237: Empathy and Innovation in Customer Success with Irina Vatafu

Navigating the Customer Experience

Irina Vatafu has nearly a decade of experience in customer-facing roles, she is deeply passionate about working with people, and dedicated to ensuring every customer feels valued and respected. Currently serving as the Head of Customer Success at Custify, Irina thrives in roles that require effective communication, problem-solving and empathetic engagement.

Her commitment to continuous improvement and staying current with industry trends ensures that her approach remains innovative and impactful. One of her key strengths is creating a collaborative and supportive environment that consistently delivers exceptional experiences and fosters strong customer loyalty. At the heart of her work is a dedication to championing the needs and voices of customers, which continues to inspire and drive her every single day.

Questions

· Now, could you share with our listeners a little bit about how you got from where you were, to where you are today?

· You are Head of Customer Success at Custify, could you share with our listeners, what Custify is and what your company does?

· What would you say are maybe two or three attributes or competencies that you and your team need to have on a daily basis in serving these customer success managers so they can serve their own customers?

· Now in terms of exercising empathy, could you share with our listeners maybe a use case where your customer had an issue. So, your customer came to you as the problem solver and you were able to exercise as empathetic engagement to basically try and help them to solve the problem quickly.

· Can you also share with our listeners, what's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely can't live without in your business?

· Can you also share with our listeners, maybe one or two books that you have read, it could be a book that you read recently, or even one you read a very long time ago, but it has had a great impact on you professionally, and even personally.

· Now, Irina, can you also share with us what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you are really excited about? Either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people.

· Where can listeners find you online?

· Now, before we wrap our episodes of we always like to ask our guests, do you have a quote or a saying during times of adversity or challenge, you'll tend to revert to this quote if for any reason you get derailed or you get off track, the quote kind of helps to get you back on track.

Highlights

Irina’s Journey

Me: Now, could you share with our listeners a little bit about how you got from where you were, to where you are today?

Irina stated that's a great start. So, where she was, as mentioned in the beginning, she has nearly a decade of working in customer-facing roles. And her first role was as a support engineer, and now she’s managing the team of Customer Success Managers and support team members. So, she started in first line there, she learned everything, and she was so passionate about working with customers that she always pushed herself to learn more, to offer better experiences, to progress and to make sure everyone is happy with her work and people that she works with are successful. So, yeah, baby steps, she arrived where she is today, and she’s so grateful for that.

About the Custify – What Does Custify Do?

Me: So, you are Head of Customer Success at Custify correct? Could you share with our listeners, what Custify is and what your company does?

Irina shared that they are the CSMs of CSMs, she would say because their platform is a customer success tool. So, their end users, their customer success teams all over the world, they have customers in all countries, and they work with any business that has a SaaS product, so this is what they are doing.

And as mentioned, their users, their customer success managers, so they are dedicated customer success managers that support other customer success managers. So, they have to be a top-notch department in order to help them drive value and be successful with their tool.

Attributes or Competencies Needed Daily to Serve Customer Success Managers

Me: What would you say are maybe two or three attributes or competencies that you and your team need to have on a daily basis in serving these customer success managers so they can serve their own customers?

Irina shared that she thinks the first thing that she has on her mind is they need to be perfect active listeners. So, they really need to listen to their customers need and to understand each business case and to be there as consultants and to make sure that they have success in their own departments, so they can prove value, and they can be their loyal customers for a long time.

Other things that matter of course to have that business understanding. So, not only to actively listen, but to also be flexible and creative to give proper advice and to be able to quickly understand the customer use case in order to guide them towards success.

Of course, you also need to be super organized in order to act like a project manager and help your customers achieve their milestones on time and respect all the agreed deadlines that they established with them in the beginning.

And the last but not least, of course, you need to be a naturally empathetic person because if you don't really care, let's say about customers, they will feel that so you really need to be a people person, and to be able to have the empathy to help them.

Exercising Empathy – Using Empathy in Problem Solving

Me: Now in terms of exercising empathy, could you share with our listeners maybe a use case, you don't need to mention the customers’ name or the company, but maybe a use case where your customer had an issue, because all businesses are created to solve problems. So, your customer came to you as the problem solver, and you were able to exercise as you coin it “Empathetic engagement” to basically try and help them to solve the problem quickly.

Irina shared that she remembers, she has a recent example. It's something that their team really struggled about. They had a situation where one of their customers, the CS lead came to them saying that, “Look, we really need to make it work, because our jobs depend on that. Things are not great for our CS department. So, we really need to move forward and to prove progress to our leadership in order to keep this department working.” And this was the first priority for them because of course, their empathetic triggers were started working, and they were like, “Okay, we have an important role here, we need to help this customer.”

And what they did, they came up with a success plan, they sat together, and they thought about all the top three priorities that the leadership would care about. And they decided that look, these are the main things that they need to focus on in the next weeks. And even if this is not part of their normal flow, they had more meetings, they had more internal brainstorming. So, they did everything they could to help the customer.

And yes, in the end, the customer was really successful. And it's not only that, he would was grateful. But they also have more partnerships and other things that derives from that initiative. So, empathy always matters. And acting like humans when someone needs us and not only looking at the contract value and the service hours included in the subscription, she thinks they could make a difference at some point.

App, Website or Tool that Irina Absolutely Can’t Live Without in Her Business

When asked about an online resource that she can’t live without in her business, Irina shared that she thinks they internally rely a lot on what’s happening on LinkedIn, they are connected with a lot of CS influencers, and they are also following their customers on LinkedIn.

So, they stay connected to the market with what's happening there. And they are up to date with all the webinars, with all the podcasts and everything that is happening there. So, she thinks LinkedIn is their main source of learning, and where they also find other opportunities to learn by subscribing to different newsletters and courses and everything.

Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Irina

When asked about books that have had an impact, Irina shared that she has a funny story about the book. So, when she joined Custify, almost four years ago, she joined as a CSM and her manager told her that look, you should read this book, it's called Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It and she thinks it's Chris Voss who wrote it. And it's a negotiation book and when he told her to read that book, she was angry because the job description never included negotiation, let's say so she thought, okay, she was tricked, it's actually a sales role. And her manager now advises her to learn some negotiation skills.

But if you read the book, you will realize that you actually need negotiation skills in your day-to-day life. So, it's not about the selling or not selling something, it's really about what we need to do and negotiate for ourselves as human beings, and it makes an impact also in the professional life.

What Irina is Really Excited About Now!

Irina shared that that's a good question. So, she would say that at the beginning of this year, they as a team, they knew that it would be a tough year because of the economical context and everything that is happening in the CS life. So, she and her team decided to keep their minds and hearts open and to be the support that their customers need amid the chaos and instability that is around. So, they sat together and adapted their workflows and prioritized their champions success. So, they had like a redesign all their flows.

And they are amazed to discover that this makes a difference. So, when all the departments work towards the same goals, they empower each other, and they focus primarily on customer success. So, they work closely with product sales, CS support in order to make sure that their customers are happy, this is a great initiative that they started this year. And they observed and they are surprised to see how authenticity and trust, being their team's current focus leads to amazing KPIs and success. So, this is their main focus right now and they are looking forward to see how this year will end.

Where can listeners find Irina online?

LinkedIn - Irina Vatafu

Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Irina Uses

When asked about a quote or saying that she tends to revert to, Irina shared that yes, she thinks that's something that helps her in those situations. She’s always saying to herself, “When you don't know what to do, say the truth.” So, it always helped.

Me: So, be honest.

Well, thank you so much, Irina for jumping on this podcast and sharing all of the great insights that you're doing as a Customer Success Manager at Custify and also what your organization does, and the support that you are providing to teams all throughout the world, ensuring that they are able to solve problems and serve your customers in the best possible way. We really appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule and sharing this information with us. Thank you so much.

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Links

• Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss

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