The success of a Quantexa implementation isn’t simply about delivering a software solution. It’s about ensuring that we understand our customers’ vision and help them to achieve their goals by proactively engaging with them and supporting them throughout their journey with Quantexa.
Customer Success Managers own relations with live customers across different stakeholders, helping to deliver ongoing value from the solution, and looking to create and drive expansion opportunities. They drive customer advocacy, working with stakeholders to define what ‘success’ looks like and then building a plan to achieve it.
In this article, Malveen speaks to Emma, who is a Customer Success Manager within our Customer Success team.
Meet Emma...
I joined the Customer Success team at Quantexa in May 2022 from the UK Cabinet Office where I was the Grants Counter Fraud Lead. I have a background in fraud investigations, disputes and compliance, and I’m an Accountant by profession.
I first learned about Quantexa whilst I was at the Cabinet Office. My colleagues in a sister function were using Quantexa for Bounce Back Loans and, having spent a painful few weeks trying to perform Entity Resolution for COVID grants using Excel, I could see how powerful Quantexa's tool was in comparison.
I knew that I wanted to be part of the Quantexa solution to help combat fraud and provide faster decision-making across Government.
How do you normally start your working day?
There’s a lot to juggle with Customer Success Management, so I start my day by working out my priorities. I identify my 'must-dos' for the day and I jot them down on a post-it.
Then I like to ‘connect and communicate’ because these are vital in my role.
I think about my key stakeholders and what they need to know, which could be an internal update, sending a quick email, or getting in touch with customers on project work.
Our internal team keeps in touch regularly, which creates plenty of opportunity to share ideas and general lessons which can benefit our customers. We have a very respectful, highly skilled and supportive team which is driven by putting the customer first and having fun whilst we do it.
How would you describe a typical day?
I can summarize a typical day as 'problem-solving'. My role is to take the big picture view of where our customer would like to be, build the evidence to say whether we’re there or not, then plan and implement ways of getting to the desired outcome.
My work is a mix of senior stakeholder strategy meetings, delivering outputs on projects such as training materials and engagement plans, talking directly to end users, and feeding that back into the business to make sure we’re exceeding customer expectations. There’s lots of ‘connecting the dots’ and working out 'why', which I love.
If the customer feedback is positive, then my role is to understand the drivers of success and identify how we can repeat and replicate those to ensure ongoing success across our customers.
Once I know my priorities for the day, I tend to start with the ‘quick wins’ that have come through on email, make a cup of tea, then jump into meetings with customers and colleagues. These might be user feedback sessions with customers, planning for account reviews, or sharing customer priorities with Solution Success Managers.
I then tend to focus on anything that needs to be written; presentations for customers, training material and the like, before talking internally to stakeholders to progress product requests from our customers.
I think it’s really important that we understand the landscape that our customers are operating in, so I stay up to date with new publications or press releases which are relevant and share those with my customers too.
We have a few tools which help us turn landscape into value for the customer such as internal Customer Success Plans and Quarterly Business Reviews, so I’ll prepare those for the customer. We also record where customers have found value as success case studies, and report internally to share insight.
My current customers are successful when they find more fraud, so I’m continually assessing the types of fraud they are seeing, how can we bring the data together in new ways and what the ‘art of the possible’ could look like.
What do you enjoy most in your role?
I really enjoy solving problems and proactively engaging with customers to ensure we’re helping them achieve their goals. It’s about assessing where we are, where we’re trying to get to, how we’re going to get there and then making it happen.
The most important and enjoyable aspect for me is having an ‘engaged’ customer who’s having an open and honest dialogue with us, so it’s not just about having ‘happy’ customers. It’s about working as a blended team working towards a shared vision.
There’s a nice mix of strategy and implementation which keeps every day varied. There’s a lot of scope to work with my international colleagues, which I enjoy; after all, organized crime is cross-borders, so our customers need us to be working globally too.
What are your main goals as a Customer Success Manager?
Customer Success comes at the end of an implementation. Our customers explore and scope their requirements with the Sales and Solution Engineering teams, then embed and refine them with Solution Success. When the solution is up and running as BAU, they work with Customer Success to ensure ongoing value.
My main goals are to know what the risks are, to monitor and manage the customer relationship, and ensure that the customer is seeing value from their investment. These help drive expansion and renewals in a way that really delivers on the customer’s objectives.
We also want to measure that value and understand what’s driving it. The value-based assessments we conduct with our customers follow on from earlier discussions we’ve had with them about their requirements and expectations. The value might be measured in terms of the total value of identified fraud, improved efficiency around investigations, or qualitative improvements in data and network intelligence.
Our customers are usually very driven, successful people who have a big vision – I love that about working at Q – so another goal is to make sure that we’re consistently looking at the ‘art of the possible’ and how the customer can get there. This means challenging ourselves on whether the scope is doing enough, connecting with new people in new ways, and driving the agenda as thought leaders in this space.
It’s important that we understand what drives and detracts from success so that as an organization we learn and continually improve. We’re always looking for ways to share success and lessons in a way that benefits our other customers, whilst protecting customer confidentiality.
What are your most memorable moments?
I have a few, but the most recent one is that Quantexa was shortlisted for a ‘Tackling Economic Crime‘ award.
We wanted to showcase the success that one particular customer has achieved through their use of the Quantexa system and I was heavily involved in producing the nomination submission.
There is so much publicity in the press right now about fraud so it’s great to see that we’re making a real difference. It’s great to see that use of our product has a positive impact on businesses, the economy, and on society.
What do you think are the most important attributes of a Customer Success Manager?
I think the most important attribute is to really care about our customers as organizations and as people.
It’s also important to have business acumen and expertise in the problem that our customer is looking to solve, which is where having a consultancy background really helps. Problem-solving and good communication skills are important, as well as having the confidence and adaptability to engage with customers at all levels in a way that builds trusting relationships.
Our customers entrust us to move them forward, so my aim is to make a clear and visible difference to their success.
We also need to understand the customer’s landscape in terms of what’s happening in the sector, any significant patterns and trends, and keep abreast of changes to regulations and legal requirements so that we can support customers accordingly; so a natural curiosity for learning is an important attribute.
What are you excited about at the moment?
We’ve learned a lot over the past few years about how organized crime is evading detection and I’m excited to see how data innovation is helping to bring previously hidden fraudsters into the spotlight. This is in part driven by having ambitious customers who are changing the game in fraud detection, and it’s clear to see how their collaboration with us is creating innovation that’s resulting in new preventative measures.
In the Government space, we work on problems that directly affect businesses and peoples’ lives, and at Quantexa we’re in a position to provide solutions to help address those.
I’m excited about making Government more efficient, to be able make better decisions more quickly; disrupting the organized crime groups that we know are out there, and moving the dial further towards preventing economic crime.
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