Meet Dennis Hennessey! Signiant’s new Director of Customer Success and Chili Aficionado
By Meg Cater
We recently hired Dennis Hennessey as our new Director of Customer Success, and wanted to show him off a bit. While we’ve always had several avenues for getting feedback from our customers, Dennis brings a unique passion and approach that has won him something of a following in the CSM (customer success managers) community.
Last year, Frontleaf named him one of the Top 50 Influencers in Customer Success, mostly due to the insights he’s gained over the course of more than 13 years launching successful programs for Boston area tech companies like Nasuni and Varolii.
“I’ve always found the old adage ‘it all starts with a conversation’ to be incredibly truthful,” Dennis says. “Listening is the most critical element in customer success. You can’t help the customer if you don’t know their needs and goals.”
So far, that’s pretty much what Dennis has been doing all day – getting on the phone with our Media Shuttle customers and listening. “Right now, I just want to understand how each customer is using our products. Once they really start opening up to me about what they hope to do, we can work side-by-side to make sure they’re extracting the most benefit from our technology. Then I can start better aligning our product with their goals.”
This type of patient methodology involving many small conversations and repeated fine-tuning has been central to Dennis’s professional success. But it’s also worked well for his chili recipe, which won the People’s Choice award at the International Chili Society’s Massachusetts State Chili Cook Off for the past two years in a row. He’s taking six gallons of it to a Maine competition this weekend, so we’ll see how he fares further north.
What else? Dennis is also a long-distance runner and father of two. And, although he hasn’t won any prestigious awards for them yet, I’d be willing to bet his approach to customer success applies to parenting and athletics too.
Anyway, a big welcome to Dennis from the Signiant team and good luck in Maine! If there’s any chili left, just bring it on in to work on Monday.
