Spotlight: Pablo Viera @ Workiva

How did you get into customer success?

I have spent most of my career as an Enterprise Account Executive in SaaS but I have always respected and been curious about what is happening in the field of customer success and the work of CSMs.

After a brief transition period in my previous job, I decided to venture into a CSM role in which I could contribute with my experience in international markets but also with my strong focus on sales. As an AO, I always considered CSMs as strategic allies and I wanted to put myself in their shoes for a while to acquire the skills that would help me be a more complete professional in my career.

In 2023 I had the opportunity to meet wonderful people who worked for Workiva and they were the ones who invited me to take on this challenge that I took with open arms.

I started my career in Sales and later transitioned into Account Management in the gaming industry. I loved engaging with clients, maintaining long-term relationships, and always following up to check on their progress. Over time, I realized my passion lay in advocating for clients, guiding them to success, and mentoring teams. Becoming a Customer Success and Support Leader felt like the natural next step.

How do you see post-sales teams evolving when it comes to AI?

AI has countless interesting and valuable applications that complement the total value experience provided by CSMs and support teams. I think that for high-cost, high-value services, we are very far from seeing a 100% replacement of these teams with AI. An organization that pays for an enterprise service license expects not only a correct technical response to its concerns but a human, reliable and empathetic connection with a representative. AI should be seen as a tool that helps shorten response times, contributes to simplifying complex problems and generating suggestions tailored to each client's situations.

How do you think your CSM role for LATAM differs from CSM in North America?

The vast diversity of countries that make up the LATAM region cannot be defined as a uniform block. There are different ways of doing business in each of these countries and cultural, language, economic, financial and historical conditions must be understood to have the desired results and grow locally as a brand.

Latin American clients expect from their CSMs and support teams a much higher and more detailed level of service than what would be expected from a North American client, with the particularity that price sensitivity is always implied. So trying to charge more for this additional level of service can be challenging. To be an AO or a CSM you need to go beyond the role to cover many variables when it comes to the customer's sales/post-sales experience. Many time zones are covered, so it is normal to see these LATAM teams working longer hours or being more flexible than their peers in North America.

What do most people get wrong about customer success?

I think that most companies focus too much on acquiring new customers and neglect their current customers, which has a great impact on future revenue and mainly in periods of economic crisis as we saw in the last year. Many organizations decided to get rid of their CSM teams, putting all the weight on the support teams and even on the AEs, causing them to be overwhelmed with post-sales tasks in which they were not prepared or were not part of their original job description.

It is more expensive to acquire a new customer than to maintain and help grow the current customer base. Organizations also ignore the negative multiplier effect of a customer who does not renew their contract due to a high level of dissatisfaction. This is the opposite at Workiva where our Post Sales team is one of the largest in the entire organization and with an average contract renewal rate much higher than what is seen in SaaS. We really invest a lot in maintaining those relationships with clients and they stay with us for many years which is a source of pride for us.