Alexa, play “Work” by Rihanna

Welcome to The Segment, a newsletter for customer-facing baddies who wanna talk shop and dish dirt about the latest in tech news. Was this email forwarded to you? Don't be shy, subscribe here.

Let's talk shop 🔧

This is an intervention

Workaholism isn’t just a cutesy name for someone who works a lot. 

It’s a real problem marked by someone’s compulsive desire to work that’s been linked to negative health effects like trouble sleeping, anxiety, stress, depression, and fatigue. For some, workaholism can lead to broken/damaged relationships with loved ones. 

So, I’m gonna hold your hand when I ask this: Bestie, are you a workaholic? 

If yes, let’s talk about 6 strategies for bringing balance back to your life:

1. Redefine urgent by reviewing your past to-do lists. Was every item actually “urgent” or did it just feel that way because of your instinct to complete tasks? Start questioning whether to-do list items are a priority and practice deprioritizing.

2. Reevaluate your relationship with your to-do list so it’s no longer a “list of things to get through” but instead a method for prioritizing tasks.

3. Learn to say no! Create and maintain consistent boundaries for your time and bandwidth.

4. Start timing how long tasks take. Workaholics underestimate how long something will take and then try to do too much. Use what you learn to improve your time management.

5. Don’t let work dominate your thoughts when you’re off the clock. Identify – and question – moments when you’re thinking about work outside of work. 

6. Relearn how to rest and recover. Workaholism puts your body in fight-or-flight and can even make rest feel like a nuisance. Ever heard the saying “I’ll sleep when I’m dead?” – yup, that’s not healthy.

If this sounds all too relatable, read the full article A Workaholic’s Guide to Reclaiming Your Life in Harvard Business Review for more in-depth explanations.  

For additional resources about workaholism, visit Workaholic Anonymous.

Next-level Customer Partnership

Is referring too much hassle (aka your friends aren’t cool)? Skip the work and find all these 👆 and more in our shop. Get 10% off with code: SEGMENT10

Let’s dish 🤭

A Top 25 CS Strategist led an AMA on r/CustomerSuccess. Here’s a recap of some of the questions.

Last week, Jeff Kushmerek had an interesting thought: What better way to spend a 10-hour plane ride than answering strangers’ questions on Reddit? 

While I can’t say that would’ve been my instinct, we do love someone who doesn’t gatekeep knowledge! 

Q: How would you approach having to communicate CS value to more old-school professionals that prefer the lone wolf persona or being the face of the company to customers?

A: Here is the deal...they want to make sure their $$$ is safe, and will grow. 

So what do I tell them? -->

"Listen, in order to keep a customer renewed and ready for upsell, there is a lot of dirty work (ROI meetings, QBR, playbooks, etc. Customers expect that these days. And you don't want to do this- you need to go get new customers. But I WANT TO DO THIS, and I am not going to take your money."

Q: For monthly and not annual is there any email campaign must haves?

A: Customers churn because they don't think they are getting the value. 

So, you have to make sure that you are sending them emails that show that they are using the software and getting the benefits they signed up for. Look at B2C examples like Grammarly and Spotify. We need to be doing this for our digital customers as well.

Q: What do you think will be the next phase of evolution for CS from Scale/ Digital Customer success management?

A: Well, what some might consider the next phase would be a huge step while some are already there. 

In terms of Scale/CS, the more "signals" and automation that can happen, the better. I would like to see the CSPs have the ability to read all of the signals and then fire off plays ina much smarter manner.

We also need a lot of the industry to just get up to pace with Digital, and all of the elements of what makes a digital CS journey

Q: I’ve been noticing AI Agent/co-pilot for CS popping up. Are you a believer in these? If so, what makes a great AI agent/co-pilot?

A: oh boy- the AI question! So I am mostly a detractor except for a few cases:

• AI for generative typing/emails, etc. But guess what, we used to have these as templates

• Any system that can pull in all of the signals (support tix, slack notes, emails, usage) and create a smarter health score. Bonus if it can trigger of playbooks, esp....

• DIGITAL. This is where AI can really help. SMB, low contracts where you have a digital pool, as having a 1:1 ratio of CSM to clients is impossible. Esp when the AI can "deflect" (like a support article) and give the answers faster.