Nilesh Chhajed

• Learnt detailed nuances of insurance and health care sector in India
• Built team from scratch to 25+ team members in 1 year comprising of CSM's and CS Ops team members

Core Challenges for Customer Success in this sector -

1) Commoditised industry

2) CSM role: Client stakeholders (HR's, Finance, Admin teams) never heard about CS mindset of being proactive and outcome focused

3) Historical baggage: Account Managers (as they are called in insurance industry) has baggage of working in traditional broker ways. These AM's have no exposure to technology or SaaS businesses

4) External factors: Dependencies on performance of partners such as TPA and Insurance companies

• Wins against above challenges:

1) 1/3 churn ratio compared to industry standards helping achieve 2x growth in ARR within 1 year through organic and inorganic growth

2) 1.7x increase in CSM productivity (ARR per CSM) in last 2 quarters

• How?

1) Mindset driven ongoing training focused on proactive approach and customer outcomes

2) Data driven training and engagement plan through better predictions from CS tool

3) Most important - Management and team support

• Led overall Customer Success and Operations having 90% of org wide logos and scaling to 100+ team members having CSM's, CS Ops, Partner Success Managers and BA's (through partners). This involved -

1) Customer Success - Led an amazing team of Customer Success Managers focused on -

• CS Ops: Set up CS software/tool to measure customer health on parameters such as Product
• Adoption, Financial, Support and Relationship, helping to get better insights and churn risk predictions b
• Customer Retention - Reduced churn rate
• Increased business from existing customers (Upsell/Cross Sell) - Increase in overall NRR
• Advocacy (Referrals, Case Studies, Testimonials, reactivations)

2) Partner Implementation – Led a team of Partner Success Managers and SI partners for high quality and quick TAT implementations

• All SME and half of all mid market account implementations were managed through partners within 1 year of starting the operations

3) Billing Ops – Tighten process through Playbooks for timely payments and better cashflow predictions

• Sales, BD, relationship building and partnerships through Channels. Channels are global Management Consulting Firms such as McKinsey, BCG, etc. and Cloud Solution Partners such as SAP and Oracle
• GTM strategy for setting up and grow business through channels
• Liaise with channel stake holders such as Partners, Principal, Directors and Digital Strategy Teams to acquire new clients and be part of the digital transformation projects

• Set up a new Customer Success team and Support Operations
• Scale existing regions and set up regional sales team in North India
• Plan and execute implementation strategy on digital transformation projects. Advice major FMCG, telecom and other clients about implementation strategy, basis objectives, current pain points and growth strategy.
• Featured as a key contributor on implementing innovative ideas by online publishers such as The Ken

• In a fast growing health care start-up, I took care of strategic tie ups, corporate relations and related activities along with social media and on-field activities for a tele- medicine start up MeraDoctor

• Elevogue was a startup making easy availability of electronic components and robotic materials at affordable costs to engineering students, engineering colleges and industries, through a mix of e-commerce and exhibition based channel sales
• Core responsibility was BD and overall operations to synergistically combine with my co-founder(A researcher at IIT-B) role of a techy
• One of the 10 shortlisted companies for investor’s arena at E-Summit organized by Entrepreneurship
• Cell, IIT Bombay in Feb 2014.

• Analyst in banking operations, part of liabilities customer service
• Liaising with various internal departments based on customer queries/complaints
• Perform and assist in internal reviews for process improvements.

• Perform remote QA reviews and send feedback to Business units
• Provide management with timely reports with recommendations on process improvement.

• Worked as a financial analyst for a leading major global Investment bank.
• Worked in the billing process of the securities lending operations.

• Handling Retail and Modern Trade Distribution of major FMCG companies such as SC Johnson,
• Emami, Dabur, Fem India, etc
• Covering the central suburbs of Mumbai and 1000+ retail and wholesale outlets.