Learning and Developing Technical Skills as a Customer Success Manager

Angie Shaw, a Customer Success Manager in our Wollongong office, is a top-rated product expert and client champion. As a senior member of the team (and go-to person for all things audio and music), she has mastered the art of client relationships, but her “learn-it-all” mentality has driven her to develop technical skills, too! She uses a unique blend of traditional customer success skills and technical knowledge to advocate for her clients and ensure they are set up for long-term success at Accelo.

Take a look at her career journey to see how she achieved success in her role.

What Was Your Career Path To Becoming Our Customer Success Manager?

I started my career in the telecommunications industry as a Service Delivery Specialist and Service Delivery Manager. My key responsibilities included building and maintaining strong relationships with a portfolio of enterprise/government clients and ensuring the highest level of customer satisfaction by facilitating monthly governance meetings with reporting deliverables along with being the single point of accountability for my clients.

I really enjoyed the service management component of my role and during the height of the pandemic, and a seachange from Sydney CBD to Wollongong, I thought it would be a fantastic opportunity to pivot into the SaaS industry with my existing skillset and the hunger to grow into more of a technically driven role.

What Does Your Current Role Entail?

My current role as a Customer Success Manager is centered around understanding my client's business needs by building strong relationships. I equip them with the tools and knowledge they need to get the absolute most out of Accelo and enable them to continually grow as a business.

As such, the key skills I’ve found that you need to flourish in this role are communication and problem-solving skills along with strong emotional and social intelligence. As long as you attain this skillset, our onboarding program is extremely comprehensive and will provide you with extensive platform training which includes building up your technical skills and knowledge of the product.

Who Are Your Clients and What Kind of Impact Do You Make on Their Business?

My clients range from digital and creative agencies and consultants to managed service providers and architects! One of the many things I really enjoy about my role is working closely with my clients to understand their unique business processes and providing best practices to ensure they are getting the most out of Accelo.

I also love that I have a direct impact on ensuring our clients are seeing not only the value of Accelo but the return on investment, too!

How Did Accelo Help You Develop Your Technical Skills?

Accelo has not only nurtured my existing skills but has given me the resources to build on this with in-depth technical training and mentoring within the company. In addition to my robust onboarding journey, I have been encouraged to continue expanding on my technical knowledge as part of my career development and succession plan.

As part of my 2022 professional development goals at Accelo, I have just enrolled at RMIT for 2 short courses online in Product Management Fundamentals and Product Management Advanced which were completely subsidized by Accelo!

What Is It Like Being a Part of the Client Success Team?

It’s an incredibly exciting (and refreshing) team to be a part of. We have such a supportive team of people who empower and encourage each other to continue to learn and grow in our Accelo journey!

We are a close-knit team across Aus and the U.S. which means most daily interactions are over Slack (we have SO many cool custom emojis) however we have weekly and monthly team meetings over Zoom which makes for some amazing team collaboration, banter and of course, storytime!

Continue Your Customer Success Manager Journey at Accelo!

If you take pride in delivering a best-in-class experience to clients and are ready to put your client management skills to the test in tech, we want to hear from you! 

We are looking for data-driven “learn-it-alls” who enjoy building and maintaining strong relationships by ensuring their clients get the most out of our platform and services. If that challenge excites you, keep an eye on our careers page for the next open role on our Success team.