Ushering in a New Era of the Customer

Media Inquiries: Contact Karen Budell, CMO

Media Inquiries: Contact Karen Budell, CMO

Last month, I had the pleasure of representing SendGrid at Totango’s second annual Customer Success Summit in San Francisco. This event marked an important milestone for SendGrid because it acknowledged our past dedication to customer success and our future promise to deliver even more in 2014.

Embracing the Customer Experience

The days of selling software, hoping customers don’t call for support and praying that they renew are over. Companies must prove their value everyday—all the time. Those who are embracing the customer experience and making decisions with customer success and not their company success in mind are the ones that will thrive.

This is a stance that we’ve taken at SendGrid since I started on the Technical Account Management (TAM) team in 2011. Now, three years later, as our Director of Customer Success, I’m happy to say that our TAM team has grown to 13 dedicated members whose sole objective is to anticipate our customers’ needs and provide the right support and guidance with their email programs so their businesses can be as successful as possible. Customer success works hand in hand with our Technical Support and Deliverability teams to provide a 360-focused customer experience.

We’ve learned a lot about our customers as we’ve grown (and they’ve grown) since our inception in 2009. Now, at over 150,000 customers, we’re committed to taking that to a whole new level in 2014. We’re very excited to be doing that with the help of the Totango platform, and starting off the year surrounded by 400 other like-minded individuals was the perfect inspiration.

Learning From Other Leaders

Though it might sound strange, this summit was the first time in my professional life that I was completely surrounded by my “people”—those who are passionate about the customer experience. The day was filled with thought leaders from many leading SaaS companies speaking about customer success including many SendGrid customers such as, Get Satisfaction, Jive, Crittercism, Unbounce, CloudBees, Xamarin, and Yammer. Seeing them reminded me of our pledge to further develop our program this year, so they can continue being leaders in their industries.

It was an honor to accept the Customer Success award on behalf of our VP of Revenue, Denise Hulce, and to be recognized among leaders who are in tune with the changing landscape. The five other awardees included:

For us, as I’m sure it is for them, this is only the beginning…


Originally published at https://sendgrid.com/blog/ushering-new-era-customer/