ulukmahvelous

ulukmahvelous t1_j9alohu wrote

Reply to comment by BansheeLoveTriangle in Do you all have stories of people who quit the typical DC corporate/political career and pursued something else? by [deleted]

customer success - so for those who are unfamiliar (sorry in advance for the block of text), in software there’s generally pre-sales and post-sales:

  • pre-sales includes business development representatives (cold calling, email outreach, trying to get prospective customers - prospects - to move forward in the sales cycle to ultimately buy the product), account executives (sales folks who close the deal), sales engineers (more tech-y people who demo the software), revenue operations (maintaining processes and tech used for sales), and marketing (straddles both pre and post sales).
  • Post-sales generally includes customer support, customer success (managing existing customers and renewing their contracts or selling them more stuff), customer success ops (managing the tech we use and training), and maybe other code-friendly people (sometimes called solutions architects, onboarding experts - don’t always need code) who help train customers.
  • Separately you have product and engineering, who are the coders and backend infrastructure folks standing up the software.

And ofc there are deviations within these generic roles based on company goals, software focus, business model, maturity, etc. in tech regarding different levels of roles you hear a lot about “individual contributors” (ICs), then there are managers to VP to C suite.

I was able to use my relationship building, communication, and general “account management” skills to shift into customer success as a customer success manager (CSM). I worked for the govt for over 3 years and it was rly hard to give up the career ladder and my path that I’d worked so hard to get on (and studied for). However, I love my new role because I’m negotiating and figuring out value for my partner (customer) and I get to lead them to success while helping my company’s business (mission). I work for a company that helps patients in the end so I feel connected. I also like that it’s more nimble and fun as a workplace. Happy to say more!

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