At first, I was hesitant to welcome AI into my life, but after being exposed to all the cool things that I can use AI for as a Customer Success Manager, I didn’t want to get left behind! Is it going to take over my job? I’m not too worried. Although the bigger question is, “Can it help me be better or rather more efficient at my job?” The answer is a resounding yes. So, I discovered ways to give my unwanted tasks to my new AI friend and wanted to share some ways you too can work smarter with AI.
Meeting Notes and Recap Summary
Haven’t you always wanted someone else to take notes for you so you could give your undivided attention to the customer? Well, it’s a match made in heaven! Not only will the following AI assistants below transcribe your calls, but they will provide a summary with key points. Be still, my heart.
Otter.ai
Otter AI is an AI assistant that can be integrated into multiple tools (Zoom, Google Meets, Microsoft Teams, etc.) to help you transcribe calls. After your meeting, Otter generates a summary of the call so that you can use it in a recap email to the customer. They also offer flexible plans and the Basic plan for individual users is free.
Fireflies AI
The Fireflies AI app also transcribes meeting notes and seamlessly integrates with other tools. You can have the AI assistant analyze your notes with metrics and tasks and collaborate amongst your team. The app also offers the Basic plan for free, but has limited transcription credits. I was able to transcribe the call with Fred the AI as the Fireflies notetaker and even helped me to generate a few key bullet points to send in my recap email (shown below).
Task List
I’ll be honest, my task list is scattered with scribbles on paper, on my Mac notepad and Gcal blocks. It’s a bit chaotic so bringing some organizational structure to this area is much needed and welcome. I came across two powerful task management AIs that I wanted to share.
Todoist
This tool offers recurring tasks with priorities and filters across devices. No more scribbled paper with checklists and Gcal reminder blocks. You can also invite collaborators and view metrics on how you’re doing against your goals.
Taskade
Spreadsheets!
I feel that I have a love-hate relationship with Excel. Love it when it works and well then it just gets complicated, especially when trying to figure out formulas between Excel and Google Sheets. However, NumerousAI is changing that. It helps you intelligently fill out data in your spreadsheet based on the command that you input. For example, let’s say a customer gave you only part of the address without the State (yes, this has happened to me before!), I was able to input the prompt =AI(“What is the abbreviated state”, B2, “of the address”) into Google sheets and voila! A little bit of AI magic helped save me some time and headache.
ContactOut
I’ve run across many occasions where I’ve had to hunt down a customer’s number that wasn’t readily available. The ContactOut Chrome extension allows you to find anyone’s email or phone number that is connected to their LinkedIn account. The basic plan is free and offers you an allotted amount of lookups. I would keep this one handy!
Am I the only one who doesn’t follow Bill Gates?
Job Search for Customer Success Managers
If you’re in the midst of a job search, then there are a number of ways that AI can help. We all know that job searching sometimes feels like another job! With AI, you’ll find ways to not only streamline your search, but create efficiencies to save you some time in the process.
ChatGPT and Plugin
As you scour different search engines to get the job you want, you can streamline your search using a ChatGPT plugin called Ambition, which combs through multiple sites with a prompt of what you’re looking for such as “Search for all Customer Success Manager jobs in San Francisco.” Now, this does require an upgrade to a paid subscription that allows plugins ($20/month). Zain Kahn from Superhuman gives a great tutorial for ChatGPT using the Ambition plugin.
However, one traditional way to use ChatGPT is to have it help you write cover letters, intro messages on LinkedIn for networking or thank you emails. If you haven’t done this before, you just need to enter a prescriptive prompt into ChatGPT and tell it actually what you want (you can even be specific about the tone).
I used the following prompt, “Write a 3 sentence intro for a LinkedIn message to the Director of Customer Success” as seen on Workhap.
Job Interview Coaching
Well who doesn’t need a Job Interview Coach? To have someone walk you through a mock interview is a game changer. Better yet, having an AI assistant generate recommendations by analyzing your speech and body language patterns sounds even better! The Free Starter option gives you one free coaching session, which I think is a pretty good deal considering how much real life coaching sessions cost.
I will say that I haven’t researched the hundreds of AI tools that are available, but the above are the most commonly mentioned AI tools that have been referenced by many thought leaders so I thought I’d give them a try. I hope you can adopt them into your daily life to make things more simplified. If you come across any others that are game changers, please drop me a line. I’d love to explore other use cases.
Lastly, with great power, comes great responsibility so be sure to use your newfound AI powers wisely.
