Twilio's Lead of Customer Success, EMEA & APAC

Two years ago, Christina Kopka, Customer Success Lead for EMEA and APAC at Twilio, came across Twilio while seeking out new opportunities. She originally was applying for a position in the sales department, but was presented the opportunity to help build their Customer Success division.

Twilio recognized the need to support customers on their platform as a supplement to a traditional sales cycle and Christina was part of the original team that addressed this gap.She started out working in the California office, and now she is in Dublin, Ireland running the Europe and APAC Customer Success teams.

"You cannot have Customer Success without Customer Experience. I think Customer Experience is what drives Customer Success. And the focus really should be on providing a best-in-class...Customer Experience."

Twilio’s product is unique in that it is highly technical, they are selling an API based communications platform that allows their customers to add capabilities like voice and messaging to their applications programmatically and Twilio's business model is usage-based meaning that customers pay-as-they-go rather than through a monthly subscription. This allows Twilio's customers a lot of freedom and flexibility to build the exact custom solution they need for their business but also means that every customer uses Twilio in a unique way. Having a customer success team to support customers as they build on Twilio has proven essential to many customers' success.

Christina and I spoke about her experience working with a global team, hiring for Customer Success Managers, and some ways she recommends to start developing your Customer Success and Customer Experience strategies.

"Speak to as many customers as possible. Decide beforehand what you want to know about those customers...what your general overarching vision of Customer Success and Customer Experience is, and then gradually benchmark against that..."

So take a listen!