entire org finally get the value of Customer Success. Let me explain. I was brand new in a VP role. Still figuring out where the bathroom was, when I got the dreaded question (again): “What does Customer Success actually do?” Now, I’ve been asked this more times than I can count. But this time, I decided to stop answering. Instead, I had a plan. I went on what I now call my CS Department Tour. One-by-one meetings with every team: Sales, Marketing, Product, Finance, Engineering, HR, and Leadership. But I didn’t show up with a deck. I didn’t walk them through our tech stack. I didn’t explain our processes. I came with stories. Real ones. 🖤 When CS saved a deal with Sales that was slipping. 🖤 When CS surfaced product feedback that became a game-changing feature. 🖤 When an engineer got a customer shoutout that lit up Slack. 🖤 When we gave Marketing a story that closed a six-figure deal. 🖤 When we flagged churn before Finance even saw the signals. And I used names, their names. AEs, PMs, marketers, analysts. I made the story about them. And in those rooms? I saw the lightbulbs go off. They finally understood: CS isn’t some abstract function. CS is real. CS is relevant. CS is them. So if you're struggling to articulate the impact of your team, here's what to do: Find your story. Make it human. Make it theirs. Here’s a cheat sheet to get you started: 👉 Sales: We help you close more, faster & with fit, frictionless customers. 👉 Marketing: We turn customer outcomes into brand assets. 👉 Product: We remove the guesswork. What’s working, what’s not, what’s next. 👉 Finance: We’re your early warning system for revenue risk. 👉 Engineering: We give signal, not noise. Real user insight. 👉 HR: We model empathy-driven, impact-focused work. 👉 Leadership: We are the revenue engine. Retention is growth. Tell your story. Then tell it again. Then invite them to tell it back. Because once your org sees CS for what it truly is? That’s when the company stops surviving and starts scaling. Happy Friday!

Most people treat networking like a numbers game. Send 100 messages. Hope one sticks. That’s not how my clients get into Google, Meta, or Stripe. Here’s the strategy I teach and it works because it’s human. 1. Get specific. Pick a few companies you’re excited about. Find people actually working on the teams you want to join. 2. Start the conversation the right way. Don’t lead with “Can you refer me?” Comment on their work. Ask a real question. Share something you’ve learned from their content. Show you’ve done your homework. 3. Make it easy to help you. Once there’s some connection, send a short message explaining why you’re interested and how your background aligns. Keep it tight and forwardable. This is the exact strategy that’s helped my clients land roles in some of the most competitive teams in tech. Because it’s not about chasing people. It’s about building real momentum one thoughtful message at a time.

Here's the least-discussed yet MOST valuable #partnerships tip I can give with a why/how/example: TALK DIRECTLY WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS. Many of us come into a partnerships role and have ideas and strategies for what you want to do and work on. A lot of that comes from what you've done/seen before in other organizations. The problem: It's likely a different product with different customers who have different customer profiles that are solving for different problems. What has worked in the past likely won't directly correlate to your new role. Now, here's the issue; you probably don't have many opportunities to talk to customers. I know it's been a challenge for me in the past as well. Well, here are two steps to try out: 1. Start by listening in to as many customer calls as you can; Sales, CS, etc. whether they're recordings or being a fly on the wall. Ask a friend from one of those teams. Find ways to connect the value Partnerships brings to those calls; Follow up with your team members with things you can help with and prove out the model. You may even be able to help a few customers directly (measure this)! 2. Once you've done that a few times, build a case for areas of opportunities that you have learned from spending this time and show examples of the value it has brought to the team/customer. Then, you can come up with a strategy and plan with those customer-facing teams for how you can get more involved. The outcome: direct customer conversations will help you learn a TON about what you should/shouldn't be focusing on and solving for. This direction will save you a TON of time and help you focus. My personal example: In doing this process, I was able to convey to the Customer Success team that Partnerships can help solve for problems that our teams are not experts in (third party tech solutions). This gave us all the idea that Partnerships should be a part of our Executive Business Review that CS does 2-4 times/year with our accounts. We now have a dedicated section and we get to geek out with all parties around new challenges and solutions that our partners may be able to help with. We can measure how many we take part in. We can measure how this turns into partner referrals. We can measure how many more integrations are adopted & usage. We can measure the outcomes of those partnerships and how it has helped the customer, improving our relationship and retention in the process. Hope that helps someone :)