Customer success at Dataiku is about companies achieving positive business outcomes through their engagement and interaction with our product, and the customer success team does this by interacting regularly with and understanding each individual enterprise to help work together toward their goals. We want to highlight the incredible work of Dataiku’s Customer Success team and show what role they play in the day-to-day data science efforts of our customers.
Dataiku Customer Success Managers are experienced liaisons between business leaders and data teams. Melissa Capece, Customer Success Manager, says that “everyone has a mixed background somewhere between technology and business.” There’s a diverse group of skills on the team, which are leveraged to suit each client’s needs. Ulysses David, Customer Success Manager, adds how this diversity is a strength for the team and our customers: “We have people from various backgrounds that moved into it, from business, tech, sales, and consulting. It’s like being a data scientist, it requires a little bit of everything.”
Customer success managers have seen it all and can offer prudent advice to data leaders at different levels of maturity. They’ve experienced the challenges of a data team manager training their teams on new languages and gaining buy-in from stakeholders. They’ve also helped guide organizations through successful data transformation and long-term strategy. Ulysses explains that "we try to understand where the customer has been and where they are going, to help bring in the right resources from Dataiku to be successful on this journey. It doesn't happen all the time, to be honest, but to get to that level of comfort with the customer, or for the customer to open up about these kinds of things, it takes a lot of work." It may take a lot of time, but a true data partnership has a significant impact on customer organizations.
Data scientists and customer success managers on a site visit in India.
The goal of Customer Success is to help customers grow their business and expand their data capabilities. At a time when data scientists are at a premium, the Customer Success team offers continuing education that aligns with the specific business goals of the organization. From regular office visits to educational sessions with data scientists, support comes in many forms. Ulysses highlights his goals, “We don’t want to be just a product or a one-time solution. We really want to be our customers’ strategic partners and make sure that we’re both finding value and growing.”
The Customer Success Team conducts info sessions, demos, and lunch & learns.
The Customer Success team works very closely with the Data Science and Research & Development teams. It’s really an all-hands-on-deck effort. Ulysses describes himself as a “quarterback for Dataiku resources.” When a customer is really comfortable and open with the Customer Success team, the team gains insight that can inform the specific functionality the customer might need next in their data transformation, and then the development team can work to create it.
Patrick Masi-Phelps, Dataiku Data Scientist, explains that “typically we’ll have one or two data scientists per customer, and we might mix and match based on areas of expertise, but usually it’s like once you’ve formed this customer relationship, you’re with them for all of it.” This way data scientists can develop deep familiarity with the customer’s needs, and this holds with R&D as well. Melissa finds her role pretty contiguous with R&D, “I serve as an advocate for the client internally. I make sure that the R&D and Product teams are aware of all the client’s feature requests or any issues they’re having.”
Technical support may come in the form of demos or lunch & learn sessions with users, or it may come in the form of plugins and macros for custom processes from our Data Science team. Patrick spends a lot of his time working with Customer Success to understand customer needs and customize solutions. He explains how the data science team can even offer robust technical support:
"Some projects are more elaborate, in that the client will have a specific use case, like ‘we want to predict X, can you help us improve our model?’ So then we’ll spend time getting to understand the data and the use case and then going the next step of hands on the keyboard, improving the model."
The more the client engages with the Customer Success team, the more the team and product can adapt to suit their unique business needs.Our current customers are really impressed with the quality of service that Dataiku brings to bear. You don’t need to take our word for it. As of November 21, 2018, Dataiku has a User Experience rating of 4.8 out of 5 in the Data Science and Machine Learning Platform market, based on 64 reviews on Gartner Peer Insights.
A CDO in the finance industry stated that “We had just a few minor issues, but they were promptly resolved with tech support. We are also happy with additional services, such as training for the platform usage. It adds to the overall value we get from the platform.” A capability center manager in the manufacturing industry stated that:
"Dataiku has worked closely with and enabled us to go further faster on our journey towards becoming a more data science driven organization. The platform has allowed us to democratize data science and allow senior data scientists to easily collaborate with analysts. We have started to leverage the automation capabilities that Dataiku offers to drive the benefits of data science further into the business. They have also provided excellent support, training and troubleshooting and truly gotten underneath our specific use cases."
But the Customer Success team isn’t satisfied with praise; they want to ensure the stability of changes. “It’s very easy to say things are going well, but unless it’s quantifiable, you don’t really know,” Ulysses explains. “That’s a big focus for us, to help customers actually quantify what success looks like for them.” This is the real reason Customer Success Managers do what they do, to help customers take their data processes to the next level.
Melissa adds that “one of the best parts of being in the Customer Success role is seeing our tool in the wild. We can market it and talk about how it’s good for all profiles, but it’s great to actually see a customer turn around and save time, doing something that used to take them two weeks in a couple of hours with our platform. That’s really fun to watch.”
The Customer Success team exemplifies the collaborative spirit at the heart of data science by putting it into practice every day. Brian Power, VP of Customer Success, knows that the Customer Success team is part of the broader Dataiku culture and efforts:“Customer Success at Dataiku is a team sport. Many talented teammates across Dataiku work closely with customers to help them deliver business value to their stakeholders. We work with leading companies across the globe and take pride in helping customers benefit from all the resources and experience that the team can provide.”
Our customers are not alone in their data transformation, because the Customer Success team has got their back every step of the way. You can read the full reviews on Gartner Peer Insights here.
Gartner Disclaimer: Gartner Peer Insights reviews constitute the subjective opinions of individual end-users based on their own experiences, and do not represent the views of Gartner or its affiliates.