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insi-ded: Customer horror stories

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Customer horror stories: Account status – Unknown

Today’s inSi-DED story brings you a tale without context. Literally. If you’re a Renewals Manager, you might want to skip this one. Our thoughts go out to Jeremy Donaldson at NTT, who in this particular story was “as green in my career as spring leaves are on a tree.”

If you still want to submit your own CS or community horror story, do so here. (And just like this contributor, you can choose to be completely anonymous!)

I was less than 30 days into my first Customer Success role as a Renewals Manager.

I was assigned approximately 120 account renewals with no context on account health, utilization, or engagement.

Now, to make matters worse, the account managers were not actively involved in the accounts, so they didn’t know key contacts, champions, or even the status of the account.

Enter: The customer.

One fateful day I was working on my 60-90 day out renewals when I found an account that had not been engaged for their renewal. I pulled their contract, generated the quote, and reached out to the individual. 

Just another account, right? 

But within a matter of hours, I received a response.

Good news, you’d think! Wrong!

The individual began to berate me and my company for poor implementation, lack of support, and total absence from the account management team. Using words and phrases like: “Are you *BEEP* stupid?” “We never *BEEP* implemented.” “If you try to *BEEP* contact me again, I will sue your *BEEP* and your company.”

I was as green in my career as spring leaves are on a tree. I was lost, and a bit scared that I’d lose my job over the customer’s response.

But it was through this experience where I learned one of the best professional lessons in my career: There are always circumstances at play outside the situation you’re involved in. So remember, don’t take things personally.

Want more horror? If you think you can handle it, head over to customerhorrorstories.com.