Customer Success Manager - Cisco

Role Overview

The Customer Success Manager (CSM) Cisco role focuses on post-sale solution adoption and ongoing customer satisfaction. This role is responsible for working with sales, solutions, services, and channel teams to plan and organize customer success strategies. The incumbent has strong customer management and business consultancy skills and is passionate about proactively engaging with their customers and expanding their use cases.

The CSM develops and maintains strategic relationships with Sales & Services Management of the customers they support and seen as a trusted advisor to grow business. The CSM is also expected to be subject matter expert in multiple families of Cisco solutions. The incumbent in this role operates independently using standard approaches, existing tools, templates, and resources; shares knowledge and information that may benefit the team.

Role Overview – Cisco Networking, Collaboration, and Security Solutions (NCS) specific.

The CSM role will also focus on lifecycle management of these solutions.

Responsibilities

• Establish a trusted/strategic advisor relationship with each customer and drive continued value of our solutions..

• Work with clients to establish critical goals, or other key performance indicators and aid the customer in achieving their goals.

• Engage with customer executives and other influential stakeholders to identify, define, track and measure the overall impact of your aligned solutions to an organization.

• Drive adoption and consumption for Cisco services through various programs.

• Build robust Cisco solutions based on competitive and market understanding with services partners.

• Be a recognized expert and thought leader in the practical application of Cisco solutions.

• Develop and deliver “success plans” to key customers identifying stakeholders, milestones, metrics, and risks inherent in an implementation.

• Ensures customer creates value through defining and achieving business outcomes.

• Demonstrates advanced insights and understanding of customers business/industry.

• Escalate critical customer issues and ensure escalation ownership with internal resources.

• Act as Voice of the Customer and provide feedback to Services, Sales, Operations and Channel teams as appropriate.

• Drive customer readiness for solutions and services as well as updates, ensuring they are aware of and prepared for potential impacts.

• Partner with the Sales organization in select competitive sales cycles to drive revenue opportunities in existing accounts.

• Ability to orchestrate and gain strong buy-in with multiple external (e.g. Channel Partner) and internal teams (Account Manager, Field Solution Architect, Specialists) and be highly connected to solution Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) throughout the customer’s lifecycle.

• Measure and report the impact of the offerings currently in place, so that the customer and organization have a common understanding of the value they are receiving toward achieving their expected outcomes.

• Identify, define and drive renewals, phased upsell and cross sell opportunities from account base, including the facilitation of change orders, as necessary.

Qualifications

• ·Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent experience.

• Two-year minimum technical pre-sales or technical architecting experience.

• Prior experience in Customer Success or equivalent history of increasing customer satisfaction, adoption, and retention.

• Experience with Cisco solutions.

• Proven ability to drive continuous value of solution(s).

• Familiarity working with clients of all sizes.

• Impeccable written and verbal communication skills.

• Detail oriented and analytical.

• Strong team player but still a self-starter.

• Thrives in a multi-tasking environment and can adjust priorities on-the-fly.

• Stay up to date on products, applications, technical service, market conditions, competitive activities, advertising, and promotional trends through the reading of pertinent literature, seminars, and online training.

• Knowledge and proven success of engaging and working with sales teams.

• Strong interpersonal and presentation skills, including consulting skills.

• Strong passion for learning and teaching others.

• Ability to think creatively and come up with proactive ideas that will increase sales.

• Strong problem solving skills.

• Must be able to communicate effectively and in a constructive manner with management, peers and coworkers.

• Proficient in Cisco applications.

• Experience with professional services discussions and delivery to customers.

• Experience with Project Management considered an asset.