I don't know who it was that forced Gainsight into the company and down our collective throats, but it is a laughable train wreck. From what I have seen in working with it over the last year, it really does not do much, if anything, beyond what we could have done with Salesforce. But just like our VMstar implementation, the way things are being developed in Gainsight seems very poorly organized and not well thought out. Just a lot of activity and executive mandates for no real advancement.
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There are not enough words to describe how inept Dimwit and MeeToo were at building a CS organization, and I suspect that having Gainsight rammed down our throats was probably one of their pet projects.
Cut the Gainsight losses or subscription cost and save monies for BC EBITDA?
I'm a TAM and couldn't agree more: this tool is a nightmare. We are now asked to fill internal reports instead of being customer focus and really help them to adopt our products. We have more pressure to check the box than anything else! I hate that!
The fusion of CSM and TAM has been poorly executed, in a rush without even knowing which tools will be used or not, how to train people, without even an official communication to our customers. The only thing I know is that we now have to do both CSM and TAM tasks hence more work (and quite different work) without a pay raise, so it must be a good thing for the revenue and to prepare a cut if needed after the deal.
And you know what is the worse? In all our CxS meetings, the management is telling us that we are strategic for the company's success, that we are valuable and so on... BS!
They're just pi----g on us without even giving us the courtesy of calling it rain.
" The entire organization is incredibly internally focused. Very few of these people are actually externally facing and taking the job of increasing consumption to heart. Primarily they are following checklists and directing work to other areas of the company such as the sales teams"
100% correct, this is because (before folding TAMS and PSO into CXS) Meenu and Sumit axed nearly all of the customer-facing CS Architects, trashing the previous engagement model but not replacing it with anything viable.
"Gainsight, is unusable in its current implementation. It does not help the people who use it, its an admin tool only, that only helps management and hinders actual CS."
It is an admin tool that helps management see when people are not doing the busywork that they never should have been ordered to do in the first place.
The whole Success Executive was a train wreck, now there all TAMs and not technical.
Franchise CSMs who fall under the BU not CS doesn't help.
AEs & SEs then have no clue what a CS can do and just assume its GS, its not just GS.
Gainsight, is unusable in its current implementation. It does not help the people who use it, its an admin tool only, that only helps management and hinders actual CS.
You mean the 150 project managers in CS Ops probably werent the best hires?
'Just a lot of activity and executive mandates for no real advancement'
welcome to big tech
The comment below is spot-on. Having watched this train wreck evolve since the beginning, it is surprising/not-surprising to see the architect of this abomination now presiding over the entire company.
Our entire Customer Success organization, with a few individual exceptions, is absolutely terrible. The entire organization is incredibly internally focused. Very few of these people are actually externally facing and taking the job of increasing consumption to heart. Primarily they are following checklists and directing work to other areas of the company such as the sales teams. Complete waste of money on the numbers of people that this org has in place. Managers and managers and directors who will sit on every internal call possible and then complain about how other orgs (who do not have the same mandate) are not doing their jobs. End of Rant !
Put another way, you have people that have been hired into positions of CXS leadership who do not actually understand customer success and adoption, forcing their ideas of CXS into the Gainsight configurations and content; thus forcing the actual practitioners of customer success and adoption in the field to carry out their mission incorrectly. You are correct, VMware is way behind on the enterprise conversion to SaaS; but I would peg the number at closer to 10 years. This is why peer companies in the early 2010's (such as Salesforce) rocketed past VMW in terms of ARR and overall organizational growth.
Automating sales team account management 'busywork' is not SaaS Customer Success in action. VMware has limited experience growing a SaaS driven business, and it shows. The Customer Success teams have few CSMs with any meaningful prior experience helping customers increase app adoption and consumption; ex-TAMs are not CSMs.
From what I've seen, so far, VMware is about 3-5 years behind other similar enterprise software vendors with expertise in ARR growth. So, Gainsight software can't change the current CS team member talent shortage. Better training and coaching of current employees might help. Also, all new CSM hires need to be qualified to do the work.