A day with Client Success Manager Adam Lundkvist

You have actually been here for 6 months now so we can start by saying congratulations on just finishing your probationary period!

Thank you, thank you very much!

How does it feel? Have you become comfortable in your role?

It feels fantastic, it’s great fun really! I feel that I have developed a lot, especially compared to who I was six months ago. Of course, my self-confidence is completely different, it has become much better, but then also my knowledge of the products and our services.

What fun! But let’s start from the beginning, CSM is short for Client Success Manager, can you describe the job role, what are your tasks?

Good question, as I see it I do many different things. I’m part business developer, part project manager and also someone who holds the client’s hand and helps with my knowledge. You are a contact person and you make suggestions. You are also involved in the entire customer journey, from a lead making an initial contact to them choosing to work and collaborate with us to us starting the project, building their website and it being completed and going live. Plus, they continue to give us tips on how we can continue to develop it.

It’s very fun and more rewarding compared to when I worked as a salesperson before and then it was very:

-Hey, do you want to buy this ad space.

-Sure, absolutely. And then you sign a contract and you never hear from them again.

This is much, much more fun. It’s much more about building relationships and that this is someone I want to work with. You want to build a real relationship and not just be a superficial contact.

What are the benefits and the big difference of being a Client Success Manager instead of an Account Manager?

Not getting this ringing of the bell and just getting the sale versus getting to follow the whole journey maybe and get to build relationships.

What has been the most fun project you have worked on?

All projects are fun and unique, but Filterteknik stands out extra much as it often requires other types of solutions because it is created in Laravel which makes it completely custom. This also means that you have a closer relationship with the client because many of the challenges require close collaboration between us and the client.

What did you do before becoming a Client Success Manager?

I studied Marketing Management, Bachelor’s programme in Jönköping and have worked a lot with marketing. I had a very vague title but would call it some kind of marketing coordinator. It was at a small company in Söderköping called Vallonmässing that makes candlesticks and the like. It was a craft company that I came into when they were just about to invest in building their own website. So I got to be involved in building a Wordpress site from scratch and I got to familiarise myself with it without knowing anything about it.

That sounds like a lot of fun!

Yes, it was very fun. It’s a small company and it’s actually my friend who runs it so I sat at night and built this site just because it was fun and you wanted to get it done. It was fun that I got to run my own project, stand at fairs and work with it a little bit.

Then I worked at Östgötateatern in the marketing department and then there was a pandemic and then people didn’t want to go to the theatre anymore, so then I became a maths teacher at the Komvux.

What kind of maths teacher were you? So you’re great at maths?

Well, it was at Komvux, so it’s at upper secondary level for adults and almost everyone was newly arrived so you had to adapt the language a bit. It was special, I’m no expert in maths but it was okay.

It was a little detour there, but that’s the last thing you did before you ended up here at Angry?

Yes, actually, it was just a summer job, you could say, it was from May to September.

But how did you end up here at Angry?

I was looking for a job… But since I studied Marketing Management, I’ve felt that I want to work with something more in the tech direction. That was my first idea, I remember, when I finished the degree, that I should complement it with something more technical. Because I’ve always been fascinated by the web agency world.

I had a bit of an eye on Angry Creative, I had seen and heard of them before. I think I went on their website and checked to see if they were looking for someone new.

Then I had a meeting with Samuel where they explained the role a bit more and I thought:

“***this sounds great”

It sounds exactly like what I’ve wanted to do all along, it really sounded perfect for me, great fun!

What fun! What makes you a good Client Success Manager and what drives you to go the extra mile for the customer?

I love to see the client grow and develop with our help. If I’m discussing something with a client and I think this would be cool or if the client has an idea, I find it exciting and I want to learn more about it. By learning about it, I can in turn then recommend it to other customers.

So there is a constant exchange of knowledge

Yes, exactly, most of the time. I like this thirst for knowledge and that it’s fun to learn new things and it feels like it never ends. It feels like it’s impossible to learn everything.

What does a typical day look like for you Adam, do you have any routines that happen every day? Is there anything that motivates you a little extra?

I commute, I live in Linköping so I usually take the train here to the office in Norrköping. I try to get away fairly early so that I’m here reasonably. Then I come here and can get started to have a little head start on the day.

Then there’s a morning meeting with the team, the commercial team and my unit. Often there are many customer meetings, many internal meetings, a mixture of meetings with potential customers or meetings with someone who has been a customer for several years, so it’s very varied. For example, I just had a meeting with a lead and there you had to consider that they were not so familiar with how everything works and therefore take everything in large simpler strokes.

After a long day packed with all these meetings, what do you do to unwind when you get home? Do you have any hobbies?

It depends, now in winter you are boring because then I watch a lot of Netflix. I’m actually going to be a dad in April so there’s a lot going on now, there’s a lot to fix and assemble like screwing together a crib and so on.

A lot of preparation, we guess, with shopping and fixing before the new addition comes?

Yes a lot of baby stuff. Yes, it will be a bit that life circles around it right now, but otherwise in the summer there may be some tennis sometimes, hanging out with friends, badminton, paddle and a lot of racket sports actually.

Angry Creative is remote first, but you are often in the office, we see you here every day. What do you see as the advantages of being able to choose and actually have a remote first job?

But that it’s flexible. I really like being in the office and it was very important to be able to be there when I just started, at least the first time to be able to bounce things and ideas with colleagues and especially be able to ask questions.

But it’s really nice to have the option, to be able to work remotely, to be able to work from anywhere, and of course sometimes it’s nice not to have to commute. No, but I worked from home all January, but that was because of the pandemic, because we were not allowed to be in the office. They recommended that we shouldn’t and that was good.

You still like the routine, but given the choice, do you prefer the office?

Yes, actually. Then it’s a bit that because my girlfriend works from home a lot, and we don’t have a lot of space at home, I prefer to be in the office. All January I sat at the kitchen table at home and it was not very fun, but it worked very well because Angry is a remote first company.

Last question, what would you say is unique or different about working at Angry Creative?

A lot of personal responsibility, that you are encouraged to develop and learn more, and that there is a very helpful atmosphere, I would say. You are encouraged to ask a lot of questions and it may sound a bit cliché but I really get the feeling that they want you to succeed. Because it benefits everyone and then also, even if they want you to do well, they’re very keen that you don’t work too much. If there are a lot of hours in a week, you can take a day off and that’s where the flex comes in so it’s very good. It’s a good way of keeping an eye on those of us who work here, that oh, he’s worked 50 hours this week, maybe we should encourage this person to take it easy.

I’ve never been in an agency job where you register the hours in this way. But then it becomes very clear because it really feels that they genuinely care about the employees and that you shouldn’t work yourself to death, but you should of course do well when you’re here. They care about your well-being, both mentally and physically. It’s really something I haven’t experienced before, that they think a lot about the staff.

That sounds very positive! We have felt that too, that the energy at Angry is very good and open to everyone.

And transparency too, people like that! You are informed about everything and everyone talks to everyone. Like in one of my previous workplaces, you hardly talked to your boss.

I can really say that you’re encouraged, you’re in touch, you have a lot of meetings and there’s a good atmosphere. There is a good atmosphere in all Slack channels (our communication tool), people help each other and talk to each other a lot.

Thank you for this chat, Adam, and we wish you all the best in your future role as a father!