When a customer success manager goes out for an interview, there are always some skills that an interviewer will look out for. A few of the most popular skills are empathy, problem-solving, communication, and relationship management. People from various backgrounds, including economics, arts, and commerce, would love to enter customer success but are unsure whether technical proficiency is an essential qualification. Having technical proficiency means understanding technological jargon, understanding the framework of technology, and many other things.
It is true that technical acumen is a good-to-have skill, but it is never a must-have skill due to various reasons.
Enhanced understanding
If you understand technology, you will be better able to understand the product and communicate smoothly with a variety of teams. By understanding the technology or the jargons, for example, when you meet your product teams on a quarterly basis or your engineering teams, you will feel more comfortable in those discussions. In the long run, you will benefit from having an aptitude for technical terms.
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Reducing the TAT for your customer queries
Furthermore, once you become more technically adept, you can always solve a few queries independently without increasing turnaround times. For example, a customer contacts you with an issue, and in a normal scenario, the issue will be routed via a support team and will be resolved as per the requirements of various teams. Think about the case where you determine the problem is a ridiculously small one and does not require that kind of heavy lifting by your tech team, so that you can solve this for your customer right away.
Reduced dependency
Additionally, you could be able to understand a lot of technical concepts, which may reduce your dependency on engineering or product teams. If you know things, you are always less dependent on the other teams, and you can always answer your customers in their absence. Here is an example: it is holiday time, most of your team is on leave, but one of your customers needs urgent assistance regarding a remarkably simple technical issue. This is a fantastic opportunity for you to help your customer if you know this. Otherwise, you will always have to depend on other teams
In any case, having this skill is not a must-have for you, even if you lack the technical acumen. You can always be an amazing customer success manager without technical knowledge because customer success is all about bringing the human touch to your interactions with your customers and being a valuable ally who can guide them or help them in any situation. You can always be a wonderful customer success manager for your customers if you stay committed to learning more about the product and keeping empathy at the forefront of your conversations.
Published March 28, 2022, Updated March 31, 2022
