In this episode of Mastering CS: Candid Leader Insights, Irina Cismas sits down with Donia Hesham, Senior Customer Success Specialist at WalaPlus, an employee loyalty and rewards platform serving organizations across the Middle East. Donia came from a background in investment management and banking before moving into CS, and that experience taught her how to stay calm and think clearly when problems get serious.
She shares what managing 100+ accounts looks like in practice, how she tiers her portfolio to focus on what actually matters, what good onboarding looks like in a market where WhatsApp beats email, how she thinks about expansion, and why knowing your customer’s targets is the only way to hit your own.
What You’ll Learn
- What WalaPlus does and what the CSM role looks like across a multi-sector portfolio in the Middle East
- How the team tiers accounts and why tiering takes more time than most people expect
- What good onboarding looks like and how to spot the aha moment at six months
- What the operational infrastructure behind managing 100+ accounts looks like
Key Insights & Takeaways
Tiering is not a one-time exercise. As your targets shift, the way you classify your portfolio has to shift with them. Which brands matter most depends entirely on which KPI you’re chasing.
Good onboarding is not about having no issues. It’s about handling them well. Setting expectations, resolving problems quickly, and watching for engagement signals in the first three months tells you everything you need to know.
The aha moment is when the client sees you as a partner, not a vendor. When they start connecting your advice to their outcomes and asking for more, that’s when the relationship changes.
Their success metrics are your success metrics, not the other way around. If you pursue your targets without understanding theirs, you won’t hit either.
Podcast Transcript
Intro
Irina (0:06 – 0:27)
Welcome to Mastering CS Candid Leader Insights, the podcast where we dive into the world of customer success with industry leaders. I’m your host, Irina Cismas, and today I’m joined by Donia Hesham, Senior Customer Success Specialist at WalaPlus, an employee loyalty and rewards platform serving organizations across the Middle East. Donia, I’m really happy to have you here.
Thanks for joining!
Donia (0:28 – 0:31)
It’s my pleasure. Thank you so much!
What the Role Looks Like and Who the Customers Are
Irina (0:32 – 0:40)
Let’s start with the beginning. Paint us a picture of your day-to-day work as a CSM. Who are your customers, and what does the work look like?
Donia (0:42 – 3:35)
Most of our clients are mainly in KSA. We also have clients in the UAE. Our portfolio is usually a mix of different sectors: F&B, electronics, home care, fashion, and retail.
We keep testing how we manage our day-to-day work. At the beginning, we started by classifying the portfolio into categories, with each AM responsible for a certain category. But we found that wasn’t the best practice, so we started focusing on tiering the portfolio instead. For example, we have a brand with a strong number of branches and strong positioning. So we started tiering them: tier A, B, C, and so on, and then distributed the portfolio across the AMs. That’s the best practice we are following right now.
On a daily basis, once the sales team completes the deal and everything goes well, the signed contract moves to the onboarding team. After the onboarding team is done building the brand’s profile on our app, it moves to the customer success manager. That’s when we start with a welcome call, where I get to know more about the brand, the POC, and ask them about the best communication channel, because it differs from region to region. In the MENA region, KSA and UAE, they prefer WhatsApp over email.
After the welcome call, we start understanding their pain points. Why did they sign with WalaPlus? What’s their goal? Do they have a roadmap? For example, in the first quarter they’d like to focus on awareness, and in the second quarter on customer retention or acquisition. It depends on their roadmap.
Then we start promoting the brand across our apps and move into the monitoring phase, where we track whether they are checking their transactions, whether we have page views, and whether users are using their discount codes. The more conversions and clicks we see, the more we know this is a healthy brand and a healthy practice.
Then comes the renewal, and then the expansion opportunities, where we start to cross-sell other products or features. And the peak of success is when brands start recommending us to colleagues at other brands without being asked. That’s when you know you’ve really made it.
What Takes Most of the Day
Irina (3:37 – 3:50)
And in this quite complex setup, what do you spend most of your time on? What type of tasks or initiatives are eating up most of your day?
Donia (3:51 – 5:08)
I believe planning and tiering take the most time. For example, I’m managing tier A and my colleague is managing tier B, but each of us has more than one account. So eventually you have to re-classify tier A and tier B based on potential.
Your planning also depends on your goal and what KPIs you are looking for. For example, if your KPIs include selling marketing services, then you have to classify your portfolio based on which brand has the potential or appetite to invest in marketing ads with WalaPlus. If your KPI is growing transactions, then you have to classify your portfolio based on which brands are most appealing to users.
For example, our highest transaction volume is usually in the F&B sector. So you have to focus on those clients to achieve your transaction KPI, and then focus on other brands to achieve your marketing or ad sales KPI.
It depends on your goal, and I believe planning and tiering take the most time in your day-to-day work.
What Good Onboarding Looks Like at WalaPlus
Irina (5:10 – 5:20)
Let me know, what does good onboarding look like for a new brand at WalletPlus? What are you aiming for in the first few months and how do you know when you’ve got there?
Donia (5:21 – 6:42)
I believe the best onboarding is not one that has no issues, because issues will happen anyway. It’s one where you handle the issues in the right way. You set expectations and try to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Once the issue is resolved and the profile is live, that’s when you start measuring what a healthy onboarding looks like.
I would say the first three months give you a very clear picture. Once you receive the client from the onboarding team, you start having calls with them. If the POC is responding, replying to emails, and joining calls, that’s a good sign. But to see a really clear figure, after three months you can see whether the account is generating transactions, whether they have the appetite to invest in WalaPlus, and whether they are starting to see value.
Three months is more than enough to give you a very clear figure. And then after six months, that’s when you see the aha moment, when they realize the value and say, yes, we are willing to invest more in WalaPlus.
What the Aha Moment Actually Looks Like
Irina (6:43 – 6:52)
And after the onboarding, when you say the aha moment, what’s the definition of the aha moment when it comes to the WalletPlus product?
Donia (6:53 – 8:00)
The aha moment at WalaPlus is when the client can see that you are their partner and that you are helping them achieve their goals. For example, in the welcome call, a client told me their roadmap for the first three months was to acquire new customers. That’s when I start thinking out loud with them. Okay, in order to lower your CAC, your customer acquisition cost, you have to work on the referral program. In order to generate new customers, we need an offer for new customers only that is usually very appealing.
We measure these things in the first three months. If they are achieving them, then we start to see that they are finding value in WalaPlus.
It depends on the language the brand is using. You always have to know their language and their KPIs, because their success metrics are your success metrics, not the other way around. Yes, we have targets, but if you keep pursuing only your targets, you won’t achieve any. You have to know their targets in order to achieve your own.
The Operational Infrastructure Behind 100+ Accounts
Irina (8:02 – 8:22)
You mentioned at the beginning that you are managing more than 100 accounts, and that’s not that’s for sure not a small number. I’m curious, what’s the operational infrastructure behind all of this? What do you need in order to do your job day to day?
What tools?
Donia (8:23 – 10:24)
We keep investing more and more in new products as AI keeps growing. We keep trying different CRMs and seeing which one actually delivers good value or serves our needs. For me, the most important tool is the CRM.
I also believe in having a one-stop shop platform where you can connect your invoices, because at the end of the day it’s all about invoicing. I’m managing the accounts, but in order to achieve my targets, I have to connect loans and commissions from the brand. So if I have a one-stop shop where I can connect invoices with the health metrics of each account alongside a messaging tool, that would be ideal. There are platforms where you can also do product adoption or take an educational approach to help clients learn.
When it comes to AI, one use case we’ve been using it for is portfolio tiering. You tell it to classify the portfolio based on brand positioning, number of branches, or whatever your guidelines are, and it helps you identify which accounts have the most potential. I also use it for content creation, playing around with offers. And recently we’ve been using Perplexity. I’m still in the early stages with it, not a pro yet, but it’s really helpful for market research, especially for local or new brands where I need to understand where they stand in the Saudi market.
So I would say the main AI use cases for me are portfolio tiering, market research, and content creation.
The Expansion Playbook
Irina (10:26 – 10:40)
Awesome. Let’s tackle expansion as well, because I know that you are in charge of this as well besides the renewal part. How do you, what’s the playbook for expansion in your case?
How do you actually grow an account beyond the renewal?
Donia (10:42 – 11:43)
The expansion phase comes right after the brand or the POC realizes the value in WalaPlus. Once they see the value, you can start asking them to join events. They would join even for free because they trust WalaPlus. They know it’s going to bring them sales and conversions.
Also, as I mentioned, if they start referring your product to other brands or colleagues without you asking them to, that’s expansion.
I also think expansion comes when you seize the moment before it’s too late. The FOMO effect. For example, if there’s a campaign and they missed it, they missed the opportunity of generating 2x the sales revenue. So expansion requires you to be very quick. The key is value realization. If they realize the value, you can think bigger with the brand.
What Banking Taught Donia About CS
Irina (11:45 – 12:02)
I want to take you back for a second. At your early stages, you started in investment management and banking before moving into CS. Is there a habit, a way of thinking or something you learned the hard way early on that still shows up in how you run accounts today?
Donia (12:03 – 12:47)
Definitely. How you handle issues and problems is something I learned the hard way. In the financial sector, it is more intense. It is for the thick-skinned. Issues happen frequently and they are not minor. One simple issue could have major consequences.
My early career in banking and investment management helped me stay calm when there’s an issue and try to resolve it step by step. Critical thinking, I would say. That’s the skill that has helped me the most later on in my CS life.
Irina (12:49 – 12:54)
Donia, this was a really interesting conversation. Thanks so much for joining me!
Donia (12:55 – 13:03)
Thank you so much. Irina, it is a pleasure to have this conversation with you, and I’m looking forward to being testified for this going forward and around the region.
Irina (13:05 – 13:12)
To everyone listening, thanks for tuning in. Until next time, stay curious, keep learning and mastering customer success.
