[aworks]

I'm a retired software manager. Email was inherent to the job as the primary way to communicate with people in far-flung countries. I'm guessing I spent 20% of my time in my inbox. Unfortunately, it wasn't in consecutive, large blocks but minutes of time interspersed with meetings, reading, etc. I tried and failed to read email only in larger sessions (although I did sit next to a manager on a plane once who plowed through their email in a single 3-hour session).

When I retired, it took me several years to refine my email use. I finally figured out Google inbox with Primary, Update, etc. tabs were my friend. I had to give up the habit of treating each email with intent. Maybe 1% require a thoughtful response, 10% are worth reading and the rest can be ignored. That was not true for work email, though.

[xp84]

I’m a software manager at present - honestly I just ignore email. I do get some emails from customers, but they’re supposed to be communicating through proper channels so their customer success managers need to at minimum be on cc. So if anything is important people can Slack me (including to say “check your email for…”), and if there’s an action needed, I’ll click the little bookmark to add the message to the “Later” section till the issue has been addressed. I won’t in any way claim that I’m well organized, but I am proud that I don’t need to spend more than 20 minutes a week on email, because I hate email.

[dxdm]

> customer success manager

These words are so funny and so sad at the same time.

Sorry for going off on a tangent, but seeing them used together unironically always has a fingernails-on-chalkboard effect on me.

I know you didn't invent them, it's probably what that role really is called where you work. I've worked there, too, in places that have a "customer success" team.

It doesn't have to be universal, but at least in my experience, in places that use these names, customers aren't successful, at least not by conscious design and effort, and their "success manager" ain't no manager, either.

It's one of these icky corporate euphemisms that make everything around them a little sadder. But it's also a bit fun, because of the immense silliness.

Alright, off-topic rant over.

[xp84]

Our CSMs honestly are some of the hardest working and sweetest people I know. They take a sooo much guff from customers, and yet all they can actually do is lobby the product group to plead the case for what their customers are asking for (or beg for someone like me to figure out some weird bug/bad data etc.)

[dxdm]

Absolutely, customer support are usually quite busy between a rock and a hard place, without much power to affect change. But, hey, slap a "success" and "manager" label on, and everything is automatically better, isn't it? That's what I mean.

[xp84]

Oh I see you’re welcome hat you were getting at. In a SaaS company, at least the kind I know, those are two very separate functions. CSMs are assigned accounts, and they proactively meet with you monthly or at some appropriate cadence to make sure you’re using the software well and don’t have any concerns. The idea being that if you are using it unsuccessfully, you’re more likely to just not renew your contract. They are evaluated on whether their accounts renew vs. churn.

Support are a separate group, they answer emails to support@, open tickets to investigate, etc. They do communicate with your CSM to tip them off if you’re having a hard time.

[king_phil]

You basically reinvented e-mail in slack

[xp84]

Slack doesn’t have spam coming from outside my company, and any “apps” that “helpfully” bother me can be silenced easily. Contrast this with email where the inbox fills with useless nonsense constantly.

“An unrecognized device signed into…”

“Upcoming birthdays on your team” (not making this up - Lattice sent this today)

Even slack sends me email spam to tell me about messages that are waiting for me in slack. LOL.