Customer & Industry Relations Lead
The Customer & Industry Relations Lead is responsible for ensuring the success and satisfaction of our primary customers - utility programs, government agencies, lenders, and large real estate organizations. This role focuses on maintaining and growing these strategic relationships while building connections across the real estate industry to better understand and serve market needs.
The core mission is simple: keep our key customers happy and successful. This means being their primary advocate within Cadence OneFive, ensuring they achieve their program goals with our platform, and using insights from the broader real estate industry to continuously improve how we serve them.
Succession: In the event of a vacancy in the CRO role, the Customer & Industry Relations Lead serves as interim CRO.
Responsibilities
Section titled “Responsibilities”Primary Customer Success
Section titled “Primary Customer Success”- Own and nurture relationships with key utility and government program customers
- Serve as primary point of contact, ensuring customer satisfaction and program success
- Conduct regular check-ins and business reviews to understand evolving needs
- Quickly resolve issues and remove blockers to customer success
- Ensure customers are achieving their program goals and metrics with our platform
- Balance customers’ goals and needs and with our goals and needs
Real Estate Industry Relations
Section titled “Real Estate Industry Relations”- Build relationships with large real estate organizations and property management companies
- Understand real estate owner/operator needs and challenges with building decarbonization
- Connect with building owners participating in programs we serve
- Gather insights from the real estate industry to inform product development
- Facilitate connections between real estate customers and available incentive programs
Customer Management & Support
Section titled “Customer Management & Support”- Provide hands-on customer onboarding, training, and support
- Develop and maintain customer success strategies to maximize retention and growth
- Create and implement customer onboarding processes and documentation
- Establish customer health metrics and early warning systems
- Build feedback loops between customers and product development
Program Operations & Reporting
Section titled “Program Operations & Reporting”- Create initial project scopes for customer programs
- Provide regular program reporting and metrics to customers
- Manage feature requests and bug reports, triaging with Product and Engineering teams
- Document customer needs and translate them into product requirements
- Support RFP responses and contract renewals
Top 5 Competencies
Section titled “Top 5 Competencies”This role combines Manager of One competencies with:
- Build trusted relationships - Own and nurture relationships with key customers, serve as primary point of contact
- Drive customer success - Ensure customers achieve their program goals with our platform
- Understand user needs deeply - Conduct regular check-ins to understand evolving needs, gather industry insights
- Navigate industry context - Build connections across real estate industry, understand market needs
- Understand building science fundamentals - Technical domain knowledge to translate concepts to customers
Domain Knowledge
Section titled “Domain Knowledge”- Deep understanding of building decarbonization, energy efficiency, and multifamily retrofits
- Ability to translate complex technical concepts into actionable insights for customers
- Experience with utility programs, incentive structures, and regulatory frameworks
- Established relationships within the building efficiency ecosystem
- Familiarity with B2B SaaS customer success best practices
- Knowledge of procurement and RFP processes
Collaboration Skills
Section titled “Collaboration Skills”- Partners effectively with Product to translate customer needs into features
- Works with Engineering to prioritize and resolve customer issues
- Collaborates with Sales on account strategy and growth opportunities
- Coordinates with Marketing on customer stories and testimonials
Success Metrics
Section titled “Success Metrics”- Primary metric: Customer satisfaction and retention of key accounts
- Program success metrics (projects completed, goals achieved)
- Issue resolution speed and quality
- Customer feedback and satisfaction scores
- Successful contract renewals
- Expansion within existing accounts
- Real estate industry relationships developed