Former Villanova basketball coach Jay Wright charted attitude plays with his team.
Attitude plays are statistics that aren’t typically tracked as performance indicators but make a big difference on the impact of the game.
According to Postive Coaching Alliance Villanova’s attitude plays are offensive statistics like extra passes and quick outlets and defensive plays like contested shots and dives.
Coach Wright heralded players for their accomplishments in attitude plays because the uncommon metrics contributed to teamwork to win games.
CSMs have an opportunity to track attitude plays with our customers.
According to The Customer Success Professional’s Handbook, the core principles of a CSM are Relationships, Problem-Solving and Knowledge Mastery.
What attitude plays could CSMs achieve within these principles?
- Problems Solved: During our time working with a customer how many problems did we solve? If we track problems solved as a metric – how much more effective will we be bringing solutions to our customers?
- Customer Advocacy: How many times did we advocate for our customer? For example, with product feedback, championing a solution for a technical issue or getting internal support for a request? Tracking advocacy can show our willingness to help our customers.
- Product, industry and Category Knowledge: How much time do we dedicate to studying industry materials? What amount of product literature do we consume? Tracking our learning time can help measure our depth of knowledge.
And here are some further areas to consider within our responsibilities:
- Preparation and Follow-up: Responsibilities of a CSM are coming to our customer engagements prepared and recapping the next steps following our meetings. Are we doing these activities each time?
- Caring Personally: The premise of management book Radical Candor is showing employees we care personally in the spirit of relationship building. What moments can we track where we demonstrated to our customer we care personally? How do these moments add up to help build our relationship?
Like Coach Wright and Villanova’s success, CSM attitude plays can help make a difference in the experience and outcomes of our customers.