Gleaning Lessons: How to Create CSM Success

As a member of the Harmony Healthcare team for the last 5 years and a member of its Client Services team for 3 of those years, I’m proud to see how we work together to engage with our clients. I’m now the Manager, Client Services, so I lead a group who is responsible for managing large projects that the Account Executive team bring in. We also work with current and past clients to manage our own projects. 

Many things make our CSM team as successful as we are at managing large projects. But I attribute most of that to our ability to adapt and take away valuable lessons from every project. After hundreds of projects, we have implemented policies and procedures for each phase of a prospering engagement and we understand how to create a successful CSM team.

The power of reflection 

As manager of the team, my goal is to make sure we are reflecting on past projects as they end. After every project, we send a survey to our clients so they can share their thoughts on what we did right as well as what we could do better next time. These give our clients a chance to engage with us and provide honest feedback. I’ve seen our team take the criticism well and learn from it each time.

While we like to build on what we did right and talk about our successful projects, the real education and training comes from what we didn’t do so well. Complete client satisfaction is in the tiny details that can sometimes be overlooked.

Recognizing teachable moments

Last month, we had a client put in a request for 200 coders and another put in a request for 75 coders. While both projects ended successfully, we encountered many teachable moments:

• Did our internal reporting processes not meet the clients’ expectations?
• Was there a breakdown in communication between us and our consultants?
• How are we going to manage the onboarding and training phases of almost 300 consultants at one time?

These are situations that helped us implement new protocol that will be used on all projects moving forward. Each step in our process is a learning experience, and it feels great when I see the confidence grow within my team on each successful project.

Looking ahead 

Becoming a leader at Harmony has helped me understand the importance of reflecting on past work and using negative feedback in a positive manner. If you are able to admit and understand why you failed to meet a client’s expectations, you will be able to turn that experience into a productive, positive occurrence.