Guest Matthew Rinker, Enterprise Customer Success Manager for DocuSign, joins the Customer Success Pivot Your Career podcast with co-hosts Alex White and David Lokietz. 

Matthew shares insights from his journey from consumer hardware to SaaS, highlighting the importance of consultative selling, strong customer relationships, and the evolving roles in customer success. Learn what it means to be an Enterprise CSM and the challenges encountered and how to manage these effectively.

01:47 Role of Procurement in Renewals

12:34 Account Management vs. Customer Success

18:55 The Importance of Customer Success Mindset

27:44 Customer Success Models and Strategies

38:50 Enterprise Customer Success Insights

42:52 LinkedIn Tips for Customer Success Professionals

45:31 Alex & David Wrap Up

Guest John Huber, founder of Customer Success Architects, joins the 'Customer Success Pivot Your Career' podcast with co-hosts David Lokietz and Alex White. John shares his extensive experience in customer success, which spans over 20 years and includes roles at five different B2B SaaS companies.

The discussion covers various aspects of customer success, including Leadership on Demand services, Advisory consulting, and Specialized Coaching. John explains how he helps SaaS companies manage customer health, churn, and renewals. Additionally, he highlights the importance of cross-functional alignment and strategic customer engagement to drive retention and growth. A don’t miss episode!

• 02:16 Introducing Today's Guest: John Huber
• 04:55 Leadership on Demand
• 19:50 Challenges in Early-Stage Companies
• 26:32 Operationalizing Customer Health Data
• 30:49 Company-Wide Customer Success Mindset
• 36:58 Coaching Services and Career Development
• 41:20 Final Thoughts and Career Advice

Sri Vidya Annapragada, Head of Technical Program Management, Device Cloud at Google discusses the unique challenges in the retail industry, the importance of cross-industry learnings, and strategies for effective digital modernization. There is a diverse topics such as navigating priorities in enterprise-level customer success, and the importance of empathy and agility. Sri emphasizes the significance of connecting, communicating, and collaborating with customers, and shares anecdotes from her career across Oracle, Salesforce, Apigee, and Google.

You don’t want to miss this episode!

In this special anniversary episode of 'Customer Success: Pivot Your Career,' hosts David Lokietz and Alex White celebrate one year of podcasting.

Guest Chris Fernandes discusses how AI is revolutionizing how people work, how to get started with AI and more importantly the impacts on customer success and how it can turn your focus from reactive to proactive relationship building.

Get out of the weeds and learn about AI so you can spend more time on what matters in Customer Success!

00:00 Anniversary Edition Opening (submit your ideas)

03:30 Episode Opening

07:05 Chris Fernandes

42:35 WrapUp Discussion

James Lawson, Chief Customer Officer at Service Genie and founder of the River Consultancy Group, shares his insights on the 'Customer Success Pivot Your Career' podcast.

• CS as a competency, not a department

• Concept of peak to end

• Focus more on direction vs impacts

• Use marketing in CS, both externally and internally

• CAT model for scaling startups

The discussion explores how James’ marketing experience helps him in CS both with his customers and to internally market CS.  Discussions also include CS as a competency, not a department and focus more on direction vs impacts.  Additional topics include the evolving role of AI in customer success, the importance of personalized customer journeys, and James also introduces the innovative CAT model for scaling startups without traditional sales teams, focusing on building efficient customer account teams.

In this episode of the CS Pivot Your Career podcast, hosts Alex White and David Lokietz speak with special guest Drew Cather, General Manager at Trace3, emphasizing the significance of building long-term client relationships by acting as trusted advisors.

Drew shares insights on managing client expectations, handling project challenges, and leveraging educational initiatives like a mini-MBA to empower both clients and internal teams. The episode highlights the significance of trust, transparency, and robust communication in creating successful, enduring CS partnerships.

The Customer Success Pivot Your Career podcast’s guest, Carol Crowe, a Customer Success Executive at Google, shares her journey from technical support to CS leadership. Carol emphasizes the importance of building trusted advisor relationships both with customers and internal teams. Key topics include communication, empathy, and leveraging AI for efficiency. The discussion also highlights how to maintain and nurture these relationships, particularly in large enterprises, and offers practical advice for CS professionals.

Carly Agar is founder and CEO of Carly Agar Training, who specializes in career coaching for CS job seekers. Carly shares common pitfalls in the job search process, and the importance of refining job seeking skills. Key topics include optimizing resumes and LinkedIn profiles, using AI effectively without over-relying on it, and the value of drawing parallels from previous roles.

Actionable advice for both new and experienced CS professionals!!!

Our final episode is 2024 YEAR IN REVIEW!

If you are new to our podcast, this provides highlights from all our 2024 interviews so you can go back and listen to the episodes that resonate with you.

In the Customer Success Pivot Your Career podcast, hosts Alex White and David Lokietz provide an overview of its first-year episodes, discussing insights and key takeaways.  Guests included Steve Pino, Noah Little, Pranav Parekh, Jennifer Albrecht, Elizabeth Italiano, and John Gusiff, highlighting discussions on operationalizing customer success, relationship building, storytelling, change resilience, and business acumen. 

See you in 2025!!!

Books Referenced;

The Seven Pillars of Customer Success by Wayne McCulloch

Customer Success by Nick Mehta

In this episode of the CS Pivot Your Career podcast, hosts Alex White and David Lokietz speak with John Gussif, Managing Partner for Customer Centric Solutions.

John shares his journey into customer success and emphasizes the importance of a well-defined customer experience strategy. He delves into the bowtie model, which connects acquisition and expansion phases, and the importance of maintaining a robust voice of the customer program.  Other topics include the significance of understanding and measuring business values and outcomes and identifying and tracking buyer personas.