Our colleagues Natália Jamborová, Head of Customer Success, and Andrej Wallo, Strategic Partnerships Manager, were our very first Customer Success Managers (CSM). They look back at their road to Vestberry and speak about what it’s like to be a CSM.

What is a Customer Success Manager?

Andrej: “CSM’s main goal is to ensure clients can reach their goals using the product they paid for. We have to train the client, onboard their data, check if data analysts are on schedule and ensure smooth adoption. The CSMs are a kind of project manager.”

“It is in the company’s best interest that each client succeeds. CSM works to reduce churn (the loss of clients) as the company invests a lot of time to deliver features required by the client, onboard them and teach them to use the platform. Secondly, to maximise customer lifetime value for the company. Finally, CSM unlocks second-order revenue. Satisfied clients are more likely to recommend the product to their network,” adds Natália. 

“The CSMs are the face of the company for the clients. We are the liaisons between the clients and the company. We both reiterate the client’s needs, requests, or complaints to the company and represent the company in communication with the client. We are the masters of good relationships with clients.”

Who Are the Vestberry’s CSMs, Natália and Andrej?

Natália and Andrej are Vestberry’s original CSMs who built the role out of nothing as they went along. When Natália isn’t working, she is running, biking, hiking, or taking courses and educating herself in whatever piques her interest at the moment. She studied business management and recently pursued an MBA degree. She joined the Vestberry team from 0100 Conferences, cofounded by Marek Zámečník, cofounder and CEO of Vestberry, so she already knew who she’d be working for. She got to know the world of venture capital at 0100 Conferences, and the niche market captivated her. She’s always been very interested in the financial world. She had plenty of experience in financial departments, whether as a part of the equity department at Erste Group bank Vienna or as a Relationship Manager at VUB bank, so she already felt at home in a customer care role. 

She got very interested in Vestberry’s product. It is very important for her work with international clients as she finds it a completely different world. However, what drew her in the most were the founders. “They appeared very trustworthy and like they knew exactly what they were doing,” says Natália.

In contrast to Natália, Andrej never thought he’d end up in the world of finance and investments. He earned a degree in international relationships and security in Nottingham, UK. However, after school, he took what job was available and ended up as the  Project manager at the Department of Foreign Investments at SARIO. Later, he found a job as a COO opening a Slovak branch of an Austrian startup, which became his first step into the world of fintech and operations. Afterwards, he moved on to a Venture builder for AI and ML-focused startups, where he became an assistant to the CEO. However, he suffered burnout. 

“I decided I had enough of high-intensity startups and needed to slow down, maybe get a corporate job,” says Andrej. He took a break for a few months and, shortly after changing his LinkedIn status to ‘open to work’, got an offer from Marek Zámečník. It was yet another startup, Vestberry. Though he was not looking to return to the startup environment, Andrej accepted the invitation to meet Marek for a coffee. 

“So you are only at the very beginning?” asked Andrej. “Yeah, we haven’t even started product development yet,” admitted Marek at the meeting. Andrej spent two hours roasting Marek about the project. The Vestberry founders had a clear vision of where they were heading. Andrej took two days to think it through. They met once more for a further discussion, and Andrej decided, “Screw it. It should be fun. Let’s do it.”

It took blood, sweat, and tears at the beginning. However, despite suffering burnout just a few months prior, at Vestberry, the work was invigorating. He likes that everyone at Vestberry has the opportunity to build something of their own, and he could fully utilise all of his experience. 

He started as a Product manager, but after landing the first client, a big one from London, he moved to a more client-focused role – Implementation manager. Andrej had an affinity for building relationships and was familiar with the market. Eventually, the role grew into a Customer Success Manager.  

A Day in the Life of a CSM at Vestberry

“The typical day starts with some emails, admin tasks, answering questions from clients, making calls, and training the clients, primarily through video calls according to the already built structure,” says Natália. 

We frequently sync with Client Data Analysts to check the progress in client onboarding. We also have regular meetings with other departments, especially sales, product, and marketing, to sync up, brainstorm improvements, and ensure that Vestberry is running as a well-oiled machine. 

“We already have many processes in place, most of them built during the onboarding of our largest client – Venture capital fund Atomico. They manage about 4 billion euros. However, there is a natural evolution. As the client base grows, we keep iterating our processes. We always stay one or two steps ahead to make sure it’s scalable and that we deliver the highest service quality possible,” says Andrej.

Additionally, there are plenty of opportunities for side projects such as Vestberry Academy and external knowledge for clients. Whenever there is a new project, the colleague that feels the closest to it can own up to it. If you know how to improve some processes, it can be your job to sit down and draft up a new, better one. “We want to ensure people who work at Vestberry reach their full potential,” says Natália.

How Is Working With Clients

“There are some regional patterns, but it’s mostly about people like everywhere else. The people we interact with are highly educated with a vast network and usually very down to earth despite great achievements,” says Andrej. “We are trying to show them right from the start that we know what we are talking about, have the expertise, and are here to help them. We are not just somebody with a product to sell without understanding their day-to-day work. It’s a partnership on equal grounds. I find it very fulfilling. Of course, there are some exceptions with very senior people, but CSM has to be able to read between the lines.”

“Naturally, some clients are trying to push to find out how far we are willing to go. CSM has to be able to moderate even the hardest conversations and be able to say no and set healthy boundaries,” adds Natália. “Generally speaking, we have very good relationships with our clients. It is also the most rewarding part of the job to see the client satisfied with our services and to see the long-term added value we bring them. The patience, time and effort we put into the relationship really pays off.”

Their Greatest Challenge So Far

So far, their greatest challenge was onboarding the biggest client yet, Atomico, the second-largest VC fund in Europe. “When they chose Vestberry, we knew it would be a big challenge, but it turned out to be on a much larger scale than anything we’ve faced before. They sent us 5000 documents to be sorted. We had to go through all of them and migrate the data into our platform to create a well-structured database.” says Andrej. 

We had to devise a plan for how to handle it all. “It was during the company’s retreat in Cyprus in 2021 that I suggested sitting down with other teams and brainstorming a new strategy, hoping to improve the processes based on the experience,” explains Natália. “The partnership with Atomico really helped us to set up processes which proved to be working with clients of similar size. We soon realised that we needed to change how we think about the onboarding process itself and post onboarding enablement slash Customer Success.”

We decided how many more people we needed to hire, what tasks needed to be done, how to prioritise and how to communicate. Many edge cases were discovered that the platform wasn’t built for yet. It led to extensive research and product development, but in the end, we succeeded, and our tool improved immensely. It not only moved their product forward but vastly improved their processes. We learned how to do things and how to proceed. Now we are ready for a client of any size.

How Is Working at Vestberry

“To be honest, I’ve always been quite the job jumper. When I found something I didn’t like in regards to work or company culture, I had no problem leaving and trying something else,” says Natália. However, she has finally settled in Vestberry. “I have to say that I am very satisfied on all accounts; the work I do, the people I work with, the whole dynamic in the company. I also really like the way they deal with things. It is extremely important to me to be always learning something new, building new things, and new processes. I have all that here, and I really like where we are heading.”

Andrej is also thrilled with his job. “I really appreciate that I was allowed to migrate between different positions. The leadership is very open, and there is a lot of space for thinking outside the box, actually being heard, and seeing your suggestions come to fruition. There are a lot of growth opportunities. If you take the initiative and want to grow somewhere and want to do things, the door is really open for you here. It is the type of environment where I thrive the most – the freedom, ownership, and trust environment. I always have space to keep improving and learn new things.”

What Kind of People Is Vestberry Looking For

“It’s great if they can share their experiences with similar tools, processes, and situations that we can learn from to avoid mistakes or learn how to do things better,” says Andrej. Generally speaking, they are always looking for people who are unafraid to take ownership and give and take feedback. “Communication is essential; some people work in the office, some from home, and we need to keep in sync. There is no shame in asking questions. We all should be pulling in the same direction,” he adds. 

“A down-to-earth approach is very important, also out-of-the-box thinking, being curious, honest, and open to discussion. We are not looking for another Andrej or Natália. Certain skill sets are required for each position, but beyond that, they are ideally looking for people who can bring diversity others can learn from,” explains Natália. 

However, it is important to share our core values, such as honesty, responsibility, ownership, transparency, and the drive to improve and grow. 

Skillsets for Particular Positions

A customer success manager would ideally be somebody who has already worked as a CSM before, but the available talent on the market is limited. Definitely attention to detail and, ideally, experience with project management. “A lot of those onboarding processes are real projects. You need to be able to take care of things, track processes, troubleshoot, and allocate resources and people,” explains Andrej. 

“You should be a people person who builds relationships. The difference from sales is that your aim is not to convince the prospect to buy and then move on.  You build and nurture relationships to last and ensure that the clients truly get the value out of it,” says Natália. We are the face and the voice of the company for the client, and then we are advocates for the client’s needs within the company. Soft skills are a must, as CSM should be a jack of all trades. 

“You need to be able to deal even with more difficult conversations, think through the conversations, communicate with the client accordingly and give feedback to Customer Data Analysts if something doesn’t work. Finally, and this is a must since the vast majority of clients are international, the candidate’s English must be excellent,” says Andrej.

Other members of the Customer Succces Team are Customer Data Analyst and Support. A Customer data analyst (CDA) needs great attention to detail, should have an affinity to finance, and has to be able to work with and make sense of lots of different data as the clients often send them in different forms, and sometimes it’s a mess. You have to be excellent with Excel. You own the data transfer, know how to sort through the data so it makes sense, and migrate it into Vestberry. 

Support needs problem-solving skills and is capable of navigating clients properly. You have to be able to ask the right questions and find out what’s wrong, a bug detective, you could say. You must be able to proactively approach and communicate with the Product team to solve an issue in a timely manner. Your client-communication skills have to be on a professional level; if they can speak another language besides English, that’s always a great plus. 

Make an Impact

With global expansion on its way and a growing client base, Vestberry is rapidly expanding its team. There are several positions available for driven and talented individuals who like to take ownership and make an impact. You can join at a crucial stage when the company from a small country in the heart of Europe is beginning to take on the world. You can be part of something big. 

The whole CSM team is looking forward to getting to know their new colleagues. Even if you don’t find the position, you are looking for but know that you have something to contribute, fill out the spontaneous application, and you too might find yourself a home at Vestberry.