The winners of the 2022 Customer Success Awards

You know us lot at CSC – there’s no stopping us from shining a light on awe-inspiring customer success talent. We thrive on it, in fact!

Powering business growth from within. Helping customers realize value. Enabling customers to reach their goals. When it comes to customer success, all this and more is true. But what about the incredible people behind the scenes?

After much careful consideration and nearly 300 nominations, we can finally reveal the winners of this year’s Customer Success Awards. Drumroll, please… 🥁

(Pssst… if you missed it, you can check out the shortlist here.)

Customer Success Team of the Year

Customer success folks are a close-knit bunch. Together, they do incredible work. Most organizations will admit they couldn’t function without their trusty post-sales team guiding customers through processes like onboarding and renewals.

And the people have spoken! It’s our pleasure to announce that Braze has been voted the Customer Success Team of the Year!

Braze is a customer engagement platform that powers relevant and memorable experiences between consumers and the brands they love. The customer success team behind Braze really is the crème de la crème of CS.

But don’t just take our word for it, hear it from the horse’s mouth and read what their nominators had to say about Braze’s CS team:

“Braze has a tightly co-ordinated worldwide team servicing customers at the highest caliber of delivery. Not only that, they bring a human aspect to their work and have a strong relatable feel when working with them.”

“The Braze customer success team is a team that truly works as a cohesive unit, not only ensuring that their own book of business has success but helping each other in making success is felt across the organization”

“Braze’s customer success is real evidence of how to create and maintain great relationships with clients. Whenever I approach Noam, our Customer Success Manager we get the professional help that gives me the assurance we have a true partner to support our company goals.”

A massive well done from team CSC! 🎉

Customer Success Leader of the Year

No man is an island – it’s true. But at the same time, customer success is a special community of passionate and generous leaders. These people impart wisdom to their team, offer guidance, and are genuine pioneers when it comes to customer experiences.

But what CS leader exhibits those qualities? Who’s got the CS X Factor?

We’re thrilled to announce that the Customer Success Leader of the Year has been awarded to… Melanie Lawn, Chief Customer Officer at Forecast!

Melanie is an exemplary champion of customer-centricity, a true advocate for customer success, and an all-round crusher of churn. Here are some of the glowing testimonials her peers have accredited her:

“Mel is a leader who fosters exceptional collaboration across the organization and is a true asset to us as a finance team. It is a privilege to have her as a leader at Forecast.”

“Since joining Forecast, she has completely and positively transformed the CS team. Mel has built out first-class teams across the entire organization along the CS journey, from implementations and onboarding to support and commercials. Mel has made the finance team’s life so much easier now we're singing from the same hymn sheet. She brings so much energy to the vision and journey we're on!”

“Melanie gets the job done in a fantastically positive manner. She’s always happy to assist and offer guidance on anything, making big decisions in our team and jumping on individual calls when required. Melanie leads from the front and ensures our team can thrive.”

Huge congrats to Melanie from team CSC! 🎉

Best Customer Success Tool

We can’t stress enough how important it is to have the right tech stack under your belt. It’s a game-changer.

Customer success folks have to interpret and process masses of data to do with their customers, and life-saving software solutions ought to be recognized for their contributions to the CS community.

But what tool was voted #1? What platform is considered to be a CSM’s ride-or-die? Let’s find out.

The winner of the Best Customer Success Tool goes to… GUIDEcx!

GUIDEcx is a client onboarding and implementation platform that keeps your clients at the center of every project by providing complete visibility into these critical processes. GUIDEcx levels up customer experience, automates communication, forecasts risks, and measures efficiency.

Aside from being at the forefront of tech innovations, our nominators waxed lyrical about GUIDEcx’s merits:

“GUIDEcx takes great pride in providing a positive customer experience and a smooth onboarding process for their clients. GUIDEcx continues to introduce product enhancements that improve efficiency and increase time to value for their customers. With a focus on the future, GUIDEcx strives to serve as a guide to those looking to create a more effective onboarding process.”

“Some customers need hand-holding. With GUIDEcx, we don’t have to disrupt our processes to help them. On the platform, each task is a specific feature, you can still offer white glove service, and scheduling meetings only involves the click of a button.”

“GUICEcx is a platform that excels for a number of reasons, namely its transparency, ease of use, and its proven ability to drive efficiency and accelerate time to value.”

Again, kudos to the whole organization at GUIDEcx! 🎉

Rising CSM Talent

Last but not least, we have a very special category. It’s all well and good raising a glass to the big cheeses of CS, the leaders and big brands. But what about the CSMs who outperform and exhibit the qualities of a true future leader of customer success?

We think it’s only right to celebrate and elevate the phenomenal talent of those starting out in their customer success career. For customer success to progress, companies need to invest and nurture CS talent from the early stages.

So, who has been crowned Rising CSM Talent of 2022?

The winner is… Samuel Channells, Customer Success Manager at Criteria Corp!

Samuel has demonstrated the core values of customer success in his proactivity, enthusiasm, and ongoing plight to provide exceptional customer experiences. He’s currently responsible for all systems training, account management, and contract renewals. His career is definitely one to watch over the next few years – you heard it here first!

But what praise did his peers bestow our award winner? See for yourself. 👇

“Since starting to work in customer success I have seen Sam go from strength to strength in his role. His number one priority has always been his clients’ results and making sure that they’re well-informed of market trends to ensure their success using Criteria's tools. He’s dedicated to ensuring client goals & deadlines are met and will always go the extra mile for them.”

“Sam is one of the most professional people that I have had the pleasure of working with. He’s always been very easy to work with and will always make time to prioritize you when you need him. He’s been able to effectively coordinate two project teams to ensure a timely and smooth rollout of the platform which continues to make our lives easier every day. Sam deserves to win this award due to his work ethic, attention to detail, and unwavering support that he shows his clients.”

“There’s so much more to add in regards to why Sam deserves this award but to put it simply: anyone who has worked or engaged with Sam in a professional capacity would whole-heartedly agree that he is more than deserving of this award.”

High praise, indeed! From the whole team at CSC, we wish Samuel a heartfelt congratulations. 🎉

Thank you to our nominators

A big thank you to all who cast their votes in this year’s Customer Success Awards.

We think it’s crucial to shine a light on the phenomenal talent in our industry, and we’re thrilled to show off the best in CS.

If you didn’t get a chance to nominate someone for our Customer Success Leader of the Year or Rising CSM Talent awards, fear not. Now’s your chance to tell us who you think is a CS rockstar, a trailblazer – a pillar of innovation in the customer success community.

Our findings are going to make our final report of the year, so tell us who you think will be at the front row of thought leadership. Who will be refining their time-to-value period? Who’s shown promising things this year? Let us know by taking part in the Customer Success: 23 in 2023 survey.