Anika Zubair (00:00.13)
Have you ever felt like you're constantly putting out fires with your customers? That you're always reacting or jumping into emergency calls and saving renewals at the last second? Or maybe you're scrambling to answer that email marked urgent. If that's your reality, you're not alone. But here's the thing. The best customer success teams don't just react, they predict, they plan, and they execute with confidence.

In today's episode, we're diving into how to build proactive customer success strategy that gets ahead of churn and drives growth and puts you in control of the customer journey. Here's the real talk. Most CS professionals are stuck in reactive mode. Heck, I know I have been, but they're stuck in reactive mode because their company lacks a clear and scalable success strategy.

We're told to just check in or stay close to the customer. But without clear triggers, data, and systems, we're going to end up doing random acts for the customer, and that is not going to be proactive. These random acts of customer success do not move the needle. They lead to surprise churn, overwhelmed CSMs, low adoption that we only end up discovering after renewal time.

And worst of all, executive teams are questioning the value of CS. And let's be honest, when you're always reacting, burnout isn't far behind. But it doesn't have to be this way. Let's break down how to build a proactive CS strategy in a step-by-step strategic way.

Hello everyone, I'm your host Anika Zuber and welcome to the Customer Success Pro Podcast, your go-to space for real talk, expert advice and actionable insights in the world of customer success. I'm a CS executive leader, award-winning strategist, CS coach and customer success fanatic. I help CSMs and CS leaders build the skills and the confidence to become revenue driving pros and scale world-class CS teams.

Anika Zubair (02:13.198)
So whether you're brand new to or a seasoned leader, this podcast is here to support your growth. Because customer success isn't a destination, it's a journey. And I'm here to be your guide and navigate every step of your journey. So join me every Wednesday where you'll get fresh CS tips, tricks, and strategies you can actually use. Some weeks I'll share my own insights and best practices from working in CS over the last 13 years

And once a month, I'll bring on expert guests to dive into the most relevant and pressing topics in customer success today. So if you're ready to level up, hit subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you tune in, and let's make your CS journey a little bit easier together.

Anika Zubair (03:05.827)
And if you've been a listener of this podcast, you know I love a good framework and a good step-by-step process because that is just how we succeed in customer success. It's by building processes, building brick by brick or step by step. So let me take you through my five steps of how you can build a proactive CS organization. The first step in building a proactive CS org is really defining what success means for your

customers. Now listen, I have been at six different startups and all my customer bases have been super different. But the one mistake that I see CS pros make way too often is they end up building a success criteria metrics based on what they think. Okay, but remember, this is not just for you or your company, but for them, meaning your customers. You need to ask

What milestones or outcome does successful customer achieve in the first 30, 60, or 90 days? And most times, CS pros end up making assumptions. They end up thinking that they know what their customers want in the first 30, 60, or 90 days. And here's my biggest insider tip. I want you to just go ask your customers. We get so scared of asking our customers, but that is exactly what I want you to do.

To really break down step one of defining what success means for your customers in that first 30, 60 or 90 days, I need you to go and actually ask your customers. So after 30 days, I want you to take a test customer and say, hey, what was your biggest milestone that you hit in these first 30 days? Or what was the greatest outcome or impact that you had with our product or service? Do the same thing for 60 or 90 days.

and then compare and see if you really mapped it correctly because you need to start to map milestones that make sense for your customer. Okay, step two, you're gonna wanna map out a success plan for your customer journey. Now, if you've listened to any of my podcasts or read any of my content, you know I love a good success plan. Whether you're a one-to-one CSM or a one-to-many CS strategy, I don't really care. You need to have a success plan.

Anika Zubair (05:29.059)
because customer success is a journey. And as a guide, you need to provide a map with a step-by-step plan. And that is exactly what a customer success plan is. And in this customer success plan that's mapped out to the customer journey, I want you to include onboarding, adoption, renewal, and expansion. So different steps in their customer journey. And in each part of the journey, I want you to identify clear trigger points. When should you reach out?

what signals indicate risk or maybe an opportunity for an upsell. Really map out all the different levels of interaction that you're gonna have with your customers depending on their level of interaction with your product. Really, the sky is your limit here and I want you to really think big here and think about any little moment that you need to start mapping out.

All right, on to step three, which is to automate touch points for scale. Now here's the thing, whether you're a one-to-one or a one-to-many CSM, you need to automate touch points for scale. You don't have to manually check in with every customer. And if you are, my gosh, you must be exhausted. Please stop because you really don't have to do that. But you need to start to use tools like Hellscore, Playbooks, Lifecycle emails.

to really ensure consistency. And you've really got to bake this into your customer journey. And you've got to make sure that you are triggering this based on those customer outcomes that we mapped out earlier. Awesome. The next step in building that proactive CS team is building a risk and opportunity framework. That is step four. Now, what you're going to do is you're going to map out what are your red flags, meaning like,

If your customer drops in usage, what do you do? Or maybe a stakeholder has left the business, what happens then? Or maybe your customer has indicated that they're looking at a competitor. These are all the red flags and I want you to map them out. And then on the opposite end, I want you to map out what all the green flags are. So maybe there's a moment where your champion writes a case study or there's really high champion engagement or maybe there's really high feature adoption.

Anika Zubair (07:50.318)
What signals show you that your customer is really truly seeing green or success with your product? And then I want you to create a playbook for each and every trigger. Remember, every single one has a playbook, whether it's low adoption, champion turnover, a new champion, maybe there's new stakeholders, whatever it is, each one deserves its own playbook because each one is a different play. All right, the final step, step.

in building your proactive customer success strategy is to review and refine this entire strategy monthly. I know you heard me monthly. Listen, in 2025, everything is shifting so much. There are world economies shifting, there are tariff wars happening, there is everything and anything shifting week by week and day by day. Back in the day,

Early on in my customer success journey, I could actually probably build a proactive customer success strategy and revisit it maybe every half year or maybe once a year. But I'm here to tell you in 2025, that's just not going to work. A proactive strategy is not a set it and forget it thing. To really build true proactivity into customer success, you are going to have to review things on a monthly basis.

So if you are a CS leader and you're building out a proactive strategy for the first time, don't stress, build it out part by part, step by step. That's why I broke it all down step by step in this entire podcast, but please do not set it and forget it. Your team and your customers need you to review it. And the reason I say this is because the first time we do anything, by the way, we're never gonna get it right. So please do not fear getting it perfect.

And please do not fear trying to make it perfect, stop you from building this playbook and this strategy. But also the only way to get to any sort of perfection in customer success, which by the way, I totally don't believe in, but to get kind of close to perfection in customer success, we cannot set it and forget it. We have to actually revisit our entire proactive strategy and really rethink it. And right now you need to rethink it every month. You need to start.

Anika Zubair (10:15.098)
tracking what's working and what you're missing and what your missing signals are and you need to update it regularly. Like I said, your customers and the way they're adopting your product or using your product or the way they're going to be seeing value in your product and service is going to change so much. So I know it sounds like a lot of work, but trust me, build it into your natural strategy. As a CS leader or a CS pro,

you are going to want to revisit your strategies and your playbooks regularly because they get tired, they get old, but also you need to revamp them and make them better and better. So please update it regularly. And if a month is too often, start with a quarter, start with baby steps. Just make sure you're revisiting your strategy regularly. Hey, just jumping in with a quick break. If you're loving the revenue strategies,

that we're talking about in this episode and want to actually apply them in your day-to-day work, I've got something for you. It's my totally free guide called Unlock Revenue in a Quarterly Business Review. It's gonna be your go-to resource to stop firefighting and get hours back in your day and finally focus on what matters most, customer outcomes. Inside my guide, you'll learn how to prioritize your time, prep smarter,

and run executive or quarterly business reviews that actually drive revenue. These are real life tips and tactics that you can start to use immediately. And like I said, it's completely free. So go ahead and check out the link in my show notes to grab your free copy or go to the customer success pro.com forward slash resources. Just check the show notes and now back to our show.

I want you to think of your CS strategy like a navigation app. Like Google Maps or Waze or whatever you're using these days. Reactive CS is like driving with no map and waiting for traffic jams before deciding to make a left or right or deciding to reroute yourself. Proactive CS, that's having a map, real-time alerts and rerouting built in so you know the journey and you've seen the road box ahead of time.

Anika Zubair (12:37.294)
and you're ready and prepared with alternative routes. So think of it this way, Proactive CS is really being able to predict the future or predict your route ahead. Your customers don't want to get lost and they definitely don't want to call you for help when it's already too late. With a proactive strategy, you're not just responding, you're leading the way for your customers.

And I said it time and time again on multiple podcasts. As a CS pro, you are a guide for your customers. You need to guide them. And every good guide has some map. And you need to map out the journey. You need to map out the steps, but you need to also map out the missteps. Cause it's more likely than not that your customers are probably going to fall trip, not use your product the way you want them to, or maybe they're going to make a U-turn before

you tell them to. Either way, you need to map it out and you need to lead the way for them. All right, if you're a long time listener, you know that in every solo episode, I love to challenge my listeners with a weekly challenge. And this week, I want you to audit one part of your customer journey. Let's say you pick onboarding. I want you to ask yourself, do I have clear success milestones mapped out? And then ask yourself, are there

automated or repeatable touch points. And then ask yourself the question, am I tracking health signals early? Then I want you to take one action. Just one. Remember, we're not trying to overwhelm ourselves here by building everything overnight. Remember, Rome was not built overnight. It takes one break at a time. I want you to create a checklist or a playbook or an email trigger that makes the stage more proactive. So just pick one thing.

one little action that you've pointed out from reviewing your playbooks and then revamp it. I know it's a small start and it might not seem like anything, but trust me, taking this one little small step is going to make you that much more strategic as a CS pro and then obviously more proactive as well. Okay, as we wrap up this episode, I wanna talk about what we covered in today's podcast episode. First of all, we talked about how

Anika Zubair (15:00.466)
Reactive CS is draining your team and damaging your customer trust. Then I shared my five steps to build a proactive strategy. Remember, you have to define success, map out the journey, automate touch points, use a risk or opportunity framework, and make sure you refine this entire strategy monthly. And then I gave you a really simple but real life example of customer success in the real world.

You should be treating CS like you would Google Maps, not driving blindly. And you need to make sure you have a guide and a map to help your customer succeed. and the weekly challenge. I of course challenge you to go and start implementing everything that you listened on today's podcast today. Remember, just take one small step. Being proactive isn't about doing more.

It's about doing the right things at the right time. And if you are listening to this podcast and you are just shaking your head and you're saying, Anika, I don't have time for this. Listen, I have been there and I have heard it time and time again from everyone I've coached to all the CSMs that I've worked with. But here's the thing, if you do not carve out the time, if you do not make the time to be proactive, how are you ever

going to hit your NRR or GRR goals. And I don't mean to say that in a mean way or be harsh in any way, but I just want to remind you that you've got to carve out the time to build a proactive customer success strategy. And heck, I have just given you my blueprint. I have given you my step-by-step guide on exactly how you're to be proactive. The only thing that I'm going to ask you to do is to carve out the time after listening to this podcast.

and take away all the insights and go and implement it. But you're gonna have to do this every month or at least every quarter. So make sure you're carving out the time today. Go ahead and block out an hour every week to maybe just be a little bit more proactive. I know that sounds like a lot, but trust me, once you start working out this muscle and working out on how to be proactive in customer success, it is gonna become more and more natural.

Anika Zubair (17:24.786)
But unfortunately in customer success, we end up just running from fire to fire. And as we run from fire to fire, and as we extinguish all these fires, we make no time. And honestly, by the end of it, we have no energy to be proactive. So please stop running from fire to fire and carve out that time to be strategic and to build that proactive CS strategy.

All right, if this episode lit a fire in you to start working smarter and not harder, make sure you check out CSM RevUp Academy. It's my signature coaching program where I help CS pros like you build proactive revenue generating strategies with confidence. Just go to the customer success pro.com forward slash rev up. The link is always in the show notes and we have a VIP wait list.

for when the doors next open for enrollment. And if you haven't yet, I have a totally free AI guidebook for CS Pros that you can get your hands on today. All you have to do is go to the customer success pro.com forward slash resources to download the free AI guide. All right, CS Pros until next time, go be that proactive force for your customers because they need you to be.

and I'll catch you here next week on the Customer Success Pro Podcast. Thanks for tuning in to the Customer Success Pro Podcast. I hope you picked up something valuable to take back to your team. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean the world to me if you took just 10 seconds to leave a review on Apple or Spotify. It helps more CS pros like yourself discover the show.

And creating new episodes takes a lot of work, so leaving a nice review keeps me motivated to keep creating. And don't forget to hit subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcast episodes. I drop a new episode every Wednesday packed with practical tips. And if you've got a topic you'd love for me to cover or want to be a guest on my show, send me a message. All the details are in the show notes. I'd love to hear from you.

Anika Zubair (19:39.122)
And hey, if this episode helped you, share it with a fellow CSM or CS leader. Remember, sharing is caring. Cheers to your CS journey, and I'll catch you next week for our next episode.