Podcasts about gainsight

#updateai #customersuccess #saas #businessWelcome back to Unchurned! In this very special annual tradition, host Josh Schachter, CEO of UpdateAI sits down with Nick Mehta, the ever-energetic CEO of Gainsight, for a deep dive into all things Pulse 2025 - Gainsight's CS conference, which this year is bringing its signature blend of learning and community to Las Vegas. Josh and Nick reminisce about Pulse's humble beginnings, reflect on the journey from a simple luncheon to a high-octane Vegas affair, and tease this year's theme (wardrobe predictions included!).You'll also get an exclusive inside look at Gainsight, with Nick sharing candid insights about new faces on the leadership team, the integration of exciting new products like Staircase, ModerateKit, and Skilljar, and how the company is weaving AI into both its offerings and internal processes. The conversation is equal parts fun and insightful, filled with plenty of laughs and a motivating message for customer success pros to embrace innovation and lean into the future.Timestamps0:00 - Preview & Introductions1:25 - Pulse Conference in Las Vegas8:36 - Reflections on New & Evolving Leadership 15:23 - Recent Innovations & Acquisitions24:10 - Operational Shifts and AI Integration30:12 - Looking Ahead & Closing Thoughts___________________________

Text us your questions and thoughts!Can you believe it's been five years since we launched the Women in Customer Success Podcast?What started as a conversation in your earbuds has grown into a global movement. Now, after hundreds of episodes, bringing these discussions into the physical world feels like coming full circle.We hosted our second Women in Customer Success live podcast recording in Berlin, where Marija Skobe-Pilley welcomed Cara Benecke, Sally Stoewe and Pia Schümann-Hoppe. We discussed:✨ Redefining what "having it all" means in today's professional landscape✨ Setting 'non-negotiables' for work-life integration✨ Building success on your own terms✨ Setting boundaries that stick✨ Leading authentically across diverse European culturesThis was a perfect night where our incredible audience engaged in deep conversations, asked thoughtful questions, and shared experiences with each other.And now, you get to hear it all. Whether you're an aspiring leader or looking to advance your career, this session offers invaluable advice and inspiration. Tune in and enjoy!***Special thanks to our sponsors Gainsight and Braze for making this happen!

Can customer success be your secret growth weapon? This 'TechTransformed' episode explores its evolution from a cost center to a revenue driver. Marilee Bear, Chief Revenue Officer at Gainsight, and Christina Stathopoulos, founder of Dare to Data, discuss AI's role and how strong customer relationships boost your bottom line.

Struggling to prove the financial impact of your CS initiatives or translate retention metrics into revenue? Watch this exclusive masterclass to learn how to build compelling, finance-driven business cases, align CS initiatives with revenue targets, and confidently lead conversations that secure executive buy-in.Don't miss this chance to transform Customer Success into a powerful revenue driver!Featuring:Marilee Bear, CRO at GainsightMarija Skobe-Pilley, Founder of Women In CS 

Send us a textLet's demystify the magic behind streamlined customer success operations. In this episode of the Customer Success Playbook podcast, Kevin Metzger sits down with Gilad Shriki from Scope to unpack their strategic integration of FunnelStory. They dive into privacy-first data management, lightning-fast time-to-value, and how AI is reshaping how teams interact with data. Plus, find out why Gilad believes FunnelStory might just be the one platform to rule them all.Detailed Description with Business Insights: In this engaging episode of the Customer Success Playbook, Kevin Metzger interviews Gilad Shriki, Head of Customer Experience at Scope, who offers a real-world case study of successfully implementing FunnelStory. With Roman Trebon off this week, Kevin navigates a thoughtful conversation that brings valuable technical and strategic takeaways to customer success leaders.Gilad breaks down how Scope maintains data privacy by leveraging a custom anonymization layer before syncing anonymized data into BigQuery. From there, FunnelStory becomes the centerpiece of their CS tech stack, tightly integrated with HubSpot and Segment. The result? A seamless, compliant, and highly performant system that delivers actionable insights with minimal setup.The discussion peels back the curtain on modern data stack integrations, emphasizing the importance of time-to-value and the benefits of designing for automation-first customer success platforms. Gilad candidly explains how FunnelStory outperformed expectations by offering an intuitive plug-and-play experience and how its engineering team's responsiveness created a frictionless implementation.Most notably, Gilad envisions FunnelStory not just as a visibility tool but as a centralized hub for both automation and human interaction. His goal? A single pane of glass where CSMs manage sentiment, risk, and engagement—without needing to bolt on other platforms like Gainsight.If you're scaling a CS org or rethinking your tech stack, this episode is your playbook for staying lean without sacrificing power. Tune in and learn how a privacy-first, AI-powered, integrated system can revolutionize how you scale customer success.Now you can interact with us directly by leaving a voice message at https://www.speakpipe.com/CustomerSuccessPlaybookPlease Like, Comment, Share and Subscribe. You can also find the CS Playbook Podcast:YouTube - @CustomerSuccessPlaybookPodcastTwitter - @CS_PlaybookYou can find Kevin at:Metzgerbusiness.com - Kevin's person web siteKevin Metzger on Linked In.You can find Roman at:Roman Trebon on Linked In.

SaaStr 794: The Top 10 Customer Success Metrics Investors Care About in 2025 with Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta   Nick Mehta is the CEO of Gainsight, the customer success platform that helps businesses deliver value to customers and drive scalable growth.   Over the past 12 years, Nick has met with more than 5,000 companies and hundreds of investors, becoming one of the foremost authorities on customer success strategies. In this engaging presentation, Nick discusses the crucial role of customer success in driving business growth and securing investments. He breaks down the top 10 questions investors grill companies about, covering key metrics like net retention, gross retention, and early warning indicators. Nick also highlights the importance of customer stickiness, value demonstration, and efficient customer success operations.   Additionally, he shares a personal story of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, drawing parallels between the entrepreneurial journey and the challenging yet rewarding climb to success.   ----------------------   Alright everybody in SaaS, this is it.  The biggest, best, most action-packed SaaS + AI event of the year—SaaStr Annual 2025—is coming this May. Three full days. 10,000+ SaaS and AI leaders and more tactical, no-fluff content than you'll find anywhere else.   If you want to scale faster—$10M, $50M, $100M ARR and beyond—you need the right playbooks, the right connections and the right people in your corner. And SaaStr Annual is where it all happens. We'll have 100's of Legendary speakers from companies like Snowflake, HubSpot, OpenAI, Canva, and more. More networking than you can handle—meet your next investor, co-founder, or biggest deal.  A New AI Demo & Pitch Stage— with your chance to win up to $5M in funding!  So don't wait—grab your tickets now at SaaStrAnnual.com with my code jason100 to save $100 on tickets before prices go up. That's jason 100 at saastrannual.com   See you in May!    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   Do you know what would make your customer service helpdesk dramatically better? Dumping it and switching to Intercom.  But, youʼre not quite ready to make that change. We get it!   Thatʼs why Fin, the worldʼs leading AI customer service agent, is now available on every helpdesk.   Fin can instantly resolve up to 80% of your tickets,  Which makes your customers happier. And you can get off the customer service rep hiring treadmill.   Fin by Intercom. Named the #1 AI Agent in G2ʼs Winter Report.      Learn more at : inter.com/saastr   --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  

Send us a textIn this compelling finale of a three-part series, Terinee Pooler explores the transformative potential of AI in Net Promoter Score (NPS) management and customer success strategies. The discussion delves into how AI tools are streamlining customer feedback analysis, automating risk assessment, and enhancing the overall efficiency of customer success teams. From leveraging platforms like Gainsight and Churn Zero to utilizing AI for creating QBR presentations, the episode offers practical insights into the future of customer success management.Detailed AnalysisThe episode provides a comprehensive examination of AI's impact on customer success management, particularly focusing on NPS implementation and analysis. Terinee Pooler, drawing from her extensive experience, highlights several key applications of AI in customer success:Risk Assessment and Early Warning Systems: AI's capability to analyze customer behavior patterns and NPS responses enables early detection of churn risks. The technology can process detractor feedback and predict potential churn risks based on historical patterns and lack of improvement over time.Automated Feedback Analysis: The discussion contrasts traditional manual methods of analyzing customer feedback using extensive Excel sheets with modern AI-powered solutions. AI can now automatically categorize feedback, identify themes, and generate comprehensive reports, significantly reducing the time and effort required for analysis.Integration with Customer Success Platforms: The episode explores how platforms like Gainsight and Churn Zero are incorporating AI functionality to enhance their customer success management capabilities. These tools provide integrated dashboards and automated risk mitigation features.QBR Enhancement: The conversation touches on AI's potential to automate the creation of quarterly business review presentations, allowing customer success managers to focus more on strategic discussions and value-added activities rather than manual presentation preparation.Communication Analysis: Tools like Gong and Talk Desk are highlighted for their ability to analyze customer interactions and provide insights into value drivers and areas for improvement in customer communications.The discussion also includes personal perspectives on AI adoption, with Terinee sharing her experience using tools like ChatGPT for both personal and professional applications. This practical insight provides listeners with a realistic view of AI integration into daily customer success operations.Please Like, Comment, Share and Subscribe. You can also find the CS Playbook Podcast:YouTube - @CustomerSuccessPlaybookPodcastTwitter - @CS_PlaybookYou can find Kevin at:Metzgerbusiness.com - Kevin's person web siteKevin Metzger on Linked In.You can find Roman at:Roman Trebon on Linked In.

Send us a textIn this engaging episode of Customer Success Playbook, Terinee Pooler, Atlanta Chapter Lead of Women of Customer Success, shares crucial strategies for developing and operationalizing effective Net Promoter Score (NPS) programs. Drawing from her extensive experience, Pooler emphasizes the importance of proactive customer engagement and provides practical guidance on implementing NPS initiatives that drive meaningful organizational change.Detailed AnalysisThe discussion delves deep into the fundamentals of building and maintaining successful NPS programs, with Pooler offering valuable insights into several key areas:Program Implementation StrategyPooler emphasizes that proactive customer engagement forms the cornerstone of any successful NPS program. She positions the customer success manager as a customer advocate, highlighting how this approach can transform quarterly business reviews (QBRs) and overall customer experience management.Technical FrameworkThe conversation explores the technical aspects of NPS implementation, including:Survey distribution mechanics using platforms like GainsightQuarterly feedback collection processesScore interpretation framework (1-10 scale)Classification of responses (detractors, neutrals, promoters)Measurement and AnalyticsPooler provides a detailed breakdown of NPS scoring:Promoters: Scores 8 and aboveNeutral: Score of 7Detractors: Scores below 7Net score calculation methodology: Promoters minus DetractorsThis systematic approach ensures organizations can effectively track and measure customer satisfaction while identifying areas for improvement.Now you can interact with us directly by leaving a voice message at https://www.speakpipe.com/CustomerSuccessPlaybookPlease Like, Comment, Share and Subscribe. You can also find the CS Playbook Podcast:YouTube - @CustomerSuccessPlaybookPodcastTwitter - @CS_PlaybookYou can find Kevin at:Metzgerbusiness.com - Kevin's person web siteKevin Metzger on Linked In.You can find Roman at:Roman Trebon on Linked In.

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming industries, and customer success is no exception. Current trends show a rapid increase in AI adoption. This is driven by the potential to personalise interactions, automate routine tasks, and gain valuable insights from customer data among other solutions. However, the transition requires careful consideration of how AI can blend with existing customer success practices. The goal is to ultimately develop a combination of AI capabilities and human empathy, leading to more satisfying and effective customer experiences.This is where natural language processing (NLP) comes in. The power of NLP can be leveraged to understand customer queries and sentiment analysis to determine their emotional state. In this episode, Kevin Petrie, VP of Research at BARC, speaks to Kate Neal, Senior Director of Customer Success at Gainsight, about the evolving role of AI in customer success. TakeawaysAI adoption in customer success is accelerating despite some hesitations.Gainsight provides a comprehensive customer operating system, “powered by AI”.Natural language processing can significantly enhance customer sentiment analysis.Human oversight is crucial in AI applications to ensure accuracy.Data quality is essential for effective AI implementation.AI can help reduce the administrative burden on customer success teams.Collaboration between data and AI teams is necessary for success.Understanding AI's capabilities is key for customer success leaders.AI is not a replacement for human jobs but a tool to enhance them.Chapters00:00 Introduction to AI in Customer Success03:44 Gainsight's Role in Customer Success07:11 AI Adoption Trends in Customer Service10:51 Use Cases of AI in Customer Success15:12 Natural Language Processing and Customer Sentiment19:48 Human Oversight in AI Applications22:06 Collaboration Between Data and AI Teams23:59 Getting Started with AI in Customer Service

Send us a textThe conversation delves into how AI is reshaping customer success operations, from analyzing customer profiles to enabling personalized micro-learning experiences. Keith Hanks shares valuable insights on leveraging AI for content repurposing, pattern recognition, and operational efficiency, emphasizing how individual CSMs can take initiative with AI tools to enhance their customer engagement strategies.Detailed AnalysisAI-Driven Customer Profile AnalysisThe discussion highlights three primary areas where AI is making significant impacts in customer success:Pattern Recognition and Analysis: AI's capability to identify traits, outliers, and patterns within customer profiles, bridging the gap between ideal and actual customer profiles.Content Adaptation: The technology's potential to transform new business content into customer success-focused materials, creating efficient infrastructure templates for existing customer engagement.Automated Trigger Systems: Integration with platforms like Gainsight and ChurnZero to establish data-driven, prescriptive plays based on customer behavior patterns.Democratizing Innovation in Customer SuccessA significant focus is placed on individual empowerment, with Keith emphasizing that CSMs don't need to wait for organizational initiatives to leverage AI. The discussion outlines practical ways CSMs can use AI tools to:Repurpose content for different audience segmentsCreate personalized micro-learning experiencesDevelop customer onboarding pathsGenerate customer-specific training materialsFuture ImplicationsThe conversation addresses the evolving landscape of customer success, referencing recent Bain Company research highlighting the growing need for technical expertise in customer success roles. The speakers predict a significant transformation in the CSM role over the next 2-3 years, driven by AI-enabled efficiencies and the resulting ability to focus on deeper technical engagement.Implementation ConsiderationsThe episode provides practical guidance on tool selection, emphasizing the need to balance between:Free/low-cost AI tools for individual initiativesEnterprise-grade solutions for handling proprietary dataSecurity considerations when processing customer informationPlease Like, Comment, Share and Subscribe. You can also find the CS Playbook Podcast:YouTube - @CustomerSuccessPlaybookPodcastTwitter - @CS_PlaybookYou can find Kevin at:Metzgerbusiness.com - Kevin's person web siteKevin Metzger on Linked In.You can find Roman at:Roman Trebon on Linked In.

Welcome to Predictable B2B Success! In this episode, we dive deep into the future of customer success with the brilliant Shanif Dhanani, CEO and Founder of Locusive. Get ready to uncover how AI revolutionizes customer intelligence and amplifies business insights. Imagine if your customer success team could cut down manual data entry time by 40% and focus instead on strategic growth opportunities—sounds transformative, right? Shanif shares how Locusive supplements powerful BI tools like Tableau and Looker, using AI to generate on-demand insights and visualizations. We explore the groundbreaking techniques Locusive employs to ensure data integrity and mitigate AI hallucinations, presenting a holistic approach to responsible AI use. Discover AI's future potential in boosting customer engagement, predicting churn, and identifying upsell opportunities while significantly easing CS teams' workload. We also delve into the strategic importance of showcasing the revenue benefits of AI solutions to secure enterprise buy-in. Shanif shares invaluable insights on centralizing data for efficiency, integrating AI tools into existing systems, and the emerging role of autonomous AI agents. Whether you're looking to enhance customer success or curious about the challenges of integrating AI across various data systems, this episode is packed with actionable insights. Tune in now, and let's leap into the future of AI-driven customer success! Some areas we explore in this episode include: Locusive's Role: Locusive enhances BI tools like Tableau and Looker with AI-driven insights and reports.AI and Data Integrity: Ensuring accurate data with checks and audit trails to avoid AI hallucinations.AI in Customer Success: Using AI for better customer acquisition, engagement, and upselling.Client Health Monitoring: Leveraging data from systems like Gainsight to monitor client health.Data Challenges and Integration: Integrating AI across systems like Salesforce and centralizing data for efficiency.Strategic Use of AI: Automating manual tasks for Customer Success teams to enhance efficiency.Implementation Challenges: Customizing AI to fit company-specific data and jargon.Locusive's Growth Strategy: Focusing on teams that lack robust reporting and a deep understanding of customer needs.AI and Manual Tasks: AI helping CS managers by offering insights and monitoring client health.Importance of Business Problem Identification: Identifying inefficiencies and bottlenecks for AI to provide solutions.And much, much more...

GTM Disrupted host Mike Smart and Rod Cherkas, author and CEO of HelloCCO explore how customer success has evolved into a key driver of growth in SaaS businesses. Rod draws on his extensive experience as a customer success leader at companies like RingCentral, Marketo, and Gainsight to inform the discussion. He shares insights from his new book, REACH, and explains how SaaS companies implement this framework to fuel top-line growth and generate expansion revenue. Key Takeaways from this Episode Include:  Leveraging Customer Success as a Growth Engine  Adopting the REACH Framework  Utilizing AI as a Transformational Tool for Customer Success About Rod Cherkas Rod Cherkas is a highly regarded consultant to CEOs, CCOs, CROs, and their customer-facing leaders. He has held post-sale executive roles at several customer-centric organizations, including Intuit, RingCentral, Marketo, and Gainsight. Currently, he is the Founder and CEO of HelloCCO, a strategy consulting firm that collaborates with innovative companies across various industries to develop, execute, and scale strategies for their customer-facing functions. Rod's work focuses on improving customer retention, increasing profitability, and optimizing productivity. He is the author of the bestselling books, "The Chief Customer Officer Playbook" and "REACH: A Framework for Driving Revenue Growth from Your Existing Customers." To learn more about Rod to go - https://www.linkedin.com/in/rodcherkas/ or https://rodcherkas.com/

Areya Dargahi leads mid-market sales at Gainsight, a Series E SaaS company that helps businesses drive efficient growth by unifying the post-sales customer journey. Areya has built out their mid-market sales team from scratch, and now his team is bringing just shy of $10 million ARR.Gainsight started off as an enterprise-only solution and then moved down to target SMB and mid-market clients. They saw that smaller companies had outgrown the tools available to them and realized there's a huge opportunity to expand.Although from a product perspective there weren't many strong competitors that rivaled Gainsight, their downmarket motion still required quite a bit of competitive intel and strategy to ensure that Gainsight wins those competitive deals.ls. What really helped them was setting up a slack channel where the whole team monitors their competitors and shares their insights - whether they are positioning changes, new content releases or notes from going head to head on a deal.Areya is a huge proponent of quick response times during the sales process. While features do matter, for upmarket deals there's always a possibility that a feature gets custom built for that client, but in order to build enough mutual trust for such a big, two-sided commitment, something as simple as quick response times can work wonders when putting prospects at ease during the sales process.Tune into the full episode to learn why you should improve your sales process by taking a customer success approach!HIGHLIGHTS: 0:00 Intro 2:44 Getting to Sales and Customer Success alignment3:57 Moving from Enterprise to Mid-Market/SMB5:13 Building Gainsights competitive intelligence 7:40 The importance of quick response times11:01 Relationship vs Outcome selling12:53 Winning the deal is only half of the battle17:54 Account Executives need product expertise22:31 How to approach teaching AE's productConnect with Areya - https://www.linkedin.com/in/areyad/Connect with Max - https://www.linkedin.com/in/max-greenwald/Want to convert your website visitors instantly? Try Warmly for free - https://warmly.ai/

This week on Topline, Sam, AJ, and Asad sit down with Nick Mehta, CEO of Gainsight, to discuss the evolution of customer success (CS) and its growing impact on business strategy. Nick explains why sustained investment in CS is crucial, how customer success managers can thrive by combining technical and commercial skills, and the role AI plays in transforming customer interactions. The episode also delves into how pricing models shape CS strategy and what the future holds for AI-driven customer engagement. Topline by Pavilion is also proud to debut The Revenue Leadership Podcast with Kyle Norton. Listen now. Attention CEOs and Founders! Join Pavilion at the CEO Summit on January 23rd in vibrant New Orleans. Don't miss out—reserve your spot today! Want more Topline? Join the Topline Slack channel to engage with hosts, guests, and other listeners and subscribe to Topline Newsletter.

Matt Maier is a product marketer and AI enthusiast from Irvine, California, with a background spanning the Air Force, aerospace, healthcare, and startup consulting. His hot take? Within 5 years, employment as we know it will sharply decline. Matt predicts that advancements in AI will render traditional employee-employer relationships obsolete, because why would companies hire people to do easily automatable tasks? On the other hand, Matt believes this is a good thing and will enable an entirely new way of working. Find Matt on LinkedIn or drop him an email at Solo Scale AI. If you'd like to appear on Hot Takes, please grab a time! Related episodes you should like: Is Product-Led Growth Really For You? (Leah Tharin, Product-Led Growth Guru & Head of Product @ Jua) Embracing Change to Innovate in Product Management (Greg Coticchia, CEO @ Sopheon) The Big Pivot to Reinvent Product Management (Yana Welinder, Founder & CEO @ Kraftful) Debbie Levitt's Hot Take - Democratising our Work means AI is Going to Steal all our Jobs Sooner (Debbie Levitt, CXO @ DeltaCX and Author "Customers Know You Suck") Greg Prickril's Hot Take - AI is going to change everything for Product Managers (Greg Prickril, B2B Product Management Coach, Consultant & Trainer) Andy Walters' Hot Take - We're Soon Going to be Living in an AI-Assistant-First World (Andy Walters, CEO @ Emerge Haus & Generative AI Expert) Bjarte Rettedal's Hot Take - AI Models Should Be Under Public Ownership or Completely Transparent (Bjarte Rettedal, UX Designer) Reinventing the Future of Customer Success with Human-First AI (Nick Mehta, CEO @ Gainsight)

#updateai #customersuccess #saas #business Rachel Orston, Chief Customer Officer at Instructure joins the hosts ⁠⁠Jon Johnson⁠⁠ & ⁠⁠Josh Schachter⁠⁠ to discuss her strategic approach to aligning customer success with sales and revenue goals, the challenges of transitioning to a variable compensation model, and how Instructure fosters a culture of connection and collaboration. Timestamps 0:00 - Preview & Intros 5:15 - Discussing about CoThrive 8:07 - Diverse customer segments at Instructure 13:15 - Performance metrics that drive success 16:45 - Connecting with customers 22:36 - Emphasis on performance-based variable compensation 27:23 - CS and Sales 30:15 - Tools and processes for improved collaboration ___________________________

Send us a textIn this episode of the Customer Success Playbook Podcast, hosts Roman Trebon and Kevin Metzger engage with Dickey Singh, CEO and founder of Cast.app, to explore the transformative potential of AI agents in customer success. The discussion reveals how AI agents can revolutionize customer engagement by handling routine tasks while enabling CSMs to focus on high-value activities, potentially generating millions in additional revenue without adding headcount.Key Themes and InsightsAI Agent ImplementationAI agents can handle mundane, repetitive tasks across the customer lifecycleFocus on 100% account coverage without additional headcountIntegration with multiple data sources and systems (Salesforce, Gainsight, Snowflake, etc.)Role Evolution of CSMsShift from routine tasks to strategic activitiesFocus on four key areas: empathy, relationship building, solving new challenges, providing expertiseEnhanced efficiency through AI supportTechnical ImplementationSophisticated hallucination prevention mechanismsReal-time confidence scoring for AI responsesSecure data handling without synchronizationIntegration across multiple enterprise systemsBusiness ImpactPure Storage: $1.6 million in additional annual revenueHPE: Significant improvement in customer engagementRoute: 3x industry average engagement ratesSubstantial ROI improvements (1000-4000%)Please Like, Comment, Share and Subscribe. You can also find the CS Playbook Podcast:YouTube - @CustomerSuccessPlaybookPodcastTwitter - @CS_PlaybookYou can find Kevin at:Metzgerbusiness.com - Kevin's person web siteKevin Metzger on Linked In.You can find Roman at:Roman Trebon on Linked In.

#updateai #customersuccess #saas #business Rachel Tsui, Head of CS at Komodo Health, joins hosts Jon Johnson, and Josh Schachter to gear up for Halloween with a light-hearted discussion about costumes and candy choices before diving deep into the intricacies of customer success. Rachel highlights the innovative use of healthcare data to identify patient trends and enhance service delivery. The conversation explores how Komodo's customer success team navigates post-sales processes, strategically collaborates with account management, and the essential role of data-driven decisions. Jon and Rachel also delve into career growth challenges, touching on the balancing act of flat organization structures, professional development, and the evolving expectations of newer workforce generations. Join us for a captivating journey through customer success strategies, organizational dynamics, and how they shape the future of innovation at Komodo Health. Timestamps 0:00 - Preview, Halloween & Intros 7:30 - Customer Success at Komodo Health 10:28 - KPIs for customer success at Komodo 12:00 - Plans and Priorities for the Q4 13:22 - Focusing on separating support from CS activities 16:03 - Managing expectations around promotions 20:06 - Navigating career growth 23:50 - Cross-functional Collaboration and Tools for knowledge sharing ___________________________

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape.Today I'm excited to speak with the founding team of Chemistry, a new venture firm led by Kristina Shen, Ethan Kurzweil, and Mark Goldberg, who recently spun-out of blue chip firms Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer, and Index Ventures, respectively. The firm just announced a significantly oversubscribed $350MM debut fund. As a new entrant to the market (in the toughest time to start a new firm in over a decade), I wanted to ask them about their blueprint for building a firm, including how they chose to partner up and the work they did beforehand, LP strategies and selection, and what they felt was their unique reason to exist in a highly competitive market. About Kristina ShenKristina Shen is Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Chemistry Ventures, overseeing a $350M fund focused on early-stage software investments. Formerly a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (2019-2024), she led significant investments in Mux, Pave, Wrapbook, and Rutter. Kristina specialized in high-growth startups.She began her venture career as a Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners (2013-2019), working with companies such as Gainsight, Instructure, and ServiceTitan. Previously, she worked in investment banking at Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse, focusing on technology sectors.About Mark GoldbergMark Goldberg is Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Chemistry Ventures since, investing in seed and Series A software startups. Previously, a Partner at Index Ventures (2015-2023), he worked with companies such as Plaid, Pilot, Intercom, and Motive, establishing a strong fintech and software portfolio.Prior to Index, Mark worked at Dropbox in Business Strategy & Operations and Strategic Finance (2013-2015), where he contributed to growth strategies during Dropbox's scaling phase.He started his career as an Analyst at Morgan Stanley (2007-2010) before joining Hudson Clean Energy as a Senior Associate. Mark holds an AB in International Relations from Brown University.About Ethan KurzweilEthan Kurzweil is Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Chemistry Ventures, leading investments at the seed stage for tech-driven startups. He also serves as a board member for companies like Intercom and LaunchDarkly.Previously, Ethan was a Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners (2008-2024), where he worked with companies such as HashiCorp, Twilio, and Twitch. His focus on software and digital platforms spanned roles as board member and investor, contributing to significant IPOs and acquisitions.Early in his career, Ethan worked in business development at Linden Lab (creators of Second Life) and served as a Senior Manager in the CEO's Office at Dow Jones. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and an AB in Economics from Stanford University.In this episode, we discuss:* (01:43): Importance of Team Chemistry and Partnership Formation* (03:27): Challenges of Building a Firm in the Current Environment* (08:00): Unique Value Proposition for Early-Stage Founders* (10:18): Early-Stage Focus and Differentiation from Large VC Firms* (16:12): Fundraising Insights and LP Relationship Building* (19:00): Choosing Aligned LPs and Targeting Long-Term Partnerships* (27:23): Single-Trigger Investment Decision-Making Model* (30:12): Balancing Conviction with Collaborative Feedback* (35:23): Independent Decision-Making for Follow-On Investments* (39:19): Personal Contrarian Beliefs about the Venture Industry* (42:18): Closing Remarks on Building a New Venture FranchiseI'd love to know what you took away from this conversation with Kristina, Mark, and Ethan. Follow me @SamirKaji and give me your insights and questions with the hashtag #ventureunlocked. If you'd like to be considered as a guest or have someone you'd like to hear from (GP or LP), drop me a direct message on Twitter.Podcast Production support provided by Agent Bee This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ventureunlocked.substack.com

You may have heard the phrase, "every company is a media company"—but what does this actually mean for B2B? How do you go about building an audience, what content should you use, and how should you measure it? Here to answer these questions is category-creating CMO and founder, Anthony Kennada. He helped pioneer the category of customer success as founding CMO at Gainsight, and today is helping B2B companies develop owned audiences as CEO of AudiencePlus. Anthony is a great marketer who has thought deeply about how brands should develop relationships with audiences for the long term. This wide-ranging conversation explores many facets of how to put this into practice. Thanks to Our SponsorMany thanks to the sponsor of this episode - Knak. If you don't know them (you should), Knak is an amazing email and landing page builder that integrates directly with your marketing automation platform. You set the brand guidelines and then give your users a building experience that's slick, modern and beautiful. When they're done, everything goes to your MAP at the push of a button. What's more, it supports global teams, approval workflows, and it's got your integrations. Click the link below to get a special offer just for my listeners. Try Knak About Today's Guest Anthony Kennada is the co-founder and CEO of AudiencePlus—building software, content, and community to help every company become a media company.Prior to founding AudiencePlus, he served as the CMO of companies like Hopin, Front, and Gainsight. At this last company, he and his team are credited with creating the Customer Success category. Anthony is also the author of Category Creation: How to Build a Brand that Customers, Employees, and Investors Will Love, which debuted as a number one new release on Amazon.https://www.linkedin.com/in/akennada/Key Topics[00:00] - Introduction[01:43] - Evolving through growth stages at Gainsight[06:40] - Category creation[14:09] - Why should every company be a media company? [24:31] - Metrics for audience marketing[34:47] - Partnering with content creators[40:25] - Edutainment[44:29] - Golden HourThanks to Our SponsorBig thanks goes out UserGems for sponsoring today's episode. We all know running outbound is a huge pain—you need to manage a dozen different tools and data sources and it takes ton of manual work to keep it all going. UserGems solves that with one platform to capture signals and automate next steps with workflows and AI.You get a library of the most impactful signals in one place, automated playbooks to make sure your team executes consistently, and Gem AI to create personalized messaging for each prospect. So stop wasting time and start targeting your most promising buyers with less headcount. Click the link below for a special offer just for my listeners. Try UserGems Resource LinksWhy Every Company is Becoming a Media Company | AudiencePlus Learn MoreVisit the RevOps FM Substack for our weekly newsletter: Newsletter

Nick Mehta is the CEO of Gainsight, a leading customer and product experience platform that aims to be the operating system for your customer journeys. He's a passionate advocate for Customer Success as a function and as a business strategy, an author of several books on the topic, and recently super-excited about the future of Customer Success in an AI world. We talked about all of these topics and much more. A message from this episode's sponsor - Leadfeeder This episode is sponsored by Leadfeeder. No more not knowing who's coming to your website, convert more leads and get a free trial at Leadfeeder.com: Check out Leadfeeder here. Episode highlights:   1. Customer Success is not the same as Customer Support Yes, they both have the same "CS" initials, and this can confuse people, but it's not the same role. Customer Success conceptually sits somewhere in between Sales and Customer Support and drives customer value and retention. Customer Success is also more than a role, it's a company strategy. It's also part of the product you sell. 2. The end of the zero-interest-rate climate has had a profound impact on Customer Success These days, CEOs and investors value profit today over profit tomorrow. Retention is a huge driver of pure profit, and it's one of the highest-leverage activities you can invest in for a recurring revenue business. On the flip side, leaders are looking to become as efficient as possible and reduce the human effort to drive this retention, leading to a requirement for digital customer success strategies. 3. Yes, you probably do need a Customer Success team in your organisation Chris Degnan (CRO at Snowflake) recently opined on the 20VC podcast that he sees no use for Customer Success teams and would immediately get rid of them. That doesn't work for everyone though, and there are many companies that legitimately need Customer Success teams. It's fair enough to say "Customer Success is a strategy" but someone needs to wake up thinking about this and having it as their biggest priority. Customer expectations are rising all the time, and not all products can look after themselves. 4. Product teams and Customer Success teams need to have a good relationship Too many teams have almost no relationship, or only speak when there's an escalation. Both teams have a legitimate claim to own the customer experience, but they should own it together. The best Customer Success teams don't just bring escalations, or even the "What" but the "Who" and the "Why". This makes the relationship strategic and helps build a great product. 5. AI is going to change everything, but it has to be human-first If you're not keeping up with AI you're going to be left behind. It's important to focus on the evolutionary and revolutionary changes that you can bring to your product. There need to be guardrails in your product to ensure that the customer experience doesn't degrade, and you need to be sensitive to the fears and paranoia of internal teams that might feel threatened... but it's going to happen so you need a strategy to survive and thrive in the AI-powered future. Check out "Digital Customer Success" "In Digital Customer Success: The Next Frontier, a team of trailblazing Customer Success professionals and digital entrepreneurs delivers an insightful discussion of the next stage in Customer Success management. In the book, you'll discover how to design and deploy touchless and automated digital interventions that help your software users learn and grow as they use your product and unlock the value trapped within it — without ever needing to reach out to a live Customer Success Manager. " Check it out on Amazon. Contact Nick You can catch up with Nick on LinkedIn or check out Gainsight. You can also check out the blog post that Nick mentions, The One Thing Billionaire Frank Slootman Got Wrong. Related episodes you should like: Is Product-Led Growth Really For You? (Leah Tharin, Product-Led Growth Guru & Head of Product @ Jua) Embracing Change to Innovate in Product Management (Greg Coticchia, CEO @ Sopheon) The Big Pivot to Reinvent Product Management (Yana Welinder, Founder & CEO @ Kraftful) Helping Superhero Startup Founders Stay Away from their Kryptonite (Richard Blundell, Founder @ Vencha & Co-author "The Go To Market Handbook for B2B SaaS Leaders") Andy Walters' Hot Take - We're Soon Going to be Living in an AI-Assistant-First World (Andy Walters, CEO @ Emerge Haus & Generative AI Expert) Bjarte Rettedal's Hot Take - AI Models Should Be Under Public Ownership or Completely Transparent (Bjarte Rettedal, UX Designer) Greg Prickril's Hot Take - AI is going to change everything for Product Managers (Greg Prickril, B2B Product Management Coach, Consultant & Trainer) Debbie Levitt's Hot Take - Democratising our Work means AI is Going to Steal all our Jobs Sooner (Debbie Levitt, CXO @ DeltaCX and Author "Customers Know You Suck")

Key Moments:Why is the data wrong? (6:00)Our products are our data (11:00)The true size of the data quality problem (14:00)Clean your data before you prioritize shiny new tools (26:00)The next frontier: GenAI and unstructured data (31:00)Key Quotes:“The data estate has changed significantly. But the way in which we manage data and data quality specifically has not adapted.” – Barr Moses“I tracked every single change in the data that I made, and could calculate how much money a company saved after a data cleanup. For a mid-size company, the difference was approximately a quarter of a billion dollars. For a large company, it could be several billion dollars. 45% of the data I cleaned had errors.” – Olga Maydanchik“The competitive advantage is really the access to your proprietary data that you have as an enterprise. So you need to make sure that that data is accurate, reliable, and on time. Now, how do you do that? That's something that people are still figuring out.”  – Barr MosesMentions:Information Quality Applied: Best Practices for Improving Business Information, Outcomes and Systems: Book by Larry EnglishThe Rest is History PodcastFreakonomics PodcastThe Matrix Film SeriesThe Play That Goes WrongBio: Barr Moses: Barr Moses is the CEO and Co-Founder of Monte Carlo, the data reliability company. Monte Carlo is the creator of the industry's first end-to-end Data Observability platform. She is also co-author of O'Reilly's Data Quality Fundamentals: Building Reliable Data Pipelines. Previously, she was VP Customer Operations at Gainsight, a management consultant at Bain & Company and served in the Israeli Air Force as a commander of an intelligence data analyst unit.Olga Maydanchik:Olga Maydanchik is a data governance, data quality, and data architecture thought leader and practitioner. She is an expert in design and implementation of enterprise-wide data management programs, who has led data quality efforts at Deutsche Bank, AIG, and at Citi. Hear more from Cindi Howson here. Sponsored by ThoughtSpot.

Nick Mehta is the legendary CEO of Gainsight, a leading company in the customer success space, where he's played a pivotal role for over 11 years, growing it into a powerhouse with over 20,000 customers and $100 million in ARR. Before Gainsight, Nick was a serial entrepreneur, having led LiveOffice until its acquisition by Symantec, and co-founded Chipshot in the '90s. He holds a bachelor's degree in Biochemistry and a master's in Computer Science from Harvard. Beyond his professional achievements, Nick is a multi-talented individual, known for his popular blog "Metaphysical Musings," where he shares his love for Taylor Swift with nearly 27,000 subscribers. He's also a rapper, an OG shoe dog, and a YouTube celebrity with over 50 parody videos to his name.In this conversation, we discuss:The impact of AI on job security and how it will change the future of work, especially in the context of SaaS and customer success.The concept of "human-first AI" and how companies can leverage AI to remove grunt work while enhancing the human elements of customer interactions.The importance of building strong company culture, focusing on authenticity, transparency, and empathy as key drivers of employee engagement and satisfaction.The balance between the excitement and anxiety surrounding AI adoption, highlighting both the potential benefits and the challenges it poses to knowledge workers.Insights into how Gainsight has evolved over the years, with a particular emphasis on customer lifetime value and the importance of proactive customer success management.The role of leadership in maintaining company values, the importance of vulnerability and openness, and the unique ways Gainsight fosters a sense of community among its employees.ResourceSubscribe to the AI & The Future of Work NewsletterConnect with NickAI fun fact articleAn episode you might like about extending life with email

Send us a Text Message.Are you struggling to balance business results with employee well-being? Do you wonder how to create a high-performing team while treating them with humanity? It's time to explore the transformative impact of human-first leadership in customer success.Join Rachel Provan as she sits down with Easton Taylor, SVP of Customer Success at Gainsight, to uncover the secrets of creating a thriving, human-centric culture that drives business success.BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER:What human-first leadership really means beyond the buzzwords, and why it's more critical now than ever in the challenging tech economyThe 8 key ingredients of human-first leadership, including empathy, authenticity, and personalized experiencesHow Gainsight's core values, including "childlike joy" and "Shoshin" (beginner's mind), shape their unique culturePractical strategies for new leaders to build trust and transparency with their teamsThe crucial role of psychology in developing effective leadership skillsHow to maintain a human-first approach while driving results in challenging timesDon't let the pressure to deliver results destroy your team's morale and effectiveness. Tune in to learn how human-first leadership can transform your customer success department, boost employee engagement, and ultimately drive better business outcomes.********* This episode was sponsored by Vitally.io*********  

On this episode of TECHtonic, Thomas asks hard questions about the shifting landscape of customer success with Nick Mehta, CEO of Gainsight. Inspired by a provocative chapter in Frank Slootman's "Amp It Up" that questions the necessity of customer success, Thomas and Nick explore the current debates and future directions of this critical business function.Nick shares his insights on why customer success is more vital than ever, especially as technology companies face increasing pressure to prove their business value. From the historical context of customer success a decade ago to today's innovative strategies, Nick discusses the integration of AI, the importance of verticalization, and the evolving roles within customer success organizations.Listeners will gain valuable perspectives on how to leverage AI for better customer experiences, early warning systems, and productivity enhancements. Nick and Thomas also tackle the challenge of balancing cost efficiency with maintaining the core capabilities of customer success teams and the necessity of adopting a beginner's mind in the face of seismic industry shifts.Tune in to receive actionable advice and discover how you can stay ahead in the debate on the value of customer success and prepare your organization for the future.

Mac Kremer leads the pricing strategy practice at K1 Investment Management. He is experienced in B2B SaaS investing and value creation work. In this episode, Mac shares strategies for growing SaaS businesses through price increases, upsells, cross-sells, and increased usage. It discusses the complexities of implementing pricing systems and emphasizes the importance of flexibility and understanding your pricing model. Additionally, it highlights the need to educate sales teams on value-based selling to reduce discounting and improve sales effectiveness.   Why you have to check out today's podcast: Discover valuable strategies for growing SaaS businesses, including ways to expand, manage and track revenue streams effectively. Understand the complexities of implementing pricing systems in various-sized companies and find out solutions from simple tools to more sophisticated systems. Learn practical tips on communicating value to customers, helping sales teams to sell more effectively reducing the reliance on discounts.   "Sit down with whoever's responsible for pricing, decide to set up a committee and a cadence and just start talking about it more and more." - Mac Kremer   Topics Covered: 01:35 - How Mac found himself in pricing 02:42 - Describing his role at a private equity firm as both an advisor and consultant 03:38 - Discussing the importance of customer conversations in understanding value propositions 05:47 - Explaining that value can also include benefits beyond profit 07:28 - Similarities and differences between B2B and B2C purchasing decisions 08:49 - Using ROI calculators and the ability of sales reps to contextualize ROI within the business's specific goals 09:56 - How ownership of pricing in a company depends on its stage of development 14:01 - Importance of forecasting and budgeting for pricing activities 16:00 - Understanding the sources of revenue growth highlighting the four ways to grow a customer: Win, Keep, Grow 19:49 - What to focus on when it comes to net revenue retention 21:35 - Variety of pricing systems used and how it depends on the complexity of pricing models used 23:55 - The complexities of implementing and managing pricing systems as companies grow 25:57 - Helping salespeople understand and communicate value 29:06 - Mac's best pricing advice   Key Takeaways: "Customer conversations are so critical to understanding the value proposition of your solution, and where you kind of see your customer's perceiving value before you even start to talk about price." - Mac Kremer "The best place to start when you're having customer conversations is, you can go in and you can kind of engineer the true value calculator, the EVC, the economic value to the customer. But I think it's also just understanding their perception of the value that they're receiving. Because I think value comes in a lot of different forms, even outside of just profit." - Mac Kremer "A lot depends on the complexity of your pricing model when you go to think about what system we should be using?" - Mac Kremer   People/Resources Mentioned: Maxio: https://www.maxio.com Chargebee: https://www.chargebee.com Gainsight: https://www.gainsight.com NetSuite: https://www.netsuite.com/portal/home.shtmlSalesforce:https://www.salesforce.com Tableau: https://www.tableau.com   Connect with Mac Kremer: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mac-kremer/   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com  

Send us a Text Message.This week, we are pleased to bring you a conversation with Rod Cherkas, a SaaS veteran, consultant, author of two books on customer success, and vocal contributor to the CS community.  Rod and Alex discuss his past at Marketo and Gainsight (among others), his newly released book REACH, as well as where he sees the CS profession heading.Chapters:00:00:00 - Intro00:01:18 - Rod's Background and Path to CS00:02:42 - Journey from Product to Customer Focus00:03:45 - Intuit's Customer-Centric Approach00:04:27 - Applying Experience Design Principles00:05:02 - Hello CCO00:07:00 - Developing Executive-Level Skills00:09:08 - Practical Impact of REACH Framework00:10:29 - Importance of Marketing Playbooks00:11:16 - Commercial Focus in CS Teams00:13:03 - Learning from Digital Marketing00:15:45 - Embracing Digital and AI in CS00:16:15 - Prioritizing Accounts with Growth PotentialEnjoy! I know I sure did...Rod's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rodcherkas/Rod's Website: https://hellocco.comRod's Books:- CCO Playbook: https://amzn.to/3y44XBS- REACH: https://amzn.to/3Wn5wAm+++++++++++++++++This episode was edited and sponsored by Lifetime Value Media, a media production company founded by my good friend and fellow CS veteran Dillon Young.  Lifetime Value aims to serve the audio/video content production and editing needs of CS and Post-Sales professionals.  Lifetime Value is offering select services at a deeply discounted rate for a limited time.  Navigate to lifetimevaluemedia.com to learn more.+++++++++++++++++Lifetime Value MediaLifetime Value aims to serve the audio/video content production and editing needs. Support the Show.+++++++++++++++++Like/Subscribe/Review:If you are getting value from the show, please follow/subscribe so that you don't miss an episode and consider leaving us a review. Website:For more information about the show or to get in touch, visit DigitalCustomerSuccess.com. Buy Alex a Cup of Coffee:This show runs exclusively on caffeine - and lots of it. If you like what we're, consider supporting our habit by buying us a cup of coffee: https://bmc.link/dcspThank you for all of your support!The Digital Customer Success Podcast is hosted by Alex Turkovic

The playbook of raising money that people used to rely on has changed a lot over the last few years. Now that the market is more competitive and the pace of innovation is so much faster, what worked a decade ago won't produce the same results today.   Some of the best practices we were taught aren't as entrepreneur-friendly as we think. A lot of founders are taught to build something massive, aim for a high valuation and raise as much money as possible, but that just might endanger the success of our exit. A lot of founders are taking an entirely different approach - choosing to stay cash flow positive, raise less capital and intentionally work within a shoestring budget.   Can a high valuation end up working against you? How do we create a great founder fit and use familiarity to get better results? Do you need to be in Silicon Valley to set your business up for success?   In this episode, I'm joined by the founder of Dataplant, Samuel Cummings. He reveals how the rules of raising money have changed, and what we should be doing right now if we want to have success.   Topics Covered; -The truth about getting that first investment  -Pitching and winning a startup competition  -Creating your value proposition and telling your story  -The future of AI    Guest Bio   Samuel Cummings is an author, data scientist and customer success professional with a passion for driving outcomes. He is the founder of Dataplant, an automated customer management platform providing post-sales teams with the insights needed to proactively engage with each of their customers like never before. As former Head of Data Science at Gainsight, he led a global team responsible for implementing predictive analytics use-cases for Customer Success Management. Samuel uses his vast experience leveraging data to help customers make better decisions and build successful hiring programs. He is passionate about entrepreneurship, technology, data science and enterprise software. For more information, head to https://www.thedataplant.com/, watch episodes of The Scope here or connect with Samuel on LinkedIn.    Host Bio Jayla Siciliano, Shark Tank entrepreneur turned real estate investor, excels in building brands, teams, and products. CEO of a bi-coastal luxury short-term rental company, she also hosts the Seed Money Podcast where she's on a mission to help early-stage entrepreneurs turn their ideas into reality!    Connect: Website: seedmoneypodcast.com Instagram: @jaylasiciliano Subscribe and watch on YouTube @seedmoneypodcast  

In this episode of the Customer Success Playbook podcast, we're excited to host Samuel Cummings, CEO of DataPlant, who is at the forefront of revolutionizing customer success through AI and data science. Samuel shares his fascinating journey from being a data scientist at Gainsight and LinkedIn to founding DataPlant, a company dedicated to tackling the challenge of scaling personalized customer engagement.Join us as Samuel delves into:The evolution of customer success from reactive support to proactive, data-driven strategies.How DataPlant synthesizes complex data to create hyper-personalized messaging.The critical importance of digital empathy in managing a growing number of customer accounts.Real-world examples of DataPlant's impact, including their work with Restaurant 365.Predictions for the future of customer success and the transformative role of AI.Samuel's deep expertise and innovative perspective offer valuable insights and practical strategies for anyone involved in customer success. Don't miss this engaging episode that explores how DataPlant is changing the game and what the future holds for customer success.HTTP://www.dataplant.comhttps://www.ai4diversity.org/podcast/episode/1a1b4367/ai4diversity-meets-aura-or-ai4diversity-podcast-32Please Like, Comment, Share and Subscribe. You can also find the CS Playbook Podcast:YouTube - @CustomerSuccessPlaybookPodcastTwitter - @CS_PlaybookYou can find Kevin at:Metzgerbusiness.com - Kevin's person web siteKevin Metzger on Linked In.You can find Roman at:Roman Trebon on Linked In.

Creating memorable and innovative events is a challenging goal for many event marketers. Crafting experiences that stand out while securing leadership buy-in and balancing budgets can feel like an insurmountable task.And many marketers dream of transforming their events with unique and engaging elements. But the journey to achieving this level of innovation is fraught with obstacles. Getting stakeholder approval, navigating early rejections, and balancing traditional elements with fresh ideas require strategic thinking and persistence.So we're bringing in Kat Leong, an accomplished event specialist with over a decade of experience in the B2B and hospitality industries. As the Director of Corporate Events at Gainsight, Kat has played a pivotal role in producing flagship events like Pulse, Pulse Europe, and CxO Summit. Her expertise in creating unforgettable event experiences and her proven track record make her insights invaluable for anyone looking to innovate in event marketing.You'll learn:✅ How Pulse transformed from a small conference to a major, creatively unique event.✅ Effective strategies for securing leadership buy-in for creative ideas.✅ Ways to balance traditional event elements with innovative executions to create standout experiences.Tune in to discover how to earn the right to innovate at your events and make your event marketing strategies impactful.Connect with KatOn her LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kleong/ Connect with MeOn my LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-kleinrock-9613b22b/ On my Company: https://rockwayexhibits.com/

How do you live a big life and achieve your full potential, both personally and professionally? That's exactly what we talk about with Melissa Bickford.Did you know that your habits and values drive personal development and that being proactive can help you achieve your goals? Melissa shares tips on how to live a full and authentic life by exploring your passions and interests, whether it's through a new hobby or focusing on health and wellness. Melissa Bickford is an executive in the software industry, based in Notting Hill. Having carved out a global banking and tech career across Australia, the USA, and the UK over the past 15 years; Mel has developed a deep passion for helping others achieve their fullest potential both professionally and personally. She is excited to enter the wonderful world of podcasting to share her life experiences in the hope they'll help others by building a safe and supportive community.In today's episode, you'll hear about:How to push through discomfortWhy you need to start something newHow to enjoy what you're doing for workListen now and feel the inspiration to improve your life. Here's to a more empowered and motivated you!Follow Melissa!This episode was brought to you by Gainsight.__________________________________________________About Women in Customer Success Podcast: Women in Customer Success Podcast is the first women-only podcast for Customer Success professionals, where remarkable ladies of Customer Success connect, inspire and champion each other. Follow:Women in Customer Success - Website - womenincs.co - LinkedIn - linkedin.com/company/womenincs - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/womenincs.co/ - Podcast page - womenincs.co/podcast - Sign Up for PowerUp Tribe - womenincs.co/powerup Host Marija Skobe-Pilley - Website - https://www.marijaskobepilley.com/ - LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mspilley/ - Coaching with Marija: http://marijaskobepilley.com/programs - Get a FREE '9 Habits of Successful CSMs' guide https://www.marijaskobepilley.com/9-habits-freebie

Anthony Kennada is is co-founder & CEO of AudiencePlus, a company building software, content, and community to help businesses become media companies. Prior to founding AudiencePlus, Anthony served as the CMO of Hopin, Front, and Gainsight.In this episode, they discussWhat it means to be a media companyBuilding an audience from scratchWhy building community is important in B2B marketingTimestamps(00:00) - - Introduction and context from Anthony Kennada. (05:00) - - Definition and evolution of becoming a media company. (10:00) - - The importance of building an audience and brand-oriented marketing. (15:00) - - Discussion on content production and budget constraints. (20:00) - - Community building and its significance in B2B marketing. (25:00) - - The relationship between audience and community in marketing strategies. (30:00) - - Efficient growth strategies and the role of organic growth. (35:00) - - Building an audience from scratch and effective distribution strategies. (40:00) - - Overcoming challenges in the current economic climate. (45:00) - - Reflection on past marketing mistakes and learning from them. (50:00) - - Discussion on category creation and its impact.

Welcome to Season 2, Episode 17 of the Customer Success Playbook Podcast! This week, hosts Roman Trebon and Kevin Metzger review the latest in customer success news and insights. They discuss standout articles on leadership within CSM roles, including a piece by Marcus Wrench on how high-performing CSMs embody leadership qualities. The episode also features a video post by Justin Chappelle on B2B customer experience and evolving survey methodologies.Kevin shares his experience at the Gainsight Pulse conference, highlighting Gainsight's "Human-First AI" initiative and its impact on the customer success landscape. The hosts delve into the balance between automation and human-centered approaches, discussing the implications for the workforce and customer engagement.Looking ahead, the podcast teases upcoming episodes with exciting guests like Nik Mijik from Matik, Sam Cummings from DataPlant, and Peter Orr from GuideCX. They discuss innovations in data utilization, AI-driven customer success strategies, and onboarding automation.Finally, they invite listeners to the upcoming Atlanta Customer Success Playbook Pickleball game, promising a fun day of networking and community building.Tune in for a comprehensive week in review, thought-provoking discussions, and a sneak peek at what's next in the world of customer success. Don't miss it!Please Like, Comment, Share and Subscribe. You can also find the CS Playbook Podcast:YouTube - @CustomerSuccessPlaybookPodcastTwitter - @CS_PlaybookYou can find Kevin at:Metzgerbusiness.com - Kevin's person web siteKevin Metzger on Linked In.You can find Roman at:Roman Trebon on Linked In.

Is your CS team transitioning into commercial roles? Then this video is for you! Join us as Therese shares helpful tips on how to transition CSM teams into commercial roles. Learn how to help with mindset shifts in behaviours, team training and development, and master the art of leading a team.Throughout her professional career, Therese has been the face of various industries, from hospitality to sales to customer service. Whether it's greeting guests with a warm smile, closing deals with finesse, or resolving issues with empathy, she thrives in customer-facing roles, finding joy in every interaction.For the past five years, Therese has been immersed in the realm of CS, cherishing every opportunity to foster meaningful relationships and drive revenue through the seamless integration of sales and CS.What this episode has in store for you:Career development tipsAdvice for leadersPersonal development and professional growth tipsTherese also offers advice on achieving a work-life balance while being a mother. Dive into this episode for tips for transitioning teams and developing your career. Follow Therese!This episode was brought to you by Gainsight.Exciting news

In the latest episode of the Customer Success Playbook Podcast, Kevin Metzger recapped his recent trip to St. Louis for the Gainsight Conference. The episode covered his experiences from networking events to insightful sessions on AI and customer success strategies. Highlights included discussions on Gainsight's roadmap, innovative AI projects, and strategic planning for customer success initiatives. Kevin emphasized the importance of networking, shared key takeaways from various sessions, and is excited about upcoming guests for the podcast.Detailed Analysis and Business-Relevant InsightsNetworking and Community EngagementKevin's trip began with a networking happy hour hosted by James from Atlanta Customer Success and Growth Molecules. Such events are crucial for fostering connections within the customer success community, allowing professionals to share experiences and insights. The value of these interactions cannot be overstated as they often lead to collaborations and new business opportunities.AI and Customer Success: Gainsight's VisionThe conference's main focus was on AI's role in customer success. Gainsight CEO Nick opened the event with a session highlighting the company's AI initiatives. Kevin noted the emphasis on AI-driven tools designed to enhance customer interactions and streamline success strategies. The demo showcased both current capabilities and future developments, reflecting the rapid integration of AI in customer success.Vanessa Gotti from OpenAI also presented, providing insights into AI's potential in customer success. Her sessions underscored the transformative impact of AI, from personalized customer interactions to predictive analytics. For businesses, adopting AI tools can lead to more efficient processes, improved customer satisfaction, and ultimately, better retention rates.Project Prioritization and Implementation: LinkedIn's ApproachA particularly enlightening session was presented by LinkedIn representatives, who discussed their project prioritization framework. This included evaluating project proposals based on potential impact and feasibility. They introduced "Project Stitch," an AI-driven initiative aimed at providing personalized guidance at scale. This project involved extensive prompt engineering and testing to ensure accuracy and reliability in automated customer interactions.For businesses, the key takeaway is the importance of a structured approach to project management, especially when integrating new technologies like AI. Prioritizing projects that offer significant returns and aligning them with strategic goals can drive innovation while maintaining operational efficiency.Customer Success and Financial MetricsJay Nathan's session on understanding customer success from a P&L perspective was another highlight. He illustrated how changes in customer success strategies directly impact financial metrics such as gross margin and lifetime value (LTV). By linking customer success initiatives to tangible financial outcomes, businesses can better justify investments in this area and demonstrate their value to stakeholders.Upcoming Guests and Future EventsKevin's successful networking efforts at the conference have led to exciting upcoming guePlease Like, Comment, Share and Subscribe. You can also find the CS Playbook Podcast:YouTube - @CustomerSuccessPlaybookPodcastTwitter - @CS_PlaybookYou can find Kevin at:Metzgerbusiness.com - Kevin's person web siteKevin Metzger on Linked In.You can find Roman at:Roman Trebon on Linked In.

Customer success icon Nick Mehta, CEO of Gainsight, joins our hosts Kristi Faltorusso, Jon Johnson, & Josh Schachter for a candid conversation packed with insights on the evolving CS landscape. From a sneak peek at Pulse 2024 to the future of AI in CS, Nick brings his trademark wit along with wisdom on key trends like: - The changing job market and customer expectations - Aligning CS with revenue and business outcomes - Standardizing practices while keeping the human touch - Major industry moves and consolidation Get an insider's perspective from one of CS's most respected voices - with some surprises along the way. A must-listen for CS pros at any level. Timestamps: 0:00 - Preview & Intros 3:44 - Pulse 2024 at St. Customer Success 5:23 - Nick's Pulse 2024 outfit 10:20 - The state of CS in 2024 18:00 - The lack of accountability 18:53 - The term "Customer Success" is vague 22:40 - Customer Success is a part of the product 25:59 - Nick's priorities for the rest of 2024 & BS! ___________________________

In this exciting episode of the Women In Customer Success podcast, I am joined by Giorgia Pedenzini, a Customer Success Manager at Gainsight and a pro at building strong customer relationships. In our conversation, Giorgia gives strategic CSM tips, from deepening your understanding of customer needs to improving customer interaction skills. She shares her journey to becoming a customer success manager and her experience building a career in customer success.We talk about building customer loyalty, and Giorgia gives helpful advice for CSM professionals. She explains the importance of really getting to know and forming deeper relationships with customers. Giorgia also talks about the importance of entrepreneurial skills for CSMs, showing how these can help innovate and push your career forward. What this episode has in store for you:CSM career tipsCSM strategic thinking skillsCelebrating customers' successHow to get to know your customers betterThis episode is sponsored by Gainsight, a customer success and product experience software.Follow Giorgia!__________________________________________________About Women in Customer Success Podcast: Women in Customer Success Podcast is the first women-only podcast for Customer Success professionals, where remarkable ladies of Customer Success connect, inspire and champion each other. Follow:Women in Customer Success - Website - womenincs.co - LinkedIn - linkedin.com/company/womenincs - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/womenincs.co/ - Podcast page - womenincs.co/podcast - Sign Up for PowerUp Tribe - womenincs.co/powerup Host Marija Skobe-Pilley - Website - https://www.marijaskobepilley.com/ - LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mspilley/ - Coaching with Marija: http://marijaskobepilley.com/programs - Get a FREE '9 Habits of Successful CSMs' guide https://www.marijaskobepilley.com/9-habits-freebie

Kari Ardalan of Qualtrics is a staple in the CS community and has been leading scaled motions for YEARS - which is sometime that not a lot of people can say. She also sits on Gainsight's Digital Advisory Board - so yeah, she's qualified to talk about this stuff. :-)In this fantastic conversation, we talk about:Building digital first with humans coming in off of the back of those motionsThe evolution of ‘scaled' from just email and outbound events to a push to come inboundBuilding one place portal where customers can go for everything and where CSMs can interact with their customersHow Digital is structured at Qualtrics across various departmentsInternal cross-collaboration on digital motionsWhat to look out for in a digital leader - specifically cross-collaboration and a varied backgroundFocusing on Support deflection metrics and areas to automateOther interesting metrics in use at Qualtrics: % CTAs launched, penetration rate of closed success CTAs (conversation), Monthly Active Users, Monthly Active Customers, Flow Completion, % of Renewals Not Assisted by Humans Balancing being tactical and strategic as a leaderUsing special interests among the team to drive career growth and creativity - including HackathonsCool examples of digital motions including customer-facing scorecards, micro-learning, AI and self-serve portals.AI bot & recommendation engine implementation at Qualtrics Letting data tell you who the customer personas areThe dependency on operations work streams to get things doneEnjoy! I sure did...Kari's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kariardalan/Link to Kari's post about the qualities of a Digital CS Leader: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kariardalan_digitalsuccess-leadership-recruitment-activity-7175101395631570944-qujn?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktopShoutouts:Delores Cooper (Zendesk): https://www.linkedin.com/in/delorescooper/Austin Kwon (LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/austinkwon/Kelly Bray (MongoDB): https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-bray-1684166/Rimple Patel (Eightfold): https://www.linkedin.com/in/rimpledpatel/+++++++++++++++++Support the Show.+++++++++++++++++Like/Subscribe/Review:If you are getting value from the show, please follow/subscribe so that you don't miss an episode and consider leaving us a review. Website:For more information about the show or to get in touch, visit DigitalCustomerSuccess.com. Buy Alex a Cup of Coffee:This show runs exclusively on caffeine - and lots of it. If you like what we're, consider supporting our habit by buying us a cup of coffee: https://bmc.link/dcspThank you for all of your support!The Digital Customer Success Podcast is hosted by Alex Turkovic

Irit Eizips has been in and around CS for a long time. From being in on the ground floor at Gainsight to running her very successful consultancy, she has been a staple in the CS community and consistently produces fantastic content that we all benefit from! In this episode, we get into: Irit's days at the early-stage Gainsight and the culture of startupsHer home in consulting (CSM Practice) vs. being a full time employeeBeing part of CS from the ground floorThe advancement of CS to where certification and degree programs have enabled college grads an entry into the fieldDigital motions should support the work of humans in CSImplementing too much digital without touchpoints along the way can actually have negative customer implicationsIdentifying risk in customers who are disengaging with digital programsOver-use of email via redundancy and simultaneous emails from multiple organizationsThe use of avatars in digital for communications to make things more fun when appropriateProtecting revenue and expansion via process automations to flag risk early before renewal and even close it earlyA few examples of great digital motions and practical advice around designing themDesigning digital-first motions with client outcomes & a customer journey front and centerLoads of great info in this one. Enjoy! I know I sure did...Irit's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eizips/CSM Practice: https://www.csmpractice.com/CSM Practice YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/CSMPracticeResources:Seven Pillars of Customer Success by Wayne McCulloch: https://amzn.to/3TLXYogCCO Playbook by Rod Cherkas: https://amzn.to/3TLXYogOnboarding Matters by Donna Webber: https://amzn.to/3TRk9cuShoutout:Yair Bortinger: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yair-bortinger/Yair's episode on CSM Practice Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pwj634-qu0+++++++++++++++++Support the show+++++++++++++++++Like/Subscribe/Review:If you are getting value from the show, please follow/subscribe so that you don't miss an episode and consider leaving us a review. Website:For more information about the show or to get in touch, visit DigitalCustomerSuccess.com. Buy Alex a Cup of Coffee:This show runs exclusively on caffeine - and lots of it. If you like what we're, consider supporting our habit by buying us a cup of coffee: https://bmc.link/dcspThank you for all of your support!The Digital Customer Success Podcast is hosted by Alex Turkovic

Barry Klein is Vice president of Success and Enablement at Austin-Based Talroo, the data driven job and hiring event advertising platform that helps businesses reach the candidates they need to build their essential workforce. Barry provides leadership to Talroo's team of Customer Success Analysts who have both revenue and customer service responsibilities for multiple verticals.  Passionate about establishing “customers” as “partners”, he focuses on long-term relationships, lifetime value and establishing raving fans. With more than 30 years of experience in customer-facing and executive roles, including Vice President of Sales Engineering for Vignette Corp, Barry also spent several years running his own small business and consultancy. Barry holds a BS in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.   Questions ·    We always like to hear from our guests in their own words, how did you get from where you were to where you are today? · Can you share with our listeners a little bit about why you believe recruitment is so important as it relates to customer service delivery? · In terms of how do we hire well and focus on cultural alignment? And I imagine this begins in the interview process. What are three main things that you believe if you're tasked with that responsibility for an organization, where would you put your focus, maybe three top areas that you put your focus on if we're trying to get cultural alignment? · Now, could you share with us what's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely can't live without in your business? · Could you also share with our listeners maybe one or two books that you've read, it could be a book that you read recently, or one that you read a very long time ago, but it has had a great impact on you. · Can you share with us also, what's one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about? Either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people. ·  Where can listeners find you online? ·  Before we wrap our episodes up, we always like to ask our guests do you have a quote or a saying that during times of adversity or challenge you will tend to revert to this quote if for any reason you got derailed or there was an obstacle or hurdle that was presented to you and it caused you to not be on track but when you thought of that quote or when you recited that quote, it kind of got you back on track. Do you have one of those?   Highlights Barry's Journey  Me: Now, we always like to give our guests an opportunity to share in their own words a little bit about their journey. So, I know we read your bio that gives us formally how it is that you got to where you are today, but we always like to hear from our guests in their own words, how did you get from where you were to where you are today?    Barry stated that he appreciates Yanique asking and thanked her for mentioning his alma mater, RPI. As he said, he was a Computer Science Major and he was in college in the late 80s. So, the world of programming was very different than it would be today. But he wrote a lot of codes, in fact, when he went to his parent's house years after he graduated, and he saw the Dot Matrix Paper printouts of the code he had written, he was like, who wrote this, he couldn't in a million years, he couldn't have recreated that code.   But by the time he graduated college, he knew that while he enjoyed coding very much, and it was why he went to get a computer science degree, he done enough. And what he became intrigued about was the intersection of the technology and people. And his first roles out of college were not really tech support per se but sort of high-end engineering support for customers who are developing with their platform and that led him closer to customers.  And what he found he really enjoy and what he imagines he's best that if he has to choose his best skill is, is explaining and painting a picture about technical topics for non-technical folks, that is very gratifying.  It's allowed him to have experience both with frontline decision makers, frontline influencers at any given customer, as well as executive suite folks who need these pictures drawn and need that insight. And he really enjoyed that, and he especially enjoy not only doing that himself, but enabling teams to do that with best practices, all the nuance that you need when you're in that customer facing role, whether it's pre sales or post sales, not just what you say, but how you say it. All of those things come together to create the kinds of roles that are always dynamic, and no two days are ever the same.    The Importance of Recruitment as it Relates to Customer Service Delivery Me: So, a big part of what you're doing at your current organization is recruitment, correct? So, can you share with our listeners a little bit about why you believe recruitment is so important as it relates to customer service delivery, maybe connect the dots so that our listeners can have a good understanding of why having good recruitment techniques is critical to ensuring that you are aligned properly to get the kind of deliverables that you're looking from as it relates to customer service.   Barry shared that it is an interesting intersection because the skills and mindset of customer success folks is something that would exist regardless of what the industry you happen to be in is, but in their case, because Talroo is a talent matching platform that strives to match opportunities, especially for frontline workers with having the frontline worker at the right job, in the right place, at the right time, for the right price, so that they get the happy connection between an employer who needs the talent and the person who has the talent, making that connection is very gratifying and their entire platform is aligned around that.  And it does create an interesting mindset for them because they're helping employers recruit and then you say, “Well, how does that affect our own recruitment? What are we looking for? What are the processes? Everything from how do we source our candidates to how do we interview them to how do we determine their cultural alignment with our organization?”  So, all things recruitment is really near and dear to their heart.  And the other thing that makes it fun is, what they do is at an intersection of such a huge part of the economy, he can't read a newspaper or put on CNBC or watch a business channel, and not have them talking about the unemployment rate and the impact. So, they are really in the forefront of all of that.   But one of the things that they've really been focusing on as they craft where Talroo is going is very personal to him in terms of how he recruits and who he hires and who he looks for. One of the things they're seizing on as sort of their mission is improving the lives of both employers and candidates, one person at a time. And he loves that tagline because it captures how personal it is, it's one person at a time.   And he believes in a leadership role, the single most important thing that you can do is hire well, that is absolutely the single most important thing, if you hire well, most things take care of themselves, you hire well, you train well and you correct hiring problems quickly, if you've made a mistake, if you don't have that proper connection, that's always very painful, if you have to do that.   And then really the role he believes of a leader is to create the environment in which these talented people who are motivated and intelligent, where they can succeed. So, he often says he doesn't do any real work, the thing that he's most proud of is creating an environment in which these folks can succeed, get the political stuff out of the way, and set them up for success. And if we found the right people who are customer success oriented, whether that service-oriented heart, they can then teach them what they need to know about their technology, their solution, but if they are the right cultural fit and the right kind of person, then they're 80% of the way there.   Areas to Focus On To Achieve Cultural Alignment Me: So, I like the fact that in your explanation just know, you spoke about cultural alignment, and I think I would love for you to go a little bit more granular as it relates to that in terms of how do we hire well and focus on cultural alignment? And I imagine this begins in the interview process. Are there some key questions that you think may need to be asked? Does it boil down to the advertisement that you put out in terms of who you're attracting to apply in the first place? Where do you start? And maybe what are three, I would say main things that you believe if you're tasked with that responsibility for an organization, where would you put your focus, maybe three top areas that you put your focus on if we're trying to get cultural alignment?    Barry stated that it is a huge topic for them and in fact, he was just speaking with her CEO and they were thinking back on some candidates who didn't work out, not his organization per se, but across the company.  And in every case, when they violated in a sense their own rules, not that there are hard and fast rules, but when they looked past a lack of cultural alignment, the candidate didn't work out.  And they have a very formal process whereby, typically, it's done by their HR Department as part of the interviewing cycle, where a series of questions that are available are asked, in theory, the same topics would have come up in the other interviews with you want a candidate to meet some peers, of course, he interviews them as the hiring manager, and then they meet with HR.  And he will tend to focus on interpersonal relationships and problem solving. When you look at their values and we've written them down and he thinks so many companies these days happily have their pillars of their culture on their website, whether they live by them, it's hard to say. He appreciates candidates who challenge them on those things and want to make sure that it's real. But they talk about things like being customer first, they talk about teamwork, they talk about accountability. He will and others, he will focus very much on the teamwork aspect of things and conflict resolution all with an eye toward, are we doing the right thing for their customer and for themselves, he can become a Johnnie one note around win-win scenarios. He has no interest in someone who is so accommodating of a customer that they might put his company at risk.  They look for partners and they don't say that in a glib fashion or as a soundbite, it's true. The nature of their business is such that if they have a customer who just wants them to service them and does not want to meet them at an appropriate point, in terms of communication and keeping data flowing and sharing reality, what's going on, if they're not a real partner, they don't do well with them.  And so, he needs customer success folks who understand that, who understand how to deal with conflict, who can navigate the complexities of those interpersonal relationships.  So, they'll ask questions around, of course, “Give him a scenario where you and a colleague were out of alignment and in disagreement, what did you do?” And you will hope that the candidate is honest and doesn't just tell you what you want to hear, normally you can figure out if they're telling you what you want to hear.  But that ultimately leads them to the single most important question in their values alignment survey when they take a candidate and they ask them to meet for half hour with their HR Department, the single most important question came out of a real life scenario with their CEO actually, where it led to the following question, “You go to a restaurant and you have your iPad on the front seat of your car, you park your car, and you don't lock the door, when you come back, the iPad is gone. Whose fault is it?”   And it's a fascinating question because what they are looking for is, “It's my fault.”  It doesn't mean the thief doesn't have some accountability.  And it doesn't mean that the restaurant might not have a more secure parking lot.   But in the end, you left a valuable item out in the open with an unlocked door, they didn't even have to smash the window, they just opened the door and took your very expensive piece of equipment. How do you not think that was my fault? I live in the real world, I have to have accountability for that kind of thing.  It leads to interesting discussions; they've had discussions around none of us ever want to blame a victim in the course of a crime being committed.  And the reason he liked that scenario so much is the car wasn't even violated. Were you a victim? Or were you just dumb? You invited someone you say, “Please rob me!”  If he leaves his front door unlocked, okay, you blame the thief, you shouldn't be robbed, society shouldn't allow that to happen. But you know what, he lives in the real world, he locked his door when he leaves.  So, those kinds of questions really matter. And that question in particular, and he will tell you, he's very pleased, their candidates are honest, and their HR folks take very good notes, offer their own opinions. He'll go into their ITS and read those notes. And that's the question he's looking for.   Are you personally accountable for your actions?  You can give 10% to the thief and you can give 10% to the to the restaurant, but if you're not thinking that you're 70% or 80% responsible for that, you might be looking for excuses as to when things don't go your way. And they're just too small a company too and they wear too many hats for anyone who has that opinion.   Me: Wow, I love that question. Thank you so much for sharing very, very good one.   App, Website or Tool that Barry Absolutely Can't Live Without in His Business When asked about an online resource that he can't live without in his business, Barry shared that it's funny, he hates to have it be the technological death star of our industry that he's dealt with since he got into technology. But really it's their day to day tools with Microsoft, they are a Teams shop and they are finding more customers who are using Teams, of course you have Teams aficionados, and you have a lot of folks who are passionate about Slack. But they're using Teams and informally don't tell their IT Department they have some Slack channels going too. But that kind of real time communication with themselves because his team is fully remote. And so, their ability to stay in real time communication and in many cases in real time communication with their customers is proving ever, ever more valuable, they couldn't live without it at this point.   Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Barry When asked about books that have had a great impact, Barry shared that it's fun to think about, currently he's been enjoying reading history, the historian and he is a professor at Vanderbilt University, Jon Meacham is his name. He's the kind of fellow who when he's a guest on a news programme, and he finds him and he sees him, he's actually glad they're talking about it. He's hoping there's a way to sign up for when is Jon Meacham going to be on TV so he can go find him. He hangs on his every word and it's the kind of guy you kind of wish he was your grandfather telling you stories about the world in the past.  His biographies of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson have been his latest readings. And he enjoys that because, a, he enjoys the break from technology and what they do every day, get his brain around something else. But it's the lessons from these great thinkers like a Thomas Jefferson as presented by a great thinker in the form of Jon Meacham where he finds himself reading his books with a highlighter, because it's not just the observations, the historical observations, but his observations when he ties these topics together. So, he always finds that fascinating, especially from a leadership standpoint.   And it's funny, the other thing that comes to mind is, it's again, he's so much older than probably many of the listeners, but when he was in high school, he read a book by a gentleman named Roger Kahn, he became famous for his book, The Boys of Summer, which was about the 1950s, 40s and 50s, Brooklyn Dodgers.  And he wrote a book called Good Enough to Dream. And it was about his ownership stake in a minor league baseball club in Utica, New York. And the opening line has stayed with him, “The first dream full of innocence and sunlight is to play the game.” which he always loved. But early in the book, he says to someone who's associated with the team, “Are these guys any good?” And the response was, “They're good enough to dream.” And that has always stayed with him. “Am I the best at something? Is my company the best at something?” He doesn't know, but they're good enough to give it a try and see where it leads them. And that's always stayed with him.   What Barry is Really Excited About Now! When asked about something that he's really excited about, Barry shared that within his organization, he doesn't mind doing a commercial for the product Gainsight, which is the customer success platform. They recognized about 15 months ago as Talroo was growing both in terms of their customer base and their staff, that as a Salesforce shop and as a Microsoft shop, the needs for customer success weren't being met, in terms of what do they need to record? What do they need to predict? Do they have a sense around who will keep their contracts going, versus who is at risk of cancelling.  Just as a quick sidebar, Talroo, unlike a typical SaaS company does not have a long-term contract, they have to earn their customers business every month, they can cancel at will.   And so, it creates unique challenges and a real time need to know what's going on with each customer. And so, about 15 months ago, they embarked upon a project to implement a customer success platform. They ultimately chose Gainsight, he will say for anyone who is looking for a customer success platform, all of the players in the industry who they looked at were terrific, he doesn't think you could go wrong. ChurnZero to Tango, others, they were all first-class organizations, and they happened to choose Gainsight and that became an immediate game changer and continues to be.  And so, thank you for the question about what he's focused on? Where are they growing? How are they evolving?   When they first rolled out Gainsight, it was primarily to support their efforts to track and manage and deal with renewals and even upsells are very important for upsells with their direct customers, employers who come to them and say, “Talroo will work with you directly to please advertise our jobs out in the world.” And that's what they really started with for the majority of their first year with the product.  But he has other caliber of customers who his team has to look after, including advertising agencies, and including job boards who they've had relationships with for years, who send them their jobs to advertise. And the needs are different across those different caliber of customers, and getting Gainsight rolled out now for the other members of his team and candidly getting adoption of it.   One of the things they've done very well and that he would encourage anyone thinking about any large software purchases, the people can kill a project. If any given team refuses to use Salesforce, Salesforce will fail. If any team refuses to use Gainsight, Gainsight will fail, people can win, and really torpedo a project.  So, they've done a really good job of getting buy in, forming a user council, the gentleman who is Andy Trevino, who is their administrator and RCS Ops Manager, who looks after Gainsight is always open to feedback, he's always soliciting feedback, so that they can make the solution match the way they work. He doesn't like software solutions where they have to change their behaviour in order to accommodate the tool, he wants the tool to accommodate the workflow and the processes that they already know work. And as they roll out the usage of Gainsight to this extended team, their needs are very different than their counterparts who work with their direct customers. So, getting that right is important.  And that accountability is incredibly important, because he no longer could afford and one of the reasons they went with Gainsight and started this whole project was when he wants to ask the very simple or get an answer to what he hopes would be a simple question of what's going on with fill in the blank of the customer name, it shouldn't take him 20 minutes to figure it out.  He needs all the information in one place and they're doing a terrific job of that with Gainsight with their direct customers, and getting members of his team who aren't used to it and haven't had to use it in the past, he needs to bring them along and their feedback. And he needs to make sure the product gets built out in a way that makes their lives easier, and that they see the value of it and that it's not just busy work, it's not just bureaucracy, it's that they really are using the product to make their lives better and then he gets what he needs in a leadership role, their C suite gets what it needs when they have questions about what's going on with the customer.  Many folks may have thought of this or use this line, traditionally, it's with Salesforce, they would say, on the sales side, if something isn't recorded in Salesforce, it didn't happen. That's the source of truth and that's where he's going with Gainsight, if you don't have notes and details and specifics in Gainsight, then it didn't happen. And you don't want to do that for bureaucratic reasons, you want to do it because it makes the organization better and your customers more successful.   Me: Awesome. So, Gainsight is where you have most of your head wrapped around right now and just trying to build that out.   Where Can We Find Barry Online LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/klein-barry/   Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Barry Uses When asked about a quote that he tends to revert to, Barry shared that he has two, one is more serious than the other but the other, the funny one was his high school yearbook quote, but he will say plainly, he's not a praying or religious person by nature, but he will go back to, “Dear God, grant me the strength to change the things I can, accept those that I can't, and the wisdom to know the difference.”   It really gets hard to know where you need to invest your time and energy. What should you care about? What do you need to back off of? What can't you change?  So, the wisdom to know the difference between what you can change and what you have to accept is something he thinks about a lot.  The more fun quote is from the old Mary Tyler Moore Show, in the episode in which the character Chuckles The Clown is tragically killed, because he is the master of ceremonies for a parade. And he gets run over by an elephant dressed as a peanut, which leads to a ridiculous number of jokes and things about a man dressed as a peanut killed by an elephant. But because he was a clown by nature, his quotes, and the things that he did become a big part of the show. And his (Barry) high school yearbook quote was, “A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants.” Moments of stress, you know what, how serious can life be? “A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants.”    Me: I love it. Okay, Barry, thank you so much for taking time out of your very busy schedule and hopping on our podcast today and sharing all of these great insights as it relates to cultural alignment and recruitment, ensuring that you're getting the right fit to ensure that you're able to meet the deliverables and as you mentioned, just mitigating against the wrong fit and mitigating against challenges and issues that could have been prevented had the recruitment been aligned and selected properly from day one. So, I thought it was a great conversation and I just want to say, thank you so much for taking time and sharing with us today.    Please connect with us on Twitter @navigatingcx and also join our Private Facebook Community – Navigating the Customer Experience and listen to our FB Lives weekly with a new guest   Links •     Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham •     American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham •     The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn •     Good Enough to Dream by Roger Kahn    The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience Grab the Freebie on Our Website – TOP 10 Online Business Resources for Small Business Owners  Do you want to pivot your online customer experience and build loyalty - get a copy of “The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience.” The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty. This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately! This book will develop your customer service skills and sharpen your attention to detail when serving others. Master your customer experience and develop those knock your socks off techniques that will lead to lifetime customers. Your customers will only want to work with your business and it will be your brand differentiator. It will lead to recruiters to seek you out by providing practical examples on how to deliver a winning customer service experience!

Chandar Pattabhiram is the Board of Directors for: Donnelley Financial Solutions (NYSE:DFIN), Blueshift & Osaat.org - a non-profit transforming education in rural India. Chandar has previously been a CMO at Coupa and Marketo, and VP of Marketing at IBM Cast Iron. He was the former Strategic Advisor to Gainsight and Freshworks. He is LinkedIn Top 5 CMOs to follow for thought-leadership. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theindustryshow/support

From thought-provoking discussions to inspiring interviews, the Best of Season 3 features the most memorable moments from our diverse range of topics and guests throughout the season. Join us as we revisit the most captivating moments, inspiring conversations, and game-changing insights from the past season.In this episode:Ekta Chopra, Chief Digital Officer of e.l.f. beauty on how they've worked to differentiate themselves as a digitally native brandDon White, CEO and Co-founder of Satisfi Labs on the digital fan experienceTyson Jominy, Vice President, Data & Analytics at J.D. Power on if EV's can be considered digital productsSara Vaezy, EVP, Chief Strategy and Digital Officer with Providence, talks about the latest healthcare digital adoptionNick Mehta, CEO at Gainsight explains how he helps clients make the case for customer successScott Crabill, Managing Partner of Thoma Bravo, on the trends shaping the business landscape todayErik Brown, Sr. Partner of Product Experience & Engineering Lab at West Monroe discusses the new video podcast series, This is AICurtis Dubay, Chief Economist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, on his predictions for AI in the workplace

Nick Mehta, CEO of Gainsight joins Dave "CAC" Kellogg and Ray "Growth" Rike to discuss all things Customer Success and metrics! This is a "special episode" that combines deep Customer Success (CS) expertise with moments of light humor, pop culture references, and SaaS industry insider insights!Topics discussed and benchmarks shared during this episode include:ARR per CSMCustomers per CSMCustomer Success Reporting RelationshipsExpansion ARR and Renewal ResponsibilityCSAT or NPSFurther into the episode, additional topics covered include:Priority Outcome Metrics for CSPrimary Leading Indicators for CSCustomer Verified OutcomesThere has been a lot of talk across the industry regarding the future of Customer Success, including if Customer Success as a function is needed which was highlighted in Frank Slootman's book "Amp it Up".If you have a Customer Success team, are considering how to invest in Customer Success, or are just looking for an entertaining 20-minute conversation chalked full of great insights and a laugh or two this episode is a GREAT listen!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this curated episode of the Revenue Builders Podcast, John McMahon and John Kaplan on the Revenue Builders podcast as they dive into the intricate world of churn with special guest Allison Pickens. Former COO of Gainsight, Allison shares her insights into scaling a company and understanding the nuanced reasons behind customer departures. From measuring churn metrics to the importance of responding to external factors, this episode provides valuable lessons for businesses aiming to enhance customer success and retention.KEY TAKEAWAYS[00:00:54] Superficial Understanding of Churn Causes: Alison discusses how some companies may view churn too superficially, attributing it to external factors like a change in company leadership or losing to a competitor.[00:01:44] Strategic Response to Churn: Emphasizing the importance of responding appropriately to churn events and considering them as opportunities rather than inevitable losses.[00:02:48] Honest Evaluation: Encouraging companies to be honest about what aspects of their operations can be improved and aligning strategies with company goals.HIGHLIGHT QUOTES[00:00:54] "One way in which they might think about it too superficially is they might note things, root causes that are outside of their control."[00:01:44] "When your customer gets acquired by another company, that is not an obvious churn or like an inevitable churn reason. It might be an opportunity to expand your deployment to the larger company."[00:02:48] "What's important is just being honest with yourself about what you can improve and what you can based on the strategy of your company at the time."Listen to the full episode with Allison Pickens through this link:https://revenue-builders.simplecast.com/episodes/mastering-the-art-of-customer-success-with-allison-pickensCheck out John McMahon's book here:Amazon Link: https://a.co/d/1K7DDC4Check out Force Management's Ascender platform here: https://my.ascender.co/Ascender/

SaaStr 723: Nick Mehta, CEO of Gainsight, and Jason Lemkin, CEO and Founder of SaaStr: Answer Your Top 10 2024 Customer Success Questions In 2024, for customer success in SaaS, what's “good” NRR? What's a “good” NPS? Who should Customer Success report into? Questions like this and many others are the most common questions asked of SaaStr Fan Fave and expert on Customer Success, Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta, and SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin.  While we recently published an episode on what will change for Customer Success in SaaS in 2024 with Jason and Nick, we ran out of time to answer some of the top questions both get and what their answers would be now in 2024. So in the latest installment of the official SaaStr Podcast, we did exactly that. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SaaStr hosts the largest SaaS community events on the planet. Join us in 2024 at: SaaStr Annual: Sept. 10-12 in the SF Bay Area. Join 12,500 SaaS professionals, CEOs, revenue leaders and investors for the world's LARGEST SaaS community event of the year. Podcast listeners can grab a discount on tickets here: https://www.saastrannual2024.com/buy-tickets?promo=fave20 SaaStr Europa: June 5-6 in London. We'll be hosting the 5th SaaStr Europa in London for two days of content and networking. Join 3,000 SaaS and Cloud leaders. Podcast listeners can grab a discount on Europa tickets here: https://www.saastreuropa2024.com/buy-tickets?promo=fave200 -------------- This episode is sponsored by: Northwest Registered Agent When starting your business, it's important to use a service that will actually help you. Northwest Registered Agent is that service. They'll form your company fast, give you the documents you need to open a business bank account, and even provide you with mail scanning and a business address to keep your personal privacy intact. Visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/saastr to get a 60 percent discount on your next LLC.

Stephanie Berner is a Customer Success Executive at LinkedIn. Since 2018, Stephanie has spearheaded all post-sales functions at LinkedIn Sales Solutions through its period of rapid growth. With a background in building and scaling customer success teams at Box, Medallia, and Opower, Stephanie has extensive experience in delivering exceptional customer experiences across various company stages. — In this episode, we discuss: Common customer success mistakes Creating a world-class customer success org Tactics for hiring exceptional talent How to structure compensation packages Where customer success fits into the wider org Key early-stage customer success metrics and rituals Successful strategies from Box, Medallia, and LinkedIn — Referenced: Aaron Levie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/boxaaron/ Box: https://www.box.com/ David Love: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-s-love/ Gainsight: https://www.gainsight.com/ Jon Herstein: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonherstein/ Jonathan Lister: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanlister/ Ken Fine: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kmfine/ Medallia: https://www.medallia.com/ Nick Mehta: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickmehta/ Opower: https://www.oracle.com/utilities/opower-energy-efficiency/ — Where to find Stephanie Berner: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanieberner/ — Where to find Brett Berson: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson — Where to find First Round Capital: Website: https://firstround.com/ First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/firstround YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast — Timestamps: (00:00) Introduction (02:21) Formalizing customer success at a startup (05:01) Hiring ICs before CSMs (06:22) Tactics for hiring standout talent (11:39) 3 questions to ask candidates (15:38) Fail-case patterns among customer success hires (17:49) Considering candidates with non-traditional backgrounds (21:21) Indexing toward a bias for action (24:17) What v1 of customer success looks like (26:03) Key early-stage customer success metrics (28:21) Whether customer success or sales should own renewals (30:40) Where customer success fits into the org (32:14) Why customer success doesn't report to an executive (33:48) Distinguishing a product problem from a customer success one (35:18) Simple way to deal with customer churn (39:21) Tactics to get customers to give honest feedback (40:58) What happens when customer success and product teams collaborate (44:14) Rituals for zero-to-one customer success (48:23) How to structure an early customer success team (52:01) Structuring compensation packages (54:35) Aligning customer success with the business model (60:14) The role of customer success in B2B software (62:17) Common customer success mistakes (67:44) People who had an outsized impact on Stephanie

Dave Kellogg is one of the OGs of Saas. Among his many accomplishments, Dave was the CMO of Business Objects where he helped scale the business from $30M to $1BN in revenue. Dave has also been a CEO twice, once scaling the business from $0 to $80M and the other business from $8M to $50M before selling it. Dave is also an advisor to some of the best including GainSight, Logickull, MongoDB, Pigment, Recorded Future, and Tableau. In Today's Episode with Dave Kellogg We Discuss: 1. What are the Metrics That Matter: Why is CAC payback period such a flawed metric? What is CAC ratio? Why is it more effective than understanding payback? Why is gross revenue retention more important than net revenue retention? What are the single biggest mistakes that founders make when using metrics today? 2. How to Build and Scale the Best Sales Teams: Why should founders hire three sales reps at one time? What is the benefit? What are the three different types of sales calls all teams must have? What should all CEOs and Heads of Sales ask of their sales team in forecasting? What is the single biggest mistake most companies make in forecasting? How should a CEO/board member respond to a sales team that lets a deal slip to next quarter? 3. Are CFOs Buying New Tech and How to Win Renewals: Are CFOs open for business? How has the top down sales process changed in the last year? Why is the way that startups think about renewals completely broken? What are the three different types of customer success teams we have today? What is the core role of customer success? How can we incentivise them to sell more? 4. Mastering Product Marketing, Customer Profiles and Crossing the Chasm: How can we use product marketing to increase sales velocity? What is the single biggest risk in product marketing today? What does Dave mean when he says "an ICP starts as an aspiration and becomes a regression?"

SaaStr 716: The Future of Customer Success in 2024: Insights and Predictions from Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta and SaaStr CEO and Founder Jason Lemkin Is it the end of an era in SaaS customer success? It seems like some of the biggest changes to the human side of SaaS are happening right now. What does the AI revolution and SaaS spending cuts mean for the future of Customer Success and support? In this episode, SaaStr CEO and Founder, Jason Lemkin, and SaaStr fan-favorite, Nick Mehta, CEO of Gainsight share their insights and predictions on what the future of customer success will hold in 2024 and beyond.  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SaaStr hosts the largest SaaS community events on the planet. Join us in 2024 at: SaaStr Annual: Sept. 10-12 in the SF Bay Area. Join 12,500 SaaS professionals, CEOs, revenue leaders and investors for the world's LARGEST SaaS community event of the year. Podcast listeners can grab a discount on tickets here: https://www.saastrannual2024.com/buy-tickets?promo=fave20 SaaStr Europa: June 5-6 in London. We'll be hosting the 5th SaaStr Europa in London for two days of content and networking. Join 3,000 SaaS and Cloud leaders. Podcast listeners can grab a discount on Europa tickets here: https://www.saastreuropa2024.com/buy-tickets?promo=fave200 -------------- This episode is sponsored by: Northwest Registered Agent When starting your business, it's important to use a service that will actually help you. Northwest Registered Agent is that service. They'll form your company fast, give you the documents you need to open a business bank account, and even provide you with mail scanning and a business address to keep your personal privacy intact. Visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/saastr to get a 60 percent discount on your next LLC.

Kristie's parents were both in real estate sales and Kristie grew up hearing her parents  talk at the dinner table about commissions, sales, and more. After getting a degree in Journalism from University of Kansas, she ended up as a waitress and then worked for the legendary Kansas City department store called The Jones Co (later became Macy's)  Kristie worked as a sales leader for companies like Network Solutions, Gainsight, and Netskope. Listen how the universe conspired for her to start her own sales consultancy.  This year, 2024, Kristie's new book, "Selling Your Way In" will launch.  Get updates about the book here.  Follow Kristie Jones on LinkedIn here.     Podcasts brought to you by Women Sales Pros. Reach out to help sponsor our efforts! Women Sales Pros has updates on our LinkedIn page, and on our website.  Reach out to Lori Richardson through her LinkedIn profile.  Know of a female sales rep or leader we should interview? Reach out to Lori. Thanks for listening, and the ultimate gift is for you to share on LinkedIn AND/OR post a review on iTunes plus a blurb as to what you liked about it. Thanks in advance. 

Send Kristi, Jon, Mickey & Josh a message - https://www.speakpipe.com/UnchurnedPodcastWatch the banter on YouTube - https://youtu.be/N22Id931Tb4Join our upcoming FREE Pranayama Sessions for the CS community by signing up here: https://lu.ma/updateai_breathworkMickey is back! & Let's welcome Kristie Gaunt to the UpdateAI Squad!Kristie had been an AE at Gainsight for the past 2years. Join Josh Schachter, Kristi Faltorusso, Jon Johnson  & Mickey Powell  to learn more about 14:10 - Working at Gainsight16:55 - The Work Culture at ClientSuccess18:00 - Navigating Strengths on the Career Highway23:05 - Getting Hired at Gainsight25:45 - Bidding Adieu to Gainsight28:30 - Hiring for a New Role at a Startup30:36 - Cons of Startup Life38:30 - Cultivating a Growth Mindset in the Startup Jungle12:00 - Big Shoutout to Hamish Stephenson (Selr.io) (Check out the episode "Who Wins the Tug-of-War, Team Customer Success or Team Sales?")