In the modern business environment, a customer success department is as critical to an organization as the traditional high-returns ones like sales and marketing. Hence, if you do not already have one, it is time to launch a full-fledged customer success section in your enterprise. You can either hire staff exclusively for this role or relocate personnel from other departments.

Whatever staffing pattern that you might choose to follow, what is important is the extensive customer success mentoring role that you have to play for the new team. The focus should be on imbibing new skillsets and sharpening existing ones so that they can be a highly successful customer success team and fulfill the short and long-term goals of customers. This will entirely depend on how effective you are in customer success mentoring and how well the mentees learn their lessons quickly.

Corporate mentoring is not a cakewalk and can be a long and tedious process. On one hand, mentors are important figures and mentees depend on them for advice and to maximize the learning process. On the other hand, mentees are the future of any organization and should be properly taken through the paces. Making the two ends meet is complex, more so as the mentor knows nothing about the mentee and their skillsets until they are paired together.

How do you start the customer success mentoring process since there is not much to fall back on as the concept is relatively new in the industry?

· Primarily, focus on the development of the power of active listening among the mentees. It is a skill of communication and only when the mentees develop it will they be able to listen and understand customer problems with clarity and design personalized solutions that they need.

· As a mentor, pay a lot of attention to the growth of the emotional intelligence of the mentees. You should understand that in customer success mentoring, this aspect will help the mentees later to know what the customer values most about your products and services and how to react with solutions if their needs are not met. Reacting fast to customer needs will prevent the much-feared customer churn.

· In customer success mentoring, have an automated schedule that emphasizes on-call listening and on-job shadowing. Make your relationship easy and informal with the mentee by keeping some quality time together, maybe over a cup of coffee. When this is done, the mentee will not shy away from approaching you in case of any issues or problems. Subsequently, have periodic check-ins to offer valuable feedback on the progress made by the mentee and tick off career milestones as they are approached and crossed.

During customer success mentoring, show your real and personalized self to the mentee just as you expect the mentee to show a human face when dealing with customers and the customer success team.