Customer success executive focused on communications and scalability.
Based in The Netherlands*
*No, not Amsterdam. There’s more to the country than Amsterdam.
Intro
I am a data-driven manager of relationships, products, processes, and all things customer related.
With over a decade of experience in the Customer Success sector of the start-up side of SaaS, I’m most comfortable wearing a multitude of hats at once.
I particularly specialize in customer-focused writing, process & product improvements, and risk management.
I enjoy scratching random cats I meet.
Leadership Strategy
I am confident in my ability to make decisions that are just and fair for all parties involved — the customer, the business, and the employee.
I strive to empower my staff to feel equally confident in their own decision-making abilities. If they can’t function while I’m on holiday, I haven’t done my job correctly.
I aim to know my team as people, not just employees. This allows me to hone my management strategy to best suit each individual.
I am honest to my core and believe in transparency. My team will trust me because I will always be open with them.
A great leader is willing to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty, both as part of the learning process and when times are hard.
When things go to sh*t, I’ll be in the trenches.
Current Project
Anne Marie Traas
April 2017 — Present
Anne Marie Hofmann is an ever-evolving small-business focused on customer success, writing, and research.
Fractional Head of Customer Success
I provide consulting services for small SaaS companies that have neither the funding nor the need for a full-time department Head. This includes:
providing guidance on hiring and training success & support new-hires
coaching success staff on how to deal with difficult clients and improve their service
creating and improving processes for ticketing systems, escalations, and refunds
revamping knowledge bases to drive customer use and reduce ticket traffic
providing guidance on and creating proper reporting metrics for success teams
Writer & Editor
I create and edit content for myriad channels, mostly customer success geared, specializing in knowledge base creation and revamps, and customer onboarding documentation. While I prefer to write in my own voice — often wry, always sincere — I have a knack for adapting it to the idiosyncrasies of the project. Projects for clients have included:
creation of technical knowledge bases for SaaS companies
email marketing for small businesses
customer onboarding emails and documentation
webinar and sales decks
blog editing
Notable Clients
Past Projects
TestGorilla
September 2020 — March 2022
TestGorilla is a pre-employment skills assessment platform designed to make hiring easier, with fewer mishires.
Head of Customer Success
Started and grew the Customer Success department, including hiring, training, and coaching both customer support and account management teams.
Created and managed ticket handling processes for a team of 6 handling on average 500 inbound tickets per day
Oversaw company growth from 30 to > 3,000 paying customers in 18 months
Team satisfaction score of over 85% week-over-week
Lead and oversaw creation of customer onboarding flow
Increased revenue from services upsell
Oversaw customer transition from one pricing model to another
Designed processes to increase cross functional communication and collaboration
Managed mass customer communications
Led and managed times of crises — i.e. server outages
Worked with executive team to manage and prevent crisis risks
Worked with the development team to further improve the product and processes from the customer perspective
Customer Advocate
As the fifth hire in the company and the first on the customer success team, I was responsible for the day-to-day running of all things customer success.
Answered customer questions through chat, email, and zoom
Onboarded new paying customers
Collected customer feedback
Troubleshot technical issues, liaising between the customer and product team
Managed email outreach to new trial users to ensure platform success
Maintained the knowledge base
Created processes and pre-written responses to enable customer scale
Wrote and managed mass emails for large-scale customer communications
Coached other staff on how to deliver top-of-the-line customer service when they helped in the customer queue
Qwilr
June 2017 — August 2018
Qwilr is a document creation platform designed to create interactive & mobile-friendly web pages that function as sales documents.
Customer Success Manager
I provided a voice for the customer by communicating their needs to and collaborating with the product team, in addition to working with the Founders and Success team to further build and grow the company.
Responsible for an average of 50% decrease in monthly churn
Closed an average of 14 deals per month
Helped onboard new customers through demos, calls, emails, and chats
Provided training sessions to large clients as their teams grew
Reached out to inbound leads to determine if Qwilr fit their needs
Duda
May 2013 — January 2017
Originally a mobile website platform, Duda creates a responsive site builder emphasizing the mobile browsing experience; marketed toward companies that build and sell websites for small to medium businesses.
Account Manager
Launched and supported an account management style strategic process for onboarding new customers. Provided insight and recommendations for improvement of sales, customer support, and product development.
Created and delivered Quarterly Business Reviews to existing key accounts to build relationships and encourage the adoption of a new product. Converted ~30% of those who received a QBR.
On-boarded and trained new key accounts
Analyzed account health and platform usage to ensure key customers derived maximum value from the platform.
Led efforts to create a self-guided training program for new partners
Managed escalations for key accounts and 3rd line of support for small partners via phone, email, and chat
Interviewed new-hire candidates and made recommendations to the department Vice President
June 2015 — January 2017
C.S. Data Analyst
Created and maintained all reporting metrics for the Customer Success department.
Researched industry standards and forecasted growth to encourage the implementation of an account management method
Decreased the number of monthly renewal failures by over 70% by uncovering an issue with the billing system via monthly churn analysis.
Created Quarterly Business Reviews for existing key accounts
Made recommendations for data collection, resulting in the acquisition of more valuable data
January 2015 — January 2017
Sr Technical Support
Troubleshot technical issues and provided quality customer service to aid customers with their struggles. When necessary, liaised between the customer and the product team.
Maintained greater than 90% customer satisfaction rating week-over-week
Wrote and maintained the team’s canned email responses
Created and maintained systematic ticket organization to track types of requests received to improve the product and enhance customer education
May 2013 — May 2015
Software, Languages, & Skills
Software
Help Scout • Hubspot • Zendesk • Intercom • Jira • Advanced Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, Word • Ghost • Squarespace • Zoom • GSuite • Asana • Notion • Apollo • SendInBlue • Callingly • Zapier
Languages
HTML • • • • • • • • • •
CSS • • • • • • • • • •
Handlebars • • • • • • • • • •
SQL • • • • • • • • • •
Dutch • • • • • • • • • •
Oh yea…native English speaker if that wasn’t clear.
Skills
Leadership • Risk Management • Project Management • Process Creation • Writing Customer Service • Research • Data Analysis • Logistics • Event Coordination • Detail Oriented
One last thing
This website describes my relevant work history from the past ten years, in a nutshell, but we are not our resumes. I’ve done plenty of things not listed here. Cool things of note include:
using sign language with chimpanzees
performing in a professional aerial dance group
living as a digital nomad — 20 countries and counting
teaching myself to knit
falling in love in a foreign country
becoming a mom
If you’d like to know more about who I am as a person, I’m not very active on social media but Instagram will tell you a bit more so feel free to take a look, or let’s have a virtual coffee; I’d love to meet you.
