Meet the Team
A Jack of All Trades: How Customer Success Manager Jonah Wayte Represents the Importance of FloQast’s Client-First Culture
Since day one, stellar customer service has been core to FloQast’s identity. This goes beyond fast response times or quickly-solved support tickets.
In a SaaS organization, Customer Success Managers have the ability to influence almost every aspect of how the company operates. At FloQast, CSMs play an instrumental role in ensuring a smooth transition from sales to setup and in maintaining a positive relationship with the customer. Whether it be offering best practices or keeping users apprised of upcoming releases or updates, it’s up to the CSMs to ensure that FloQast users are getting the most out of the product and that it’s positively impacting their accounting departments as a result.
Since joining FloQast in 2016, Jonah Wayte has achieved recognition and success for his ability to thrive in a customer-driven atmosphere. Recently promoted to Senior Customer Success Manager, Jonah has proven himself to be a versatile team player by strengthening the overall user experience and assuring the customer receives the most value possible.
As the Head of Customer Success at FloQast, Lilith Karageuzian considers Jonah a valuable asset to her team, and expressed her admiration for his work ethics. “Jonah is respected and appreciated by so many people in the company, but especially on his own CS team,” said Karageuzian. “Jonah goes out of his way to help or share his input, and he’s stepped in countless times to help the setup team.”
“He’s always really engaged in team meetings, asking great questions, and willing to share his insight with the rest of the team,” she continued. “And while he takes his job seriously, he has a really good sense of humor when things go wrong.”
Recently, I spoke with Jonah about the way he operates as a Senior Customer Success Manager at FloQast, how his experiences have paved the way for his overall success, and what he finds the most gratifying about his career.
As a Customer Success Manager, what are your typical day-to-day responsibilities?
The day-to-day of a CSM can have a ton of variation, which is a big reason why I like the role! I love learning new skills and it can truly be a ‘Jack of all trades’ position.
The main responsibilities include client communications (emails and phone calls) in a variety of contexts depending on the stage of the client. optimization calls for new clients, quarterly check-ins, renewals, training sessions, introducing new products, or general support questions.
We’re also coordinating product feedback and discussions with the Product team, case studies with Marketing, and reference calls with Sales. There’s a project management component, where you spend time planning and adapting the client’s FloQast account as their business grows or as they take on new areas of the product.
After a client has completed the application launch process, what steps are taken to ensure the implementation process goes smoothly?
After the launch process, the client is primarily in the hands of our setup team. But the CSM is still following along with the process — helping out with training calls and also introducing themselves to the main players from the client.
We’ve been making more of an emphasis to sync up with the Account Executive who sold the deal to really understand the client’s challenges that they want to solve, and any other important details that were discussed during the evaluation.
What are the key factors to managing each client’s needs and expectations, and ensuring their overall satisfaction?
I think a big part of this is being able to reference all of the notes and details that they set out during the evaluation, and connecting with the sales-person that helped them, if possible. This will give you some solid context as you head into your first conversation with the client.
Second, I think that being up-front with the client to understand these goals and expectations at the beginning of the relationship is important. This way you can continue to revisit them as the client uses the tool in order to ensure the client is moving in the right direction.
Clients definitely vary in the amount of communication they like to participate in, and how much assistance they need, but I try to speak with each client once a quarter, and maintain email communications at least once every 1-2 months.
Luckily, our department is very collaborative, and our product is easy to use, so there’s plenty of support if you need it!
What is the most fulfilling part of your job, and why?
During my time as a CSM, I’ve really grown to enjoy the overall problem-solving components of the role. I’ve learned a ton about the software and accounting processes by getting ‘in-the-weeds’ with clients.
These problems might be day-to-day support issues that clients are dealing with, or on a wider-scale, helping clients maximize FloQast and truly transform their accounting processes.
It’s really rewarding to offer advice or implement a change in a client’s account that results in a tangible improvement, especially if they share the results with you.
