Overview
You own retention and growth for a portfolio of SMB accounts using Boulevard's scheduling, payments, and marketing platform. Your customers are salon owners, medspa operators, and spa managers who bought the software to run their business but often need help using it effectively. You're measured on churn, expansion revenue, and product adoption metrics.
Role Snapshot
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Role Type | Retention + Expansion CSM |
| Sales Motion | Inbound expansion opportunities, some proactive outreach |
| Deal Complexity | Transactional to Consultative |
| Sales Cycle | 2-4 weeks for upsells |
| Deal Size | $500-$3K expansion MRR per account |
| Quota (est.) | $30-50K expansion MRR/quarter, <5% churn |
Company Context
Stage: Growth stage (542 employees, established product)
Size: 542 employees
Growth: Actively hiring across Customer Experience team
Market Position: Established player in appointment-based self-care vertical software
GTM Reality
Pipeline Sources:
- 70% Reactive - customers reaching out with questions, issues, or asking about features they see in the product
- 20% Proactive - you identify low product adoption and reach out with training/upsell opportunities
- 10% Internal referrals - support tickets flagged for expansion, product usage data triggers
Account Structure: You likely own 100-150 SMB accounts (smaller salons/spas with 1-5 locations)
Support Model: Shared support team handles technical issues, you handle strategic relationship and growth
Competitive Landscape
Main Competitors: Likely competing with Vagaro, Booker, Mindbody, Square Appointments
How They Differentiate: All-in-one platform vs point solutions, focused on self-care vertical
Common Objections: "Too expensive for my size", "I don't use half the features", "My staff won't learn new software"
Win Themes: Ease of use, industry-specific features, client experience focus
What You'll Actually Do
Time Breakdown
Reactive Support (35%) | Account Reviews (25%) | Expansion (20%) | Internal (20%)
Key Activities
- Triage customer issues: Field calls and emails from salon owners who can't figure out how to do something, staff who locked themselves out, or complaints about payment processing. You route technical issues to support but handle "how do I use this" conversations yourself.
- Quarterly Business Reviews: Schedule and run 30-45 minute calls with accounts to review their usage data, show them features they're not using, and identify growth opportunities. Getting busy salon owners on the phone is harder than you'd think.
- Upsell conversations: When you spot an account using basic features but could benefit from marketing automation, loyalty programs, or additional locations, you pitch the upgrade. This involves building a business case for a salon owner who's watching every dollar.
- Adoption campaigns: Run email campaigns and 1:many webinars to drive feature adoption across your book. Create training resources. Track who shows up (spoiler: not many).
The Honest Reality
What's Hard
- Your customers are busy running their businesses - they don't have time for training calls or QBRs. You'll reschedule meetings constantly and play phone tag with people working on the salon floor.
- SMB churn is high for reasons outside your control: businesses close, owners sell, they can't afford the software when revenue dips. You'll have accounts you've invested time in just disappear.
- Getting people to adopt features they're paying for is like pulling teeth. Most customers use 30% of the platform and don't see the need to learn more.
- Expansion deals are small ($500-$2K/month) so you need a lot of them to hit quota. Each one still requires discovery, business case, contract negotiation.
- You're stuck between product limitations (things customers want that don't exist) and customer expectations ("but I thought this would do X").
What Success Looks Like
- Keep churn under 5% monthly in your book
- Generate $40-50K in expansion MRR per quarter from upsells and cross-sells
- Maintain high NPS scores (80+) across your accounts
- Get 60%+ of accounts actively using core features (scheduling, payments, marketing)
Who You're Selling To
Primary Buyers:
- Salon/spa owners (typically the original buyer, making decisions on budget)
- Operations managers (at multi-location accounts, care about efficiency)
What They Care About:
- Can their staff actually use this without constant training?
- Is it saving them time vs their old system?
- Are they filling more appointments and reducing no-shows?
- What's the ROI - does spending $X/month generate more revenue?
- How quickly can they get help when something breaks?
Requirements
- 2-4 years in customer success, account management, or sales (preferably SMB)
- Experience managing 80+ accounts simultaneously with metrics accountability
- Comfortable having retention and upsell conversations with small business owners
- Ability to explain software features in simple terms to non-technical users
- Track record of hitting retention and expansion targets
- Patient with customers who are learning software while running a busy business
- Bonus: Experience with SMB customers, SaaS platforms, or service-based businesses