Paul Mathewson
I’ve developed my customer success experience over 10 years working with companies across numerous verticals, on strategies to plan, develop, implement and maintain successful data-driven solutions. From SMBs to the Fortune 10, I pride myself on connecting with customers immediately, understanding their needs and, ultimately, being a part of shaping their businesses.
“...you need to make a great first impression with each new contact. I do this by creating ownership. Own a task or response and be accountable for it. When you follow through, you will immediately begin to build trust with that connection, leading to an expanded footprint with the account.”
How did you find yourself in Customer Success? What was your journey and what drew you to this industry?
I wouldn't be in Customer Success if it wasn’t for PF Chang’s. Sure, the lettuce wraps are delicious, but my job in food service helped me find, and define, my career path. It also helped me hone soft skills that would prove invaluable in CS. Analytics found me after a customer came in and offered me a paid internship at their small, boutique consultancy. My professional goals did not include staying at PF Chang’s long after college and I accepted to take a gamble on myself and build my career. I’m glad I did. That job led me to an analytics role for an agricultural wholesaler/retailer. That in turn opened the doors to a consulting role which afforded me the opportunity to work with businesses around the world on their BI solutions. After five years of consulting, I was ready to “settle down” and have an office and focus on one mission/company. That’s when I took a job with Looker and the rest is history. Lesson = say “yes” to opportunities and doors will open.
What do you love most about Customer Success?
Connecting others with solutions and by doing so, making those people and their businesses more successful. At the end of the day, the client facing aspect of CS is what keeps me fueled.
Can you tell us a little bit about your role in Customer Success at Google?
At Google, I manage a portfolio of strategic Looker accounts. Looker joined Google last year through an acquisition and I’ve been working hard to ensure a smooth transition for our customers as well as help build out the internal tools and functions we need to scale. Overall, we’re becoming more proactive and prescriptive in our approach to ensuring a customer’s success on the Looker platform. My day to day is acting as the internal glue, advocate and champion for the best outcomes for the customer and the company. Sure, there’s the occasional fire, but these have been mitigated to a great extent by our ability to build trust and lasting relationships with our accounts. I’m particularly focused on large scale cloud migrations and helping our customers modernize their applications.
Before being an analytics-focused CSM at Google you were in analytics consulting. How has having strong domain expertise helped you in your day-to-day CS work?
My background has been tremendously helpful. To come in and understand the analytics industry has allowed me to become a trusted advisor to our customers. “Who are the competitors? What tool fits the need or goal? How are other companies addressing analytics? What are the gaps?” Having this industry specific knowledge makes it much easier to immediately add value and build credibility among customers and colleagues. It’s particularly insightful to have hands-on analytical experience. I’ve been that analyst building a dashboard for the CFO and understand the pain points of working with large amounts of data. I can empathize with their situation and draw on my experience to recommend avenues for success.
Can you share your thoughts on having domain expertise as a requirement before working as a CSM?
It certainly gives you credibility through the lens of your employer and customer but I don’t think it should be mandatory. You can teach these skills to people. It’s the soft skills like empathy, ability to connect, and strategically advise that I would prize in CS roles above all else.
How have you continued your learning as a CSM to maintain your level of domain expertise?
This is so crucial and I’ve addressed it in two very different forms. First, by staying up to date on what’s new in analytics especially as it relates to moving workloads to the cloud. Two, vertical specialization. I’m currently fascinated by fintech, telco & media. I’m doing my best to attend events to learn more about these industries. This better equips me to understand the challenges my customers face and advise more completely on analytical solutions by having a holistic picture of the landscape in each vertical.
How has your CS work evolved as you’ve served larger, more complex accounts?
I’ve been in CS roles before where some CSMs held portfolios of nearly 100 accounts. It’s nearly impossible to be proactive and hands-on with that many customers. In those cases, CSMs would focus on just a handful of those accounts and the others were largely reactive relationships. Growing out our scaled CS programs at Looker has allowed us to have high touch CSMs that can really focus on driving value in a small, curated portfolio of strategic and enterprise accounts. Navigating enterprise accounts is a skill in itself. To some degree, it’s a sales skill. Are you comfortable cold calling (or emailing) people in an org you’ve not met? You need to be and you need to make a great first impression with each new contact. I do this by creating ownership. Own a task or response and be accountable for it. When you follow through, you will immediately begin to build trust with that connection, leading to an expanded footprint with the account.
What is one skill you think an Enterprise CSM must have? How can someone develop that?
Thrive in ambiguity. CS is such a new function that a lot of your success will be driven by your own initiatives. Get comfortable in making decisions on where to invest your effort to create the best outcomes for your company and your customers. Take on little experiments to test your ability to thrive in ambiguity and adapt based on what works and what does not.
What is one tool or process you lean on to effectively serve your customers?
Communicate less. Hear me out. I generally avoid scheduling recurring meetings or calls with customers. Weekly calls? Nope. Now, these are completely warranted and necessary for in-flight projects, development, etc. but I don’t hold them with customers just to catch up. If that’s the only method you have for connecting with customers, you’re in trouble. Instead, I want customers to believe and trust that when we communicate, it’s for their benefit and that I have items to share that will positively impact them and their businesses. This also helps build champions and advocates. They view my communication as reliable and beneficial and are more inclined to be product advocates when asked.
Tell us what you think about Executive Business Reviews
These are obviously for the customer but also act as a GREAT mechanism to build a team internally. Preparing for EBRs with my colleagues in sales creates a stronger relationship and increases our ability to act as a team for the best outcomes of our customers. It goes back to having a smaller portfolio of strategic accounts. A focused portfolio allows the CSM to truly partner with their respective AEs on events like this to ensure long term success. For an EBR to be successful, come prepared and address the audience with data. If I’m a CFO and am responsible for a $2M investment, what do I want to see to report back to the board? As a CSM, I want to enable this person to do well (and, hopefully, look good). I’ve seen these flop due to a lack of agenda setting and also be wildly successful when both sides are bought in on the desired outcome. Working with the customer to craft an agreed upon agenda ahead of time is key to ensure a successful outcome for both parties.
Curiosity always helps you better understand and empathize with your customers. What are 1-2 of your favorite discussion questions?
This is where the soft skill of connection comes into play. I’m genuinely interested and curious about what customers are excited about. Both in work and in life. For people to open up, I often will share something about my life. Maybe it’s what I plan to do over a long weekend or a home improvement project I’m working on. This creates a space in the meeting that acts as a conduit to increase shared knowledge. If you know their favorite dog breed, they will hopefully open up about their work challenges and lean on you for guidance. More importantly, they’ll trust your guidance and rely on you for optimal business outcomes. As for specific questions I like to ask…
“What does great look like?” Too often we can get narrowly focused on a certain issue or milestone. This question acts as an exercise to help both sides step back and see the complete picture.
“How can we benchmark success?” It’s imperative to create mutually agreed upon goals that the CSM can hold the customer accountable for, and vice versa.
What is one book that has had a significant impact on your career?
Kitchen Confidential. The interview began in food service, why not end it there? This Bourdain book is one of my favorites and, clearly, I find the food service industry fascinating. You can hone skills there that will help you throughout life and in careers across any industry.