The German Christopher has a passion for digital tools and processes. With his technical background he can properly explain his customers how things work.
Where were you born?
In Speyer, Germany.
What was it like there?
Speyer is mostly known for its roman cathedral and its location on the river Rhine. I remember great nights sitting at the river with friend, watching the ships go by. I started canoeing at the age of 6. This is probably why I like cities on the banks of large rivers and it is probably what brought me to Cologne for my studies. Munich also fulfills that need with the Isar.
What does a Customer Success Manager DACH do?
I engage with and support our customers in the DACH region for the digitalization of sales processes. Social Selling is not just a tool you buy but also a change of management, so I consult during the various phases of the transformation from decision, implementation and adoption to sustainable usage so that customers get the best out of their investment.
What is your working background?
Initially I started studying to become a teacher for deaf children. However, during the Dot Com phase I worked at an online agency to develop web pages, which was a lot of fun. I decided to pursue that direction and became an online and offline media designer. This brought me to Microsoft where I’ve been working for over 15 years in various roles and organizations ranging from online, IT and marketing, where I established and ran the Social Selling Program for Microsoft Germany.
When did you first hear about Social Selling?
In 2014 when I was asked to look into programs from other countries in order to identify potential adoption steps for Germany. As we have two established B2B networks (Xing and LinkedIn) I also had to decide which platform to choose for our context. Due to the international nature of the context we decided to go with LinkedIn with a small pilot group and the program grew bigger over time.
What is the most beautiful about this job?
Being able to meet and work with various companies who decided to change their way of doing sales and who are really open to embrace digital transformation.
What is your biggest challenge in this job?
I’m a lone wolf. I’m located in my home office close to Munich so I’m missing the fun activities in the headquarters as well as the informal exchange at the coffee machine. But we do our best to mitigate that through technology (Skype, Whatsapp) and sometimes travel.
Why Tricycle-Europe?
I’ve been working with Tricycle before as a customer and I like the passion and spirit of the young, energetic team with its international background. Due to the different cultures, ages and background there is a lot of expertise to deliver the best-in-class services to our customers.
The history of Tricycle also shows the ability to foresee trends and implement speedy adjustments. It feels great to work for such an agile company.
What are you actually looking forward to do and learn?
This is actually my first role with real external customer relationships. In the past, most of my clients were internal. So I’m looking forward to learn more about different company cultures, ways of doing things and the organizations, but also about interactions because I think there are some differences in managing internal and external clients. I’m also the first employee in Germany for Tricycle, so we are going through the learning curve of a start-up in Germany. Coming from a company with settled processes and infrastructure, this is now a great opportunity to learn more about setting up a business.
