In a global business world, every Customer Success Manager (CSM) would love to be able to speak perfect English. But once you reach a certain level, what happens to a lot of learners is they plateau. This is where it can be hard to improve any further. This can be due to lack of motivation or lack of knowledge of how to improve.
But in the world of CSM, communication is the most critical skill when it comes to landing your dream job and for your talents to be appreciated by your team leader.
So we created a language guide for non-native customer success managers. We interviewed some of our top students active in CSM to learn about their most significant challenges and develop strategies to overcome them.
What are you waiting for? Check out our new communication guide for non-native CSMs!
So what are the main reasons to invest in your communication skills?
1. Take a step towards your dream job
Everybody would love to snap their fingers and land their dream job? But few make a realistic plan of how to get there. Wishful thinking alone isn’t going to do it, so what’s the best way to get there as a CSM. In one word: communication. Invest in boosting your communication skills. All the top companies design their interview processes around testing how well you can express yourself, to see how well you could collaborate on a team or resolve client issues.
2. Impress your team leader and get a promotion
Unfortunately, there are unfair biases that make it harder for non-native CSMs to get promotions. One of the main biases is native speaker bias. This is where your team leader may subconsciously give preference to colleagues that speak like you team leader. On top of this, most internal reviews are designed by native speakers. The only way to overcome all this bias is to boost your communication skills. But it’s worth the effort because if you do, you significantly increase your chances of getting that promotion.
3. Make team communication more efficient
Collaboration is a core part of your role as a CSM. Whether working together to resolve support issues, reporting to a team leader, or talking with sales and marketing, your communication needs to be on point. By improving your communication, you will make team collaboration smoother, which will gain the respect of your co-workers.
4. Resolve user issues quicker
In CSM there are no prizes for being slow. It’s all about resolving user issues as quickly and efficiently. But looking through user documentation may be more time-consuming as a non-native speaker. Also, as a non-native, you are extra careful when typing client emails or Slack messages. To overcome this speed deficit, you need to increase your language confidence. This will decrease metrics like time-to-resolve over time and impress your team leader.
5. Give better product demos and find more upselling opportunities
Have you ever given a product demo, and found it difficult to explain something as clearly as you wanted? While this is uncomfortable for you, it is frustrating for your users. Product demos are a massive test of your communication because often you have to respond to highly specific questions in real-time.
Another huge challenge is identifying upselling opportunities. CSMs walk a fine line between overselling and discovering genuine client use-cases. Finding the upsell requires nuanced communication and a mastery of the language. Improving your skills will make you better at upselling.
6. Delight your users and get better feedback
Users judge your competence based on your communication. If your client-facing communication is anything other than stellar, the hard truth is, they won’t think you are that competent – even if you are great at resolving their issues. Why is this such a big deal? Because how users view your competence directly affects how good your feedback will be. So improving your communication will not only delight your users
Invest in your communication today
With targeted strategies, it is possible to overcome these challenges, as many of our top students working in CSM have done.
Our brand new guide combines our expertise and insights from our students to provide practical strategies to overcome these challenges.
Downloading this guide can help you make a roadmap to landing your dream customer success job.
The guide includes:
The main communication challenges for non-native customer success managers
The benefits of great communication skills
Practical strategies to overcome these challenges from our experts
Talaera is an online platform that provides one-on-one business English language training, anytime, anywhere, through 100% personalized lessons, HD video quality, and excellent native teachers. It’s effective, engaging, and empowering, Want to know more? Let’s talk!
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