Women in Customer Success Podcast

129 - Building Relationships in PR and Customer Success - Pragya Dubey

• Marija Skobe-Pilley • Episode 129

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Pragya Dubey, Vice President of Global Services at Agility PR Solutions is my guest in this episode of the Women in Customer Success podcast.

She talks about her career in public relations and customer success. With nearly two decades of experience, she shares insights on how the PR landscape has evolved, especially in the age of social media and the challenges that come with it.

She is a leader in customer success, focused on building strong partnerships that help both the business and the clients succeed. She makes sure that people, processes, and business goals all work together smoothly. By building great relationships with clients, leading a motivated team, and focusing on long-term growth, she’s built a track record of success. Her approach ensures that both the company and its clients see real and lasting benefits.

In this episode, we also talk about:

  • Evolution of public relations (PR)
  • Challenges in modern PR
  • Advice for PR professionals
  • The role of a VP in Global Services
  • Building relationships with clients
  • Principles of customer success
  • How to do PR for yourself


Hit play and learn from Pragya’s experience. Whether you're in PR, customer success, or just looking for inspiration, this episode has something for you. Don’t miss it!

Follow Pragya!

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About Women in Customer Success Podcast:

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Host Marija Skobe-Pilley


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Speaker 1:

What do you think? How important is deep industry expertise versus knowledge of customer success methodologies for you to be doing a great job? In today's episode, I'm talking to Pragya Dubey, a PR expert and a VP of Global Solutions at Agility PR Solutions, and in this episode, you will learn about developing industry skills and recognizing skill gaps that you may have in customer success, trends and evolution of PR industry, and parallels between leading public relations and customer success departments. Let's tune in. Hi everyone, this is Maria Scobepile and you're listening to Women in Customer Success podcast, the first women-only podcast where remarkable ladies of customer success share their stories and practical tools to help you succeed and make an impact. If you want to learn more about customer success, get career advice and be inspired, you're in the right place, so let's tune in.

Speaker 2:

Welcome back to the new episode of Women in Customer Success podcast. Today, it's my pleasure to introduce you to Pragya Dubey, Vice President of Global Services at Agility PR Solutions. Pragya, welcome to the show.

Speaker 3:

Thank you so much, maria, and such a pleasure to be here and chatting with you today, so thank you for having me over.

Speaker 2:

So Pragya very much. In short, what would you like listeners to take out of this episode? What's on the top of your mind that you would like to share with them?

Speaker 3:

I think I've had a really long and, I would like to say, successful career in customer success, so I'm hoping, through our conversations, in both a lighthearted and fun way, I'm able to share some key insights that I have learned and that I focus on being part of the customer success space or customer success industry.

Speaker 2:

I can't wait to dig deeper into it. So let's start with some warm-up questions. Pragya, if you would like to tell us where are you calling?

Speaker 3:

from. So I'm based in Ottawa, canada, and I have been in Ottawa for the last almost 20 years almost there and I'm originally from India. I grew up in Delhi and Mumbai and that's where, in Mumbai, I started my career in public relations industry. So I started with a PR agency and, after having worked a few years there, once I moved to Canada, again continued to work with a public relations agency but then eventually got this great opportunity with Agility PR Solutions, which was a startup at that time and a SaaS company which makes software for public relations professionals. So it's been an interesting fact to customer success for me, and here I am talking to you virtually from Ottawa. It's interesting.

Speaker 2:

So you have been in PR for a long time and you basically kept yourself within the industry. Well, there are so many interesting things we can speak about there. How have you seen that the PR has changed in the last 20 years, especially given the era of social media and influencers and how everybody are almost their own PR department in a way for many individuals, and still there is such a prominent role of PR within the companies? What have been some of your main observations about PR in the last few decades since you've been in the industry?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, oh, my God, so many. You probably need a whole session to talk about that, but I probably say two things. First, I just want to say how just the times have changed, right. So I started my career in public relations pre-internet days almost. Oh, yes, yes. So when we used to send, say, for example, a press release to a journalist, I used to sit in front of a fax machine and fax that release one by one, by one. Or if it was a really important press release or a big announcement, I would go to personally go and hand, deliberate and have the chat with a journalist, which was great because it created a lot of close relationships with the journalist. Close relationships with the journalist, which fast forward two decades. I would say is the biggest challenge right now how to create those connections with the journalist, because a journalist today gets bombarded with more than 100 press releases or even way more, you know, emails every day. So how do you effectively get that attention from that journalist for your story? So that I think the sheer volume of interactions with a journalist has increased tremendously, making it a huge challenge for the PR professionals.

Speaker 3:

And the other aspect the way PR has changed is again when I started, it used to be much more localized. Pr has changed is again. When I started, it used to be much more localized. So you would be PR in your city, you would contact the journalists in your city. But now, with social media, and even when it is traditional media, you could be based anywhere in the world. But you know managing global campaigns or national campaigns, so you need to be able to outreach, and so, therefore, you must have a PR software. You can no longer do things manually just by yourself. The sheer volume of information that is out there that needs to be connected for you, as well as all the tools that you need to do an effectively and efficiently a job. It's a whole another ball game now than what it was even a few years ago it's just so interesting.

Speaker 2:

When you said, oh, when you started, it was like fucks. It's incredible to see how the world's changed and how, like as you said, the volume and the speed right Now. Obviously you don't use facts Everything is happening in less than a second with clicks, just on top of your mind. I know this is not on our kind of main team, but it is so interesting.

Speaker 2:

What would be some of your advice for people who are looking to get more PR opportunities? Like, should they start building some relationship with some of the journalists or people, in particular people in the media, to get their stories out? Or should they be following things such as what's the name SourceBottle or one of those kind of crowdsourced PR? What's the name source bottle? Or one of those kind of crowdsource PR agencies at all, like where everybody has kind of the access of understanding what is on top of mind of journalists, what are they looking for? Like, what would you advise to, let's say, individuals, how to put their kind of press release out there and I'm not even talking about the companies, because obviously you'll touch upon it. That's what you're doing on your day job but for individuals, what is the role that they should be taking?

Speaker 3:

I think, first of all, you definitely need a software, is what I would say. I know it sounds like I'm as if I'm pitching for my product, but the industry, but the space, requires you to drive your work in a much more structured way. So even to a question about how could people enter the space or how could people join being part of the PR industry, there used to be a time where it would be like it's all about people, it's all about communication, and somebody who's a smooth talker or confident to approach people is the right candidate. Not so more Every field and I think that's kind of true for our customer success as well. Right, and I think we still have a journey to make there, where the impression is, if you're good to talk, if you have good communication skills, that is all that is needed. But the space has become so much more intense but also technical these days, so you need to have the right knowledge, the right skills and the right practices to be able to succeed as a public relations professional. So if you're entering this space, I think coming from the right educational background, so having some sort of a PR or a journalism course, definitely is what the industry looks for. But if you're an individual practitioner and you're trying to get your press release out there depending on the scope, whether it is a local or global you again need some sort of professional guidance and expertise and make that happen.

Speaker 3:

So, whether it is through a PR platform or whether it is, you know you already have built and have a system of journalist contacts that you can utilize. But even if you have any excellent journalist contacts, an excellent journalist contact is a given. That's the goal, that's the currency for PR people who still need a supporting infrastructure and system that can make everything come together for you. You can no longer just be like having your final facts or I don't know if people even understand that. I don't know anymore. You think that you can just that for anyone. So how, like you think that you can just keep everything in your hand or, you know, manage everything with just Google? You cannot. So that would be the biggest mistake. Anybody would do that, thinking they could get by in business.

Speaker 2:

Well, that's an excellent advice and also it showcases, I mean, the value of vertical stuff and vertical different industries and how, no matter what you're doing at the moment, there is an app for it, there is a software and we all need to be able to follow those trends in order to achieve anything. So now I'm interested what was your background Like? How was it related to PR? And I want to understand more. How did you enter customer success from here? Simply because you have been here most of your career?

Speaker 3:

yeah, so I my bachelor's, I did in physics and then I did yeah, but I think I it actually, though I'm not doing anything scientific per se, but it does give me a very good foundation of logical thinking, analysis, looking at data, a lot, which comes in handy both on the PR and media measurement side and gives me a lot of expertise and helped me build a lot of my expertise in that sector. And helped me build a lot of my expertise in that sector how I came into customer success. I didn't think I'm coming into customer success when I joined Agility. That then became SaaS was also not the buzzword, so I just thought it was another company that is catering to public relations professionals through a product service that they have.

Speaker 3:

So for the longest of the time, even working with Agility doing the work that I'm doing, I always thought of myself as a PR expert, as a guide and advisor to my clients.

Speaker 3:

I always approached my work in terms of you know what is this person's, this client's or this customer's day looks like, what are the outcomes they are looking for, and how can we, using agility, help them achieve that faster and better, more effective?

Speaker 3:

So it's only in the last few years and I would say like three, four years, not even like, not of last few years, when I started, when customer success started emerging more as a topic, as a theme, and now it's one of the top 10 growing professions in the world, and North America especially. Then I, for me, I took a look back and say, hey, I'm in customer success actually, because that's what I'm doing, day in and day out, trying to bring value and success for our customers, for our clients. So for me it was almost like I didn't even know I am in customer success until very recently, but everything that we were doing in spirit was on customer success. But it's nice to actually have now that framework, and the way I approach it now is very different than a few years ago when I was just seeing myself as a guide and an advisor to the clients, though, as a customer success, that's the ultimate place you want to be with your clients, where they see you as an advisor, as a guide, helping them achieve their objectives.

Speaker 2:

So you could consider yourself, obviously, as an industry expert. You are a PR expert. That's what you've been doing always, and then it just appeared that now that type of role you've been assuming is simply called customer success. But you've been doing it forever.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, been assuming is simply called customer success, but you've been doing it forever. Yeah, yeah, I would actually ask you, maria, like you have so much experience on customer success and you're being part of the space for so long, how critical do you think is knowing the industry to being a good customer, a csm, a good csm?

Speaker 2:

I might have changed my opinions about it throughout the years, probably for personal reasons. I was coming from music and my background started like my business experience started in project management. So I never had like a business experience or any kind of expertise in that way. So I always felt that as soon as I started as a CSM I felt a little bit of imposter syndrome and I decided that I need to compensate for that education by doing all sorts of certifications and trainings in customer success, and I'm glad I did and I would say yes, for one hand it's important, but there's always. But Even as hiring managers, when we are hiring, you're looking for what you need in the team at the moment and sometimes there is just so much sense that you need an industry expert, somebody who will really be that advisor, who may not know how to do EBR and it doesn't really matter, but who can be product specialist and industry expert. Sometimes that's really crucial.

Speaker 2:

I do believe that, especially now you can teach customer success methodology and processes to everyone. Yeah, but if you really need industry expertise, that is so much more important. And I have been in companies where you wouldn't need industry expertise at all, where where anyone can just come and become CSM and you teach them the product and they can be that advisor and it's great. But also I've been in places where, depending on the complexity of the software, you really need an industry expert to be number one, expertise in the team, expertise in the team, and then after you establish a team of your experts, then maybe hire number 10 in the team can be somebody with not of that experience at all but maybe with great experience in customer success and they can bring in some different flavor. So I know it's a terrible answer to say it depends, but I think more and more as the methodologies are becoming so refined, I think again we need more of the industry experts, because that's really what's needed and we can teach them the processes and methodology. Did that answer your?

Speaker 3:

question it did and I can send a little opinion. I feel like you never know the industry as well as the client, because they are actually the ones doing it. But you should try to understand their day. You want their day looks like what is success for them, what is a bad day for them, what is a failure for them, so that you can connect with them at that level and not be very. Otherwise you're very clinical, right, and that does not help a lot. So in order to be able to connect, you need to be able to empathize and have some good understanding of what they do or what their work is all about.

Speaker 2:

Basically, yeah, I agree, I really believe that you have to have such a solid argument we can call it business argument Just really the ability to go into customer success. Today it would be straightforward to go and work for software that is related somehow to music or musicians or music teachers or whatever, would have been my previous background, so in that case it makes a lot of sense. But I have also noticed how now this is interesting speaking about skills and expertise, even when, for people who are coming with deep industry knowledge, that's great, but then very often there are other skills gap that we need to, yes, fill in, such as potential business accurate or more consultative skills or asking the right questions or maybe more speaking that revenue language, because maybe they were not exposed to it previously. I think that, in any case, now we have a luxury of embracing our previous backgrounds, whatever we were doing, because all of those experiences will be valuable in certain way, and then just kind of regularly assessing what are the skills needed for that current role, current customer success position, and then just try to enable ourselves and get certified and get trained.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I'm interested to hear from you. Okay, as a VP of global services, what do you do with customers, so how does your day look like? Well towards your teams and also towards customers.

Speaker 3:

Yeah for sure. So a lot of it is very customer-centric, team-centric. I mean, that's what it is for any job that way. So essentially, once the sales has made the sale, they hand over the client to my teams. Our team is. Our customers span the whole range. So there are low-datch, you know, self-use platform users who need that technical support, guidance and a lot of digital support that way. And then we have the high-tech professional services team where it is a lot more day-to-day interaction with the clients. So we covered the full spectrum.

Speaker 3:

So my focus really is in enabling the team. So you know, on one hand, so it's all about what processes, what tools, what resources are we keeping up with them? How do we grow, how do we look at the customers, their health scores and how do we analyze the churn. So my focus is at that strategic level, working with my managers and directors. Then, on the other hand, it's still being that advisor, that guide to the client as needed, whether I'm pulled into the conversation or I foresee a conversation that needs to be had with a particular client. So it's sort of split between those two ends. So focus within the team and focus on the clients, and I also like to hear a lot from the clients, because that keeps me on top of both on our platform and what is working for them, what is not working for them, but as well as the industry, what are the conversations they are having with their peers for their work, what are the demands they are being asked? So it gives us a good sense of how we also evolve for our clients.

Speaker 2:

So am I right to think, for one hand, you're working with clients directly in their PR strategy? What about journalists? I'm interested because you mentioned a lot previously how it's important to have that relationship with journalists. Are you in it at the moment? Is that part of your job or are you more advising your customers how they should go out there and develop those relationships and just create their overall PR strategy? What do you do for them?

Speaker 3:

So the journalists are not our clients in one way they are not. They are an important part of our ecosystem. So, as far as software, one of our software has a database of all journalists globally. So that's nice. So a lot of effort. Technology of all journalists globally, so oh, wow, that's nice, that's kind of it, yeah. So a lot of effort. Technology goes into actually building like.

Speaker 3:

So we have a team dedicated to keeping the data updated, because what good is the data if it's not updated? We have a lot of technology and processes built into you know, managing that data, because that's one of the key outputs or deliverables of our platform. So we also then further create. And then the other part of working with the media is because the media and the public relations, they are the two sides of the same coin, so that the media, whether it is from the journalist's perspective or whether it is in terms of the content, right, because for the PR person, they first reach out so that their stories could get published, whether it's on a TV or radio or social media or traditional media, but then they also need to be able to see what did appear, because it's not guaranteed that they reached out, that something would have appeared. So they need to be able to see what did appear because, you know, it's no guarantee that they reached out that something would have appeared. So they need to be able to track all sorts of media.

Speaker 3:

So we have a lot of partnerships, so media is our partner basically. So we have partnerships to track all content. We have partnerships on the journalist side so that we can keep their data updated in our platform. So they're definitely part of our ecosystem and some of the media can be our client as well, because they also need to. But they are our client in the capacity of they are managing the image and reputation of their business from that perspective, for sure.

Speaker 2:

For me, that's just a fascinating world, a world that I really like. By the way, as I was studying music, I was also studying journalism, and this is one it's a course that I haven't completed, where I went abroad to do more intense music studies, so I haven't completed journalism. It's one of the things that I think my mom still has regrets about me that I haven't completed one course, but that's okay. Yeah, it's really fascinating, especially thinking about the media and how media is evolving and how PR is really changing. And now putting it in the context of customer success, I really want to hone even deeper in that relationship building with your customers because from everything you're saying, it just seems that it's such an integral part of your customer success strategy. How do you make sure that you can maintain those good relationships and, if I'm not wrong, you kind of one-to-one engagement with customers, right? Tell us more about that strategy of your team exactly towards your customers.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so a lot of it is just being all the good CS practices right. So it's important to onboard them well, understand the value for them and how you can impact that value. So when it comes to impacting the value, it is always both ways in terms of is our software having the right workflows and having the right data that they can effectively use? And then the second part, which is always the more challenging part, is how do you get the customer to use effectively the software? So those are, and that's the part that is always more challenging, because PR especially it's a field it's in the top 10 most stressful jobs. So public relations job it does also say PR is like ER I mean technically not, hopefully you're not there unless you are in that kind of PR sector or similar emergency management sectors, but that's how stressful it is.

Speaker 3:

So, for them, one of the most important things working at Agility, working in this space that we are in, is for us to understand how busy the PR person is and how time is such a precious commodity for them. They are the kind of people who probably carry three mobile phones on them and then they're always like on one thing or another, they're always multitasking. So, even if they're talking to you on the phone, their eyes on their emails is something blue while they were talking to us, basically. So it's very, very important for us to understand that psychology of our clients, first and foremost, because that's what we feed a lot into. You know, how can we make it easy? How can we make it easy? How can we make it automated? How can we make it so they don't actually have to spend much time in our platform? So having understanding, having a strong understanding of that psychology drives everything that we do within the platform, in terms of the development work on the platform, but also how we manage the client basically right and understanding their successes. So if, like, say, a client got a really amazing article in New York Times or whatever it is, that important publication, the first response is oh, wow, congratulations, you've got this amazing piece right, because that's their win of the day or the week or the highlight of the month. If they get something like a half-page article or even a decent-sized article in New York Times or Wall Street Journal or whichever is the country you are in and the top tier one outlet in there. So, knowing those, you know the successes, what makes them laugh, what makes them happy, what makes them deal with a difficult situation. And when you know that they're dealing in the middle of the crisis, then you know what conversations to not have at that time. That's not the time to kind of say, oh, let me train you on the platform so you can use it to manage this crisis. That's not the right time. You have to stand passive. That's when that is happening. The client is not having a moment to speak, so you have to then support them a lot more. Like.

Speaker 3:

One of the things we pride ourselves a lot in telling our clients is always like think of us as an extension of your team, and we truly believe that and we truly try to come true to that statement and we truly try to come true to that statement and that really helps us a lot in building those relationships with our client. Basically and we're lucky in one the easy part, or the fortunate part also, is PR. People do believe in relationships. So whoever they work with, for them, it's always about inherently, they are tuned to in relationships. So whoever they work with, for them, it's always about inherently, they are tuned to. You know, creating relationships right, no matter what the equation is. So we really enjoy that aspect of our clients as well and we really have amazing clients. They're always saying such good things and positive things about our service, our product. It makes it so much you know it makes fun and likable coming to your work every day, also because of that.

Speaker 2:

There are some principles that you were saying that I do believe every single customer success team should adopt. It's so interesting when you speak about crisis management for your customers because, yes, pr, their job is basically to deal with crisis every single moment of the day. Of course, some of the press releases are very positive and very, you know, looking into the future very interesting, but many are, you know, damage control and crisis management, which is really obviously making their job really intense and stressful. So when you say that you are led by the principle of making it all easy for customers, so those should be the main principles for CST. Like time, yeah, is precious, it's not a commodity, it's something that everybody should value.

Speaker 2:

It doesn't mean that customers should be attending the calls just because they're in the calendar and all of those things that sometimes I can still hear from CSM. The level that we are talking about customers no, they're not obliged to do anything that we are asking them if it doesn't bring them value, and we should be making everything as easy as possible for them. Because, if we are, teams are incredibly busy and they are. There will be so many other teams on the planet that may not be dealing with crisis management every second of their day, but they also have their work and we should have that principle of respecting no matter what they do, they should just do their job properly, not deal with anybody external for the sake of the tool that they're using. I think we as an industry should understand that more and almost value our customers' time much more.

Speaker 3:

True, that is so true. Yeah, and that's mostly there in any sort of platform. That way, first and foremost is to help you be more productive, Right? So then directly hits. That's the first goal you have to achieve make things, save time for the client. Then you build on top of that it's all about those basics, right.

Speaker 2:

Every platform is there to save your clients time or money. There is one or two or luckily both Radia in your career. You obviously have lots of principles that are guiding you in your career. What would you tell to aspiring leaders in customer success? Any of the career advice or anything that you wish you had known before, that you know now?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think knowing everything and having had the journey, my biggest advice would be to focus on the intent, not on the words. What is appearance, basically? So, whether it is a client might say one thing, or a team member or a colleague will say something or ask for something, but you always have to go beyond that, what is obvious, and go behind the intent of that person. Why do they ask that? Why do they say that? Especially with clients, you know, because clients will not take time to articulate things for you, so they might just quickly send you an email or send you a question or ask you a quick thing. But you have to go beyond that simple question and see why would they want this? Why did they ask that? What is it that they're trying to do or solve?

Speaker 3:

At their end, the more you focus on the intent, the better leader, the better CSM, the better everything you can be, because then you've solved it, not for just that moment, you solved that problem at a much bigger level and you then benefit from it as well. So, whether you're a new person or whether you are, you know, a new leader or whether you're an established leader, that's always one thing that I feel was such a big learning, and it has come after years of experience and really focusing on that aspect. So that would be definitely my one takeaway advice.

Speaker 2:

It's a beautiful advice go beyond and it comes back to what you mentioned previously emotional intelligence. Right, you need to be curious and want to know more and go beyond to dig deeper, what's behind the scene and to solve some of those problems, but also to read in between the lines what people are saying, what they are not saying. How do you interpret those situations? I really love their advice Go beyond. Don't go beyond the obvious. Thank you, praga. This has been such a nice conversation. Thank you so much for coming to the show. As we are wrapping up, I wonder is there one book that was really like a guiding star in your career that you would like to recommend to the listeners?

Speaker 3:

Seriously, that answer to that question is different every week. Good, good, the one this week, yeah. The one I would share is about a couple of years ago, I was really going through a fun sort of a place where I I was not finding my motivation or, you know, my focus. So during that time, I came across this book by designing your life and and it's by these Stanford professors, I think Ben Burnett and Dave Evans, if I remember correctly, so it's called Designing your Life, and so they bring this design thinking into Designing your Life to make it more meaningful, to make it more fulfilling, basically to make it what you want it to be. Not saying that you read the book and your life, but exactly, it's a lot of words, but we gave some really good, actionable advice that you could actually incorporate into your life, into your habits, and think that way and focus on different aspects of your life. So so for me, uh, today that's the book I would say I would recommend wonderful.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for that recommendation. How I'm basically pressing the order button right now as you speak, because I I haven't read the book, but I have heard about similar principles that also became some of my principles in building my career, like designing your life and then designing your career based on the life that you want to have, so I'm very curious about this. Well, thank you so much for this recommendation and thank you for coming to the show. This has been a fantastic opportunity for everybody to learn a bit more, not only about PR, but really cultivating that very valuable long-term relationship with customers and how it pays off, how it's amazing to see them succeed.

Speaker 3:

Thank you so much, Marianne. Really, the pleasure was all mine being here talking to you and hopefully to other people who are listening. Thank you so much for sharing this time with us. Thank you.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening. Next week new episode, Subscribe to the podcast and connect with me on LinkedIn so you're up to date with all the new episodes and the content I'm curating for you. Have a great day and talk to you soon.