Adam Torres and Samantha Graw discuss client services.
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Show Notes:
What are some of the guiding principles that can help successful Client Service teams? In this episode, Adam Torres and Samantha Graw, Vice President, Client Services at RevTrax, A Neptune Retail Solutions Company, explore what it takes to run a successful client services team.
About Samantha Graw
Accomplished Account Manager with 10 years of experience in client services and 8.5 years of experience in digital marketing and SaaS. Pragmatic thinker who is detail oriented, extremely organized and diplomatic with the ability to cultivate solid relationships with all levels. Exceptional verbal and written communication skills with the ability to express ideas clearly and logically.
About RevTrax
RevTrax Offer Management Platform (OMP) empowers brands to deliver offers across channels, track the performance and connect insights to decisions that save you money and drive more value from your marketing efforts. Their OMP connects across all digital vehicles and offer formats, providing personalized offers connecting online behaviors Our expertise, technology, and best-in-class service transforms how leading brands manage, measure, and optimize marketing investments
RevTrax was founded in 2008 by Jonathan Treiber, Seth Sarelson, and Greg Hansen. Several years, three offices and countless brand campaigns later, RevTrax is incredibly proud to have built an amazing client base, grown some of the industry’s best talent, and been named as one of Crain’s Best Places to work in New York City, multiple times. The team is older and wiser now, fortunate for the opportunity to work with amazing people every day, and can’t wait to see what the future holds.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest on the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on be our guest to apply. All right. So today’s guest is Samantha Graw, and she’s vice president of client services over at RevTrax, which is a Neptune retail solutions company.
Samantha, welcome to the show. Adam, thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you. All right, so we met, I believe. Correct me if I’m off here. We met at the take the lead conference over in Washington, D. C. with Gloria Felt and her team that they threw. Is that all right?
That’s correct. Great conference. What did you think? How was the conference? How’d the conference go for you? I was blown away. I loved it, especially as someone who is a female that is younger in their profession. It was really nice to see the support of stronger, more senior. Folks within their organizations and within their career paths, because it’s what I strive to be right.
So it was awesome to just see that I could achieve what they’ve achieved, which is also a lot about what I’m going to speak about today in terms of what I’m doing with my teams and growing their careers. So I thought it was super influential, empowering and a really great conference. So how’d you learn about the campus originally?
I’m always curious about these things. Yeah. Someone passed it along who sits on the board of the organization, who’s been involved in taking a lot of the taking the lead courses and thought, Hey, you know, you’re a rising influencer in your career, you’re rising leader, or you are a leader, but you’re going to continue to rise as a leader.
This would be really great for you. And helping you understand what resources are available to you and understanding, you know, where you could take your career to the next level. What was one of your favorite parts of the conference? Just in general? That’s amazing. I think hearing about. Women’s rights, especially in the workforce that was filled with some information that I wasn’t always privy to, or knew, but didn’t understand how impactful it was to women in the workforce.
I think I liked that. A lot of that empowerment the most. Yeah, it was. It was . Quite an experience. It was my first time attending a full one last year. I was at UCLA when they were when they had it, but I was kind of on the tail end. So I didn’t get the, like, the full experience. I went out there to visit Dr.
Nancy, because she was in town and I didn’t get the full experience. But this year I got the full experience. And I was like, well, I’m already looking forward to next year. I think it’s gonna be amazing. Yeah, it definitely will be amazing. I’m looking forward to it too. So, let’s talk a little bit more . , about what you do in, in client services over at RevTrax.
So, . , maybe start by telling us a little bit about the company. Sure. So, RevTrax is short for Revenue Tracking, and we are what we call an offer management platform, which means that we power coupons, offers promotions, incentives for our CPG, or Consumer Packaged Goods company. So, if you’re You know, looking for Colgate toothpaste coupons, you’ll know, to go to their website to sign up for those and all of the offers that you would see on their website.
My organization is powering and then we, in turn, provide the data on how those offers perform back to our clients. So they know. What offers are working amongst which audiences? . , what first got you interested in this business? Like what first got you interested? It’s less about the content that is being produced for me and more about the roles that are available.
So I lead a client services team. I’m the vice president of client services, and I’ve done this in Experiential marketing. I’ve done this in, you know, traditional print advertising and now here I am in this digital coupon or offers space. So it’s less about the work we’re producing and it’s more about is the right client services role available to me because if it is, then great.
And what comes with that is the opportunity to learn a different piece of business in this case, couponing. And so what, draws you to the client services in general? , what draws you there? Well, you know, I think at its highest definition, it is what it is, right? It’s servicing clients. But what does that really mean?
I would say it’s a little bit of everything. And that’s what I love about it. So it’s rolling up your sleeves, getting involved. Problem solving for your clients and even your own organization. It’s kind of like running your own mini business within a business, which is really fun because every day is different.
It brings new challenges, new successes, instant gratification. And so, yeah, that’s what I really love about it. Now . You mentioned . , you’ve been in this role, not necessarily exact title, but in client services and helping individual and helping those types of departments for some time now, and for different companies and different products, as you mentioned what are some of the things that you see that, you know, go well, a lot, a lot of business owners, a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of executives that listen to this.
What do you, what do you think some of the highlights are or the things that doesn’t have to be by the way, at Rebtrax, but just in general, does what, what are some of the things that. You know, make it a teamwork versus not like, what have you seen? Yeah, that’s a great question. And I think there’s a few things at play.
One is diversity. And I mean that in so many different ways. So, you know, some of my client service managers are more senior than others. Right, which is okay, because some of the more senior client services managers are going to be more strategic and some of your more junior client services managers are going to be more tactical and you need a little bit of both, right?
You need a healthy balance of both, but even just as I mentioned before, right? Some people come from an email marketing background. Some come from target audience background at an agency. And all of that is. Really important to know as we help these C. P. G. marketers insert these offers into their marketing.
But again, not rev tracks related. It doesn’t have to be that, but it’s still diversity of teams, I think, is always gonna play really well. To whatever your organization is. And then the other layer of that is, you know, success and culture, if you will, start from the top, right from your VPs, your directors, your C suite.
And I think my message to those folks would be as anyone in client services is climbing that corporate ladder. And they’re going for those senior leadership roles. You must, you must, you must consider them, right? Because they’ve always sat at the center of the universe of your business. They’ve been the closest to your client because they are the face and the voice.
Of your organization to the client, and they’ve had to work with every single department within your organization marketing product tech sales. What have you? They are a wealth of knowledge. They are uniquely positioned to understand how businesses work and what it takes to be efficient and keep your clients happy, which is at the end of the day, the 2 most important things about running a business.
Because with, with that, you know, the money will come, the clients will come. And I think that’s like the perfect recipe for success. So whether that CSM wants to be, you know, chief executive officer, the COO, the chief of staff, whatever it is, I think they’re going to. Bring a lot of soft and hard skills that are going to position them very well and drive success for your business.
What kind of advice would you give to? Let’s just say you’ve been working field for for some time. You’re a VP. What would be your advice for . Newer individuals that are maybe just either entering the workplace? age, but just newer to client services.
So maybe someone’s having a career change or something else and they want to go in that direction or that they’re interested in exploring. What kind of advice would you give them? Yeah, that’s a great question. Personally, one of my guiding principles, if you will, is people like working with people People they like, right?
So if you’re going to be in client services, you must be a likable person. If you will, everyone, especially if you want, right? Like, yeah, that’s a good one. Go ahead. Right? Like, if you want clients to continue seeing you as a thought leader in the space and relying on you. And then being able to upsell that client and get them to renew and continue to grow with them into a true partnership, you’ve got to be someone they like working with because they want to be loyal to you because they trust and have confidence in everything that you’re telling them.
Right? So, just make sure that you’re, adapting to different personalities and communicating in ways in which you’re receiving audience needs their information. Set to them because everybody’s different. Right? The way that I communicate with you might be different than the way I communicate with another client per se.
So just figure out what those communication styles are. Gear your communication styles to those people. Be responsive. Be proactive. And ultimately you will be that person that people like working with. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And the way you said it at first, like, be likable, but then when you go deeper, you’re like, oh, yeah, well, there’s more to that.
Right. Right. And here goes a trick question, Samantha. And if you’re not that likable, if you’re not that, how do you change? No, that’s beyond. How do you stay strong though? Cause client, cause when you’re, especially when you’re client client facing or, you know, not, everything’s always, you know, always friendly.
I mean, there’s times when you’re solving real problems. What keeps you motivated? What keeps you strong and going? I think that I realized my niche is client services. Like I said, it doesn’t necessarily matter matter in the vertical or the content, but I really just like working with clients because, you know, I think growing, empowering and leading young client service and customer success professionals is a lot of fun and it’s really rewarding.
And, I think that being able to do that makes the job fun, right? I’m not just servicing clients every day. I’m helping these individuals service clients every day and to watch them grow and to watch our clients grow is just the most rewarding thing for me. Personally, right? Because it also validates the advice that I’m giving to them and the processes that I’ve put in place and the efficiencies that I’ve hope I’ve identified.
But, you know, you’re also right. It’s never perfect. It’s also as rewarding as it is could be very difficult. And I’ve ran into situations before where. Hey, it wasn’t a good mix. That client service manager did not work well with this particular client and so we’ve needed to, you know, it wasn’t a personality fit and that happens and, and you just change the client service manager and , you move the book of business, if you will, around and that’s okay.
That’s actually very positive because you’re also getting a fresh start. Set of eyes and ears on an account who’s going to look at it differently and identify other ways to help that client. So it ends up being all positive in the end. Yeah, I feel like there’s a lot of solutions there and it takes very special people to want to be on the front end of the conversation.
Of helping with some of these things, just like, you know, , different maybe personalities also , for sales people or for other people, like, you know what I mean? Like everybody kind of finds their niche and where they want to be which I think is, is awesome. And it takes all of those different departments to really make a company function anyway.
Right. Absolutely. . And I think, you know, . Your client service folks will help bring those other departments to light, right? Look what’s working well in marketing. Look what’s working well in product because they’re seeing what’s working and not working with the client, what’s resonating and not resonating.
So they can help highlight, you know, all the other folks and all the other departments within an organization who are doing really great work for our clients. And I think, you know, they’re kind of, you know, CS and sales end up being like. Looking like heroes because they’re on that front line, but you have so many unsung heroes who are sitting in the background building the product and service and the one pagers and whatnot.
And so I think it’s always good for those CSMs to give them a shout out and that also helps C suite and leadership understand what’s working and not working. Wonderful. Well, Samantha, this has been a lot of fun having you on the show. I’m glad , we could catch up, get a little bit of a reminiscing on, the conference we both went to, which was now, I believe a couple of weeks ago off the top of my head, at least.
And so good, . I could finally grab you in the show and get you on the show. That being said, if somebody’s listening to this and wants to follow you or learn more about RevTracks or anything else how do they do that? They can search me, Samantha Graw, on LinkedIn. is Always some place that I’m on every day.
So you will, you’ll get a quick response from me there for sure. Awesome. And for everybody listening, just so you know, we’ll put the links to Samantha LinkedIn profile in the show notes. And speaking of the audience, if this is the first time that you’re tuning in.
This is a show that’s all about amplifying missions, really helping people along on their journey and hopefully our audience getting helped along on their journey as well. If that sounds interesting or fun or exciting to you, we welcome you to hit that subscribe button because we have many more mission based individuals coming up and we don’t want you to miss a thing.
And Samantha, again, it has been so much fun. Thanks again for coming on the show. Awesome. Thank you so much. Great talking to you.