What is Customer Success Management anyway?
Kaleja: Basically speaking, customer success management, or CSM, is a proactive approach to existing customer management. This means that we actively approach existing customers and partners during the course of a customer journey.
What is the advantage of a proactive approach?
Kaleja: The aim of such an approach and of CSM in general is to build an optimal partner and customer relationship. It is also important to develop an understanding of the needs of the customer and the partners, and thus maximize customer satisfaction.
Does CSM also aim to turn customers into bigger customers?
Kaleja: Simply put, satisfied customers buy more.
Let’s move on to your work at NoSpamProxy. What does our CSM look like?
Kaleja: For us, it’s always about ensuring customer success and satisfaction, and satisfaction works by creating an optimal journey from onboarding to renewal. The theory is, of course, that a satisfied customer stays.
The learnings about our product are also very important. We want to further develop NoSpamProxy in a customer-oriented way, and customer feedback gives us very good insights into what customers want. This benefits existing customers, but above all directly benefits new customers.
In concrete terms: If I test NoSpamProxy Cloud, how will I be supported?
Kaleja: A potential customer usually goes through a free 30-day test phase, which we accompany and during which we provide advice and support: understanding the product, making the added value for the company clear, clarifying initial questions and so on.
And afterwards, when the customer has purchased?
Kaleja: We get in touch after a certain period of time to see whether the implementation phase was satisfactory. We use surveys for this purpose, for example. We are in contact at certain intervals during the first few months. During this phase, we also repeatedly ask for tips and requests. We also ask directly about things that may lead or have led to dissatisfaction. We then not only provide support, but also take these issues away with us as lessons learned.
In summary, we are in regular contact with the customers and partners throughout the entire period to see how the customer is doing, how things are developing and, above all, whether there is still some catching up to do.
What does that look like for partners?
Kaleja: We have a channel-first strategy at NoSpamProxy. This means that we naturally also talk to our partners – and will expand this significantly in the future.
Above all, it is important to find out how satisfied users are so that we can continue to develop NoSpamProxy in a customer-oriented and user-oriented way. This will enable us to make NoSpamProxy even more attractive for our partners. In my opinion, the more customer-oriented the product, the better it is to sell.
Our partners benefit directly from our CSM work, as they receive a reflection of our analyses, the processed conversations, information and so on. At the same time, we also receive direct feedback from the partner’s perspective and ultimately create a win-win-win situation (end customer – partner – NoSpamProxy).
How do we measure and improve customer satisfaction?
Kaleja: You can only achieve a high level of customer satisfaction after a purchase if the customer has no doubts about their investment. There is a lot of psychology involved, because the customer has usually spent a lot of money and is therefore also worried about whether they might have made the wrong decision.
Problems that arise early on can quickly lead to frustration. To counteract this, we want to quickly show the customer a clear return on investment (ROI), for example through a significant reduction in spam, less administration compared to the previous product or better handling.
For us, it is also about recognizing and addressing risks such as a decline in usage at an early stage. Quick responses to support requests and a proactive approach to the customer create trust and long-term satisfaction.
Proactive work towards the customer is incredibly important because the customer quickly realizes that we have them in mind and that we care.
We use a health score for certain customer segments to systematically record the condition and satisfaction of customers. This score is based on specific questions on various aspects such as communication, support quality and general experience.
What are typical difficulties with customers?
Kaleja: First of all, there are the product-related challenges, for example when customers receive too much spam or too many emails are blocked. This is usually caused by a misconfiguration. We always ask individually what exactly “the product is not working” means for the customer. This is the only way we can provide targeted help.
Problems can often be solved through configuration adjustments, health checks or regular system checks. It can also happen that customers are not aware of new functions after updates – in this case, it is important to provide information, i.e. in the blog, in the forum, in the newsletter or through personal contact.
There are also communication challenges. Especially when a company is growing rapidly, it can unfortunately happen that long-standing existing customers feel a little overlooked. We therefore rely on structured communication and clear responsibilities. We supplement the “hands-on mentality” we used to have with professional communication processes in order to provide all customers with reliable support.
You just mentioned that you want to improve NoSpamProxy in a customer-oriented way. How does that work?
Kaleja: That is absolutely essential. Customer feedback, even from customers who have left, tells us whether cancellations are due to financial, technical or communicative reasons. The main question is whether customers have left because they thought the product was bad or because they didn’t feel adequately supported. Or simply because times are difficult and companies have to make savings.
Obtaining such information is difficult, especially with customers who have left, but it is crucial for analysis and further development. And this is precisely where CSM is so important, because we want to avoid cancellations by identifying and dealing with customer problems at an early stage.
Experience shows that customers often take stock after 6 months. If the benefits are unclear by then, there is a risk that they will leave. It is therefore important to be in proactive, continuous and personal contact with customers in order to identify problems before they become critical.
Further developing the product based on constant feedback is, as I said at the beginning, essential. Anyone who does not think and listen to customers today is not thinking in line with the times.
What is the CSM at NoSpamProxy all about?
Kaleja: Important keywords for us in CSM are: Reliability, trust, approachability. Our customers should feel that they have reliable contacts from whom they can get reliable answers.
It is important to us to be an approachable manufacturer, where people talk to people, where people are honest with each other and achieve goals together.
This applies not only to the CSM, but to the entire NoSpamProxy team.
Does the CSM also work together with Development and Product Management?
Kaleja: Definitely. There is a regular exchange between CSM and our product management, in which customer feedback is passed on in a structured and prepared form. This enables us to collect, analyze and prioritize feedback from different customer groups. Two key customer topics have thus found their way into the Roadmap 2025. CSM, along with other interfaces, is definitely an important link between the customer and development in order to drive forward product improvements in a targeted, customer-oriented manner.
Tim, thank you very much for the interview and the interesting insights.
Kaleja: Always a pleasure.
The interview was conducted by Stefan Feist.
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