By Anika Zubair
This is The Customer Success Pro Podcast, hosted by Anika Zubair. Customer Success is not a destination, but a a journey. Join me on this crazy CS journey as I chat to leaders, strategists and expe
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The podcast currently has 10 episodes available.
In this podcast episode, Anika Zubair interviews Jay Nathan, COO of Churnkey, about his extensive experience in the SaaS industry and the evolving role of customer success. They discuss the key metrics that drive growth in SaaS, such as retention, customer lifetime value, and profitability, emphasizing the need for agility in tracking and adjusting these metrics. Jay shares insights into his role as COO, the strategic importance of aligning CS with business goals, and the dual focus on customer and company needs. They also explore how customer success is shifting to a more strategic, revenue-driving function within SaaS companies. The episode provides practical advice for CS leaders who want to make a significant impact on their organization.
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Timestamps:
00:00 - Introduction to Jay Nathan & His Journey
04:16 - The Role of a COO in a Startup
08:17 - Key Metrics for SaaS Companies
13:35 - Understanding Gross Retention vs. Net Retention
18:28 - Customer Lifetime Value & Strategic Decision-Making
24:03 - Metrics to Track in Day-to-Day CS Operations
32:30 - Adapting Metrics as Your SaaS Business Grows
43:30 - Quickfire Round
Connect with Anika:
YouTube
TikTok
Website: thecustomersuccesspro.com
Coaching with Anika: CSM RevUP Academy
Follow the Podcast YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheCustomerSuccessPro
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2IVZCeBTFUFl2iysDe9uJu
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-customer-success-pro-podcast/id1733540749
Connect with Jay Nathan:
Linkedin
Check out his newsletter, GrowthCurve
Jay Nathan has over 20 years of experience in the software industry, having held leadership roles at prominent technology companies such as Blackbaud, Higher Logic, PeopleMatter, and now Churnkey. He has hands-on experience in bootstrapped, VC-backed, private equity-owned, and publicly traded software companies. In 2017 he launched a management consulting firm focused on SaaS companies and in 2018 launched the popular Gain Grow Retain customer success community, growing it to over 15,000 members worldwide. Jay has spoken and written extensively on leadership, sales, marketing, product, and customer success in the software industry. While his ultimate goal is to launch a Jimmy Buffett cover band, for now, he is focused on helping B2B SaaS companies grow and thrive.
Music by AudioCoffee: https://www.audiocoffee.net/
Being a Customer Success Pro is no easy job, but this podcast will help. Remember that Customer Success is not a destination, but a journey and I am here to help you on your journey.
In this episode of the Customer Success Pro podcast, host Anika Zubair discusses with Carly Agar, founder and CEO of Carly Agar Training, about effective strategies for landing promotions in customer success. The conversation covers the importance of aligning customer success strategies with business objectives, identifying upsell opportunities, and the nuances between a standard CSM role and an enterprise CSM role. Carly shares her insights on strategic account planning, self-advocacy, and building professional development skills. This detailed dialogue aims to provide CSMs with actionable steps to elevate their careers and excel in enterprise roles.
00:00 Introduction
02:04 Guest Introduction: Carly Agar
03:16 Carly's Career Journey
07:44 Services Offered by Carly Agar Training
10:29 Advocating for Yourself in Your Career
14:12 Differences Between CSM and Enterprise CSM Roles
18:25 Skills Needed for Enterprise CSMs
20:37 Steps to Transition to an Enterprise CSM Role
24:37 Advocating for Promotion: Key Strategies
25:07 Planting the Seed for Promotion
26:59 Self-Advocacy Tips for Different Personalities
29:34 Showcasing Your Value Across the Business
35:45 Proving Your Readiness for Enterprise Accounts
41:38 Quick Fire Questions with Carly
Connect with Anika:
YouTube
TikTok: tiktok.com/@thecustomersuccesspro
Website: thecustomersuccesspro.com
Coaching with Anika: CSM RevUP Academy
Connect with Carly Agar:
Linkedin
Website
As Founder/CEO of Carly Agar Training, Carly runs two coaching programs for customer success job seekers (one for experienced CS pros and another for career transitioners), and hosts the Customer Success Career Coach podcast. Before this, she spent 10 years growing her own career in customer success, primarily in hyper growth SaaS companies, where she did a LOT of hiring of CSMs over the years. She also served as a Customer Success Enablement Manager, designing interview processes and career paths for CSMs. Carly has always been passionate about taking ownership of your career, being intentional about career choices you make, and maximizing what you get from your career - whether that be work/life balance, financial freedom, or contributing to an important mission.
Music by AudioCoffee: https://www.audiocoffee.net/
Being a Customer Success Pro is no easy job, but this podcast will help. Remember that Customer Success is not a destination, but a journey and I am here to help you on your journey.
The podcast episode features Alex Turkovic discussing the integration of AI in customer success routines. Key topics include practical applications of AI, tools for customer success professionals, and tips for using AI effectively. The episode aims to provide insights on how AI can save time and enhance customer value, with a focus on real-world examples and best practices.
00:00 - Introduction to the Podcast
04:43 - Alex's Early Stages of Customer Success
09:22 - AI Tools and Techniques
14:03 - Daily Uses of AI in Customer Success Tools
18:45 - Comparisons and Evaluations of AI Tools
23:26 - Deep Dive into Useful AI Tools
32:47 - Strategic Implementations of AI
42:29 - Quickfire Questions
Connect with Anika:
YouTube
TikTok
Website: thecustomersuccesspro.com
Coaching with Anika: CSM RevUP Academy
Connect with Alex:
Alex’s podcast episode about AI
Podcast
With over 15 years of experience in customer success leadership, professional services, and customer education, Alex is passionate about creating and delivering impactful and engaging customer experiences for products and services. As the Global Director of Digital Customer Success at Flexera, he combines digital and scaled customer success strategies with customer education programs to ensure optimal customer lifecycle engagement and outcomes. Alex is the host of 'The CX Podcast', where he explores different aspects of building and maintaining world-class digital customer success experiences, with guests who are in-field and executing.
Music by AudioCoffee: https://www.audiocoffee.net/
Learn more about our show sponsor CSM RevUP Academy: https://thecustomersuccesspro.com/csm-revup-academy/
Being a Customer Success Pro is no easy job, but this podcast will help. Remember that Customer Success is not a destination, but a journey and I am here to help you on your journey.
In this episode of the Customer Success Pro Podcast, host Anika Zubair speaks with Madelyn DePrey, VP of Customer Success at Aircall. Together, they dive into how leading with value can contribute to customer and revenue growth, the integration of sales strategies in customer success, and the importance of continuous learning. Madelyn also shares her journey from hospitality to customer success and how she navigates her role as VP of Customer Success at Aircall.
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
01:11 Welcome Madelyn
03:21 Madelyn's Journey to Customer Success
06:32 Aircall's Customer Success Strategy
09:12 Leading with Value in Customer Success
12:56 CSMs and Revenue Responsibilities
20:09 Training and Sales Tactics for CSMs
23:07 Top of the Funnel in Customer Success
28:31 Advice for CSMs Embracing Revenue Targets
31:08 Quick Fire Questions
Connect with Anika:
YouTube
TikTok
Website: thecustomersuccesspro.com
Coaching with Anika: CSM RevUP Academy
Follow the Podcast:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheCustomerSuccessPro Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2IVZCeBTFUFl2iysDe9uJu Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-customer-success-pro-podcast/id1733540749
Connect with Madelyn DePrey:
As Global VP of Customer Success for Aircall, Madelyn manages a sizable revenue-generating team with a focus on driving adoption, advocacy and growth across a largely SMB customer base. Throughout her tenure at Aircall, Madelyn has been instrumental in developing a segmented end to end customer journey, leveraging a combination of product-led engagement, automation and human touch. Prior to her time in tech, most of her career has been spent in hospitality, from her first job playing Spongebob at a Nickelodeon theme park, to hotel management, to building customer success from scratch at a B2B hotel tech company, Madelyn is passionate about all things customer relations!
Music by AudioCoffee: https://www.audiocoffee.net/
Music by AudioCoffee: https://www.audiocoffee.net/
Being a Customer Success Pro is no easy job, but this podcast will help. Remember that Customer Success is not a destination, but a journey and I am here to help you on your journey.
In this episode, Anika Zubair talks with Daphne Costa Lopez, Director of Customer Success at HubSpot, about strategies for driving and growing customer retention at scale. They explore a range of models from renewals to segmentation, customer success qualified leads (CSQLs), and automating success plans and QBRs.
00:00 Introduction and Welcome
01:03 Introductions of Daphne Costa Lopez
02:12 Daphne's Background and Career Journey
03:59 Building and Scaling Customer Success at HubSpot
28:08 CSQLs and Automation in Customer Success
38:55 Dynamic Segmentation Strategy
46:51 Quickfire Question Round
Connect with Anika:
YouTube
TikTok
Website: thecustomersuccesspro.com
Coaching with Anika: CSM RevUP Academy
Follow the Podcast:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheCustomerSuccessPro
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2IVZCeBTFUFl2iysDe9uJu
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-customer-success-pro-podcast/id1733540749
Daphne Costa Lopes
Over the last decade, Daphne has helped Start-ups, Scale-Ups and Fortune 500 businesses build and scale global Customer Success teams to service 200K+ customers and $2B+ ARR.
Her journey in Customer Success started with a eureka moment she had in 2011: “When we deliver value to our customers, we won’t just retain their business... We will capture more of their demand.”
Backed by this belief, she spent the following 4 years helping build a 'CS-as-a-Service' business. We generated thousands of SuccessQLs for our customers and proved early on that Customer Success could be a revenue driver.
By focusing on Customer-Led-Growth, She has helped the businesses she worked with achieve 130%+ NRR. Today, She head up Customer Success at HubSpot where her teams serve thousands of customers worldwide.
Since that light-bulb moment, she has invested my energy into building and scaling Customer Success teams to be the second engine of growth for tech businesses and helping others do it too.
Music by AudioCoffee: https://www.audiocoffee.net/
Being a Customer Success Pro is no easy job, but this podcast will help. Remember that Customer Success is not a destination, but a journey and I am here to help you on your journey.
In this episode of the Customer Success Pro podcast, hosted by Anika Zubair, guest Jared Orr, a Senior Customer Success Manager and copywriter, shares his journey overcoming job loss and finding success in a challenging job market. Jared discusses his experiences with layoffs, the importance of networking, and strategies for preparing for interviews and handling homework assignments. He also emphasizes the critical nature of investing in coaching and adapting to market changes. This episode offers practical advice for CS professionals navigating their career paths and how to find and land their next job in Customer Success.
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction to the Customer Success Pro Podcast
01:03 Meet Jared Orr: A Journey Through Startups and Layoffs
03:05 Jared's New Role
07:59 Navigating Job Loss and the Tough Job Market
13:39 Starting a Copywriting Business
20:43 Job Hunting Tips and Horror Stories
23:29 Sharing a Personal Interview Experience
24:34 Advice for Hiring Managers
26:49 Preparing for an Interview
30:05 Handling Homework Assignments
34:11 Networking and Landing a Job
39:28 Reflecting on Job Hunting Strategies
41:29 Quickfire Questions
Connect with Anika:
YouTube
TikTok
Website: thecustomersuccesspro.com
Coaching with Anika: CSM RevUP Academy
Connect with Jared:
YouTube
Website
Article: https://www.csinsider.co/email/how-to-ace-your-mock-qbr-interview
Jared has been a CSM since 2018. He's been heavily involved in startups throughout most of his career. Currently, he works as a Senior CSM at vCom Solutions and lives in Queen Creek, Arizona with his wife and daughter.
Music by AudioCoffee: https://www.audiocoffee.net/
Being a Customer Success Pro is no easy job, but this podcast will help. Remember that Customer Success is not a destination, but a journey and I am here to help you on your journey.
In this episode of the Customer Success Pro podcast, host Anika Zubair interviews Erica Villareal, a strategic customer success manager at Eptura and a top 25 CS influencer of 2023. Erica shares her journey from Mexico, to becoming a strategic CSM in Dallas, highlighting her use of personal branding on LinkedIn to advance her career. She discusses the importance of translating customer data into actionable insights, the role of strategic customer success managers, and how they differ from other CSM roles in terms of customer engagement and responsibilities. Erica shares her secret sauce for organization and proactivity, emphasizing success plans and business reviews as essential tools for demonstrating value and securing customer success. The conversation also explores Erica's career ambitions, the skills essential for a strategic CSM, and tips for managing workload and showcasing value to achieve promotions. Additionally, Erica's eBook, 'Raising the Bar: How to Excel in Your Enterprise CSM Role,' is discussed, offering insights into further advancing in the customer success field.
Connect with Anika:
YouTube
TikTok
Website: thecustomersuccesspro.com
Coaching with Anika: CSM RevUP Academy
Connect with Erika:
Erika Villarreal is a Customer Success enthusiast, a thought leader, and an influencer in the CS space. She is an engineer at the core, curious by nature, and a process addict. Currently, she is the Strategic Customer Success Manager at Eptura, a leading workspace management solution where she helps her customers drive adoption and achieve their own definition of success. Erika is also very involved with the Customer Success community, where she shares content that helps other CS professionals succeed in their roles, she has her own newsletter and contributes to multiple CS blogs.
Music by AudioCoffee: https://www.audiocoffee.net/
Navigating your Customer Success Career with Kristi Faltorusso
In this episode of the Customer Success Pro podcast, Anika Zubair interviews Kristi Faltorusso, a four times Top 25 Customer Success Influencer award winner and CCO at Client Success. Kristi shares her remarkable journey from a marketing professional to becoming a leading figure in the SaaS and customer success (CS) space. She highlights the importance of passion, hard work, and taking calculated risks in her career trajectory, culminating in her current role where she significantly impacts her organization and the CS community. The discussion also explores the evolving landscape of customer success, the importance of continuous learning, and the potential of AI in transforming CS strategies. Kristi offers invaluable advice to aspiring CS professionals, emphasizing the need for a data-driven approach, proactive customer engagement, and the courage to pivot when necessary. The conversation is a blend of personal anecdotes, professional insights, and practical tips, making it a must-listen for anyone interested in building a successful career in customer success.
Timestamps:
00:00 Welcome to the Customer Success Pro Podcast!
01:04 Spotlight on Kristi Faltorusso: A Customer Success Trailblazer
06:11 Kristi's Journey: From Marketing to Chief Customer Officer
11:17 The Reality of Achieving Work-Life Balance in Leadership
13:08 Kristis's Future Ambitions Beyond the CCO Role
20:35 Securing a Customer Success Seat at the Executive Table
27:13 Navigating a Non-Conventional Path to the C-Suite
31:00 The Importance of Leadership and Passion in Your Career
35:04 Insights into the Role of a Chief Customer Officer
43:19 Addressing Gender and Career Progression in Tech
45:36 Quickfire Round
Connect with Anika:
YouTube
TikTok
Signup for my newsletter: https://thecustomersuccesspro.com/subscribe/
Website: thecustomersuccesspro.com
Coaching with Anika: CSM RevUP Academy
Connect with Kristi:
Linkedin
Kristi Faltorusso is a distinguished Customer Success Executive, recognized for her exceptional expertise in building, scaling and transforming Customer Success organizations within high-growth B2B SaaS companies. With a career spanning over 12 years, Kristi has been instrumental in guiding numerous companies through the strategic redefinition of Customer Success, resulting in heightened retention rates, sustained revenue growth, and amplified customer advocacy.
Having held pivotal roles in renowned organizations such as BrightEdge, Sisense, BetterCloud, and IntelliShift, Kristi has consistently demonstrated her leadership prowess in steering Customer Success and Experience teams. Presently, as the Chief Customer Officer at ClientSuccess, a leading provider of Customer Success Management solutions, Kristi spearheads Customer Success, Technical Support, and Consulting initiatives. In her current capacity, she continues to drive transformative outcomes, aligning her passion for customer-centric strategies with a commitment to delivering unparalleled value.
Music by AudioCoffee: https://www.audiocoffee.net/
Being a Customer Success Pro is no easy job, but this podcast will help. Remember that Customer Success is not a destination, but a journey and I am here to help you on your journey.
Imposter Syndrome, Prioritization, and Mindset Shifts in Customer Success. All topics we covered in Today’s talk with Rachel Provan. Today’s podcast will focus on how you have to shift your mindset in order to move from reactive to proactive Customer Success.
Rachel Provan, founder of Proven Success, joins the podcast as the first guest to discuss her career transition from acting to customer success and her current role leading customer success coaching. Topics covered include the importance of understanding the Pareto Principle, the necessity of setting aside focus time to work on strategy, techniques for effectively prioritizing tasks, and advice on overcoming imposter syndrome. Rachel also discusses how she built Provan Success and her approach to coaching customer success professionals.
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
03:54 Transition from Corporate to Entrepreneurship
09:21 The Role of Mindset in Customer Success
16:42 The Importance of Time Management in CS
20:29 The Impact of Task Switching on Productivity
21:30 The Importance of Proactive Leadership
22:06 The Pitfalls of the Player-Coach Mentality
22:20 The Art of Prioritization in Leadership
23:03 The Struggle of Saying No
23:26 The Challenge of Balancing Multiple Roles
28:00 The Reality of Imposter Syndrome
30:12 The Struggle of Perfectionism and High Expectations
38:08 The Future of Customer Success
Connect with Anika:
LinkedIn
YouTube
TikTok
Website: thecustomersuccesspro.com
Coaching with Anika: CSM RevUP Academy
Follow the Podcast
YouTube
Spotify
Apple Podcasts
Connect with Rachel:
Rachel Provan is a top 25 CS Influencer and Coach for Customer Success leaders. She has over 15 years of experience in CS Leadership building and scaling CS departments across diverse markets from seed stage to Fortune 500 Companies. With a passion for fusing psychology with business strategy and leadership techniques, Rachel teaches new CS leaders to build and scale revenue-generating customer success departments. Her flagship course, The CS Leadership Academy, helps former CSMs nail their transition to accomplished CS Leaders. You can find her on LinkedIn, provansuccess.com, or psychologyofcustomersuccess.com
Music by AudioCoffee: https://www.audiocoffee.net/
This is The Customer Success Pro Podcast, hosted by Anika Zubair. Customer Success is not a destination, but a a journey. Join me on this crazy CS journey as I chat to leaders, strategists and experts in customer success about their experiences and definitions of customer success and share with your their best practices on how to build and scale world class CS organization. Each interview will unlock tips, tricks and best practices to help scale your customer success career and company. I will dive into important and relevant topics to help spread knowledge about customer success in order to help companies put the customer at the center of their business. Because at the end of the day when customer are successful, so is the company. If you have specific topics you would like me to cover in this podcast please message me on Linkedin!
Make sure you hit FOLLOW so you don’t miss out on any new episodes when they drop every month.
I can’t wait to chat with you soon!
Connect with Anika Zubair:
Website: https://thecustomersuccesspro.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anikazubair/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheCustomerSuccessPro
Music by AudioCoffee: https://www.audiocoffee.net/
The podcast currently has 10 episodes available.
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