#6-Automation & AI
Let’s talk about automation. But let’s be specific here. What’s really at stake is workflow automation. Automating one single task is nice but automating a sequence of tasks is the real deal.
1. Introduction
Picture workflow automation like a robot assistant that takes care of repetitive, low-value tasks for you.
But here's the thing - and I'm going to be straight with you - automation needs to be handled with care. Your number one job is still being that trusted advisor your customers count on. It’s about finding the right balance: too little automation and you're still drowning in busywork, but too much and you've got customers feeling like they're stuck in a never-ending phone tree with a robot.
Nobody wants that, no matter how smart that robot might be.
Use automation to enhance your customer relationships, not replace them.
2. What's Automation, Really?
It's pretty simple: you're using tech to handle repetitive tasks so you can focus on the work that actually requires human brainpower. It's like setting up dominoes - once you've got everything lined up right, you just need to tap the first one and watch the magic happen.
3. Making It Work (Without Losing Your Mind)
Here's how to get started without feeling overwhelmed:
Play Detective - Watch how work flows through your operations. Where are people constantly muttering "not this again" under their breath? That's your starting point.
Draw it Out - Map your workflow like you're plotting a heist movie (minus the criminal intent, of course). Get everyone involved - sometimes the person making coffee has better insights than the VP.
Make Your Tools Talk to Each Other - Your systems should share data like gossip at a water cooler - quickly and efficiently.
Fix the Obvious Stuff - You know those communication black holes where tasks go to die? Yeah, let's patch those up.
Pick Your Software Sidekick - Choose automation tools that'll do the heavy lifting. Think less "complicated spaceship controls" and more "smartphone interface."
Test, Tweak, Repeat - Like cooking a new recipe, you'll need to adjust the ingredients until it's just right.
Show Everyone the Ropes - Nothing kills automation faster than a team that doesn't know how to use it. Make training fun - maybe skip the trust falls though.
4. The Good Stuff
Picture this: your team spending less time on mindless tasks and more time on work that actually matters. That's just the start. You'll also:
Cut down on those face-palm moments when someone makes a silly mistake
Save money (your boss will love you)
Get teams working together like a well-oiled machine
Grow without hiring an army of new people
By the way, this works for any team within your company. So if you spotted a way to improve cross-functional process, don’t be shy and go talk to your colleagues.
5. Real Talk: Customer Success Edition
Let's get specific about how this helps customer success teams. I'll break it down into our favorite trilogy: onboarding, adoption and renewal.
1. Onboarding:
Think of this as rolling out the red carpet for your customers, but automated. Here’s some examples of helpful automations. Set up:
A smooth handoff between the sales and customer success team: automate the handoff process, including a customer introduction email and an internal knowledge transfer. I recommend creating a form to structure the handoff information in a readable way. For example: 1. pain points, 2. risks, 3. future opportunities, etc. Once the form is created, integrate it to your CRM so that the handoff data is centralised at the account level. Form builder tools: typeform, tally. Typeform integrates natively with Hubspot. Tally lets you use Zapier to build custom integrations.
Welcome emails with an online scheduling link for the kickoff call. My personal favorite? Hubspot email sequences combined with its meeting scheduler feature. If you don’t use Hubspot, set up an email sequence & use calendly.
Automatically send guides and walkthroughs directly inside of the app. You can set them up so that they pop up when your customer clicks on a feature for the first time. Tools that do the job: userpilot or userflow.
2. Adoption:
And specifically, QBRs. Make these meetings less "quarterly business torture" and more "quarterly business awesome":
1. Automate the number-crunching and the report generation. You have 2 options:
Option A: feed ChatGPT with the data you want to analyze. Prompt it to identify trends, risks and opportunities and create a report. Important: make sure you anonymize the data (you wouldn’t want sensitive customer fall in the wrong hands in case of a data leak). Then, connect ChatGPT to your CRM using Zapier so that the data can flow directly into your CRM. Here’s an example.
Option B: if you want to go a step further, I recently discovered a tool called update.ai which helps you prepare QBR meetings. The feature you want to have a look at is called “Account Insights”. UpdateAI will automatically generate an account brief based on past meetings and interactions. You can then share the summary directly to your customer.
2. Schedule the report to be automatically sent out 1 or 2 week before the meeting.
This quick automated workflow will save you some time to anticipate any question your client might have after reading your report. Also, this will save everyone’s time because the QBR will actually be a time for real conversations. Then, simply ask questions that make customers think "huh, that's interesting" instead of checking their phones.
3. Renewals:
This is where the rubber meets the road:
Set up email reminder sequences. The trio: 90/60/30 days before expiration works pretty well. Alternatively, you can also use in-app messages as reminders. Just be mindful about communication overload.
Automate usage reports highlighting the customer’s product value. The goal is to encourage renewal. You can re-use the tools I mentioned above.
Give VIP treatment to high-risk accounts while automating standard follow-ups for lower-risk customers
6. Tips for Not Messing It Up
Start small - you wouldn't run a marathon without training first
Get input from everyone who'll use it
Keep tweaking until it works like a charm
Remember: computers are great at repetition, humans are great at judgment calls
7. Shopping for Automation Tools
Look for software that:
Doesn't require a PhD to operate
Plays nice with your other tools (Slack, Notion, etc)
Bends to your will (aka customizable)
Grows with you
Shows you what's actually happening (because data is your friend)
8. Conclusion
Look, workflow automation isn't about turning your company into a robot army - it's about letting machines handle the brain-dead tasks so your team can focus on what humans do best: building relationships and solving problems.
For Customer Success teams specifically, this means automating the repetitive low-value tasks across customer engagement, admin work and collaboration.
The key is to start small, build and test your workflows, and track if they’re actually helping you or about as useful as suncream during a snowstorm.
If they do help, look at how to improve them. If they don’t, stop them.
The bottom line: when done right, automation isn't just about saving time and money - it's about creating space for the kind of meaningful customer interactions that add real value.
